To think it’s no more acceptable to dig up ancient graves than it would be to dig up recent ones?

[AngeloMysterioso]

I follow a few historical Instagram accounts and one has just posted about a c. 1000 year old mummified body that has just been unearthed from an underground tomb in Peru.

It looks as though this poor person died in a fairly horrific way and now it’s remains are on display in a glass box with people taking pictures a few feet away.

AIBU to think these people should be left well alone to rest in peace with the same respect and dignity that we afford to people who died last week?

I totally agree OP, I’ve often thought that. Seeing someone’s dead body on display in a museum for people to stare and and make jokes about is in very bad taste. But what’s worse is removing it from
the grave where the person clearly intended their body to rest forever.

What are people’s view on Richard III in the car park? I suppose technically there was no need to find him as he has been buried on consecrated ground and giving a Christian burial (despite the church being knocked down). But finding him and digging him up allowed him to finally receive a King’s burial and allowed us to discover things about him (like his scoliosis).

This is a great thread by the way, the ethics around it all and people’s opinions really fascinate me.

Imo once you're dead whatever happens with your body is mainly for the benefit of your loved ones. It certainly won't bother you anymore.
I'd rather my body did some good so I've chosen to donate any and everything to whoever needs it most and the rest can be used for research or disposed of.
Once your loved ones have all passed as well, does it matter what happens to your remains? Does being displayed in a museum cause unrest?

I live near an old Abbey ruin. In the local museum is the skeleton of a Monk which was excavated from the ruin. I really don't feel it's right having his remains on display as an exhibit to be gawped at.

I don't see any problem with it. If some future archaeologists dig up my remains in hundreds or thousands of years time, I think it's actually kind of cool for them to take an interest in our era and to wonder what sort of life I had, what I died of, what food I ate and what medicine was like in our time, etc.

Outcome-based ethics - disagree very much. What harm is done?

How does any of that actually benefit their society though?

Oooh I'd love to be excavated in a few thousand years and put on display as an important bit of history!

I think it's pretty nasty. This is half of the reason I want to cremated.

I find it interesting that victorians used to exhume mummies just so they could eat them.

I guess I don't know enough to make a judgment.
We once were in an old graveyard as we enjoy history and there were obvious human bones scattered around . A whole hand etc
Some of the graves had sunk and ground eroded.
We phoned the council who said it was a common issue and they didn't do anything .

Someone we knew was having some work done in her garden about 20 years ago. Work stopped when a skeleton was uncovered. When the police identified that it was ancient the remains were sent off to Oxford University for analysis. 6 months later she received a parcel returning the remains.
He was a young adult male who died about 1000 years ago and his cause of death most likely the result of an abscess in his jaw.
She kept him in a box and called him Harold. 🤣.
I really can't see an issue with this.

I'm quite shocked so many people have said it's fine. Its really interesting to see different opinions.

For those who say it's OK, what would be the time period where it would become uncomfortable for you to think of bodies being on display?

How do you feel about mass graves being discovered? Do you think they should be left where they are, or be buried within the rituals of their people? (Many from the 70s-80s time period but some around 100 years on).

(Not being snarky at all, just interested).

Whether or not they're dug up doesn't influence whether they're "resting in peace" or not. They're not resting, they're dead and do not have any existence at all, peaceful or not.

Is that the monk who had a genetic disease that informed research into the development of the condition? I was a bit uncomfortable with that display, if so.

I think bodies should be studied if historically appropriate, then reburied or stored respectfully.

She kept him in a box and called him Harold.

Why did they not rebury the box?

I think the same.

I'm getting those ancient fetal ejection bodies being dug up in my Facebook feed atm. Leave the poor buggers alone.

They're dead. They can't consent to anything and, as another archaeologist has pointed out, they need to be dug up to preserve them.

Sometimes it's either a JCB or an archaeologist.

I've lost count of how many burials I've dug. It's just calcium etc. The person is gone.

I see it as more respectful, to study them and bring their memories alive again.

It's also important to actually understand history- skeletons from the industrial revolution onwards for example demonstrate quite graphically, why we need safety standards in the workplace and the NHS.

I agree @Saucery , it seems very disrespectful to display someone like that.
I feel very uneasy about excavated bones just being left in boxes on a shelf somewhere too.

I don’t mind old graves being re-used, but yes, displaying a body is grim.

When I die, I wanted to be buried until my bones turn into fossil fuels.

I don’t care if they build graves on top of mine.

I don't get the problem with displaying them generally.

They're dead. We can learn from them. Staring at an Egyptian mummy in a museum every Sunday was my favourite thing as a child.

Only in America is a body buried ‘in perpetuity’ otherwise you are just buried for about 100 and then your bones will either have decayed to nothing, or will be exhumed and moved to an ossuary (bone collection) as those in the catacombs or Paris or the gorgeous displays in other areas of mainland Europe. There is also only a finite amount of space and to be buried forever is an impossibility. I favour aquamation.

Take a peasant woman who had more than a dozen pregnancies in her life time, buried half of them and worked herself to a short, agonising old age.

There are no written records of her. Her story was told because I dug her up.

It was either me, or a quarry cutting machine.

I agree OP 100%. Leave them to rest in peace.

It's fair to say she was a touch eccentric.
She was my son's piano teacher, and we found out about Harold when we collected DS1 at the the end of one lesson and discovered him surrounded by Harold's remains and other archeological finds from her garden.
He thought it was brilliant 🤣.
Not sure how much piano he'd done that lesson...