Musei ed esposizione di resti umani. Alcune riflessioni etiche

This essay presents some notes about the research ethics on Cultural Heritage, with spe- cial reference to the cases of presence of ancient human remains in the exhibition contexts. Firstly, it provides an essential introduction to the history of the discipline and an overview of the progress of the research, of the publications, and of recent projects on these related to the topic. It then discusses cases such as the «golden parade of the Pharaohs» (that is, the sumptuous staging of the transfer of 22 mummies from the old to the new museum at the Cairo); the solutions carried out for the exhibition of the burial «Ostuni 1» in the Museum of Preclassical Civilizations of Southern Murgia (a 20-year-old pregnant woman who died before giving birth to her child and was buried with the fetus still in her womb); and the ex- hibition on the tomb 12 from the excavations in Fioranello (Rome), as part of the exhibition «Patrimonium Appiae. Depositi Emersi», held at the Casale di Santa Maria Nova (a skeleton with an apparent anomaly actually due to the post-depositional phenomenon). Finally, the article engages with the design for the new layout of the Oliveriano Archaeological Museum of Pesaro and, in particular, with the display of the burial remains excavated at Novilara by Brizio at the end of the nineteenth century.