Charles Byrne (possibly O'Brien) was born in Ireland in 1761, and found fame as 'The Irish Giant' in London through his likeable nature and gigantism, being 7 ft 7 inches through a mutation in his AIP gene. 

As he was dying in 1783, at age 22, he was aware of an anatomist, John Hunter, trying to acquire his corpse for dissection (something mainly done to criminals). His dying wish, to prevent this, was to be buried at sea. According to the Hunterian Museum's own page on the 'Statement on the skeleton of Charles Byrne' posted January 11th 2023, John Hunter bribed Byrne's friend with £500 for the remains. They were stripped and his skeleton was put on display at the Hunterian Museum in 1799, only being taken off display in 2023 but still being kept in their collection. 

I am not here to judge the actions of John Hunter too harshly. He was a man of his time, and many of the scientific discoveries which have helped progress our understanding of medicine do have very unethical origins. I do judge the Hunterian Museum's decision to (post 2023) keep the body however. 

The Hunterian museum argues, through their page on the 'Statement on the skeleton of Charles Byrne', that the remains should not be buried at sea (like he wished) because he is a 'rare specimen' as someone with excessive bone growth. This language, which can only be described as dehumanising, ignores the wishes of Byrne, who was fully aware of what was going to happen to his body and was doing everything possible to organise his burial at sea to avoid it.

Furthermore, we have already studied his body, finding a pituitary tumour in 1909, which caused his excessive growth. Genetic testing on Byrne has revealed his rare AIP mutation, causing the pituitary tumour, and has also found that Byrne and four Northern Irish families (with a history of pituitary conditions) shared this mutation, presumably from a shared ancestor from 57 to 66 generations/1400 to 1600 years ago. I accept that these finds are greatly significant, and this is why I am not completely opposed to the genetic testing or display of past humans, but we have already discovered them, so can't we rebury Byrne now? His DNA, already collected for previous testing, will presumably still be in the Hunterian Museum's system, making it available for more testing in the future without touching his body. Though one has to ask what more do they, realistically, expect to find?

This is my stance on human remains: I believe that study of human remains (whether from a genetic standpoint or simple observation) is very important to understand where we come from, how the past lived, what types of diseases did past populations suffer from and so on. But with this, there has to be intention and care for the remains, with the question of "what would this individual want?" being in our minds alongside whatever else we, as archaeologists, are concerned with. The question of ethics is not new. Many people are critical of Howard Carter's treatment of the body of King Tut, which they argue as unethical for dismembering him in 1925. Many people argue that the acquisition of Indigenous American remains were unethical. I don't disagree with either of these, though I can accept that this was the practise of the era, and we now do things in a different way. We are in a time where the field of archaeology is highly focused on decolonisation, the return of remains and the respect of the individual. We might keep a body in their original coffin or tomb to try to combine the needs of the archaeologist and the modern world while respecting presumed desires of the individual. We might, also, do tests/studies on the body before reburial. 

Nobody can tell you verbatim that Ramses II would be upset at being displayed in a museum. One can assume it, considering the Egyptian beliefs surrounding death and his elaborate tomb. One could also argue that Ramses II wouldn't have minded since his display has led to him still being famous in the 21st century and Pharaohs wanted their names remembered for generations. In this case - nobody can know for sure.

For Charles Byrne, we know he didn't want to be in a museum, there is no debate. So shouldn't we finally respect his desire to be buried at sea? If you believe the Hunterian Museum is too poor to create a replica of Byrne's body then you are KIDDING YOURSELF and should finally accept that historic anti-Irish biases have allowed for the mistreatment of Byrne.  

I request for the Hunterian Museum to finally fulfil the wishes of Byrne and place him to rest at sea. The Museum should be more clearer with their future intentions for his remains if they feel that it outweighs Byrne's personal desires for burial instead of their vague description of 'bona fina research', and I put forward (with this petition) that they should take another DNA sample (if needed) for future genetic exploration, before then resting Byrne in the sea like he wished for back in 1783.