Kicki Karlén was shocked when she checked inside an IKEA bag among a large number of bags in the basement of her church in Kläckeberga parish, Sweden, and saw a human skeleton. She counted 80 bags of bones, and became angry. Folks from the parish told her the bones had been there since 2009. They were the remains of parishioners who had been buried under the floorboards of the church. They were disinterred when the church renovated to add a wheelchair ramp.
"I was on the team called in to dig out the bones five years ago," archaeologist Ludvig Papmehl-Dufay told The Local.
"Our mission was to document and rebury the bones, which may be as much as 500 years old. But the reburial was delayed and I have no idea why. The plan was to rebury them as soon as possible, but that's up to the church. The county board said they couldn't leave church ground, and it became complicated."
Papmehl-Dufay said it wasn’t he who put the bones in IKEA bags, but from a preservationist’s standpoint, it wasn’t a bad idea. Karlén calls the bags disrespectful. -via Amanda Wills
(Image credit: Bernt Fransson, Lindås)