13th March 2009, 02:35 AM
On a philosophical level I don't at all. I don't believe I've ever approached an skeleton other than respect. Funnily, the same as I do with dwelling places (which after all are the resepticals of many of our hopes and dreams). I don't believe any of us can truly know the innermost workings of another whether they died yesterday or 4 millennia ago. I'm pretty sure that in both cases they cried when they were babies, and learned to toddle and prattle in time. I bet they both laughed and cried too and that they had definit likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams and whether one believes in an immortal soul or not they are now gone.
I don't think it is disrespectful to store the bones. Each epoch has its own notions of what is respectful. Nor were all people treated with the same respect at all times. If we start reburying then I think we must make value judgements that we may have no right to make. Did the sacrificial victim go willingly? then do we pose him the same? What if s/he died far from home wishing only for a hug and mum's barley gruel? If an Iron Age woman is buried with her jaw torn off does she get a special ceremony to heal the wounds of an oppressive patriarchical system or do we allow the communities judgement to stand? For the deep past for instance, there is a real possibility that the rite of burial was a rite of exclusion to be feared. Do we eat them to "bring them back"?
Our way of getting the bones "to speak" which is what forensics is all about after all strikes me as the most moral thing we can do in our age.
Our paradigm is about information. I take the archaeologist's role in this very seriously. Our society requires joint narratives and we can supply them. Gone are the days when the world was formed anew in each reciting of the tribal epic and it won't be back as long as we have this highly mobile culture. Admittedly our language is dry. I fear this is a legacy of the horrors unleashed by the National Romantic movement ultimately culminating in the Third Reich. We need to strike the balance better.
We rebury the recent dead exactly to placate the living because, yes, there are two paradigms at work at once. we're not the only culture to do this. Anyway, it strikes me that the church has always been pragmatic about bodies irregardless of theosophical fashions. Churchyards are full of re-arranged bodies.
I know one of the most common objections against retention and display of the dead cited is the "tittering public." I'd just like to point out that people's reactions in the sight of death are often superficial. Ask any priest about the number of people who giggle hysterically at funerals. What they do in front of the case is not what they go home with. In this highly sanitised world I think it good to look death in the eye and know it not so terrible. For that reason I emphatically believe that the bones in the case be real. If they are not always displayed to the best effect is an entirely seperate issue in which I have sympathy with HAD. To paraphrase Pat Crowther, "don't hug a tree until you at least know what kind of a tree it is."
PS- Dave I do respect your views and the questions you're currently wrestling with. These are my sincere thoughts on the matter. TM
I don't think it is disrespectful to store the bones. Each epoch has its own notions of what is respectful. Nor were all people treated with the same respect at all times. If we start reburying then I think we must make value judgements that we may have no right to make. Did the sacrificial victim go willingly? then do we pose him the same? What if s/he died far from home wishing only for a hug and mum's barley gruel? If an Iron Age woman is buried with her jaw torn off does she get a special ceremony to heal the wounds of an oppressive patriarchical system or do we allow the communities judgement to stand? For the deep past for instance, there is a real possibility that the rite of burial was a rite of exclusion to be feared. Do we eat them to "bring them back"?
Our way of getting the bones "to speak" which is what forensics is all about after all strikes me as the most moral thing we can do in our age.
Our paradigm is about information. I take the archaeologist's role in this very seriously. Our society requires joint narratives and we can supply them. Gone are the days when the world was formed anew in each reciting of the tribal epic and it won't be back as long as we have this highly mobile culture. Admittedly our language is dry. I fear this is a legacy of the horrors unleashed by the National Romantic movement ultimately culminating in the Third Reich. We need to strike the balance better.
We rebury the recent dead exactly to placate the living because, yes, there are two paradigms at work at once. we're not the only culture to do this. Anyway, it strikes me that the church has always been pragmatic about bodies irregardless of theosophical fashions. Churchyards are full of re-arranged bodies.
I know one of the most common objections against retention and display of the dead cited is the "tittering public." I'd just like to point out that people's reactions in the sight of death are often superficial. Ask any priest about the number of people who giggle hysterically at funerals. What they do in front of the case is not what they go home with. In this highly sanitised world I think it good to look death in the eye and know it not so terrible. For that reason I emphatically believe that the bones in the case be real. If they are not always displayed to the best effect is an entirely seperate issue in which I have sympathy with HAD. To paraphrase Pat Crowther, "don't hug a tree until you at least know what kind of a tree it is."
PS- Dave I do respect your views and the questions you're currently wrestling with. These are my sincere thoughts on the matter. TM