A London Dungeon exhibit has been given added creepy credibility after an artificial human skeleton has revealed to be real.
The skeleton which has been at the attraction since 1975, is now believed to date back much further.
Bill Edwards, curator at Guy’s Hospital medical museum believes the remains – which consist of a rib cage and backbone – were wired together in the 1950s.
On Friday he will return to the South London attraction to see if a second skeleton, which hangs in a cage in the museum, is also real.
According to the BBC, he said: “I need to go back and examine that one more closely when the Dungeon team can get it down from the wall”.
“But from what I could see, it looks either human, or a combination of some human and some artificial parts”.
Since the revelation of the first human skeleton, the London Dungeon must decide whether they are willing to obtain a £2,000 a year licence from the Human Tissues Authority.
Mark Oakley, Spokesman for the London Dungeon said: “We had suspicions that these skeletons might be real, but it still came as a bit of a shock to have it confirmed”.
“We have yet to decide what to do. We’ve even talked about giving them a dignified burial. We’re still mulling that. We’ll probably go and look at some artificial skeletons and see how good they are”.
Catherine Pritchard, operations manager for the museum said there were suspicions surrounding the skeleton, dating back to when the bodies were ‘smuggled’ in from the Far East to be used by early anatomists for dissection.
In the coming weeks the remains were ready to be moved to the dungeon’s yearly ‘Satan’s Grotto’, however other props will now be used.
Mr Oakley said: “The London Dungeon is full of secrets and we’re forever turning up surprises”. He added that the museum recently found that the Dungeon was close to a World Ward Two bomb shelter, which was the scene of ‘quite a horrific tragedy’.
The London Dungeon is home to ‘1000 years of London’s darkest and most gory history’.
Article by Charlotte Greenhalgh
