As October begins, you may see the Halloween decorations of mummies or skeletons in the lawns of your neighborhood. Outside your neighborhood and inside the museums of your city, those remains may not be a plastic joke, but the remains of a real person.
AU’s Near Eastern and Biblical Archaeology Jeeninga Museum hosts a wide variety of artifacts, including some rarer finds that draw in scholars from around the country. Some of these artifacts bring up a somewhat controversial conversation of museums ethical practices in the presentation of exhibits.
Unlike inanimate objects, displaying human remains attempts to balance cultural respect and traditions with public education and curiosity. Egyptian mummies have been displayed in world renowned museums such as the British Museum and the Smithsonian for decades. However, in 2015, the Museum of Natural History, part of the Smithsonian institution in Washington, D.C., made the decision to revise the museum’s stance on displaying human remains.
In the Smithsonian’s official “Collections Policy and Procedures” handbook, the revision reads “Except for archaic, prehistoric, and fossil material, the Museum does not display human remains in its exhibitions or in public or education department programs out of respect for the sensitivities of descendant communities, the public and staff generally, and the sanctity of human life.”
After the removal of human remains from the Smithsonian Institute, the displays brought in substitution or supplementary videos, artifacts and more to still give the educational output of the original exhibit but with the absence of the human remains.
As Chair of the history and political science department Jaye-Lee Rogers, Ph.D., as well as a professional historian for the better part of 20 years, Rogers has seen many museums and has taught courses on presentation and preservation for AU’s public history major; a focus on museum curation.
Last year, when Rogers was on sabbatical, she toured a dozen odd museums both within the United States as well as internationally; mainly in England and Scotland.
“I would prefer to always see the replica, because of that need to revere or to respect, to honor this once living person,” Rogers said. “I am uncomfortable thinking I have the right to see that just because I come from a dominant culture that seized those from places and took them and located them, not even in the home country, but thousands of miles away.”
Rogers talked about how different museums will try to produce an interactive and educational display, mentioning how some museums have taken the steps towards the culturally sensitive mindset. “What are you trying to get from this? Are you trying to evoke some emotions, some empathy? Are you trying to get people to just understand this happened?” These are the questions that Rogers finds drive the answer to if a museum is using human remains, replicas or supplementary materials.
David Murphy, Ph.D., the director of the Jeeninga Museum since 2017 was responsible for the Museum moving locations from the School of Theology building to the York Performance Hall. In the original display of the museum, an Egyptian mummified hand was on display. Once the artifacts were moved, Murphy and Tai Laipan, a former professor of arts at AU, decided to reevaluate the pieces on display. The hand ended up stored in an archive and replicas were moved to a display outside the museum in the lobby area.
“Museums have to ask themselves what pedagogical or educational purpose is served by exhibiting this piece of a human being that isn’t served, that can’t be met in some other way?” Murphy said. “We have a significant number of other materials that conveyed what we felt visitors to the museum ought to know about the connection of Egyptian antiquity with the other antique eras and places that we were talking about, that we didn’t need to also have human remains out there.”
Murphy talked about how the conversation of human remains in terms of standards, ethics and legalism had changed over the last 40 years and the significance of having these dialogues. “It’s important that we understand the past. It’s important that we understand history,” continued Murphy. “Sometimes this can be a part of that, but it’s also important that we’re sensitive to the cultural identities and claims to self definition of that identity.”
As part of a private institution, the Jeeninga Museum is not under the ethical guidelines that many larger museums are through associations such as the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). However, these ethical codes are not necessarily straightforward in detailing how human remains should be displayed, or not displayed. Instead, the AAM uses generic wording that allows museums to participate in its own interpretation of the guidelines.
The only direct mention of human remains in the AAM Code of Ethics is that museums will ensure “the unique and special nature of human remains and funerary and sacred objects is recognized as the basis of all decisions concerning such collections.”
Students of history are having these discussions in classroom settings through learning and analyzing the various sides of the ethical debate. Junior Samantha Armstrong, a public history major with a literary studies minor, talked about how both sides offered a strong argument for the display of human remains.
“From one point of view, I could see how it’s very informational, but I can also see how people might get uncomfortable with the thought of ‘I [the culture] didn’t give permission for this,” said Armstrong. “[Museums should] maybe looking [sic] into the culture of the civilization to see if on the whole people from that civilization would be okay with something like that.”
Currently, museums are responsible for their own policies, and the Jeeninga Museum has decided against the display of human remains. Instead, there is a rich catalog of artifacts that provide a supplementary education in a combination of authentic items and high quality replicas.
To visit and learn more about the Jeeninga Museum, plan a visit through https://anderson.edu/galleries/jeeninga-museum/.