Nobody will be able to dig up my coffin in 2,000 years and probe whatever is left of me.
While we often make the comment "Rest in Peace" about our dead, we aren't happy to let our ancestors' bodies rest in peace. No, we pull them out of their comfortable coffins and meddle with them.
It is good that we learn about ancient civilisations and the DNA that led to us and those who have rested in peace for so long, probably won't care that we meddle with them for purely scientific and archeological reasons. They're well past that!
But, should we expect that we have the right to do so?
If these deceased thought that 2,000 years later someone would pull them out of their caskets and slice pieces of their skin and hair off for DNA examination, would they have agreed? Or did they, like some of our religious, believe that their bodies would ascend into some utopian realm to live happily ever after?
We will never know, but we assume ownership because the original owners of the gravesites are no longer with us. And we don't care whether these ancestors rest in peace or otherwise.
You can read more here.
Robin
