Is it right to put human remains on show? It’s a question that museum curators and the public have been asking themselves ever since European institutions began displaying bodies of the dead – notably Egyptian mummies – in the early 19th century.

It’s the same question that continues to be posed today in Canterbury. Here, an exhibition at the Beaney House of Art & Knowledge chronicles and collates the significant archaeological discoveries in and around the city over recent decades. Finds that have unearthed skeletons of the city’s previous occupants – mostly Anglo-Saxon nobility and Roman soldiers and civilians from the 2nd and 3rd century AD. The question remains the same: what to do with these remains?

The organisers can be forgiven for the halting and self-referential tone of their preamble: ‘How we care for, study, and display human remains raises important ethical questions,’ it begins. ‘Should museums display human remains at all?’ Most institutions today – especially those ostensibly dedicated to transmitting knowledge – exist in a state of crisis. Less forgivable is another modern malaise that rears its........

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