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'm also interested in where the line is drawn. World war 1 would be over 100 years now, so would it be ok to dig up the war graves and exhibit the soldier's skulls?

What would anyone gain from doing that would be my question. Does anyone need to see a skull? It would seem a bit pointless.

From a practical point of view, it's common for people to know their grandparents, and not uncommon to meet their great-grandparents; so that would take you getting on for 200 years before you could guarantee that everybody who knew the deceased had themselves died. Even then, what happens if a grave is used for occupants born at very different times: e.g. if said great-grandchild was buried in their great-grandparent's grave? The 200 years would then begin again.

And then you get cases like US President John Tyler, who was born in 1790 and still has a (granted now very elderly) grandson alive today!

There seems to be an emerging consensus on this thread that excavation and study is ok, but not so much display. I do believe there is a value in exhibiting actual remains as opposed to just reconstructions. There is a connection when you are face to face with another human who lived in very different times and circumstances, that every thought and feeling they experienced took place in that skull. They speak to us in a way a facsimile would not. It's also worth remembering that the idea of being laid to rest in the hope of bodily resurrection is not universal, culturally or historically - as an example our Neolithic ancestors certainly accessed, moved and used the bones of their deceased. There was clearly a very different relationship with the dead, and they didn't seem to share our distaste with death or see it as disrespectful - if anything very much the opposite.

I said I have an archaeology degree, not that I am an archaeologist. That was 20 years ago. 🙄

How come?

I got asked this earlier in the thread. Here’s my reply-

No closure. No guarantee they will take them (depends what they die of) and there may be a return of some parts at some point.

I’ve signed the forms though. We’ll see, but I don’t like it.

Read a fascinating book recently, Necropolis by Catharine Arnold about the ways in which the dead have been disposed of in London from Roman times to the present. Well worth a read given the context of this thread.

It is an interesting point to debate. We all have our own lines in the sand.

I am comfortable with excavating and recording of human remains, and comfortable with them being stored for a set amount of time for research before being reburied. Ethics is part of any human remains course or module so it will be respectfully done.

The display of human remains is more controversial though. Our ancestors are fascinating.
I studied archaeology and am especially interested in human remains. Bones tell their own story and seeing these things can spark interest and emotions in a way that a photograph wouldn't.

Human remains are on display in a variety of places. Churches sometimes have relics of saints (or others, eg. Simon of Sudbury*), museums have their archaeological displays and medical settings have their teaching collections etc. Or you can come across human remains in any church or graveyard with mole hills.

What I find extremely objectionable is the fact you can buy a human skeleton- these are usually old medical specimens sold by a private collector. They relatively frequently come up in auctions.

(* Simon of Sudbury's partially mummified head is kept in a cupboard in a church in Sudbury, Suffolk. You can request to view it. Or Google. It is an interesting story. )