Government decides to return human remain
The government has decided to comply with the requests of New Zealand and French Polynesia and return the human crania – three from the former nation and seven from the latter – currently being held by Karolinska Institutet.
Now that this decision has been taken, KI can inform the recipients that the crania are to be returned and ask how they would like the handover to be effected.
“And then we’ll act accordingly,” says Olof Ljungström at the Unit for medical history and heritage.
Karolinska Institutet spent last year preparing the matter of the repatriation of human remains to New Zealand.
KI has also been working on drawing up a comprehensive inventory of its collections of non-European material, especially that of indigenous populations over and above the individuals from New Zealand.
Included in the 300-plus non-European individuals are three large collections from Ancient Egypt, pre-conquest Peru and Bronze Age Siberia, as well as a hundred or so crania of various origins.
No request has as yet been made for the return of these remains.
KI’s cranium collection also contains about 250 Swedish individuals. The remaining 200 or so skulls come from elsewhere in Europe.
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Read more in a pressrelease from the Swedish Government: