The mummified remains of a Guanche, one of the original natives of the Canary Islands, have been removed from the National Archeological Museum in Madrid.
The mummy of Herques, discovered in Tenerife in the 18th century, will not, however, be returned to the Canaries, where the Canarian Government has long called for its return. Instead, it will be placed in storage.
That’s because the mummy has been removed because of a new Spanish law which forbids the display of human remains, recommending “treatment of respect and dignity, according to the interests and beliefs of their communities of origin”.
Rosa Davila, president of Tenerife’s Cabildo, has called the decision not to return the mummy “an offence to all Canarians”.
The Herques mummy, a man aged in his late 30s when he died, is one of the best-preserved Guanche mummies in existence, matched only by a similar specimen in Cambridge, U.K.