From Enlightenment to Atonement

What the controversy over ancient bones can tell us about the culture wars in museums

In February 2007, I was sitting in Manchester Museum with a Druid princess, a few Wiccans and Heathens, and museum curators, at a consultation over the upcoming exhibition of Lindow Man, a 2000-year-old bog body, when the discussion veered into what to do with the museum's Egyptian mummies.

For some in the room, the display of mummies in Manchester Museum, and Egypt, was disturbing. "The Egyptians' attitudes towards their mummies is frightening for pagans in Egypt. They cry in pain," lamented the Druid princess, "It's because the Egyptian curators have been trained abroad in Britain and America as scientists, and it’s ridiculous,” she explained.

But another pagan in the group was relaxed about the museum's display of mummies while suggesting that they be provided with opportunities for travel: ” If I was a mummy and had been stuck in Manchester for 200 years I would want to go to China, you know, I would be bored with Manchester.” he said.

I was there as an observer for my Ph.D. research. That examined the social and political influences on an almighty row within museums, which had kicked off in the late 1980s and was still coursing through institutions in America, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK, about what to do with their human remains collections.

The profession was divided over what to do with this material, once considered invaluable for science and history, but which was coming to be understood as people's ancestors. Arguments raged over whether it should be sent back - repatriated to communities, like the Aborigines in Australia - or kept for research and display.

There was a lot at stake, and opposition to repatriation was vigorous. As well as those which are exhibited, like the mummies, which tell us about beliefs and ritual practices, social status and cultural identity, and which are hugely popular with audiences, many human remains in museum collections, which can be thousands of years old, are unique evidence. 

The scientific study of human remains plays a major role in revealing history, especially for people and time without writing. It shows patterns of evolution and migration. The Out of Africa Theory, the widely accepted model of human evolution, which posits that modern humans (Homo sapiens) evolved in Africa some 300,000-200,000 years ago, before spreading to other parts of the world, comes from research on human fossils.  It tells us about the relationship between different populations, and information such the effect of the environment upon the body, and diet. It can also real information about past historical events. Skeletal remains found at mass graves can shed light on past conflicts, wars, or epidemics.

Research on human remains can help understand the evolution of disease and health in the past. The study of ancient DNA can provide information about the genetic predisposition to certain diseases, while examination of skeletal remains can reveal the prevalence of infectious diseases and injuries. For example, research on Asru, one of the mummies in Manchester’s collection, an elite woman from 25th-26th Dynasty (c. 750-525 BC) Thebes, found that she suffered from a variety of ailments including arthritis, and parasitic infestations such as Strongyloides and Schistosomiasis (Bilharzia).

This sort of knowledge was once highly valued, it held authority, and could claim universality. But that was waning.

Many activists argued that human remains, whether a cremation bundle taken from Aborigines in Australia, or bones that were over 9,000 years old, should be returned to present day communities. They were not objects to study, so the argument went; but ancestor’s to bury.  Many said that knowledge should take second place to atoning for the past wrongs - for how the material was acquired and the deleterious impact of settler society.

Curators in institutions in the US, Australia, Canada New Zealand and the UK, backed up by new laws, cast their eye across their collections to see what human remain they had and find out if it was possible to repatriate them. Thousands of remains have since been returned.

In the case of Manchester, not only did they repatriate human remains to Australia, they consulted with Pagan groups about to deal respectfully with human remains, and tried an experiment with their Egyptian mummies.

Then, in 2008, the director of Manchester Museum had the Egyptian mummies covered in a white sheet. He explained that the covering was carried out in order that the human remains be treated with respect and to keep the bodies on display in line with the Manchester Museum Human Remains policy .

It was only after huge protests from local audiences and the media that the museum uncovered the mummies.

Asru, covered up.

Curators did not used to try get rid of valuable collections - they are known as ‘keepers’ for a reason. They didn’t used to cover up objects, including mummies. That they were actively involved in campaigns to repatriate material they once would have regarded as evidence struck me as significant and worthy of investigation: why were they involved and what did it mean for the museum?

The foundational purpose of museums, formed in the 18th and 19th centuries, held that these institution were to advance knowledge and preserve and understand history. That, clearly, was changing. I wanted to find out why - and why human remains in particular were at the centre of that shift.

The answers helps in understanding the roots of ‘woke’ in museums and why the furious culture wars are not going away.

The culture wars are so not over

According to an interesting piece by the sociologist Musa al-Gharbi, ‘woke’ is winding down. And there are signs that it has lost momentum, having met a pushback. But it’s important to understand that woke just one stage in long-term development, likely to evolve in some form. It might be renamed and changed, but it’s not over.

The problem with most discussions today about the culture wars is that there is often more heat than light. Commentators tend to see it as the consequence of "institutional capture” by “cultural Marxists”. Little attention is paid to the specifics of the institution: be it the BBC, cultural organisations, or universities involved, or its underlying influences and history. There is also a tendency to rage against it rather than get to grips with what is happening and working out its drivers.

One aim of this series of essays, then, is to place the current controversies in museums and cultural institutions in their historical context to understand them. To try and shed a bit more light.

Over the next few weeks I will argue that the culture wars in museums has come about through three broader influences:

1: the transformation of 18th century museum from being institutions of enlightenment thinking into institutions critical of enlightenment.

2: the transformation of the 19th century museum from giving material form to concepts of nationhood and national heritage, to being infused by identity politics.

3: the transformation of the 19th museum role of venerating and periodising the past to quarantining or erasing it, and blurring its demarcations.

The debate over what to do with human remains primarily illustrates the first and second of those influences on the current debate: how museums have gone from being institutions of enlightenment to atonement and the influence of identity politics on institutions that were once part of nation building.

It also shows the conventional explanation for the current controversies, which see it as an ideology imposed on institutions by “capture” achieved by “cultural Marxists” through the “long march through the institutions,” falls short. Rather than “institutional capture,” this is a top-down development from within the institution which has nothing to do with marxism.