this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
122 points (95.5% liked)
Asklemmy
43945 readers
638 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
A scientist might think that the historical/scientific value is more important than the personal rights of people who died millenia ago.
The people who dug up graves in the early 20th century just didn't see the locals as people, though, which is also why most of those museums were in Europe, not anywhere near where the artifacts were found (if the artifacts were given to museums at all, instead of being sold to private collectors).
If you ask me personally: A pharaoh is a king, and fuck the king.
Yeah, there's a weird implied statute of limitations type of thing with remains. Like thousands of years ago, we can learn so much and uncover history by looking at remains. But you don't learn much and it's weird and presumably illegal to dig up recent remains.
I dunno what that time limit is, but to me at least it feels like it exists and intuitively makes enough sense
i think you've hit the nail on the head regarding why robbing recent graves is unethical; that is, it's denying valuable data to the archeologists of 3024 CE.
In the National Museum of Scotland there's a bronze-age skeleton curled up in a recreation of the person's grave, surrounded by their grave goods. While I was stood looking at it, a woman was explaining to her granddaughter that the skeleton had been found in Shetland, where she herself was from. The girl turned to her and said, "Was he a friend of yours, granny?" We all laughed, but I think we all had the same uncomfortable thought - this wasn't just dry bones, it was a person. What if it was a friend of granny's? What amount of time makes it ok?
Looking at this body in the British Museum was even worse: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-28589151
Being born in the same town means there is a high chance of it being a relative of the girl and her grandmother.
Shetland is an archipelago, but ok. Historically populations in the Scottish islands moved around a lot more than you would think. Sick of the tiny village you grew up in? Hop in a boat and go to Orkney, or Skye, or Lewis. Travel by land was difficult, by sea was comparatively easier. There was also a lot of incomer traffic, from Ireland, Scandinavia, even the Baltic. So yes, there might have been a tiny fraction of genetic connection, but unlikely to be significant.
The people who inherited those artifacts also don't see locals as people.
Also
Agreed. We should let the descendents of those they ruled over decide what to do with the legacy of those kings, not the thieving invaders who likewise viewed themselves as better than the locals.