A mummy’s tale from Cork to Cairo: ‘It’s like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. His body represents us all’

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An Egyptian mummy used to live under the floorboards at University College Cork. Dorothy Cross first heard of it from her Aunt May. It was 1983, and the pair were sharing stories in May’s Victorian house, which was full of treasures, Cross says – “a doll’s house, a rocking horse, X-rays, damask and china, bones and intelligence”. The artist, who had recently returned from studying in San Francisco, lapped it up. It would be four decades before those memories coalesced with action to become an extraordinary artwork and a new book, Kinship: Home. In the meantime Cross would become known...