Western examples of collecting and preserving skeletal remains date back to early Christian crypts in ancient Rome. Later in the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church began preserving as relics the mortal remains of its martyrs and saints, which pilgrims would come to visit\u2014introducing a public element to the collections.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the bones in ossuaries weren\u2019t just stored but also displayed in eye-catching manners: artfully stacked, or strung like garlands across doorframes and arches, or fashioned into morbid candelabras. To a modern observer it might feel not unlike a permanent Halloween thrill, if you will, made of human bones and skulls.<\/p>\n
Granato wondered: Is the display of human remains fundamentally ethical? In other words\u2014is it ok to ogle death and the departed? Or is it merely a pandering to our base fascination with morbid thrills?<\/p>\n
Of course, the answer depends on whom you\u2019re asking\u2014and when.<\/p>\n
An adventure in independent, undergraduate research<\/strong><\/h3>\nGranato is now in the process of turning her thesis and independent research project on the ethics of displaying human remains into a book manuscript and a series of academic papers. She offers a history of the collection and treatment of human remains in the West, and a discussion of the recent phenomenon of \u201cdark tourism\u201d\u2014the visiting of sites that commemorate or offer reminders of tragedy or death, such as cemeteries, ossuaries, crypts, or catacombs, as well as museums associated with death or violence, war memorials, and even haunted houses.<\/p>\n
\nMapping dark tourism destinations<\/strong><\/h3>\nAs part of her research, Granato has created a virtual component\u2014an interactive map of dark tourism sites<\/a> in the western world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nSupervising Granato\u2019s project is Elizabeth Colantoni<\/a>, an associate professor of classics and an expert on ancient Roman archaeology and religion, who invited the student to join her at an Italian dig site this past summer. Colantoni says that Granato\u2019s work \u201cembodies the best of student research here at Rochester,\u201d neatly combining her two majors.<\/p>\n\u201cShe has used her training in the humanities to make sense of her STEM studies, and her research on the ethics of the display of human remains in museums and at cultural sites has certainly influenced my own thoughts on the topic,\u201d says Colantoni.<\/p>\n
This month, Colantoni and Granato copresented a paper at the annual conference of the Archaeological Institute of America<\/a>. Together they questioned the ethics of burial archaeology and suggested standards for archaeologists and institutions on how best to approach burials and human remains.<\/p>\nGranato gets her ideas from disparate places.<\/p>\n
Among the things that got her thinking about the rights of the dead\u2014and how to interact with the dead respectfully, either as a scholar or a layperson\u2014was the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act<\/a>. The federal law, enacted in 1990, pushes for the return or repatriation of Native American cultural items from museums, federal agencies, or other institutions, including specifically human remains and related funerary objects.<\/p>\nSome of her questions also stem from the study of literature and media. Granato is a Take Five Scholar<\/a>, taking advantage of an opportunity unique to the URochester, where undergraduates can apply to spend a fifth, tuition-free year at the University to pursue a multidisciplinary program of courses addressing a topic or idea that is unrelated to their major course of study. Granato\u2019s Take Five Program is an exploration of science fiction and fantasy in literature and media, and the ways they can both reflect and distort \u201cour collective memory of historical events,\u201d she says.<\/p>\nOne of Granato\u2019s Take Five classes\u2014Medieval Otherworlds, taught by Rochester English professor Thomas Hahn<\/a>, who is also her Take Five advisor\u201a delves into medieval stories of the metaphysical, such as purgatory, heaven, spiritual journeys, or visitation. For her final paper Granato explored conceptualizations of medieval death.<\/p>\nShe is an \u201cexceptional scholar,\u201d Hahn says, \u201cone of a kind, both in her possession of multidisciplinary expertise, and in her lively ambition to put her diverse interests into unprecedented dialogue with one another.\u201d<\/p>\n
Visiting death, from Medieval Europe to modern times<\/strong><\/h3>\nMedieval Europeans certainly viewed ossuaries differently from many modern-day tourists.<\/p>\n
According to Granato, people saw these ossuaries as memento mori<\/em>\u2014a constant reminder that life on Earth was short and death lurked just around the corner. The Capuchin Crypt<\/a> in Rome, a stop on her summer tour, displays thousands of remains of Capuchin friars, arranged decoratively across several crypts, largely sorted by their anatomical function\u2014a room for pelvises, another for skulls, a third for leg and thigh bones. At the entrance to this 17th-century decorative crypt, Granato came upon a plaque that reminds visitors \u201cwhat you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Sedlec](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/inline-dark-tourism-destinations.jpg\")
Out of respect for the dead, visitor photography is not allowed at the Sedlec Ossuary, but the Roman-Catholic Parish of Kutn\u00e1 Hora at Sedlec granted special permission to Julia Granato to take these photos for educational purposes as part of her Meliora Scholars project. (Photo courtesy of Julia Granato)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nPart of her thesis is a case study of the ossuary in Kutn\u00e1 Hora, a UNESCO world-heritage site in the Czech Republic, which at Kostnice Sedlec\u2014or Ossuary Sedlec<\/a>\u2014holds one of the most famous human bone displays in the world.<\/p>\nWhat makes this experience so visceral? Maybe it\u2019s \u201cthat wrongness, the uncanny,\u201d the Rochester undergraduate thought as she toured the site. She met Australian tourists there who told her they liked horror movies and admitted to having come for the thrill. Others were trying surreptitiously to snap pictures, which the ossuary had begun prohibiting two years earlier. What surprised Granato was that for all the clear trappings of a successful tourist site, replete with gift shops hawking skull souvenir mugs, candles were still burning inside the ossuary, lit by visitors as a sign of remembrance.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me that was really profound, because going into this I didn’t really expect any sort of real spiritual experience from any visitors,\u201d she says. \u201cBut to me, it was very important that it does still happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a theological argument in Medieval Christian religion, Granato points out, that bodies ought to be buried intact so that the dead could be resurrected on the Day of Judgment. That\u2019s why, even with the scarcity of space, bodies were usually first buried in graves. But the very notion of an ossuary seems to run counter to that Christian dictum. Indeed, Granato found that some medieval Christians paid to keep their relatives in their original spots in the cemetery, rather than have their bones transferred (and mixed up with others) in ossuaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis fact creates socio-economic distance between who is displayed and who isn\u2019t, which becomes conflicting evidence,\u201d Granato says. In the ossuary of Kutn\u00e1 Hora, she found that an artist, working on behalf of a wealthy family, turned the bone collection in 1870 into the decorative display that still greets visitors today. Yet, the Ossuary Sedlec is located in a cemetery church on what is considered by many holy ground, and certainly sanctioned by the Christian Church.<\/p>\n
Granato is now in the process of turning her thesis and independent research project into a book manuscript and a series of academic papers.<\/div>\nShe wondered\u2014would the people, whose remains are displayed there, have given their consent?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t really know,\u201d Granato says. \u201cWe can speculate, based on our study and research as historians and archaeologists. But that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n
She allows, however, that there are indeed instances where the study and display of human remains is important. For example, Granato says, early Christians in Rome may have wanted their remains kept in crypts (that they considered holy) and saw visits by other Christians to these sites as a necessary and important part of their religious identity. “By continuing to visit and learn from these remains, tourists and scholars might be participating in this valued religious and cultural tradition,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n
Granato explores in her thesis a second example, the Hyrtl Skull Collection at the M\u00fctter Museum<\/a> in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one that seems diametrically opposed to the Sedlec Ossuary, with its religious, spiritual, and even artistic display of human remains.<\/p>\n
Mapping dark tourism destinations<\/strong><\/h3>\nAs part of her research, Granato has created a virtual component\u2014an interactive map of dark tourism sites<\/a> in the western world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nSupervising Granato\u2019s project is Elizabeth Colantoni<\/a>, an associate professor of classics and an expert on ancient Roman archaeology and religion, who invited the student to join her at an Italian dig site this past summer. Colantoni says that Granato\u2019s work \u201cembodies the best of student research here at Rochester,\u201d neatly combining her two majors.<\/p>\n\u201cShe has used her training in the humanities to make sense of her STEM studies, and her research on the ethics of the display of human remains in museums and at cultural sites has certainly influenced my own thoughts on the topic,\u201d says Colantoni.<\/p>\n
This month, Colantoni and Granato copresented a paper at the annual conference of the Archaeological Institute of America<\/a>. Together they questioned the ethics of burial archaeology and suggested standards for archaeologists and institutions on how best to approach burials and human remains.<\/p>\nGranato gets her ideas from disparate places.<\/p>\n
Among the things that got her thinking about the rights of the dead\u2014and how to interact with the dead respectfully, either as a scholar or a layperson\u2014was the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act<\/a>. The federal law, enacted in 1990, pushes for the return or repatriation of Native American cultural items from museums, federal agencies, or other institutions, including specifically human remains and related funerary objects.<\/p>\nSome of her questions also stem from the study of literature and media. Granato is a Take Five Scholar<\/a>, taking advantage of an opportunity unique to the URochester, where undergraduates can apply to spend a fifth, tuition-free year at the University to pursue a multidisciplinary program of courses addressing a topic or idea that is unrelated to their major course of study. Granato\u2019s Take Five Program is an exploration of science fiction and fantasy in literature and media, and the ways they can both reflect and distort \u201cour collective memory of historical events,\u201d she says.<\/p>\nOne of Granato\u2019s Take Five classes\u2014Medieval Otherworlds, taught by Rochester English professor Thomas Hahn<\/a>, who is also her Take Five advisor\u201a delves into medieval stories of the metaphysical, such as purgatory, heaven, spiritual journeys, or visitation. For her final paper Granato explored conceptualizations of medieval death.<\/p>\nShe is an \u201cexceptional scholar,\u201d Hahn says, \u201cone of a kind, both in her possession of multidisciplinary expertise, and in her lively ambition to put her diverse interests into unprecedented dialogue with one another.\u201d<\/p>\n
Visiting death, from Medieval Europe to modern times<\/strong><\/h3>\nMedieval Europeans certainly viewed ossuaries differently from many modern-day tourists.<\/p>\n
According to Granato, people saw these ossuaries as memento mori<\/em>\u2014a constant reminder that life on Earth was short and death lurked just around the corner. The Capuchin Crypt<\/a> in Rome, a stop on her summer tour, displays thousands of remains of Capuchin friars, arranged decoratively across several crypts, largely sorted by their anatomical function\u2014a room for pelvises, another for skulls, a third for leg and thigh bones. At the entrance to this 17th-century decorative crypt, Granato came upon a plaque that reminds visitors \u201cwhat you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.\u201d<\/p>\nOut of respect for the dead, visitor photography is not allowed at the Sedlec Ossuary, but the Roman-Catholic Parish of Kutn\u00e1 Hora at Sedlec granted special permission to Julia Granato to take these photos for educational purposes as part of her Meliora Scholars project. (Photo courtesy of Julia Granato)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nPart of her thesis is a case study of the ossuary in Kutn\u00e1 Hora, a UNESCO world-heritage site in the Czech Republic, which at Kostnice Sedlec\u2014or Ossuary Sedlec<\/a>\u2014holds one of the most famous human bone displays in the world.<\/p>\nWhat makes this experience so visceral? Maybe it\u2019s \u201cthat wrongness, the uncanny,\u201d the Rochester undergraduate thought as she toured the site. She met Australian tourists there who told her they liked horror movies and admitted to having come for the thrill. Others were trying surreptitiously to snap pictures, which the ossuary had begun prohibiting two years earlier. What surprised Granato was that for all the clear trappings of a successful tourist site, replete with gift shops hawking skull souvenir mugs, candles were still burning inside the ossuary, lit by visitors as a sign of remembrance.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me that was really profound, because going into this I didn’t really expect any sort of real spiritual experience from any visitors,\u201d she says. \u201cBut to me, it was very important that it does still happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a theological argument in Medieval Christian religion, Granato points out, that bodies ought to be buried intact so that the dead could be resurrected on the Day of Judgment. That\u2019s why, even with the scarcity of space, bodies were usually first buried in graves. But the very notion of an ossuary seems to run counter to that Christian dictum. Indeed, Granato found that some medieval Christians paid to keep their relatives in their original spots in the cemetery, rather than have their bones transferred (and mixed up with others) in ossuaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis fact creates socio-economic distance between who is displayed and who isn\u2019t, which becomes conflicting evidence,\u201d Granato says. In the ossuary of Kutn\u00e1 Hora, she found that an artist, working on behalf of a wealthy family, turned the bone collection in 1870 into the decorative display that still greets visitors today. Yet, the Ossuary Sedlec is located in a cemetery church on what is considered by many holy ground, and certainly sanctioned by the Christian Church.<\/p>\n
Granato is now in the process of turning her thesis and independent research project into a book manuscript and a series of academic papers.<\/div>\nShe wondered\u2014would the people, whose remains are displayed there, have given their consent?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t really know,\u201d Granato says. \u201cWe can speculate, based on our study and research as historians and archaeologists. But that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n
She allows, however, that there are indeed instances where the study and display of human remains is important. For example, Granato says, early Christians in Rome may have wanted their remains kept in crypts (that they considered holy) and saw visits by other Christians to these sites as a necessary and important part of their religious identity. “By continuing to visit and learn from these remains, tourists and scholars might be participating in this valued religious and cultural tradition,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n
Granato explores in her thesis a second example, the Hyrtl Skull Collection at the M\u00fctter Museum<\/a> in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one that seems diametrically opposed to the Sedlec Ossuary, with its religious, spiritual, and even artistic display of human remains.<\/p>\n
Supervising Granato\u2019s project is Elizabeth Colantoni<\/a>, an associate professor of classics and an expert on ancient Roman archaeology and religion, who invited the student to join her at an Italian dig site this past summer. Colantoni says that Granato\u2019s work \u201cembodies the best of student research here at Rochester,\u201d neatly combining her two majors.<\/p>\n \u201cShe has used her training in the humanities to make sense of her STEM studies, and her research on the ethics of the display of human remains in museums and at cultural sites has certainly influenced my own thoughts on the topic,\u201d says Colantoni.<\/p>\n This month, Colantoni and Granato copresented a paper at the annual conference of the Archaeological Institute of America<\/a>. Together they questioned the ethics of burial archaeology and suggested standards for archaeologists and institutions on how best to approach burials and human remains.<\/p>\n Granato gets her ideas from disparate places.<\/p>\n Among the things that got her thinking about the rights of the dead\u2014and how to interact with the dead respectfully, either as a scholar or a layperson\u2014was the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act<\/a>. The federal law, enacted in 1990, pushes for the return or repatriation of Native American cultural items from museums, federal agencies, or other institutions, including specifically human remains and related funerary objects.<\/p>\n Some of her questions also stem from the study of literature and media. Granato is a Take Five Scholar<\/a>, taking advantage of an opportunity unique to the URochester, where undergraduates can apply to spend a fifth, tuition-free year at the University to pursue a multidisciplinary program of courses addressing a topic or idea that is unrelated to their major course of study. Granato\u2019s Take Five Program is an exploration of science fiction and fantasy in literature and media, and the ways they can both reflect and distort \u201cour collective memory of historical events,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n One of Granato\u2019s Take Five classes\u2014Medieval Otherworlds, taught by Rochester English professor Thomas Hahn<\/a>, who is also her Take Five advisor\u201a delves into medieval stories of the metaphysical, such as purgatory, heaven, spiritual journeys, or visitation. For her final paper Granato explored conceptualizations of medieval death.<\/p>\n She is an \u201cexceptional scholar,\u201d Hahn says, \u201cone of a kind, both in her possession of multidisciplinary expertise, and in her lively ambition to put her diverse interests into unprecedented dialogue with one another.\u201d<\/p>\n Medieval Europeans certainly viewed ossuaries differently from many modern-day tourists.<\/p>\n According to Granato, people saw these ossuaries as memento mori<\/em>\u2014a constant reminder that life on Earth was short and death lurked just around the corner. The Capuchin Crypt<\/a> in Rome, a stop on her summer tour, displays thousands of remains of Capuchin friars, arranged decoratively across several crypts, largely sorted by their anatomical function\u2014a room for pelvises, another for skulls, a third for leg and thigh bones. At the entrance to this 17th-century decorative crypt, Granato came upon a plaque that reminds visitors \u201cwhat you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of her thesis is a case study of the ossuary in Kutn\u00e1 Hora, a UNESCO world-heritage site in the Czech Republic, which at Kostnice Sedlec\u2014or Ossuary Sedlec<\/a>\u2014holds one of the most famous human bone displays in the world.<\/p>\n What makes this experience so visceral? Maybe it\u2019s \u201cthat wrongness, the uncanny,\u201d the Rochester undergraduate thought as she toured the site. She met Australian tourists there who told her they liked horror movies and admitted to having come for the thrill. Others were trying surreptitiously to snap pictures, which the ossuary had begun prohibiting two years earlier. What surprised Granato was that for all the clear trappings of a successful tourist site, replete with gift shops hawking skull souvenir mugs, candles were still burning inside the ossuary, lit by visitors as a sign of remembrance.<\/p>\n \u201cTo me that was really profound, because going into this I didn’t really expect any sort of real spiritual experience from any visitors,\u201d she says. \u201cBut to me, it was very important that it does still happen.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a theological argument in Medieval Christian religion, Granato points out, that bodies ought to be buried intact so that the dead could be resurrected on the Day of Judgment. That\u2019s why, even with the scarcity of space, bodies were usually first buried in graves. But the very notion of an ossuary seems to run counter to that Christian dictum. Indeed, Granato found that some medieval Christians paid to keep their relatives in their original spots in the cemetery, rather than have their bones transferred (and mixed up with others) in ossuaries.<\/p>\n \u201cThis fact creates socio-economic distance between who is displayed and who isn\u2019t, which becomes conflicting evidence,\u201d Granato says. In the ossuary of Kutn\u00e1 Hora, she found that an artist, working on behalf of a wealthy family, turned the bone collection in 1870 into the decorative display that still greets visitors today. Yet, the Ossuary Sedlec is located in a cemetery church on what is considered by many holy ground, and certainly sanctioned by the Christian Church.<\/p>\n She wondered\u2014would the people, whose remains are displayed there, have given their consent?<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t really know,\u201d Granato says. \u201cWe can speculate, based on our study and research as historians and archaeologists. But that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n She allows, however, that there are indeed instances where the study and display of human remains is important. For example, Granato says, early Christians in Rome may have wanted their remains kept in crypts (that they considered holy) and saw visits by other Christians to these sites as a necessary and important part of their religious identity. “By continuing to visit and learn from these remains, tourists and scholars might be participating in this valued religious and cultural tradition,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n Granato explores in her thesis a second example, the Hyrtl Skull Collection at the M\u00fctter Museum<\/a> in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one that seems diametrically opposed to the Sedlec Ossuary, with its religious, spiritual, and even artistic display of human remains.<\/p>\nVisiting death, from Medieval Europe to modern times<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"Julia](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/inline-dark-tourism-sedlec-ossuary-1.jpg\")
![\"student](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/fea-geology-art.jpg\")
Science under the microscope of visual art<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n![\"College](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/fea-flat-panel-technology-acoustic-smart-devices.jpg\")
Smart acoustic devices: coming soon to a screen near you?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n![\"Elmina](\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/fea-ghana-field-school.jpg\")
Ghana field school immerses students in ancient forts\u2014and the legacies of slavery<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n