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?

But we’ve learnt an awful lot about history by investigating human remains, for example how someone died can tell us about what weapons/tools they may have had at the time, etc. I’m not sure what the time frame is that makes it acceptable but I don’t find it distasteful in the slightest. I’d be happy to be dug up and examined in the future!

I’ve visited the catacombs in Paris and found them fascinating (they ran out of space for graveyards and wanted to build over existing ones so they relocated the bones to a series of underground tunnels where they’ve laid all the bones out in patterns). I’ve also been to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo where Tutankhamen is - imagine the history and knowledge we’d have missed out on if Howard Carter hadn’t entered his tomb!

I do wonder if religion affects people’s feelings on this; I’m a staunch atheist so to me once you’re dead your body is just a pile of atoms, there is no longer a ‘person’ there for me.

Yes, of course, QuertyGirl! Your work is incredibly valuable and necessary, but the body should then be kept in closed storage and not viewed by everyone who fancies it.

I love history
I was thinking about this earlier today

I do think there's an acceptable time gap and I'm okay with 1000 years but I'm not sure where the lower limit is for me.

re public display, it's not something I'd want to see. But equally, I understand why it's a bit unfair to have historians able to see and no one else. It's a dilemma.

Let the historians have a nose and do whatever they feel they have to do if it absolutely has to be dug up but no need for the display.

We have a lot more sensitivity around exhumation and human remains these days. The accounts of digging up the bodies of notable figures in the 18th and 19th centuries are horrific (you could try googling discovery of Katherine Parr's body but I put a huge TW on it). I think we are still catching up when it comes to cultural sensitivities around bodies that have been removed from their country and displayed in museums elsewhere but steps are being taken to address that (by some institutions at least) and it is a developing field of museum ethics.

That said, in the UK there are thousands of burials. In a town near me there are several old churchyards that are under squares/roundabouts now and most people don't even know there are bodies there. It is unfortunately inevitable that bodies will be disturbed - in most cases though they will simply be reinterred. Pp have already addressed the issues of what happens on a construction site if there isn't archaeological excavation. And the archaeological research does improve our understanding of our history. For example, the Mary Rose Museum have done some analysis of remains found on the shipwreck which has determined that the crew members were not all white English, that they included people from the Mediterranean region, and mixed race people who grew up in England. That is information we could not get from other records and it develops our understanding of 16th century English society.

The display of the remains in museums is tricky. Personally I prefer the reconstructions from the remains because I think it is easier to relate to a "human" than to the bones. I think it is difficult for museums though because people have strongly opposing views and they are unlikely to please everyone.

I think it's fascinating.

We can learn a lot from human remains and part of that education happens when we visually examine them so we can see that they suffered from X because of Y, or that they clearly did A because of B and C.

But displaying them sparks interest to others which drives demand for more discoveries to be made, more research to be done and inspires generations of future archeological/anthropologists/historians etc.

Historians don't have to do anything though, in cases as old as OP mentions.

Exactly.

Museums are full of personal artefacts from people who never consented for them to be there. It's what gets people interested.

Running out of room in graveyards is another.

I may be wrong, but I think in Germany, you only get to 'use' a grave for 30 years, before the remains are moved to a mass site out of town and then the grave is 'recycled' for another body. That seems really wrong to me.

What I really hate is when people get jocular and laugh about deaths of people from a few centuries ago. I'm not talking about massive tyrants from history; they're fair game.

We have one of those 'bathroom trivia' books, designed to dip into whilst you're, erm, 'busy' in the bathroom, and I was horrified to see a very lighthearted bit about some important historical figure (a queen, maybe?) who bathed in the blood of virgins every day. Imagine: how wacky when she sent out for virgins for her daily blood supplies!!!!

No, no, no. Imagine the absolute terror of the young girls and their parents when murderers (let's call a spade a spade) appeared at their door to take her away by force to slaughter her - just for the perverse proclivities of some disgusting self-aggrandising rich person. How would you feel if somebody came for your own daughter now for the same reason? I really just don't get how actual people are considered to have been any less human - with all that involves - just because they lived decades or centuries before we happen to.

I still can't get past Jeremy Bentham being on permanent public display when he didn't specify that. I remember it putting me off history as a 17 year old and our teacher trying to explain why he thought it was okay.

Personal artefacts - I'm going to come up against this myself, but I do feel an item is different than a body part.

Countess Elizabeth Bathory, @WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll . It was likely a story out about to discredit her family due to their political influence. Bit like Catherine The Great and bestiality.
History as written by males reserves its most repugnant accusations for females with influence.

put about

I will admit that I felt really uncomfortable in Pompeii because I hadn't realised that the 'people' we saw were casts of real bodies that were found.
It's fascinating to visit and really, really interesting but that specifically I found upsetting because I wasn't prepared for it.

I fully accept how important it is to have a snapshot into the past but yikes.

It seems to me it would be disrespectful to just rebury these bodies without investigating to try to understand what happened and why. Not display them for people to gawp at though.

www.livescience.com/child-sacrifices-chimu-people-peru

WeBuilt I thought there was no evidence for that, just a crazy political story?

I wish the history board was active here, I've got a lurgy and was thinking earlier today, I need a history chat board! (Then I fell asleep, woke up and came back here).

Yes - and in that case the poor dog too. But those casts bring home the tragedy of the event, which can otherwise rather get lost among the wonderful buildings

Why?

If you don't want too see it, don't go and look.

We're so squeamish about death. This is about the modern obsession with youth and wanting to feel immortal.

Appreciating and witnessing death makes you appreciate they sheer fucking miracle that you're alive right now.

I think it's because the victims are completely anonymised. They say the blood of virgins and it's so easy for people to not follow that thought through. This is why it's important to give voices and stories to those who've passed.

I agree that the victims need to be respected and not have their death mocked.

Totally agree. I just found it shocking as I had thought they were just models to demonstrate what it might have looked like.

It’s about respect, QuertyGirl. I’m not squeamish, obsessed with youth or think we’re immortal.

That person believed they were entitled to whatever eternal rest the god/s they believed in would provide. It’s modern, casual hubris to think we have a right to stick those remains under glass and gawp at them on a wet weekend afternoon when the only building open is the museum.

I get why you are defensive, but I think you’re misunderstanding a little. I agree with Professor Dame Sue Black - never forget this was a living person and accord the remains the respect that deserves.

If you don't want too see it, don't go and look

I got taken to loads of museums as a child. I had no choice, I couldn't exactly walk around with my eyes closed in case there was something I didn't want to see as it was upsetting. There was a foetus in jar in one museum and I would much rather have not seen that.

I agree. Let them rest in peace in the way they wanted.

I think plundering graves is disrespectful.

Saucery well put.

Erm, maybe don't visit the Sedlec Ossuary, OP.

I'd quite like to donate my skeleton to an ossuary personally, but I'm not sure anyone's making a new one. I quite like the idea of staring down future generations.

But if it helps, I am always awed when I visit such places that each and every skull belonged to a real person with hopes, dreams, friends, annoying habits, favourite songs... I like that more than the idea of being buried under the soil.