Unusual farewell
Real human skeleton was in school for 70 years – now it has been buried
The coffin with the bones of a school skeleton is laid out in the biology class
© Roberto Pfeil / DPA
For decades, the skeleton was shown in class. Now students have buried the bones. Where the unknown woman came from and how old she was is to be found out with the help of a DNA analysis.
Pupils in the Eifel town of Schleiden buried a human skeleton that had been used in biology lessons for many years on Wednesday. The students of the Johannes-Sturmius-Gymnasium carried the coffin with the bones from the biology room to the nearby evangelical cemetery on Wednesday. There the coffin bearing the symbols of the world religions was lowered into a grave. About 80 students, teachers and city officials attended.
Pupils from the Johannes-Sturmius-Gymnasium say goodbye to the coffin with the bones of the school skeleton at the Schleiden cemetery.
© Roberto Pfeil / DPA
“Mysterious Peace”
Because of the unknown origin of the female skeleton, the burial took place in an interreligious manner, as the evangelical pastor and religion teacher Oliver Joswig said. He designed the ceremony with his Catholic colleague. Pupils presented the meaning of death in the different world religions. They named the skeleton Anh Bian, which means “mysterious peace” in Vietnamese.
“We are actually burying a school member,” Pastor Joswig had previously said. The skeleton had been in the school’s biology department since 1952. In the meantime, the demonstration object has been replaced by a plastic model. The skeleton was bought by the city of Schleiden in 1952 for 600 Deutschmarks. A DNA sample that has already been taken is intended to provide information about the age and approximate origin of the unknown person in an analysis.
final resting place
Pupils from the 11th grade had campaigned for the burial. They had previously designed a blue children’s coffin donated by an undertaker and placed the bones in it. There had been plans for a funeral for a long time, but they had not yet been implemented due to the corona pandemic.
“We wanted to give our skeleton a final resting place,” reported Joswig. The model was the similar approach of a high school in Stolberg near Aachen. There, students had buried the school skeleton in 2016.