Abstract

The problem I am interested in is above all that of the biomedical management of human remains in archaeology, these ancient artifacts “unlike any other”, these “atypical patients”. In the following text, I will examine, with an interdisciplinary perspective, how it is possible to work on human remains in archaeology, but also how to manage their storage after study. Working in archaeology is already a political problem, and one could refer directly to Laurent Olivier’s work on the politics of archaeological excavations during the Third Reich and the spread of Nazi ideology based on excavation products and anthropological studies. But in addition, working on human remains can also pose political problems, and we paid the price in my team when we worked on Robespierre’s death mask but also when we worked on Henri IV’s head. Working on human remains is therefore anything but insignificant.