Dilemma over 17,000 skeletons in cupboard

Thousands of skeletons in the Museum of London's collection could be reburied, it emerged today.

The museum wants the bones to be given a Christian burial where appropriate after they have been properly studied and documented.

Museum director Jack Lohman said it was "an ethical issue" and that the skeletons deserved a final burial once they had been analysed by experts.

About 17,000 skeletons are kept in boxes in the museum's storerooms. Many originally had Christian burials.

Hedley Swain, the museum's head of early London history and collections, told the Times newspaper today: "The people making decisions should ask themselves whether they would feel comfortable about their bodies being dug up one day and stuck in a cardboard box."

But some academics oppose reburial because human remains are invaluable for historical, sociological and medical research.

James Steele of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology said: "Reburial may mean the loss of any future potential to analyse the material."