Human Remains Excavation

[drpeterwardle]

[quote]Originally posted by Alfie

If only life was as simple as the CoE guidlines. Heres an ethical dillema for you. A recent discovery of a burial ground adjacent to a C of E Church evaluated prior to development. .....

I am not sure what the beef is all about in particularly the post from Alfie.

If this burial ground is outside of a Church yard it is covered by secular law and if it is inside the Church yard it is covered by Canon law and some secular. It is perfectly possible for a CoE Churchyard to be covered by the disused burials act. Many were closed in 1857.

Either inside or outside of a churchyard this case would have been looked at by a curator either one working for the diocese or one working for the LPA. I would also expect the two to discuss the matter which may mean in some areas the curators discussing the issue with themselves as they are often the same person.

The date is in many ways not relevant and the burials may have been illegal burials outside of the Church.

The notion that burials in Churchyards will never be disturbed or have been disturbed is both naive and shows a misunderstanding of the archaeology of Churchyards. In any graveyards there will large quantities of dis-articulated bone which have been disturbed when later burials where inserted.

The Diocese of St Edmundbury recently allowed a research excavation in a churchyard and for a full discussion about this se Britarch.

I would ask everybody here not to make assumptions and assertions about an organisation that has and is doing much to protect historic buildings and archaeology.

As far as Alfie post goes I see no real ethical issue raised - assumming the procedures were followed.

Peter

[eggbasket]

quote:Originally posted by drpeterwardle

[quote]Originally posted by Alfie

I would ask everybody here not to make assumptions and assertions about an organisation that has and is doing much to protect historic buildings and archaeology.

As far as Alfie post goes I see no real ethical issue raised - assumming the procedures were followed.

Peter

The ethical dilemma, as I see it, is whether we should be respecting the beliefs and religion of the buried people, or whether, as in Alfie's example, modern beliefs are forced on the dead. In the example, the burials, which would have been buried under a Catholic ritual, are treated as though they are part of the Church of England, something which would surely horrify these people were they aware of it. After all, from their perspective the CoE is an apostate body at best and might even be considered to be heretics because they do not recognise the authority of the Pope.

Regarding your former statement, I would be grateful if you could provide examples of this. My own experience has been massively varied, ranging from the extremely helpful and enthusiastic cooperation of the church through to the outright obstructive and hostile. Does the CoE have a national policy of supporting archaeology and preserving historic buildings or is it all left at diocesan level? Does the national church provide the funding for all this good work or is it left to the individual parishes to find their own funding, hence all the church roof appeals? And is all this work just a result of the church's massive land-holdings resulting in them having to plough large amounts of money into archaeology and historic buildings or do they actively seek to fund the work over and above what is necessary?

Yours enquiringly,
Eggbasket

Eggy by name, eggy by nature

[Curator Kid]

quote:Originally posted by eggbasket
My own experience has been massively varied, ranging from the extremely helpful and enthusiastic cooperation of the church through to the outright obstructive and hostile.

This would largely equate to my experiences also. Almost all of the finances for individual Church works are raised on a local level - hence the roof appeals - and there are significant differences from parish to parish, with some being very good, and others quite the opposite. As a national body, The C of E aren't bad at considering the importance of their historic properties and the implications that alterations and development works may have, and making the appropriate provisions within their guidance papers. Unfortunately this concern doesn't filter down very effectively to some individual parishes, where recommendations for archaeological work can be met with disdain, horror, or in the case of a recent site I had to deal with, attempted intimidation and downright abuse.

I feel there's an interesting conflict within this discussion (not really relevant to this thread I suppose) between the heritage profession as a whole, which thinks churches and churchyards are old, therefore important, and sometimes require large schemes of recording work during alterations, and the church, which thinks it is a constantly evolving, vibrant, modern organisation, responding to the needs of its parishoners and is having to change its buildings and sites accordingly. The church has a very long history of disregarding the past with regard to its properties (almost any cathedral will bear the results of a series of alterations carried out in numerous periods and styles), and personally I don't really mind if this culture continues, but on a local level, the realisation that there may be more people with a vested interest and valid say in these matters now than in the past, and that these people often have very good reasons to object to or modify the various proposals they put forward, is taking a while to be accepted.

They're still nowhere near as bad as some of the people who run Golf Clubs though...

[drpeterwardle]

To answer these points and repeat the point I made earlier the Church is a very broad Church of people with widely ranging views on matters historic. To generalise about all Christians who follow one particular creed and their attitudes is like saying all ***** ***** - that is a a statement whioch would get me barred from BAJR.

Funding-
It all depends upon what type of Church and and who is responcible - active parish churches usually the congregation with grants from the lottery, EH and similar.

Redundant Churches
Depends if they are in the care of the redundant churches committee as it was called thye via a joint fund of the Church and government. Otherwise the diocese in which they are until disposed of in which case via the parish share - raised by the congregations and via there own investments.

There are shades of grey in between.

Both can be eligible for enabling development - in effect public subsidy. In addition there are bequests, and other ventures. See

http://www.stnicholasipswich.com

There is a polarity of views on Churches. Lay people think Church upkeep should be paid for by the state - they are in many countries and church users who think the historic nature of Churches is important but find the burden of cost difficult.

There is currently a 17 million shortfall in the upkeep cost for the Parish Church upkeep costs. Some of this has been meet by government. Details of this can be found in "Faith in our future"

Curator Kid says that "attempted intimidation and downright abuse" - I find this very difficult to believe and indeed this is a libellous statement if not true. I would remind curator kid that one of the key themes of PPG 16 is that conflicts are resolved and I would hope that any curator has the experience to resolve any conflicts or better still avoid them.

My own experience about attitudes is that there is a degree of cynicism about archaeologist. This I would suggest is due to the way archaeologist have treated them in the past. For example one unit well known IFA reg etc did a watching brief charged an arm and a leg and didnt send the Church a copy of the report. Naughty or what. The second piece of work commissioned by this Church well does not do what is required in circumstances such as this. They deployed an expensive experimental technique and all of this paid for by wife and her friends. I was furious when I found out.

I could rant about this some more .....

I am proud to have the CofE on my client list they are in many respects the most forward looking, but respect and wish to protect their heritage, and friendly people to work for.

Peter

[Alfie]

My original post posed an ethical dillema, better sumarised by eggbasket. I am still curious how Dr Pete can say he sees no real ethical issue raised and the dates are irrelevent; it might be useful for me in the future to understand this point of view from someone who is an archaeologist and a christian?
As for Curator Kids post being potentially libellous if its true; I think we have to assume that Curator kid is simply relating his experience of "attempted intimidation and downright abuse" all curators experience this from developers from time to time, why are we to assume Church representatives are above such behaviour?

[drpeterwardle]

Please note I am not a church goer but my wife is. I work for the Diocese of St Edmundbury as a consultant including on the St Nicholas project I mentioned. I am a professional.

Can I refer you to a recent discussion on Britarch about this. Similarly the ethical issues were considered at length in the CofE guidelines.

As I say stop making assumptions and generalisations about a religious group and the people associated with it.

Peter

[eggbasket]

quote:Originally posted by drpeterwardle

As I say stop making assumptions and generalisations about a religious group and the people associated with it.

Peter

I don't think that people are making assumptions about a religious group and the people associated with it. I was commenting from my personal experience and it sounds like Curator Kid was too. If anything, the discussion was about the Church as an institution in the same way as we would talk about the government, or, as on the York thread, about the council? I see no difference between the way that the church has been talked about to the way that the council was discussed.

The ethical dilemma posed by Alfie was a situation that he had been involved in and that question has not actually been addressed. Just stating that everything is OK as long as you follow the guidelines does not answer the question. Anyway, it is a question that I would be interested in seeing answered from a variety of different viewpoints, not just the CoE viewpoint that was originally posed.

And referring to an earlier response of my own on this thread, there is an interesting difference in attitude between Quakers and orthodox Jews, to take two opposed viewpoints. The Quakers, as I understand it, hold attach no spiritual significance to the mortal remains after death, while the Jews apparently have strict rules about how deep burials should be and how much headroom there should be over the grave, as well as the attitude that the body should never be moved once buried. I apologise to members of either group if I am wrong in any detail. So, the question is; when building a road through a Quaker graveyard, how do you treat the burials? And should you even be allowed to plan a development that would encroach upon a Jewish cemetery? I do know of at least one instance where this was planned, but it had to be aborted. This all comes back to the idea of whose views do you accept regarding how the burials should be treated; your own or those of the people who are buried there?

Cheers,
Eggbasket

Eggy by name, eggy by nature

[Alfie]

"As I say stop making assumptions and generalisations about a religious group and the people associated with it."
If that was in reply to my previous posting I dont think I have made any assumptions or generalisations about a religious group, other than they are made up of a broad cross section of society and display the same range of personalities. I must say I find the implication that I would single out a religious group for critisicm because of their beliefs offensive.

[Oxbeast]

A key issue here is consultation. Views in this area are often highly charged and may contradict themselves. For example, many people would not object to the relocation of a charnel pit, as happened a few years ago at Hereford. The same people might object to the disturbance of graves seen as a final resting place. I've heard about digs in Islamic countries where authorities were quite happy for burials to be disturbed, as long as they were pre-Islamic. And i've heard about excavations in Palestine where they brought in the Orthodox community to deal with the remains of the Christians.

The problem I can see with the principle of treating people as they would want to be treated is that you simply can't know what the beliefs of people were in the prehistoric, for example. I have no problem with disturbing remains in principle, but I think it should be up to archaeologists to avoid offending local communities, whatevre they are.

[troll]

I for one have no interest whatsoever in living in a country where to offer examples of poor practise is seen as libellous. Technically speaking, any such charge in this (BAJRforum) context, of libel, would not pass the front desk of the Crown Prosecution Service. The subscriber simply offered a view without details of those involved. As Dr Wardle points out, the Christian Church is not a single entity by any means and therefore, in this context has not been subjected to libel-simply critiscism in a general way. I too have numerous examples of poor practise in my dealings with the "Church"-meant here to describe an organisation that claims to practise the teachings of the Torah and the Injeel. I feel that we may be drifting from the main point and expanding into the realms of "Church" attitudes/practises in relation to/with architecture and historic CRM. The crux of this dialogue, as I see it, is simply the treatment of Human remains and for me, the issue concerns all-including the secular world. As an inflammatory opener, I am hardly surprised that more resources are acquired for the land/building assets of the "Church"-after all, Human remains are no longer seen as an attractive income raiser by modern "Christian" establishments. I welcome the newly published guidelines for the "Church" however, as we have/continue to see in our own profession-guidelines are only guidelines. In an increasingly litigious society, the law no longer (if indeed it ever did) champions what is right and further, on technicalities, admonishes the nauseatingly guilty. So, what about Human remains?-whoever the "curatorship" falls to, a standardised and policed policy is needed.......[8D]