The Rules of the Markets. The Global Trade in Human Remains in Early Modern History

Throughout early modern history, human remains were a lucrative commodity. They were sold as relics, marketed as elaborate natural history specimens and precious medicinal substances, and found their way into anatomy and medical faculties in the ‘Western world’ – and, last but not least, a booming market emerged for skulls and mummified heads from Europe’s overseas colonies. My EViR project examines the rules and legal concepts that governed this global trade in human remains, and the role played by legal concepts from the so-called Global South. I argue that these rules were not simply exported from Europe to the wider world. Rather, they were the subject of cultural negotiations: They were co-created by actors from very different cultural backgrounds in places as diverse as New Zealand, Indonesia and Egypt, and while this in no way diminishes the injustices and global power asymmetries involved, they were also heavily influenced by indigenous norms and legal concepts. Tracing these transcultural market rules offers insights into global legal and normative diversity in early modern history. Focusing on the interplay between European and non-European conceptions of law, the project uses the trade in human remains as an example of how norms and standards were created and negotiated at the nexus of religion, expansion, knowledge production and economic practice.