Walk (and talk about ethics in archaeology) like an Egyptian
For once I was actually up to a bunch of stuff last week, which is why it's strange that I actually have nothing to write here. The uni flea market went... okay, I guess; didn't get rid of nearly as many books as I would've liked, but did earn 30 bucks. Hardly a waste of time.
In this year's edition of "is it a cold or is it hayfever?" I've been kept awake until 4 AM/alternately woken up at least three times per night because I can't breathe through my nose. Did manage to drag myself to our last seminar (and conveniently missed the bit where I was supposed to hold a presentation I hadn't prepared, cough), which was held at the Mediterranean Museum.
Unlike last time we were there, where we got a pretty basic guided tour, this time we talked more about the layout of the actual museum, the preservation of the objects and the relationship between the public and the exhibitions (as opposed to us academics, who get our fingers on everything and prioritised differently :P).
As the Egyptian exhibition is closed for renovation, we naturally (one might say inevitably, regardless of the state of the museum's internal affairs) ended up talking about the ethics of archaeology and the handling of human remains - mummies in particular.
This is an interesting topic to me because there was a time I was convinced I was going to work in egyptology as an adult; it's a life-long fascination that I don't seem to have grown out of. What does seem to have changed is my attitude towards the presentation of the Egyptian afterlife. Maybe it comes with an adult's awareness of mortality, or religion, or something, but the last couple of years I've been struck by an intense unease when visiting places like British Museum or the Hermitage that comes with realising that human bodies are kept on display (and not because they're, you know, human bodies).
Our guide quite aptly pointed out that in most museums, mummies are objects. They're on display in glass cases, usually next to objects found (or should have been found) in their graves. This might not seem like a big deal, perhaps because it's presented in an educational context, or simply because of how old these bodies are, but the fact remains that they are people who have been dug up from their final resting place contrary to their personal wishes and cultural beliefs.
And I suppose this is where the "ethics" part comes in, because: how many people actually care? Certainly not the majority of our guide's colleagues. Unlike human remains in ethnographic fields, which has more contemporary roots and colonial/white supremacist baggage, mummies don't have living relatives to speak for them; they don't even have a living culture. Repatriation isn't an option. Does that make the question a non-question?
I don't think so. When we objectify the remains of the dead we distance ourselves from them. How does that affect the way we look at the past, how we look at death, bodily autonomy, people?
Mummies are already fictionalised, they're a movie monster on par with zombies, vampires and werewolves. Going even further back, mummies were literally ground down and used as fertiliser in industrial England. The mummy exhibited at the Mediterranean Museum was acquired only seven years ago, after having been kept at an upper secondary school for more than half a decade amongst taxidermied birds and other animal-- presumably as a study subject (fun fact: from his description I thought the school was my old school. Google reveals it was actually the twin building and sister institution of my school...).
stalkerbunny pointed out that the history of Egyptian archaelogy (and probably a lot of history writing) could also be used to explore whitewashing and racism [...] objectification is often indelibly tied in with exploitation and subordination [...] it's been applied to both living and dead bodies. Which, ahahha, let's not even talk about the whitewashing of ancient Egyptian history and how it ties into everything from western infatuation with the Hellenistic world to the 1920s egyptomania, but in the context of mummies-- again, this is a valid point, but how many people think about it when talking about a culture that's been gone for millennia? To what extent is this debate (or lack thereof-- it's only been in question for about 30 years) the result of a white supremacist attitude towards foreign cultures?
I should clarify that I don't think that we should just lock away all mummies from museums. What would be the point? Even igoring the fact that they naturally have educational and scientific value, there's nowhere for them to go except back in the desert sand - and onto the black market. I firmly believe that studying the past is a virtue unto itself, albeit not one that should be practised without caution.
Saying that all mummies are objectified also ignores the very legitimate experience museum visitors can gain from seeing them. They aren't just spectacles, they can provide a connection between the past and the present, between life and death. There's a reason they tend to attract attention (attention that a more cynical part of me admits that the museums dearly need).
But there needs to be a dialogue, an awareness of the implications this practise has, ethically and historically. And the museum itself could make an effort to present the mummies in a different context; I suggested as much to the guide, who said that that was hopefully what they would manage to do in the renovated exhibition. He didn't mention any details, but the idea seemed to be to keep the mummies in a more closed off room, with a more intimate atmosphere that people could also choose to enter or not.
I'll be looking forward to seeing it in spring next year; it will almost certainly be an improvement over sterile glass cases.
After the tour we got to try a more hands-on approach as a conclusion to this course, which means I have literally got my (gloved) hands on more than 2000 years old pottery. The ten-year-old in my squeed like the girl I was (and, let's be honest, still am). Almost made me seriously reconsider my decision to go into religious studies rather than archaeology. :'3
So now I've got my last exam coming up next week, and after that... well, who knows. It's summer break, or something that constitutes as one, after all. Hopefully I'll get around to writing.
I should also really brush up on my Latin. And Ancient Greek. And, uh, should try to learn French, or perhaps German. And why did I drop Russian now again? Decisions, decisions. Maybe I should make a poll for y'all to decide. :P
This entry was originally posted at http://regndoft.dreamwidth.org/202098.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
In this year's edition of "is it a cold or is it hayfever?" I've been kept awake until 4 AM/alternately woken up at least three times per night because I can't breathe through my nose. Did manage to drag myself to our last seminar (and conveniently missed the bit where I was supposed to hold a presentation I hadn't prepared, cough), which was held at the Mediterranean Museum.
Unlike last time we were there, where we got a pretty basic guided tour, this time we talked more about the layout of the actual museum, the preservation of the objects and the relationship between the public and the exhibitions (as opposed to us academics, who get our fingers on everything and prioritised differently :P).
As the Egyptian exhibition is closed for renovation, we naturally (one might say inevitably, regardless of the state of the museum's internal affairs) ended up talking about the ethics of archaeology and the handling of human remains - mummies in particular.
This is an interesting topic to me because there was a time I was convinced I was going to work in egyptology as an adult; it's a life-long fascination that I don't seem to have grown out of. What does seem to have changed is my attitude towards the presentation of the Egyptian afterlife. Maybe it comes with an adult's awareness of mortality, or religion, or something, but the last couple of years I've been struck by an intense unease when visiting places like British Museum or the Hermitage that comes with realising that human bodies are kept on display (and not because they're, you know, human bodies).
Our guide quite aptly pointed out that in most museums, mummies are objects. They're on display in glass cases, usually next to objects found (or should have been found) in their graves. This might not seem like a big deal, perhaps because it's presented in an educational context, or simply because of how old these bodies are, but the fact remains that they are people who have been dug up from their final resting place contrary to their personal wishes and cultural beliefs.
And I suppose this is where the "ethics" part comes in, because: how many people actually care? Certainly not the majority of our guide's colleagues. Unlike human remains in ethnographic fields, which has more contemporary roots and colonial/white supremacist baggage, mummies don't have living relatives to speak for them; they don't even have a living culture. Repatriation isn't an option. Does that make the question a non-question?
I don't think so. When we objectify the remains of the dead we distance ourselves from them. How does that affect the way we look at the past, how we look at death, bodily autonomy, people?
Mummies are already fictionalised, they're a movie monster on par with zombies, vampires and werewolves. Going even further back, mummies were literally ground down and used as fertiliser in industrial England. The mummy exhibited at the Mediterranean Museum was acquired only seven years ago, after having been kept at an upper secondary school for more than half a decade amongst taxidermied birds and other animal-- presumably as a study subject (fun fact: from his description I thought the school was my old school. Google reveals it was actually the twin building and sister institution of my school...).
stalkerbunny pointed out that the history of Egyptian archaelogy (and probably a lot of history writing) could also be used to explore whitewashing and racism [...] objectification is often indelibly tied in with exploitation and subordination [...] it's been applied to both living and dead bodies. Which, ahahha, let's not even talk about the whitewashing of ancient Egyptian history and how it ties into everything from western infatuation with the Hellenistic world to the 1920s egyptomania, but in the context of mummies-- again, this is a valid point, but how many people think about it when talking about a culture that's been gone for millennia? To what extent is this debate (or lack thereof-- it's only been in question for about 30 years) the result of a white supremacist attitude towards foreign cultures?
I should clarify that I don't think that we should just lock away all mummies from museums. What would be the point? Even igoring the fact that they naturally have educational and scientific value, there's nowhere for them to go except back in the desert sand - and onto the black market. I firmly believe that studying the past is a virtue unto itself, albeit not one that should be practised without caution.
Saying that all mummies are objectified also ignores the very legitimate experience museum visitors can gain from seeing them. They aren't just spectacles, they can provide a connection between the past and the present, between life and death. There's a reason they tend to attract attention (attention that a more cynical part of me admits that the museums dearly need).
But there needs to be a dialogue, an awareness of the implications this practise has, ethically and historically. And the museum itself could make an effort to present the mummies in a different context; I suggested as much to the guide, who said that that was hopefully what they would manage to do in the renovated exhibition. He didn't mention any details, but the idea seemed to be to keep the mummies in a more closed off room, with a more intimate atmosphere that people could also choose to enter or not.
I'll be looking forward to seeing it in spring next year; it will almost certainly be an improvement over sterile glass cases.
After the tour we got to try a more hands-on approach as a conclusion to this course, which means I have literally got my (gloved) hands on more than 2000 years old pottery. The ten-year-old in my squeed like the girl I was (and, let's be honest, still am). Almost made me seriously reconsider my decision to go into religious studies rather than archaeology. :'3
So now I've got my last exam coming up next week, and after that... well, who knows. It's summer break, or something that constitutes as one, after all. Hopefully I'll get around to writing.
I should also really brush up on my Latin. And Ancient Greek. And, uh, should try to learn French, or perhaps German. And why did I drop Russian now again? Decisions, decisions. Maybe I should make a poll for y'all to decide. :P
This entry was originally posted at http://regndoft.dreamwidth.org/202098.html. Please comment there using OpenID.