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?

its not "viewed as ok" - who do you think is viewing it as ok.

It takes clearance from a coroner to move someone who died one thousand or ten thousand years ago, just as much as someone who died yesterday. You cant as much move a skull from one museum shelf to another without clearance, even in storage

I agree with a pp who said we are weird about death in the west. The more acquainted we are with it the better we will cope when we encounter our own dying.

Anyway, I think it’s all perfectly respectful. I have several skulls. They’re well looked after.

A lot of ignorance on this thread on how archeologists treat human remains.

Are you the lady who suggested the whole “using brain dead women as surrogates”’thing?

And given that mummification was an attempt to be remembered for ever, I strongly suspect that those who chose this would be delighted to still be seen and remembered in the modern age

I know I would love to think I was in a display case and of interest in 5 thousand years time,

I've always found it disrespectful and stinks of entitlement "I have a right to know" Where has it got us? Are we now an amazing species that because of regularly digging up dead bodies has learnt lessons from the past ? etc etc because that's the excuse always used and it bloody doesn't look like does it?
No I can't stand it and watching Tony Robinson ewwww a few decades ago being snotty and superior over people questioning a dig just confirmed my suspicions of entitlement.

From a religious perspective and obviously this is me speaking about my opinion but I'm a practicing Christian and believe in heaven and hell etc. I still wouldn't care what happens to my remains. I believe I'll be restored In heaven when I die and so I have no use for my body. Once I die my remains are just bones. I don't know if this is what Christians way back when believed but I thought I would offer my perspective

I think if we paid more attention to how we treat the living and our environment and made less fuss over a load if old bones the world would still turn and would probably be a better place.

It's entirely possible to care about both the living and the dead. People not wanting to see 'a load if old bones' on display in a cabinet makes the world a better place IMO.

EmmaEmerald being displayed where he is was Bentham’s specific wish. He was very much a proponent of leaving your body to science at a time when it was frowned upon to be dissected (unless you were unclaimed poor, thanks to the anatomy act) and he wanted to lead by example.

I agree with you 100%

I think they should be treated with respect, no matter how long ago they died.

I think it's ok for research to be done and analysis etc.

Gawping, glass boxes and photographs is wrong and disrespectful I think.

I don't know whether they should be never put in display. I remember some museum I went to where there were skulls displayed alongside pots as if they were just another object. I thought that was awful and was deeply shocked and upset.

I wonder if it could be done with respect - with reminders for visitors , asking for silent contemplation, bans on photography etc.

I agree with you OP

No not really

there is the learning and there is the practical

we learn how people lived and the practical side is we need land

im glad people are taking interest even if it is a little ghoulish at times it’s still learning about history

as for resting in peace which I don’t believe in unless the bodies mean something to people still alive why is there a need for the place to be sacred

I used to love Time Team off they go digging up people's gardens and putting the trenches in all the wrong places but it was all 'oooooh' when they found some old ruins and it would all be illustrated for us. DH and I used to have a little bet as to how far into the programme someone would say 'geo fizz'.
It was a long time ago but can't remember if they disturbed any bodies, often they found nothing.

Where there are explicit wishes expressed, I feel they definitely should be respected.

Oh, thank you for this!

I know he gave his body to them but I thought he said it should just be used to look at occasionally?

good grief, that's a sentence no one expects to type!

EmmaEmerald it was very much his wish that he be displayed as he was keen to go against the establishment and break down social taboos such as the one we are discussing.

‘When utilitarian thinker Jeremy Bentham died in 1832, he requested his preserved remains be displayed in “an appropriate box or case”’

Very inspiring and forward thinking for the time.

I though the general view in the past included 'resurrection of the body' which was a reason for burial rather than cremation.
I'm not sure how that squared with keeping random body parts of saints distributed around various cathedrals and churches though... now they are grim. Maybe there should be some research on those to explain why various popular saints apparently had so many fingers.

Surely there's a huge difference between expert professionals cutting up and/or observing your body behind closed doors for scientific/medical/autopsy reasons and putting it on display to the general public and charging a fiver to see it?

Love this

I'm fine with the digging itself. If we never dug up ancient graves we'd have missed out on a lot of historical knowledge. The display part? Hmm, I can see how mileage may vary.

If every single person who died in the whole of history was buried and given a patch of land there'd be no earth left to live on. Sometimes they dig up remains.

As long as there are no living relatives upset by the prospect, I have no problem with it. Long dead corpses aren’t people, the ‘people’ aspect ended when they died.