More coverage of the (rejected) requests for the Hunterian Museum’s skeleton of Charles Byrne to be buried at sea.

From:
Sydney Morning Herald

UK museum to keep ‘giant’ skeleton
Tim Moynihan
December 23, 2011
PAA

British museum chiefs have rejected a suggestion by experts in law and medical ethics that the skeleton of an 18th-century man known as the “Irish Giant” should be removed from display and buried at sea.

Charles Byrne, originally from County Londonderry, stood just over 7ft 7in tall.
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One of the most noticeable exhibits in London’s Hunterian Museum is that of Charles Byrne, also know as “The Irish Giant”. 230 years after his death though, there are renewed calls for the skeleton to be buried at sea, in accordance of the stated wishes of Charles Byrne whilst he was alive.

From:
Londonist

Should The Hunterian Museum’s Giant Skeleton Be Buried At Sea?
By M@ · December 21, 2011 at 15:01

Anyone who has ever visited the Hunterian Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields will remember this one exhibit. The skeletal remains of Charles Byrne, the ‘Irish Giant’ who stood 7′ 7” tall, are something of an unofficial mascot for the anatomy museum, as the mal-stuffed walrus is for the Horniman Museum and that weird jar of moles is for the Grant.

But now there are renewed calls for the skeleton to be buried at sea. It’s a tale of 230-year-old last wishes, corpse robbing and the grey area between science, education and morality.
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Some Maori Heads held by the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow have been returned after 150 years.

From:
The Scotsman

Glasgow museum returns Maori heads after 150 years
Published Date: 06 December 2009
By Oliver Tree

SEVERED human heads kept at a Scottish museum have been returned to their native New Zealand after nearly 150 years in the archives.

Taken from the Maori tribesmen and transported to Scotland in the 19th century, the heads have been housed at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow.
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In colonial times, many human body parts were collected from burial sites across the British Empire. Now, the descendants of the people who ended up in museum archives across the UK want their ancestral remains returned. Scientists argue that more study needs to be done, before this valuable resource is lost – but this seems to overwhelm the overwhelming moral obligation for return, which exists in many of these cases.

From:
Independent

09 November 2002 22:23 BDT
The skeletons of colonialism may get a decent burial at last

Body parts trundled back from all corners of the globe and displayed like mere ornaments are among the exhibits most popular with visitors to British collections. James Morrison reports on moves to give other cultures’ ancestors a more dignified end
10 November 2002

To the Victorians, they were invaluable specimens crucial to the study of human evolution. Today, they are viewed by many as little more than grisly reminders of the worst excesses of colonialism. But sweeping changes to the policies governing museum collections may pave the way for the mass repatriation of human remains to their countries of origin.
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