[MSN] Human remains advertised on the Russian internet as relics for sale went missing from the Kunstkamera museum but are not valuable, it emerged on Monday.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

Human Bones Offered for Sale on Internet
By Evgenia Ivanova

Staff Writer

Human remains advertised on the Russian internet as relics for sale went
missing from the Kunstkamera museum but are not valuable, it emerged on
Monday.

The remains went missing because of "managerial blunders" when the museum's
collection was moved in the 1970s and 1990s to make room for additional
storage space, the museum's director Yury Chistov said. 

"To consider the items to be stolen is illogical because they have no
commercial value," Chistov said in a statement published on the website of
the Museum of Peter the Great, as the Kunstkamera is now officially known.

The items were confiscated last week by the police after the attempt to sell
them on theInternet came to the attention of Rosokhrankultura, the state
watchdog charged with preserving the nation's cultural property. 

"Museum items are state property and cannot be legally owned by private
persons," the organization said in a statement published on its website on
Wednesday. 

The remains, supposedly those of "an Orthodox saint including a skull in
good condition and a shoulder bone," were offered for sale at
Antiquariat.ru, an antiques-related website by someone registered on the
website as Boris Georgiyev. 

Georgiyev allegedly acted as a mediator on behalf of a friend, the BBC
reported. He told the BBC that the last owner of the remains had rescued
them when museum stocks were being destroyed in the 1990s. 

"There was initially no price set for the relic," Georgiyev was quoted by
the BBC as saying last Monday. "But I suggested to the owner it might sell
for at least 1,000 euros (?660). This isn't a lot of money - but our web
page has been up for 18 months, and we've had very few callers up to now." 

The attempt to sell the bones became the center of a controversy last week
after the Orthodox Church found out about it and condemned the attempt as
"immoral."

"Whether or not the items that were put up for the auction represent relics
or regular human remains, the attempt to sell them is evidence of utmost
disrespect to the memory of the deceased. It contradicts codes of ethics and
Russian and European cultural traditions," reads a statement from the
Russian Orthodox Church that was published on Feb. 5.

http://www.sptimes.ru/