The sacred in secular societies

Those nations and cultural groups lobbying Western museums for the restitution of cultural property acquired during the colonial period are accustomed to having their requests denied on the grounds that modern museums should not be required to atone for historical contingencies. A recent declaration by a group of leading international museum directors phrased it like this: ‘The objects and monumental works that were installed decades and even centuries ago in museums throughout Europe and America were acquired under conditions that are not comparable with current ones.’ In other words, that was then, this is now.

This simple appeal to an unwritten statute of limitations on illicitly acquired material is about to run into new obstacles as the question of human remains returns to the top of the cultural agenda. The increasingly frequent requests by Aboriginal groups for the return of human remains ‘harvested’ during the colonial period and subsequently absorbed into UK museum collections led to the establishment by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in May 2001 of the Working Group on Human Remains, which will make its initial recommendations to ministers in the coming weeks.