Thursday 4 March 2010

Newsnight report on HAD

Just seen this posted on Facebook:
BBC Newsnight: Pagans call for reburial of ancient human remains (video)

Somewhat patronising comments about Paganism from the BBC. "Pagans aren't used to being taken seriously." Hello, BBC, Pagans pay their licence fee just as much as the next person, and do expect to be taken seriously, actually. How about starting with doing some research and finding out that not all Pagans want these remains reburied? Pagans for Archaeology now has 1,344 fans on Facebook, and the group has 330 members. The case for retaining human remains for study is clear and reasonable.

It's interesting that museum professionals have become increasingly receptive to reburial claims. Why is it now deemed disrespectful to keep remains in museums? There is no inherent disrespect in doing this. It's not like those weird ossuaries where bones are turned into decorative displays.

And why aren't Pagans making as much noise protesting about climate change and species extinction, demanding same-sex marriage, campaigning for Pagan handfastings to be legally recognised, and other pressing issues of the day?

5 comments:

Bo said...

Because quite often they're idiots, I fear. I share your frustration.

Fog Patches. said...

“Who could ever say what will happen in five hundred years in terms of our technology. We could be living on Mars.”

Evidently some people chose not to wait that long.

Yewtree said...

Comments on this post are now closed.

I have removed the Native American discussion as it was irrelevant to this post, and getting slightly offensive.

I will write a post about Native American reburial claims and their relation to NA politics in the near future.

Fog Patches. said...

Perfectly fair. While it's clear that you discriminate between varying claims on rigorous grounds, there are plenty of more appropriate places to role-play Star Trek than an archaeological dig.

Yewtree said...

Thanks Fog-Patches.