Vast scale of overseas human remains held in UK museums decried by MPs and experts (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Veserr@sh.itjust.works to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk

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[-] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

This is pretty shoddy reporting

UK museums hold more than 263,000 items of human remains from around the world, including whole skeletons, preserved bodies, such as Egyptian mummies, skulls, bones, skin, teeth, nails, scalps and hair.

So, to be clear, they aren't distinguishing between an entire mummy and a lock of hair.

37,000 items of human remains are known to originate from overseas

Experts said the findings contradict a claim made by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in its 2005 guidance that said “the vast majority of human remains in UK museums are of UK origin

37,000 / 263,000 ≈ 0.14 or 14%. Am I wrong to think that 86% qualifies as a "vast majority"?

[-] Ummdustry@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 hours ago

Half the point of the article is that museums are not very good at keeping (and making publically available) records of their human remians. If even 1% of those 37,000 are full cadavers kept in a way sacreligious to a living culture I'd still call those 370 people a "vast scale". Would you let it slide to learn another country held 370 British corpses as exhibits?

this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2026

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