Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections...

Photo: Morbid Curiosity, taken at the Manchester Museum

To be published on 22nd October, Dr Tiffany Jenkins' book examines the crisis of cultural authority within museums:

Since the late 1970s human remains in museum collections have been subject to claims and controversies, such as demands for repatriation by indigenous groups who suffered under colonization. These requests have been strongly contested by scientists who research the material and consider it unique evidence.

This book charts the influences at play on the contestation over human remains and examines the construction of this problem from a cultural perspective. It shows that claims on dead bodies are not confined to once colonized groups. A group of British Pagans, Honouring the Ancient Dead, formed to make claims on skeletons from the British Isles. And ancient human remains, bog bodies and Egyptian mummies, which have not been requested by any group, have become the focus of campaigns initiated by members of the profession, at times removed from display in the name of respect.

By drawing on empirical research including extensive interviews with the claims-making groups, ethnographic work, document, media, and policy analysis, Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections demonstrates that strong internal influences do in fact exist. The only book to examine the construction of contestation over human remains from a sociological perspective, it advances an emerging area of academic research, setting the terms of debate, synthesizing disparate ideas, and making sense of a broader cultural focus on dead bodies in the contemporary period.

Queen of the Inch...

Image: BBC News

A 4,000-year-old skeleton, known as the Queen of the Inch, is to be re-interred in the tiny island of Inchmarnock, at the northern end of the Sound of Bute on the west coast of Scotland.

The grave was found by a farmer in the 1950s as he ploughed a field- Preserved in an ancient cist, the remains included a necklace and dagger. Despite being examined by archaeologists and reburied in the 1960s, the skeleton was recently exhumed again and studied using modern research techniques. Scientists have since been able to determine that the woman lived on Inchmarnock and came from the Clyde Estuary and that she did not eat seafood, despite the fact she lived on an island.

"She must have been a queen or chieftain or something very important in her own right. There were plenty of people who lived on the island but very very few were given cist burials and with something as spectacular as the necklace, which obviously she was allowed to keep. It was buried with her. It didn't pass on to anyone else," Anne Spiers, curator of archaeology at Bute Museum, said.

The reconstruction of the queen's head and the necklace, which was found to be made of Whitby jet, are now on show at Bute Museum. The current owner of Inchmarnock Island, Lord Smith of Kelvin, said it was now time for the remains to be reburied. He said: "It right that she goes back. When you speak with the researchers and scientists, obviously they wanted her for a period of time. But I was always clear that once they had actually looked at her properly, because we all need to understand what her forebears were like and what they did and so on, she had to go back."

Source: Stone Pages

Museums and restitution...

For anyone who is not attending the ‘Museums and Restitution‘ conference at the University of Manchester, but is interested in following the proceedings, then good news! The Institute of Cultural Practices will be blogging from the conference and updates will also be posted to Twitter, with the hashtag #mrest.

Results of Avebury consultation are announced...

Image: Odinist Press Service

After consideration of evidence and extensive consultation, English Heritage have decided that the prehistoric human remains in the Alexander Keiller Museum, Avebury, should be kept in the museum for the benefit of public access and understanding.

These Neolithic human remains were excavated in the Avebury area by Alexander Keiller between 1929 and 1935. In 2006, Paul Davies of the Council of British Druid Orders requested their reburial. English Heritage and the National Trust followed the recently-published DCMS process in considering this request, and went out to public consultation in 2009 on a draft report which set out the evidence and different options.

English Heritage and the National Trust have now published a report on the results of this consultation, and a second report on the results of a public opinion survey. Our summary report concludes that the request should be refused for four main reasons:

The benefit to future understanding likely to result from not reburying the remains far outweighs the harm likely to result from not reburying them;

It does not meet the criteria set out by the DCMS for considering such requests;

Not reburying the remains is the more reversible option;

The public generally support the retention of prehistoric human remains in museums, and their inclusion in museum displays to increase understanding.

David Thackray, Head of Archaeology, National Trust

Sebastian Payne , Chief Scientist, English Heritage

See here for further details and here for an informative and enlightening discussion about the Pagan perspective…