Today’s drama was brought to you by a skull-bucket

Nothing much going on today for me, not off the computer anyways. Instead I got involved in some departmental drama via Facebook: A former teacher of mine, and a fellow student, had left a human skull into a bucket at the archaeology lab. Apparently some cleaning lady had found it there and gotten freaked out. Now there’s some ethical drama going on - discussion on whether a bucket is an appropriate place for a human skull, even for temporary placement.

This doctorate student had used the bucket because it is a safe place for a skull; it will remain protected and it has some space around it. She had left the bucket unattended because it was there waiting for an osteology (=study of bones) class and she had things to do. She did this all in advance because she didn’t have time to do it at another time due to travelling. She didn’t really expect someone would poke around the bucket, rather lone get freaked out over it. Honestly, in the same situation I wouldn’t have expected it either. Frankly I think this is rather ridiculous, the drama over it I mean.

It’s an archaeology lab, not a carousel. It’s like going to a dissection room right after a dissection and being utterly shocked to find a little smudge of bodily fluids on the autopsy table. I do find it a bit surprising that the cleaning lady didn’t know there might be remains in the lab. Maybe she was new, I don’t know, but I don’t think the archaeologists should be the only ones doing some rethinking.

I still think bucket is as good as any place to keep a skull, buckets are multi-functional and it’s not like she used a kettle to keep the skull in – that’s actually what I imagined based on the shock described. Furthermore, a bucket is certainly more protective than just placing the skull on a shelf without anything around it. If the archaeology department is really going to raise fuss over this, they should be prepared to reserve a corner of the lab budget to buy actual boxes for the skulls, boxes “dignified” enough to be appropriate for human remains – if that really is the problem here (it was stated to be the issue by the lab’s head conservator). Or alternatively the university should provide an osteology lab that is bigger than a shoe box, so that people can actually work there.

So, as I mentioned, I got involved in this via Facebook. I made a light-hearted comment on the situation and a teacher of mine, who has always been humorous and snarky, actually got snippy with me. I was rather surprised; apparently this is more serious than I thought. More serious than it should be, I’m fairly sure. I had to tell the man to calm down. Later he conveniently deleted his comment, which I don’t know how to interpret. It’s just down right stupid.

Slap a warning sign on the archaeology lab door, let people who do not get freaked out by the possible presence of a skull or two do the cleaning and call it a day. I can fully understand someone getting creeped out by a skull, but the situation and the drama derived form this particular incident is just….eh.

What do you think would be an appropriate and affordable temporary container for a skull in teaching and research use? Is a normal and clean plastic bucket so horrible for temporary placement? Is it truly desecrating the decades if not centuries old skull?