Tag: museums

Museum claims black women ‘more likely to die of the plague’ in medieval London because of ‘premodern structural racism’

A museum has claimed black women were more likely to die of the plague in medieval London because of ‘premodern structural racism’.

The new study, which fails to put an estimate on how many black people were living in the capital during the period, examined the remains of just 145 individuals – from the time of a plague which killed nearly half of London’s 70,000-strong population. 

What is now often referred to as the Black Death killed millions of people across Europe and Asia between 1348 and 1350. 

The first recorded African resident in the capital was a man called Cornelius, who was in London in 1593. However, one of the researchers involved in the study claimed that the medieval capital of England was ‘a black London’. 

The remains that were studied by researchers from the Museum of London and academics in the US came from three London cemeteries, but only 49 of the sample actually died from the plague.  

The research found there were significantly higher proportions of people of colour and those of Black African descent in plague burials compared to non-plague burials.

Nine plague victims appeared to be of African heritage, while 40 seemed to have white European or Asian ancestry. Among the remains in non-plague burials, the figures were eight and 88 respectively.    

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America’s Biggest Museums Fail to Return Native American Human Remains

As the United States pushed Native Americans from their lands to make way for westward expansion throughout the 1800s, museums and the federal government encouraged the looting of Indigenous remains, funerary objects and cultural items. Many of the institutions continue to hold these today — and in some cases resist their return despite the 1990 passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

“We never ceded or relinquished our dead. They were stolen,” James Riding In, then an Arizona State University professor who is Pawnee, said of the unreturned remains.

ProPublica this year is investigating the failure of NAGPRA to bring about the expeditious return of human remains by federally funded universities and museums. Our reporting, in partnership with NBC News, has found that a small group of institutions and government bodies has played an outsized role in the law’s failure.

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‘PAPERS, PLEASE’: Holocaust Museum Makes Visitors Present Vaccine Passport To Enter

The Illinois Holocaust Museum recently announced that visitors over the age of five must present their COVID-19 vaccine passport to enter the building, prompting mockery from health freedom advocates.

According to a statement from the Illinois Holocaust Museum, visitors over the age of five must present “proof of full COVID-19 vaccination to enter the building as of January 5, 2022.”

Those over 16 must also provide photo identification that matches that on their COVID-19 passport of choice.

Despite requiring COVID-19 vaccine passports, attendees must also wear face masks.

“If you do not follow these guidelines, you may be asked to leave the Museum,” the museum’s website warns.

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Berlin: vandalism of museum artefacts ‘linked to conspiracy theorists’

At least 70 artworks and ancient artefacts across three galleries on Berlin’s museum island were vandalised with an oily substance earlier this month, German media has reported.

Objects including Egyptian sarcophagi, stone sculptures and 19th-century paintings held at the Pergamon Museum, the Alte Nationalgalerie and the Neues Museum sustained visible damage during the attack on 3 October, according to reports in the weekly Die Zeit and broadcaster Deutschlandfunk on Tuesday.

News of the attack was kept from the public for more than two weeks.

The Prussian Heritage Foundation, which oversees the museum island collections, reportedly confirmed that objects in the exhibitions had sustained damage. Police in the German capital said they had launched an investigation but would not comment on a motive behind the attack.

In 2018 two women were arrested in the Greek capital, Athens, after smearing museum exhibits at the National Museum of History with an oily substance. The two women, later identified as being of Bulgarian origin, told police they were spraying the artworks with oil and myrrh “because the Holy Scripture says it is miraculous”.

But German media have linked the museum island attack to conspiracy theories pushed through social media channels by prominent coronavirus deniers in recent months.

One such theory claims that the Pergamon Museum is the centre of the “global satanism scene” because it holds a reconstruction of the ancient Greek Pergamon Altar.

Attila Hildmann, a former vegan celebrity chef who has become one of Germany’s best-known proponents of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory, posted messages on Telegram in August and September in which he suggested that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was using the altar for “human sacrifices”.

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