Mummified corpses like this one are among the items included in an exhibition now at the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Que. Photo: Museum of Civilization

Ottawa — The head of Canada's top arts lobby group is upset at the inclusion of mummified corpses from Europe in a current exhibition at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

"It is disrespectful of the dead," Megan Williams, national director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, said in an interview. Ms. Williams was referring to a half-dozen corpses in the exhibition, The Mysterious Bog People, which opened last week at the Gatineau, Que., museum after a summer-long run in Hanover, Germany. The exhibition will be on view in Gatineau for almost a year before moving to the Glenbow Museum in Calgary.

The Bog People exhibition includes hundreds of artifacts, including a few corpses, preserved for thousands of years in peat bogs in northwestern Europe.

Among the stars of the show are the Yde Girl — her torso-less head and feet — from Holland and Red Franz from Germany. Both corpses are displayed as well as re-creations of their heads to illustrate what they looked like before mummification. Both of these ancient Europeans died violent deaths, as their corpses testify.

The bits of the Yde Girl on display include a belt fastened with a slipknot about her neck. The girl was strangled.

In an interview before the opening of the Bog People exhibition, Sylvie Morel, director of exhibitions for the Museum of Civilization, said the focus of the show is on artifacts, not corpses, and that human remains would be displayed in a respectful, rather than sensational, manner.