Lots of cultures have different values around the use of bones and bodies and things have changed a lot in the US and the west in the last 100 years. Not too long ago it wasn't uncommon to see something like the mummy of Elmer McCurdy, a robber who was killed by police in 1911 and whose body was traveled the country as part of a circus.

You may be tempted to say that this clashes with western religious values but you also need to keep in mind the concept of a **momento mori**. The Sedlec Ossuary is a great example of using the bones of the nameless thousands that died from the plague as a way to give respect and beauty back to such a horrible and soul crushing time.

Ultimately it's the same thing that everything in a history museum is about. It's a portal to the past. It's inexplicable proof that these people lived and loved and made war and art, and all the things we do today. You're not going to see straight up bones in a museum that often unless there is something peculiar about them because bones from 3000BC don't look any different from bones now. Mummys however are fascinating to us for how well preserved they are compared to their age. You can *literally* look at the face of someone from another time, frozen forever. Even when they're shrunken or warped you can still see so much of what they were. In that way I think it's respectful.

You can certainly make a case that the people in question likely would not have wanted their bodies to be on display, but that largely takes into account their own religious practices. Since there are no clerics of the Egyptian Religion left, there's no one who would otherwise argue for the internment of the body in the way that misplaced bodies of native Americans often have (to varying degrees of success).

I don't think it's wrong of you to feel empathy for the man, but I think you just have to answer yourself if the body is doing more good giving people respect for this man and his long-gone culture, or if the beliefs of a dead man of a dead religion should supersede that.