Ancestral remains should no longer be displayed in UK museums, say MPs

The Guardian

12-03-2025

The public display of human remains in the UK, including the ancient Egyptian mummies in the British Museum, is offensive and should be stopped, according to a group of MPs.
A report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations (APPG-AR) said it should become an offence to sell ancestral remains or publicly display them without consent.
The report, Laying Ancestors to Rest, which is primarily concerned with African ancestral remains, said the possession by museums and universities of body parts brought to the UK as a result of enslavement and colonialism caused profound distress to their descendants, diaspora communities and countries of origin.
It calls for human remains, which include bones, skeletons, skin, hair and tissue incorporated into cultural artefacts, to be repatriated to their countries of origin wherever possible. The law should be changed to allow national museums, such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum, to remove, or 'deaccession', remains in their permanent collections.
MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the chair of the APPG-AR, said the report's recommendations would help address the racial injustice wrought by the colonial trade in human remains.
'Putting human remains on display is unethical, especially when no consent has been given,' she added. 'I think removing the display of these items ultimately changes the culture, goes some way to look at them with some form of respect.'
There has been growing ethical debate in recent years over the display of Egyptian pharaoh's mummies, with many in the museum sector now referring to them as mummified persons as a mark of respect, although they remain popular attractions.
Ribeiro-Addy said: 'I would like people to imagine taking the remains of our monarchs to another country and putting them on display. Even if they kept them in their coffins, would we think that was acceptable?'
Currently, anyone can possess, buy and sell human body parts as long as they were not acquired illegally, and they are not used for transplants, only for decoration. But the APPG-AR proposes that the sale of human remains should be outlawed on the grounds that they are not commercial objects but human beings.
'We've seen foetus earrings, we've seen foetuses in jars, the spine of a six-year-old being used as a handbag, the thigh bone of someone being fashioned into a cane, and all of these things are allowed to happen because they've altered them for art,' said Ribeiro-Addy.
The report calls on the government to amend the Human Tissue Act 2004, which regulates the acquisition, storage, use and disposal of bodies, organs and tissue, to cover remains more than 100 years old.
Iben Bo, the author of the policy brief, said the act currently failed to take into account that ancestral remains held in the UK were looted from Africa. For example, she said Egyptian mummified persons were excavated and brought back to Britain, for racist pseudoscientific research.
'African diaspora communities expressed disgust with ancestral remains [being] on display because the museum space is not constructed as a cemetery where you go to pay your respects. There's noise and children running around,' said Bo, the lead research consultant of the African Ancestral Remains project.
Zaki El-Salahi, a member of the Sudanese community in Edinburgh, said he was shocked when he first saw body parts of his ancestors in the Anatomical Museum in the University of Edinburgh and is now part of an academic group seeking to address the institution's links to slavery and colonialism. The remains were taken by British colonisers after the Battle of Omdurman in 1898, in which British commanders used early machine guns and artillery to inflict thousands of casualties on lightly armed enemies.
He said: 'It was very much that kind of deep human threat response, which was for me, fight and freeze. It was that there was something deeply wrong here, a huge injustice, connecting the city that I've lived in for 18 years to my family's home town.'
Under the APPG-AR's proposals, museums, universities and other institutions would require a licence to store ancestral remains, and could not display them except for religious purposes or unless they obtained appropriate consent.
The report also suggests creating a memorial or burial site in the UK for ancestral remains which cannot be returned because their exact origins have been destroyed owing to colonial violence.
A British Museum spokesperson said: 'The museum is mindful of ethical obligations and closely follows the guidance set out by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and the Human Tissue Act 2004, which ensures that human remains held in its care are always treated and displayed with respect and dignity.'