The Swedish government has finally decided to return the skulls looted from Finnish graves back to Finland.
Some very old skeleton parts were found in an old cardboard box at the back of the main biology class at Tampere Lyceum. A complete skull was also found in the box. Stock photo. Merja Ojala
The Swedish government decided on Thursday that 82 skulls and other remains belonging to Finland will be returned to Finland, reports SVT.
Most of the skulls in question were looted from the graves located in Pälkäne, Rautalammi and Pielavede in 1873. With the help of the skulls, Swedish race researchers wanted to try to prove that the long-skulled Swedes were of a different origin than the short-skulled Finns.
The leading figure in the research was the father of Swedish race theory, professor Gustaf Retzius (1842–1919). According to one description, Retzius himself would have been holding a shovel digging open Finnish graves. According to Retzius, the Finns and Sami were mostly related to the Mongols, while the Swedes were a pure northern Germanic race.
Claimed back for years
The skulls have been stored in the Karolinska Institute and have been demanded back to Finland since 2018. In 2019, the Karolinska Institute apologized for looting graves of Finnish skulls, but the return of the skulls has not progressed until this spring. In February, Iltalehti reported that Finland submitted an official request on the matter.
– In February, the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture asked the Swedish government to return the skulls. Now, a few months later, we made a decision, so we have acted very quickly, Swedish Minister of Education Mats Persson said according to SVT.
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