The last publication of the University of Edinburgh Review of race and history Draw attention to “Skull Chamber”: group Of the 1500 human audiences purchased to study in the nineteenth century.
The cranial measurement, a study of skull measurements, was widely taught in medical colleges throughout Britain, Europe and the United States in the nineteenth and early twenty centuries.
Today, the harmful and racist matters have been distorted to measure the cranial. It has long been proven that the size and shape of the head has no effect on mental and behavioral features in individuals or groups.
However, in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, thousands of skulls were collected to enable research and education in scientific racism. Edinburgh skull room is not unique in any way.
Unlike floral science, a common theory that linked character characteristics to bumps on her head, craniometry I enjoyed widespread scientific support in the nineteenth century because it revolves around collecting data and statistics.
Related to: What is the difference between race and race?
Al -Quqat specialists measured the skulls and the average results of the various population groups. This data is used to classify people in races based on the size and shape of the head. The cranial evidence was used to explain the reason for the interpretation of some people more civilized and developed than others.
Appealed The objectivity of numbers. This helped equally to verify the authenticity of racial bias by noting that the differences between peoples were innate and biological designer.
Medical history
The study of skulls was essential in the development of anthropology in the nineteenth century. But before anthropology was taught in British universities, signs of the supposed racial difference were studied by skilled anatomy scientists in identifying accurate differences in skeletons. The study of skulls entered the university curricula through medical colleges, especially through the anatomy departments.
For example, when Alexander McCalastter He was appointed as an anatomy professor in Cambridge in 1884, and some of his first lectures were on “the race types of human skull”.
Macalister annual report for 1892 in Cambridge University correspondent It describes how Cambridge skulls have been more than 55 to 1402 samples. In 1899, a donation was reported more than 1,000 ancient Egyptian fans from the archaeologist Flinders Petri. Many of the Macalister Skull Group still is at the university Duckworth LaboratoryIt was established in 1945.
With the increase in the prestige of cranial research, institutions had to compete for skull groups as they walk in the market. Statistical accuracy depends on a wide range of molds measured to produce representative “types”. This created an increase in demand for human remains.
In 1880, the Royal College of Surgeons He bought 1539 skulls from private group to Joseph Barnard Davis. This has been added to the current cache 1,018 cranuise To create The largest Britain Al -Qahl Group. This group was largely destroyed in 1941 when the college building was bombed during World War II. The remaining skulls are no longer kept by the Royal College of Surgeons.
The Oxford University Museum of Natural History included rows of Krarana in Anatomical offers In the nineteenth century, as did the College of Medicine at the University of Manchester (the College of Medicine is no longer on the same site). Within this investment in skulls, racist researchers have enough materials for study and use in their education.
Catalans that universities keep in the nineteenth and early twenty centuries not only reveal the size of their skull collections, but also the origin of individual samples.
Historical shock
Some medical colleges, Like EdinburghThe skulls purchased by phrenological societies earlier in the century to enhance their property. Others, including Oxford, made Using skulls It was discovered by archaeologists to conduct ethnic research in the country’s past. this research I tried to track the Callet, Norman, Sixonians, and Scandinavians across the British Islands.
However, since the cranial scientists wanted to capture the full range of racial contrast, the skulls from the outside were particularly precious. Medical graduates of British universities published in the colonies I sent foreign bones For their old professors.
In a search for my next book on the skull collections, I found that the Cambridge cranial record includes a skull sent from a former student stationed in India. He had extracted it from the bodies burning site in Bombay, despite the anger of the mourners who were collected. The harsh hat and colonial violence were essential for the international network that presented the rooms of the skull of British universities.
The racist ideology that motivated the group of skulls 150 years ago has been completely distorted. but, Some anthropologists We believe that these bones may still highlight human origins, relationships and immigration.
However, moral factors now constitute institutional policies towards human remains. The notorious Beit Rivers Museum in Oxford took “Rausing heads” Out of the show in 2020.
Increasingly, universities and museums faced historical injustice and shock between the generations that perpetuate them. Human remains. Since the 1970s, indigenous population groups from all over the world have launched campaigns to restore their ancestors. Research institutions have become Increasingly For these requests.
In London, the Royal College of Surgeons is no longer displaying the skeleton Charles BernThe so -called “Irish giant”. Bern was She explicitly refused Approval of his remains to be dissected and installed before his death in 1783.
Skulls in British universities are a testimony of a wide theft of human remains from almost every territory on Earth. However, they have the ability to become strong symbols of reconciliation if their distinctive history is recognized, and they are treated through their return.
A spokesman for the DuckWorth Laboratory, Cambridge University, said:
“We, like many institutions in the United Kingdom, are dealing with the previous inheritations and immoral practice in collecting groups in our care. DuckWorth and the Ministry of Antiquities is dedicated to enhancing open dialogue and building strong relationships with traditional societies and other interests. But also to enrich academic and cultural understanding through a respectable and equal partnership.
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