Croghan Man and Cloneycavan Man: the ethics of display

The fascinating display of “bog bodies” in the National Museum of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin, poses many interesting questions.  The display left me wondering why I was so blithely comfortable in spite of the "artefacts" being the mutilated bodies of the ritually murdered.  One must therefore ask how long a body must be deceased before it is deemed acceptable to display to the public?

  Of course we are used to seeing bodies and human remains on display.  The Catacombs of Rome and Paris are littered with skeletons and have become latterday tourist attractions.  We have all read of the display of severed heads of criminals or traitors in medieval times.  What more gruesome way of making the severity of the law known to the public?  The spectacle of the scaffold served the same purpose in revolutionary France.  When we wake the dead we subject human remains to the public gaze so one can pay one’s respects.  Throughout Europe, the hagiographic tradition has resulted in the display of the remains of saints and associated relics.  Many will remember the recent tour through Irelandof the remains of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who attracted crowds one might see at a rock festival.

  Most of these forms of display occur or occurred in putatively legal or religious contexts, even if the remains were simply employed as memento mori, and such displays are nowadays regarded as sinister at the very least.  However, modern science, from forensics to cultural anthropology, has added a new dimension to the judicial-religious axis, and thus we display human remains in the interests of education and science.  Freeze-drying techniques have made possible the exhibition of a human artefact in a way that would have been unthinkable not so very long ago.

  The remains on display in the National Museum of Ireland include “Old Croghan Man” and “Cloneycavan Man”, two Iron Age men who were ritualistically killed and buried in the bogs where they were preserved until today by virtue of the high moisture content of the peat.  They have become the subject of an insightful, if speculative, Timewatch documentary.

  How old does a body have to be before it can be displayed for scientific purposes?  Ten years?  One hundred years?  A thousand?  For instance would the bodies of some of the last victims of judicial hangings in Ireland be worthy exhibits?  Would a nineteenth-century body preserved in a limestone crypt be worthy?  One could analyse their burial position, diet, bone structure, tooth condition, etc, in the interests of social anthropology, ethnology or cultural history.  Is it enough that there are no surviving relatives?  Article 4.3 of the International Council of Museums Code of Ethics for Museums, 2006, states:

“Human remains and materials of sacred significance must be displayed in a manner consistent with professional standards and, where known, taking into account the interests and beliefs of members of the community, ethnic or religious groups from whom the objects originated.  They must be presented with great tact and respect for the feelings of human dignity held by all peoples.”The Museum Ethnographers' Group Guidelines on Management of Human Remains concern the storage, display, interpretation and return of human remains in ethnographical collections in the United Kingdom

“Human remains are defined as including both prehistoric and historic biological specimens as well as artefacts (i.e. items made from human remains which have been altered by deliberate intent) in ethnographic collections in British museums. MEG acknowledges that other groups of museum professionals have overlapping areas of interest in human remains as defined above.”

The mind boggles ...