Erin L. Thompson
Erin L. Thompson, Ph.D. is an art historian, attorney, and professor at John Jay College (CUNY). Her latest book is Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America’s Public Monuments (W.W. Norton, 2022).
In the fall of 2023, I went to the American Museum of Natural History to sit shiva for a man who died nearly 1,500 years ago. The dry conditions and fluctuating temperatures of the high desert in what is now Chile naturally mummified his flesh, while the copper-rich soil tinted his skin blueish-green.