Maya Sialuk is spiritual advisor to researchers in mummy project
August 25, 2025|Written by Christine Hyldal
Written by Christine Hyldal
As a spiritual guide and tattoo expert, Maya Sialuk Koch Madsen will ensure that indigenous culture and spirituality are not lost in research.
A year ago, five Greenlandic mummies arrived in Copenhagen. They came travelling in wooden crates from the USA, where they have spent almost a hundred years at Harvard University.
In 1929, they were excavated from South Greenland and after years of work to repatriate them, Copenhagen is now the mummies’ temporary home until Greenland has facilities to store them.
But in reality, the repatriation is only the beginning of a large-scale project on the Greenlandic mummies, which has received millions of kroner in funding, and where researchers from seven institutions from different countries are working closely together to learn more about the life and death of the mummies. This month, the research team will travel to South Greenland to investigate the mummies’ burial site and settlement.
On the team is Maya Sialuk Koch Madsen, owner of Inuit Tattoo Traditions.
She has spent years researching the thousands of years of Inuit tattoo tradition and pre-colonial religion, and she will be investigating the tattoos that the mummies are expected to have. She is also the spiritual advisor on the research project, which she has helped name “Angerlartunnguit”. It means both “the reborn” and “the dear ones returned”.
“It’s a reference to reincarnation, which was part of the original spirituality,” says Maya Sialuk Koch Madsen.
The research team is careful about what images they show of the mummies here at the beginning of the project. Here Maya Sialuk Koch Madsen takes pictures of one of the mummies shielded behind a piece of cardboard.
Photo: C.K. Madsen
Blue book: Maya Sialuk Koch Madsen
From Qeqertarsusaq
Born in 1969
Trained tattoo artist
Describes herself as a self-taught researcher of intangible cultural heritage in relation to pre-colonial body art and religion.
Started Inuit Tattoo Traditions in 2010, which in addition to Inuit tattoos is also a research and communication project that has helped revive the thousands of years old tradition. It was banned when Christianity came to Greenland with Hans Egede in 1721.
She lives in Svendborg with her husband Christian Koch, who is also involved in the project and is deputy director and curator at the Greenland National Museum.
No hocus pocus
Even before the interview was arranged, it was important to her that her role as a spiritual counsellor was not portrayed as hocus pocus.
“I’m terribly afraid of being labelled with a neo-traditional shamanic movement,” she says.
“Someone has already said that you should ask the mummies what they want… and I take great exception to that, because it goes without saying that nobody wants to be exhumed. But we can be as respectful to them as possible by understanding their thought life as much as possible,” she says and emphasises:
“My role is simply to be a kind of bridge in the project and draw attention to it or guide those who don’t have a Greenlandic mindset. The indigenous spirituality must be respected.”
A baby mummy, who has been given a little pillow to lie on. Photo: Roberto Fortuna
A rough ride
The mummies have taken a beating since they were taken out of their graves at a time when they were seen as objects rather than individuals.
“We want to change that. We need to tell their story in a proper way. Who were they? What did they eat? Potentially what did they die of? How old are they?” says Maya Sialuk Koch Madsen.
“Our slogan is that we work for the mummies, they don’t work for us. For example, no one posts selfies with them. Everyone is very respectful.”
Maya Sialuk Koch Madsen and the rest of the team have been examining the mummies up close.
“They are in the condition you would expect. They have been transported and swapped around, so their condition is not surprising,” she says.
“There’s a bit of tidying up to find out which skins belong to whom. We need to get it sorted so each mummy has their things.”
She explains that it is still unknown what gender the mummies are and exactly how old they are. It has previously been suggested that they probably date back to the 1600s.
“When it comes to work, I’m humble. You become a very small person when you grow up in front of such cultural heritage,” says Maya Sialuk Koch Madsen.
Photo: C.K. Madsen
The Angerlartunnguit project
In 1929, up to 15 mummies were removed from the graves on Uunartoq Island in South Greenland by the American explorer Martin Luther.
He took them back to the United States.
In addition, skulls and skeletal remains were also removed from a total of 97 individuals.
Today, only five mummies remain. They have been stored in a basement at Harvard University since 1929.
The Greenland National Museum worked for several years to bring the mummies back home. Until Greenland gets facilities to store them, they are in Denmark.
The project is a collaboration between researchers from the Greenland National Museum and Archives, the National Museum of Denmark, Odense Museum, the Institute of Forensic Medicine and the GLOBE Institute at the University of Copenhagen, Inuit Tatoo Traditions and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University and the University of Iceland.
The research team will also investigate the mummies’ settlement and burial site. The project is planned to last until 2027.
No high school diploma
Maya Sialuk Koch Madsen is not a researcher in the traditional sense with many years of university studies behind her. However, she says that she feels well prepared for the academic world, having written chapters for Oxford’s research handbook, among other things.
“But I have lunch with one PhD after another, and I don’t even have a high school diploma. I can feel that they have some tools that I don’t have. But on the other hand, I can do something else,” says Maya Sialuk Koch Madsen.
“I’m rooted in the same culture as the mummies and have an understanding of the original worldview.”
“Forensic scientists are used to dealing with human remains. You’d think they’d be quick on the trigger, but they’re not at all. They say: ‘Are you ready? Now I’m turning it, now I’m lifting it. Here comes a new box, I take the lid off – are you ready? And you’re allowed to take a step back and take a breath and send a thought. That kind of spirituality is important here. I’m somehow a kind of interpreter between two ways of thinking and two worlds. I take that very seriously.”
Photo: Maya Sialuk Koch Madsen
Holes in the ears
So far, Maya Sialuk Koch Madsen has found holes in the mummies’ ears, and at the slightest suspicion of a tattoo on the deceased, infrared images are taken. Because there may well be tattoos on them that cannot be seen with the naked eye.
“I expect to see tattoos on them. Partly because an American report says so, but also because it would be strange if there weren’t any. It was so normal and widespread,” says Maya Sialuk Koch Madsen, who is looking forward to going on fieldwork in South Greenland this month.
Here she will see the sea they lived on and the rocks they looked at.
“It’s a really magnificent project. It’s so human and I’m really touched. It’s crazy to get this role, and as a Greenlandic woman, there are many layers to it.”