With a human skull in the garden?

[Slippersandacuppa]

Because I've never been in this situation before.

We've been tidying up the garden and have piles of rubble all over the place. One of our rickety old fences borders a graveyard (very old belonging to ancient church) and I'm assuming the skull sort of drifted under our fence and has been near the top of the soil for a while. I hope.

I've googled but can't seem to find much info. I'll be contacting the parish council on Monday but wondered if it warrants a call to 101 (or whatever it is) to register it just in case it's not a graveyard wanderer

Anyone had a similar experience?!

It's a bit weird that they move along under the soil to a new destination

Those friends of Fred and Rosemary West were arrested the other day .....

Their garden is being dug up .....

But definitely agree, it needs to be treated with respect.

In the village of Slippers, in the county of Midsomer, in 1975, a cunning murderous murderer had a body disposal problem. 'Aha' she think to herself, if I bury it close to the fence, and it's undisturbed for long enough, no-one will be able to age it that accurately and they'll assume it's from the churchyard".

For, best beloved, dating techniques were not so good then, and DNA evidence unheard of.

And yea, it came to pass that the body was discovered. It had not been reduced to dust and ashes, but was skeletal. But the murderous murderer was out of luck. Dating had been revolutionised in the intervening interval, for skeletons as much as for anyone else.

It was shown to be a person who died some 40 years before the discovery.

Was the distraught widower really a mild mannered janitor?

NO ONE is to put anyone else's head in the dishwasher 

I hurt myself laughing when I read that! I'm in bed resting a really painful shoulder and I did a half laugh, half cry of pain!

But really I'm just adding to the thread for nosiness in the hope that they ship the bones off to the Jeffersonian for Hodgkins to examine the particulates.

You should name it Yorick 💀💀💀

My garden backs onto an ancient church yard. We've seen several bones literally poking up out of the ground including part of a jaw. On the advice of the church warden I just put them back where they were. The church is Norman so they'll be thousands of bones I imagine. I'd definitely report a skull though.

Interestingly - when the church installed a toilet they dug the pipe trench next to our boundary and needed an archaeologist. She found loads of victorian era remains but nothing she was interested in, so she just put them back in the trench. I asked if she thought they'd be bones in our garden she said 'yes - undoubtedly'.

I'd still ring though. Watching with interest.

You need Ruth Galloway. She's the best bone archeology type person.

Do you live in Norfolk?

I'm not sure if this is disturbing or fascinating! Did you ring the police? What did they say?

Now that you have possibly disturbed something belonging to the graveyard, you need to expect some ghostly goings on.

Like in the movies.

This thread is so weird it's hilarious

We used to own a field which has some sort of burial mound in the middle. Every now and then some archaeologists would ask if they could dig it up or open it or whatever it's called. DH always said no because if anything was upset by the digging it wasn't going to go looking for them, it would come looking for him. Not the most logical chap, my old man, but I can see his point of view.

One day when I was digging in the field next to the moundy one, I dug up a large bone and he got this really scared look on his face. He convinced me it was a human leg bone and there must be a body under my potato patch. He's a wicked bugger, he knew perfectly well it was from a cow he'd buried there 30 years earlier, he just wanted to scare me!

well the sheep skull came up a treat.

nice bright and clean. Who wouldn't want to be squeaky clean like that?

Cannot believe that no one has suggested that you (respectfully) use it in a fish tank....

Is it weird to want to keep the skull then?

Totally placemarking...

ouriana shortly after I started work in a Local Authority Heritage Dept we were moved to a different floor. During the course of the move one of my colleagues rediscovered a Tupperware box with some human bones in under his desk. I often think how horrified the person's family would have been if they had known the fate of their loved one many centuries in the future!
(it was also during this move that we claimed we needed a fridge not for food but to keep important archaeological samples in, cue frantic digging in flowerbeds outside to fill random sandwich bags with soil!)

Could use it as a fancy brooch.

Or or or one of those things for tying scarves. Thread part A through eye socket 1.... How original. Start a new daft craze trend.

i just took a picture of my bone display....but it's just too clarted with dust to put on the WWW. I may dust and dishwasher them tomorrow for you all.

I used to live in a house which was down the hill from a cemetery. It had been used as such for 100s of years. My neighbour was digging out his cellar and found a skull the had wandered all the way down the hill.

I assumed it would be criminal/ unethical/ unholy or something to own, buy or sell human bones but all the stuff I read on the web said it's not. Laws apply to human tissue. Bones are fair game

Bones are human tissue. However they are not covered by the Human Tissue Act 2004 in all circumstances - which is why the Google advice may have been confusing. You do need to be very careful though - the law is confusing and interpretation of the HTA is still evolving. Don't let anyone other than your household see the skull until you know how old it is - it is a breach of the law to display it unless you can prove it is more than 100 years old.

..

LaContessaDiPlump - it once contained a real person's brain. So yes, it's weird to want to own a bit of another human being

TondelayaDellaVentamiglia - what you want to do to your own bodily parts is your business, but noone is putting me through an eco cycle after I've shuffled off this mortal coil. It would be undignified and definately the sort of thing to trigger a full scale haunting, I'd be trying to properly shit you up if you'd done something like that to my bones. Just digging me up, these things happen, I'd not want to bother you that much, but put my remains through a kitchen appliance and I'd be fuming, setting off all your DCs talking toys to creep you out and building pyramids out of your spice jars when your back was turned...

We are getting ready to build a extension on chapel land. Very Old chapel, with no grave yard. But it does sport a nice 1980's mini estate of detached houses. My house backs onto the chapel (shudder)

Sorry! Held up trying to allay DS2's fears that we're all going to be murdered tonight. He wants to know who the person was and why he/she was killed. DS1 is trying to make him feel better by telling him it's probably just a coconut. DS2 saw through that one though. He's never seen a head-shaped coconut.

They're deciding what to call him. They've exhausted minion names and have settled on Damian the Daredevil or Slingshot. I'm trying to remind them that it is someone's head.

I wonder if the dog dug it up? She's always burying eggs.

I'll answer more when I have a chance - quickly though, we've lived here for 5 years, previous lot were here for 25 (and didn't do much gardening or burying of eggs, clearly). House was built in 1500s and extended in 1800s. Vicarage and I think some of the vicars died here

Have you called the police yet?