I'm in two minds about where collections like these should be. From my own country, if museums hadn't taken care of and protected items back in the 1800s, they'd be gone. Newspaper histories point...
I'm in two minds about where collections like these should be.
From my own country, if museums hadn't taken care of and protected items back in the 1800s, they'd be gone. Newspaper histories point out how "boring and commonplace" a lot of the traditional Sami items that were collected and taken care of were.
But they still exist. All the other "common items" that weren't put in museums don't. The Sami people can visit the museums in Oslo and see their heritage in ways they couldn't if it weren't for those pesky people buying their traditional items and storing them and taking care of them.
On the other hand, now that those peoples have museums of their own where they live, it's pretty disheartening that all the items that would have been centerpieces aren't there. It's just the contextual stuff.
Museums with dedicated Sami exhibits are much better experiences for museum-goes too compared with places that have just a handful of seemingly random things for show.
And then there's all the cases of what'd be centerpiece items in a regional museum that now aren't on display at all, they're just being stored in some bigger museum's vault.
Would the Rosetta stone exist today if it hadn't been taken out of Egypt?
Would it be in a public collection or in some rich person's home?
How much bearing should that have on what we do now, today?
I don't have good answers, but some balance between the extremes seems like an improvement on taking everything "back home" or having everything stay in Europe where they were taken as spoils of war and colonialism.
I've worked in museums for over 20 years and I share most of your feelings about the importance that museums have in preserving cultural heritage, but I have seen the other side and it strikes at...
Exemplary
I've worked in museums for over 20 years and I share most of your feelings about the importance that museums have in preserving cultural heritage, but I have seen the other side and it strikes at your soul.
I was working for a very old museum in New England and came in one morning to my supervisor scurrying around her office in manner very unlike her. I already spent months of a year long contract in object storage packing objects to be moved offsite for the coming building expansion and renovation.
She said we needed to get over to storage and open a crate for some visitors that had asked to see an object. This request wasn't completely unheard of because we would some times have visiting scholars or researchers who needed access to an object, but her attitude told me this was different. We get to storage and she points to a very large crate that she says is the one.
I start removing screws, wondering what could be inside and soon it was revealed to me - a 7 foot tall wooden statue of the Hawaiian war god Kū.
Soon a procession of 20 some Hawaiians filed into storage finding places for themselves among the other crates full of objects.
They spent the next half hour or more singing, chanting, and praying to their god who had been locked up in a box in a far off land for who knows how long.
I'm an atheist, but even I was nearly driven to join these people in visibly crying for their imprisoned idol as I sat quietly in the corner, individually wrapping katana tsuba.
I think that museums (of means) should try to raise funds to open satellite museums in as many places as possible to try to repatriate these objects to the best of their ability. It can be a difficult process to repatriate to a country with limited funds or poor facilities as it would end up putting the objects in a worse situation concerning their long term viability.
That can involve difficult cultural questions beyond just funds and facilities. I am reminded of the Haida. Like many groups, they argue for the repatriation of their cultural artifacts. However,...
It can be a difficult process to repatriate to a country with limited funds or poor facilities as it would end up putting the objects in a worse situation concerning their long term viability.
That can involve difficult cultural questions beyond just funds and facilities. I am reminded of the Haida. Like many groups, they argue for the repatriation of their cultural artifacts. However, my (most likely very poor) understanding was that they argue their culture demands many of these artifacts, mostly wooden in an environment not conducive to preserving wood, should be allowed to decay away naturally in the elements. In such a case, the choice of repatriation is not one of who should possess the artifacts, but of whether to give artifacts back so that they can be, in the eyes of Western culture, intentionally destroyed: to some extent, of whether a group of people should have the right to destroy the material artifacts of their culture's history as a conscious choice.
We have some great techniques now for recording and replicating objects - I think you could make a case for scanning the object using photogrammetry and perhaps building or 3d printing a replica,...
We have some great techniques now for recording and replicating objects - I think you could make a case for scanning the object using photogrammetry and perhaps building or 3d printing a replica, and giving the original back to its people of origin. You might be losing the objects but at least you're not losing them completely. Though that is quite a predicament. If I were the one to decide I wouldn't be speaking so quickly I'm sure.
I apologize if my comment lead to such an interpretation, though I would ask that you remember this is not reddit. Jumping to attack comments scarcely seems against the goals of this site, and...
I apologize if my comment lead to such an interpretation, though I would ask that you remember this is not reddit. Jumping to attack comments scarcely seems against the goals of this site, and rather needless.
It was certainly not my intention to argue that the artifacts shouldn't be returned; rather, I had hoped to point out that the assumption that repatriation meant only a change of possession, moving something from a museum to another museum, was too narrow a view. Thus questions of whether facilities and funding would allow the same long-term preservation are not always applicable, as the goals may be very different. It also means that the questions, in terms of the museums involved, can be questions that are difficult within the culture of research and preservation.
I'm in two minds about where collections like these should be.
From my own country, if museums hadn't taken care of and protected items back in the 1800s, they'd be gone. Newspaper histories point out how "boring and commonplace" a lot of the traditional Sami items that were collected and taken care of were.
But they still exist. All the other "common items" that weren't put in museums don't. The Sami people can visit the museums in Oslo and see their heritage in ways they couldn't if it weren't for those pesky people buying their traditional items and storing them and taking care of them.
On the other hand, now that those peoples have museums of their own where they live, it's pretty disheartening that all the items that would have been centerpieces aren't there. It's just the contextual stuff.
Museums with dedicated Sami exhibits are much better experiences for museum-goes too compared with places that have just a handful of seemingly random things for show.
And then there's all the cases of what'd be centerpiece items in a regional museum that now aren't on display at all, they're just being stored in some bigger museum's vault.
Would the Rosetta stone exist today if it hadn't been taken out of Egypt?
Would it be in a public collection or in some rich person's home?
How much bearing should that have on what we do now, today?
I don't have good answers, but some balance between the extremes seems like an improvement on taking everything "back home" or having everything stay in Europe where they were taken as spoils of war and colonialism.
I've worked in museums for over 20 years and I share most of your feelings about the importance that museums have in preserving cultural heritage, but I have seen the other side and it strikes at your soul.
I was working for a very old museum in New England and came in one morning to my supervisor scurrying around her office in manner very unlike her. I already spent months of a year long contract in object storage packing objects to be moved offsite for the coming building expansion and renovation.
She said we needed to get over to storage and open a crate for some visitors that had asked to see an object. This request wasn't completely unheard of because we would some times have visiting scholars or researchers who needed access to an object, but her attitude told me this was different. We get to storage and she points to a very large crate that she says is the one.
I start removing screws, wondering what could be inside and soon it was revealed to me - a 7 foot tall wooden statue of the Hawaiian war god Kū.
Soon a procession of 20 some Hawaiians filed into storage finding places for themselves among the other crates full of objects.
They spent the next half hour or more singing, chanting, and praying to their god who had been locked up in a box in a far off land for who knows how long.
I'm an atheist, but even I was nearly driven to join these people in visibly crying for their imprisoned idol as I sat quietly in the corner, individually wrapping katana tsuba.
I think that museums (of means) should try to raise funds to open satellite museums in as many places as possible to try to repatriate these objects to the best of their ability. It can be a difficult process to repatriate to a country with limited funds or poor facilities as it would end up putting the objects in a worse situation concerning their long term viability.
That can involve difficult cultural questions beyond just funds and facilities. I am reminded of the Haida. Like many groups, they argue for the repatriation of their cultural artifacts. However, my (most likely very poor) understanding was that they argue their culture demands many of these artifacts, mostly wooden in an environment not conducive to preserving wood, should be allowed to decay away naturally in the elements. In such a case, the choice of repatriation is not one of who should possess the artifacts, but of whether to give artifacts back so that they can be, in the eyes of Western culture, intentionally destroyed: to some extent, of whether a group of people should have the right to destroy the material artifacts of their culture's history as a conscious choice.
We have some great techniques now for recording and replicating objects - I think you could make a case for scanning the object using photogrammetry and perhaps building or 3d printing a replica, and giving the original back to its people of origin. You might be losing the objects but at least you're not losing them completely. Though that is quite a predicament. If I were the one to decide I wouldn't be speaking so quickly I'm sure.
I apologize if my comment lead to such an interpretation, though I would ask that you remember this is not reddit. Jumping to attack comments scarcely seems against the goals of this site, and rather needless.
It was certainly not my intention to argue that the artifacts shouldn't be returned; rather, I had hoped to point out that the assumption that repatriation meant only a change of possession, moving something from a museum to another museum, was too narrow a view. Thus questions of whether facilities and funding would allow the same long-term preservation are not always applicable, as the goals may be very different. It also means that the questions, in terms of the museums involved, can be questions that are difficult within the culture of research and preservation.