Much of the 2005 Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums is focused on repatriation of remains to indigenous groups around the world. Comparatively less attention is given to the care and management of the remains of people of British origin.
Honouring the Ancient Dead (HAD) was established to advocate respect for ancient pre-Christian (pagan) human remains, related
artefacts, and sacred sites in the British Isles.
The group seeks to establish working relationships with relevant organisations and individuals, such as museums, universities and archaeologists, to make sure that their practice is conducted with informed sensitivity to the beliefs of modern pagan communities.
But the level of uninformed bias and prejudice against pagans is still high, with a tendency among some in museums to withdraw in horror or respond with ridicule to the word 'pagan'.That ignorance is slowly shifting. Paganism is the fastest growing spirituality/religion in Britain today, the last census placing it as the seventh largest.
Numbers are estimated at 200,000-300,000 across the UK, and include a diverse range of faith traditions, including Wicca, Druidry and Heathenism. But what draws pagans together is the perception of the sacred in nature, landscape and heritage.
HAD was created in 2004 after the public enquiry into the proposed road development at Stonehenge, to present a single, representative voice for British Paganism in discussions with the consortium of designers, archaeologists, ecologists and builders.
The consortium is due to report to the government this month to recommend one of five road development options. Crucially, it has acknowledged the validity of HAD's standpoint on the sanctity of Stonehenge, and HAD's role in the process of design and construction.
A large part of HAD's activity is now focused on ancient human remains, which includes those of clear pagan provenance and those that have no advocate to represent them: to pagans, all ancestors are important. Relationships with museums are key to this.
As well as being one of the organisations involved in the consultation on the Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums, HAD is currently working with individual museums.
HAD is consulting with the Manchester Museum on a forthcoming exhibition on the Lindow Man. Discovered in a peat bog in Lindow Moss, south of Manchester, in 1984, and dated to the first century CE (Common Era), he is now in the British Museum. The Manchester Museum has negotiated a year-long loan of Lindow Man in 2008 for a major temporary exhibition.
A key part of the museum's ethos and practice is to engage closely with communities locally and internationally, and accepting that the museum is not the sole repository of knowledge and authority about collections.
Why is Lindow Man important to HAD? At the heart of most British pagan traditions, with the deep respect for ancestry, is a perception of sacred relationship and connection across time: Lindow Man is an
ancestor.
We will have discussions on how he might be presented in a respectful way, bringing together the often polarised viewpoints of archaeology and science, and spiritual and emotional engagement. The museum and HAD will welcome him back in 2008 with ritual and celebration, organised jointly with local pagans and the wider community.
HAD has also worked closely with Leicester City Museums Service, and has been supporting its work on a policy for human remains by
tackling the issue of reburial. This focuses on those ancient human remains acknowledged as being of no scientific or historical value.
HAD has prepared guidelines for a ritual that may be used at the time of reburial, together with contact details of local pagan priests who may carry out such a rite (the contacts are available on the HAD website).
It is important to stress that reburial is not regarded as mandatory by HAD, nor is it always necessary from a pagan perspective. But respect is mandatory and museums must be open to dialogue.
HAD is still facing incomprehension and marginalisation. Many archaeologists and museum curators simply cannot appreciate why bones or other remains retain any significance after a 'spirit leaves a body'.
Archaeology is taught and practised as an archetypal rationalist subject, within a philosophy of the separation between mind and body, between nature and culture, which has been the philosophical basis of the 'scientific' approach in the west since the 17th century.
But pagans do not experience the world in these terms; they feel deeply the connections of land and ancestry, and the continuity of spirit and energy.
Most UK museums now try to be responsive to the needs of their communities. They need to accept that people experience the world
differently, and that this difference must be valued. Otherwise museums are no more than (arrogant) mouthpieces of one particular way of engaging with the world.
The Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums requires that museums 'recognise and respect that a community may place a particular cultural value on human remains that is not shared by others'.
If museums regard such a worldview as acceptable for traditions from other parts of the world - Aborigines, First Nation Americans, Maoris, Hindus, Inuits - then why not in this country?
Emma Restall Orr is the head of the Druid Network and a founder and council member of HAD. Piotr Bienkowski is the deputy director of the Manchester Museum, a professor of archaeology at the University of Manchester, and an adviser to HAD
For more on HAD's work, visit: www.honour.org.uk
Honouring the Ancient Dead (HAD) was established to advocate respect for ancient pre-Christian (pagan) human remains, related
artefacts, and sacred sites in the British Isles.
The group seeks to establish working relationships with relevant organisations and individuals, such as museums, universities and archaeologists, to make sure that their practice is conducted with informed sensitivity to the beliefs of modern pagan communities.
But the level of uninformed bias and prejudice against pagans is still high, with a tendency among some in museums to withdraw in horror or respond with ridicule to the word 'pagan'.That ignorance is slowly shifting. Paganism is the fastest growing spirituality/religion in Britain today, the last census placing it as the seventh largest.
Numbers are estimated at 200,000-300,000 across the UK, and include a diverse range of faith traditions, including Wicca, Druidry and Heathenism. But what draws pagans together is the perception of the sacred in nature, landscape and heritage.
HAD was created in 2004 after the public enquiry into the proposed road development at Stonehenge, to present a single, representative voice for British Paganism in discussions with the consortium of designers, archaeologists, ecologists and builders.
The consortium is due to report to the government this month to recommend one of five road development options. Crucially, it has acknowledged the validity of HAD's standpoint on the sanctity of Stonehenge, and HAD's role in the process of design and construction.
A large part of HAD's activity is now focused on ancient human remains, which includes those of clear pagan provenance and those that have no advocate to represent them: to pagans, all ancestors are important. Relationships with museums are key to this.
As well as being one of the organisations involved in the consultation on the Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums, HAD is currently working with individual museums.
HAD is consulting with the Manchester Museum on a forthcoming exhibition on the Lindow Man. Discovered in a peat bog in Lindow Moss, south of Manchester, in 1984, and dated to the first century CE (Common Era), he is now in the British Museum. The Manchester Museum has negotiated a year-long loan of Lindow Man in 2008 for a major temporary exhibition.
A key part of the museum's ethos and practice is to engage closely with communities locally and internationally, and accepting that the museum is not the sole repository of knowledge and authority about collections.
Why is Lindow Man important to HAD? At the heart of most British pagan traditions, with the deep respect for ancestry, is a perception of sacred relationship and connection across time: Lindow Man is an
ancestor.
We will have discussions on how he might be presented in a respectful way, bringing together the often polarised viewpoints of archaeology and science, and spiritual and emotional engagement. The museum and HAD will welcome him back in 2008 with ritual and celebration, organised jointly with local pagans and the wider community.
HAD has also worked closely with Leicester City Museums Service, and has been supporting its work on a policy for human remains by
tackling the issue of reburial. This focuses on those ancient human remains acknowledged as being of no scientific or historical value.
HAD has prepared guidelines for a ritual that may be used at the time of reburial, together with contact details of local pagan priests who may carry out such a rite (the contacts are available on the HAD website).
It is important to stress that reburial is not regarded as mandatory by HAD, nor is it always necessary from a pagan perspective. But respect is mandatory and museums must be open to dialogue.
HAD is still facing incomprehension and marginalisation. Many archaeologists and museum curators simply cannot appreciate why bones or other remains retain any significance after a 'spirit leaves a body'.
Archaeology is taught and practised as an archetypal rationalist subject, within a philosophy of the separation between mind and body, between nature and culture, which has been the philosophical basis of the 'scientific' approach in the west since the 17th century.
But pagans do not experience the world in these terms; they feel deeply the connections of land and ancestry, and the continuity of spirit and energy.
Most UK museums now try to be responsive to the needs of their communities. They need to accept that people experience the world
differently, and that this difference must be valued. Otherwise museums are no more than (arrogant) mouthpieces of one particular way of engaging with the world.
The Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums requires that museums 'recognise and respect that a community may place a particular cultural value on human remains that is not shared by others'.
If museums regard such a worldview as acceptable for traditions from other parts of the world - Aborigines, First Nation Americans, Maoris, Hindus, Inuits - then why not in this country?
Emma Restall Orr is the head of the Druid Network and a founder and council member of HAD. Piotr Bienkowski is the deputy director of the Manchester Museum, a professor of archaeology at the University of Manchester, and an adviser to HAD
For more on HAD's work, visit: www.honour.org.uk
