The Forensic Jeweller

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BBC Radio 4 - The Forensic Jeweller

A single piece of jewellery can be the key to someone’s lost identity.

Dr Maria Maclennan, the Forensic Jeweller, attempts to restore a name to refugees who died while travelling to Europe. A single piece of jewellery can unlock an entire identity.

Jewellery can tell us so much about people - the ones that wore it, and the ones that made it. It reveals something about status, or power, or belief systems - religion and relationships. There's so many interesting things that you can uncover about a person, or a group of people, by their jewellery. This makes it an incredibly useful tool for forensic analysis. 

Dr Maria Maclennan, is the world's first, and currently only, Forensic Jeweller. In this show, we accompany Maria to the Evros region of Greece, where she,  along with her team of Dr Jan Bikker, Professor Pavlidis Pavlos and Filmmaker Harry Lawson, are using the forensic analysis of jewellery to identify deceased migrants.

The goal is to give back a name to many of the missing and unidentified who sadly lose their lives trying to enter Europe. 

A single piece of jewellery can unlock an entire identity.

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