The UK auction house Semley Auctioneers, situated in Dorset, is offering ancient Egyptian skulls for sale.
The sale of the human bones to the highest bidder has garnered outrage, despite the skull having a potential auction value of up to $300.
According to listings, the 20 bones were originally found in 1881 by Lieutenant-General Augustus Pitt-Rivers, who is frequently described as the “father of British archaeology,” while excavating tombs in El Wadi, a region in southwest Egypt in north Africa.
The listing also stated that the bones are those of an ancient Egyptian couple who lived at least as early as 1550–1292 BC.
Although the Human Remains Tissue Act permits the sale of human remains in the UK, there have been requests for a reconsideration of the legislation.
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Similar events occurred in 2022 when a strong public outcry prompted Taylor’s Auction Rooms in Scotland to halt the sale of human thigh and skull bones.
Human remains are allegedly sold and trafficked throughout the UK and the world, according to Dr. Simon Gilmour, Director of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Indicating that this is OK, but Semley Auctioneers has taken the skulls out of the sale in response to public outcry.
Similar criticism has been leveled at the Saleroom, a third-party listings website, for advertising the auction listing despite the company’s policy forbidding the sale of human remains. The Saleroom has since taken down the postings from its platform.
“These items are legal for sale in the UK and are of archaeological and anthropological interest,” a company spokeswoman stated. But after talking with the auctioneer, we’ve taken the items out of the saleroom while we review our stance and the interpretation of our policy.
Several notable figures in British society have discussed the sale. Dan Hicks, an Oxford University professor of contemporary archaeology, called it a “grim reminder that people (and auction houses) can still profit from the sale of African people’s body parts in the UK today.”
Professor Hicks claims that these remains are part of a collection that “Blackshirt, the grandson of Augustus Pitt-Rivers,” a reference to the eugenicist George Pitt-Rivers, who supported Oswald Mosley, auctioned off all over the world in the 1960s.
