How would you feel about being displayed in a museum?

[Hotandpointy]

I visited a museum the other day and was reading about what archaeologists learned from examining a Viking skeleton, very interesting. It made me think about something I read recently claiming that having skeletons or mummies on display shouldn’t be allowed because it’s “disrespectful” and “they didn’t consent”.
Personally, I’m fine with it, I quite like the idea of people in a thousand years or so being fascinated to look at my bones, it’s not like I’ll need them!
Just curious to get other opinions.

I've idly considered seeing if it's possible to be buried in such a way that I'd become a bog body.

I'd quite like to end up in a museum

I've often said I'd LOVE to be a skeleton in a lab once I'm gone
Yes, I know they would be plastic now, but it just seems like a fab thing.

I'd be very happy at the thought of me being in a museum in a few hundred, or thousand years time. It is only bones, not my soul.

I wont care. Ill be dead. People should care more about the living than the dead.

I think when the person buried was done so in such a way as to align with religious beliefs, it's pretty disrespectful and arrogant to go against those wishes. I think we should learn what we can from the remains and then put them back.

I saw an article the other day (on Facebook so I assume urban legend rather than fact) about someone being used in the Bodies exhibit without family knowledge or consent, and that he was recognised somehow when family happened to visit the display. That would be awful, but you’d hope there’d be measures and checks to prevent this ever happening

I wouldn’t mind, it would be a good opportunity to come back and haunt everyone for a bit.

my local museum has an Iron Age man on display - ironically with a sign next to him telling us all not to take pictures out of respect.

@AndSoFinally the person apparently recognised in the Bodies exhibition died after the body was first displayed, so it’s highly likely a grieving relative lashing out against the universe.

No I wouldn’t want be in a museum, and I wouldn’t want to be uprooted from my resting place through an unnatural process.
i agree it’s disrespectful to move someone from their grave and display them. They may have had a faith which places importance on your resting place, or belief that a disturbed body will become a disturbed soul.

I wouldn’t mind - I have no religion or beliefs around death, so it’s a fairly amusing thought. I would wonder what they’d invent to write on the blurb next to me?!

In the case of bodies currently in museums, it would likely have not at all been what they would have thought could ever happen so it’s hard to know what they could possibly have thought about it. They would most likely have been religious though, which would probably mean they would have wanted to have been buried according to the rites of their religion.

I don’t like the idea of a deity who would chuck you out of your cushy afterlife just because some buggers dug you up a hundred years later to build a big Tesco!

I wouldn’t mind either, I am quite keen on the idea of donating my body to science. Someone may as well use it for something when I don’t need it any more!

I’ve thought about this before. At what point is it considered ok to dig a body up from a grave where it’s been carefully buried for ever and then put in a lab or a museum?
We wouldn’t do that to people who were buried last year, or ten years ago, maybe not fifty years ago, but what people who were buried a hundred years ago? Is that ok? Who decides what the cut off is?
Whilst I don’t worry about the “not having consent” aspect of this, I do feel sorry for these bodies in museums, and their relatives, who buried them so carefully.

Many many bodies have been uprooted from their resting places in order to build new roads and homes. Some existing cemeteries have been dug over to create space for new bodies to be buried there. If you are buried, chances are your remains will be disturbed at some point.

My view is simply that " those who are laid to rest, should stay at rest "

Utterly indifferent. Sure my bod wouldn't pull in the punters though, alive or dead!

Yes, I've read about this too. Apparently the father (divorced/separated) gave consent and sold the body. I'm not sure I believe it though. Probably all made up.

I've been to a couple of museums in the last few years, Manchester most recently, which had signs up reminding people that the mummified remains were actually living at one point. I really liked that, especially as reading the information lots of them were dug up and taken put the country when we thought we had a right to do so, and very little consideration was given to how remains were treated. They are fascinating and I'd hate to lose telhem from museums but I think increased awareness that you are looking at a dead person is a good thing.

I wouldn't feel anything because I'd be dead. The only reason to maintain some bodily autonomy for a corpse is to save the feelings of people still alive who loved them, which isn't the case for a Viking.

Had this discussion with some of my students a couple of weeks ago. We were discussing Jorvik actually and how some of the animatronics are based on skeletons they found near the museum. The conversation then got onto UCL and the stuffed man who used to be wheeled around the university but now is kept in a glass cabinet. I was laughing so much I had tears in my eyes. I love my job.

I wouldn’t really want my bones to be dug up and put on display or turned into some sort of VR in a museum in the future. Probably best to get cremated to avoid it.

Many many bodies have been uprooted from their resting places in order to build new roads and homes.

There are a fair few suburban parks in Manchester that were formerly graveyards. Obviously all the headstones have been removed but often the graves are still underground just grassed over.

https://www.visitmanchester.com/ideas-and-inspiration/blog/post/manchesters-forgotten-burial-sites/

Bog bodies tend to have met very violent ends, so I wouldn't want to end up as a usual one for that reason.

Whether you could get yourself quietly into a bog and be dug up hundreds of years later is an interesting thought.

I don't think I'd like it - they can reveal all kinds of things about you. "Her hair was in terrible condition" "Her last meal was a bag of chips and a family size aero". I'd rather that died with me.

On the Manchester Met campus there’s a park which is sitting on top of a graveyard. All Saints Park.

The only reason to maintain some bodily autonomy for a corpse is to save the feelings of people still alive who loved them, which isn't the case for a Viking.

This is pretty much my feeling. I visited Manchester Museum last summer and they were asking 'should we' about Egyptian mummies. They dont have any relatives who remembers them. By and large the religious beliefs themselves have died out for people who died 1000s of years ago.

I wouldn't mind!

I think once no one who knew them is still alive.

I won't care what happens to my body after death because I'll be dead but my living relatives might care.