I’ve always
assumed that buying and selling human skeletal remains is illegal in the
Netherlands because it’s illegal to buy and sell human organs. Of course I’m aware
that hospitals/universities/schools receive human remains, but I always thought
that those came from donations, or that when they were bought by these
institutions that exceptions were made for them because they acquired them for the
purpose of research and/or education. Apparently I’m wrong!
A week ago
I visited a flea market in Bleiswijk, the Netherlands. Although I mostly visit
flea markets to buy badly restored objects (so I can take them apart and see if
I can do a better job) I somehow can’t help but gravitate towards the objects
that have been acquired from our former Dutch colonies. I never buy any of
those objects (because of their unverifiable provenance, and well, because I
have no use for them) but there’s just something indefinable about their exotic
nature that intrigues me.
 |
| The skull on the picture comes from Papua and is/was on sale for € 550,-. (copyright: ILF) |
Normally I
just see the kind of exotic objects that I expect to find, such as wooden
statues, necklaces with cowries, sometimes ritual daggers, etc. However, this
time I saw a stall with a few very unusual ‘objects’, namely two authentic (I
was allowed to check) human skulls! I was intrigued, but mostly alarmed. The
owner of the stall was very open about his merchandise and allowed me to take
this picture of the skull. (In fact, he suggested that I pose with it, but that was
just a bridge too far for me…)
At home I
decided to do some research online. To my surprise buying and selling human
skeletal remains as well as importing these is completely legal (unless of
course you know that they’ve been illegally excavated from a cemetery or have
been stolen from a morgue)! In fact, if you’re an (amateur-) archaeologist and
find human remains during an excavation you can keep them. Apparently
you’re only morally, not legally obligated to rebury human remains found during
an excavation.
With the
recent changes in the law concerning human remains in England (incl. reburying
human remains within 2 years after archaeological excavation) it seemed
unlikely to me that the Dutch law hadn’t changed. However, I haven’t been able
to find anything about such a change (although I will keep looking). And in the
meantime, human remains can be bought on Marktplaats (the Dutch equivalent of
Ebay)…
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