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The vast number of overseas human remains held by UK museums is a shameful legacy of colonialism, with many items kept in ways that are sacrilegious, according to MPs and archaeologists.
An investigation by the Guardian found that 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.
Responses to freedom of information (FoI) requests from the Guardian revealed that 37,000 items of human remains are known to originate from overseas, including thousands from former British colonies. The countries of origin of another 16,000 items are unknown.
Of the 28,914 items of human remains known to originate from outside Europe, 11,856 were identified as coming from Africa, 9,550 from Asia, 3,252 from Oceania, 2,276 from North America, and 1,980 from South America.
The institution with the largest collection of non-European human remains is the Natural History Museum in London, with at least 11,215 items. It has the largest collections of remains from Asia and North and South America. The University of Cambridge has the second largest, with at least 8,740 items in its Duckworth laboratory, including the biggest collection (6,223) of remains known to originate from Africa.
Of the 241 museums, universities and councils that hold human remains, only 100 disclosed an exact or estimated number of individuals represented in their collections, totalling around 79,334 people. The remainder said they did not know, often because remains from different bodies were mixed together or due to gaps in their records, such as items being undocumented.
Some institutions said they held several cardboard boxes of human remains, but knew neither the number nor the provenance of the items these contained.
Lord Paul Boateng said the findings exposed UK museums and universities as “imperial charnel houses where the bones of Indigenous peoples torn from Britain’s empire in the past, with little or no regard to the spiritual sensibilities of its people, continue to be retained to this day in circumstances that beggar belief”.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy, MP and chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations, said it was barbaric that looted human remains were warehoused in boxes, with many museums not knowing who they belonged to.
“That our country allowed such a large collection of human remains to be taken from other places and keep no record of them points to some sort of crime,” she added.
“The way that these remains are stored and displayed shows a complete lack of respect. They’re denied dignity, even in death. This is a great shame for our nation.”
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, excavated under uncontentious conditions within a clearly defined legal framework”.
Dan Hicks, professor of contemporary archaeology at the University of Oxford, said many museum collections include bodies and body parts looted from cemeteries and battlefields by British colonial fighters and officials, then brought to the UK as macabre trophies or for use in racial pseudoscience, such as eugenics.
Hicks, who analysed the FoI responses, said the findings showed many museums were failing to follow the government guidance to treat human remains respectfully. It advised institutions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland that human remains should be “stored separately and handled respectfully in controlled, monitored environments”. Museums should also have a policy to “compile and make public an inventory of their holdings of human remains”.
The widespread failure to do this continued “the colonial violence involved in the taking and warehousing of human remains in museums, the treatment of human beings as objects, the disregard for identity and for proper treatment of the dead”, Hicks added.
Boateng, a former Labour cabinet minister, said the vast scale of the collections of human remains held in the UK was “frankly sacrilegious and deeply spiritually offensive”.
He called on the DCMS to create a national register of human remains and issue mandatory guidelines for their timely return, wherever possible, to their countries and peoples of origin.
The DCMS and the University of Cambridge declined to comment.
The Museums Association said a significant number of overseas human remains in UK collections were often acquired during the colonial period. Director Sharon Heal said it would welcome updated guidance and legislation on the ethical treatment of human remains to help museums support communities of origin.
The NHM website states that it is “committed to maintaining high standards of care and stewardship for the human remains in the collections.” A spokesperson added: “The museum has not refused to return any remains for which connections have been established with requesting communities and places of origin.”
The Duckworth collections’ webpage states that it follows the government guidance on the care of human remains.
