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moss M
moss Oct 17, 2008 09:40:55
Replying to nigelswift

I came across this a couple of years ago when I was asked for a signature for the reburial of the bones found at Avebury, West Kennet Longbarrow I think. My first response was what about all the other bones that are found through the years in town sites, the reburial aspect becomes enormous, so was left with the feeling that you could'nt discriminate for a particular set of human bones whether pagan saxon/christian or prehistoric, but that you should at least treat all bones with some respect but that reburial in the same place was a knotty problem and not always possible.
Sebastian Payne chief scientist at EH is I believe also a pagan and probably has the best views on it... an article from 2007 gives his interpretation of how we should treat the bones of the dead...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/6385675.stm

N nigelswift
nigelswift Oct 17, 2008 10:04:27
Replying to moss

"Sebastian Payne said: "Human remains have a unique status within museum collections, and should always be treated with respect.""

And that, I'm prepared to bet, is as far as this will go in non-token cases and that was always the intention when this "consultation" was devised.

"Respect" of course is an entirely non-specific term and can mean leaving everything on display as now if you want it to and I'm sure they do. It ought to have been made clearer if the possibility of real action was truly being contemplated and people should have been asked "Is displaying remains respectful?" I tend to the view it's not and maybe most people do but I rather doubt they'll paint themselves into that particular corner. Generalised questions are much safer if you don't want to be pinned down by the responses!