The mummified skull of a 30-year-old woman, over 2000 years old, collects dust from inside a box in the Anthropology Museum, faculty said.
"Nile Woman," found under ruins in Luxor, Egypt, was originally acquired in the late 1960s by a former El Camino College student vacationing in Egypt, who donated it to the museum, part-time anthropology professor Lawrence Ramirez said.
Ramirez, who is the acting museum director, said the head was displayed during the museum's soft opening in 1968.
Anthropology professor and then-museum director Walt Foster received and displayed the remains in the former Behavioral and Social Sciences building, according to The Union's archives.
Egyptian law No. 117 of 1983 says anyone who smuggles an antiquity outside its republic shall be punished.
Two years ago, Ramirez restarted efforts to repatriate Native American remains through the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which requires federally-funded institutions to return Native remains and artifacts to their originating tribes or descendants.
Ramirez will be giving a talk about the efforts to comply with NAGPRA at the Social Justice Center from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13.
Vice President of Academic Affairs Carlos Lopez found additional funds in the form of a stipend for Ramirez that allowed him to contribute more hours to the repatriation project.
Significant progress on the repatriation, including inventorying and identifying the remains, occurred last year alongside students Kimberly Crist, Sage Thomas and Cedric Dube.
The museum currently holds the remains of up to 100 Native Americans.
Ramirez said he feels confident that he can repatriate the NAGPRA remains in a few years.
"The mummy head is more complicated," he said.
Ramirez said anthropology professor Blair Gibson reached out in the late 1990s to get the mummified head repatriated but received no response.
"That's been my experience, too," Ramirez said.