Pagans are not claiming special status
Martin Smith and Simon May, writing on behalf of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO) (Museums Journal January 2007, p18) think that pagan claims to advocate for pre-Christian human remains are 'bogus'.
Yet if BABAO had accepted the invitation to present its case and hear alternative voices at the recent conference - Respect for Ancient British Human Remains - at the Manchester Museum, it would have learned that the intellectual argument underpinning pagan involvement is philosophically robust.
Above all, pagans are not 'claiming' special status, they are expressing a religious interest and sensitivity that must be heard.
Other communities are increasingly advocating for the reburial of human remains excavated in their localities. The days when archaeologists decide unilaterally to retain human remains indefinitely, without wider consultation, are numbered.
Piotr Bienkowski, professor of archaeology and museology, University of Manchester; Emma Restall Orr, Honouring the Ancient Dead
Seven reasons not to return the 'Elgins'
According to an article in the journal (Museums Journal November 2006, p11), at a recent hearing of the Select Committee, when Neil MacGregor was questioned by MPs John Whittingdale and Adrian Sanders, he replied to the former that there was no need to return the 'Elgin' marbles to Athens because the British Museum (BM) would be giving the Greeks a video of them; and to the latter, that only in the BM could one see 'the cultural achievements of the whole world'.
This last statement is the current favourite track (no 7) on the British Museum's album of arguments against the return of the marbles.
Other reasons have included:
1) 'It would be a different matter if the marbles could be replaced on the Parthenon.' Performed once or twice in 2003, this track is so insincere that it has now been dropped.
2) 'Bought and paid for.' This is historically false, as applied to Elgin's dealings with the Ottomans. Last officially performed as the headline for a Times leader in 1961, it still appears occasionally in letters to the right-wing press.
3) 'The poor Greeks couldn't look after them properly.' This once popular hit has become too risky to play, with the imminent completion of the New Acropolis Museum (NAM) and the story of the 1938 London 'cleaning' now more widely known.
4) 'It would open the floodgates.' This is everyone's favourite, except, oddly, the BM seldom plays it. The appeal of this argument is weakened with each restitution from UK museums that has quietly taken place without repercussions.
5) 'More people see them in London than in Athens.' This again was very popular in 2002 and 2003, until evidence from opinion polls showed that it was probably already untrue, and that position will change when the NAM opens.
6) 'It wouldn't do any good, because eight other European museums have pieces too.' Always a weak track, this was not surprisingly dropped soon after its launch in 2003. The eight have since become seven and may soon be six or even five.
7) 'Only here can you see them against the background of world culture.' Based on the 2002 classic, Declaration on Universal Museums, this is clearly now seen by MacGregor as his best hit. It may prove to be a better tune than the others, even though the 'universal' standing of the museum would be greatly enhanced by major exhibitions in fields where the BM's collections are weak, which have been offered by Greece in return for a relocation of the marbles.
Despite the public spectacle since offered by two of the declaration's signatories - the Getty and the Metropolitan - we can expect it to run and run.
When people constantly seek new arguments for doing what they've already decided to do anyway, one may suspect them of not really having a good argument.
Anthony Snodgrass, chairman, British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles
Let's have a scheme for the working class
I read the Museums Association's Diversify supplement with interest. However, I find my feelings on the subject are mixed, mainly because of two key issues.
I think means-testing candidates who enter the Diversify scheme is an extremely important issue. I'm sure that candidates who are dedicated to a career in museums will continue to pursue their masters if they can afford it.
I felt sad when I heard that the social background of wealthier candidates was not being taken into consideration with regards to this opportunity.
I am a working-class white person and I have had to borrow a substantial amount of money to pursue a masters course. Although the Diversify scheme is a good idea, I feel there are issues.
There must be other white people like me who have had to borrow huge amounts to pursue a masters degree. By fault of birth these people don't have access to this type of funding and the pittance that is available every year from the Arts and Humanities Research Council doesn't match the amount of candidates who need funds.
Maybe I shouldn't be criticising the scheme in this way, but it needs to be said. I do feel the profession needs more ethnic diversity, but it also needs more social diversity too.
The other issue I would like to raise is what does diversity really mean? For me it is more than just ethnic background, it is about having people from different social backgrounds and a workforce that also represents disabled people. I was in the minority on my masters course and I am still a minority in the profession in terms of my social background.
It would be refreshing to see more opportunities out there for people who are trying to get into the profession. In order to be truly diverse, I feel the profession needs a wider scheme, or certainly more schemes. For me diversify means exactly that, diverse!
I hope my opinions are heard and that I am not the only one who feels this way.
Claire White, freelance education and outreach officer, Belton
Hungary tells Holocaust victims' stories
In the Yehudit Inbar's profile (Museums Journal December 2006, p20-23), she says: 'There is not a museum in the whole of Europe that tells the story of what they did [to us].' However, there is a Holocaust Memorial Centre in Budapest, Hungary, founded by the Hungarian government in 2002.
The centre remembers the more than 500,000 Hungarian Jews and Roma who were destroyed in the Holocaust. The theme of the permanent exhibition is the gradual removal by the Hungarian state of everything that makes a human being a human being - rights, property, freedom, human dignity and finally life itself.
The centre has a large archive of material available for research and an education programme, and is located in a former synagogue in Páva utca in the IX district. www.hdke.hu
Nicola Bell, Northumberland
The Lowry painting is gone forever
John Carter (Museums Journal December 2006, p16-17) does not seem to realise that when a treasure such as Bury's painting by LS Lowry goes from a public collection then something unique is lost forever. Reduced opening hours, or even, a temporary closure, however regrettable, can be put right when times improve. Carter has sold Bury short.
Gillian Spencer, Wakefield
Museum closures can be a good thing
Stories of museum closures often appear on these pages. Regardless of the details of each case, the stories paint pictures of pain inflicted on the profession, and a sector in decay. Are there no instances then, where closure is part of an active strategy of renewal?
The business cases, public demand and value of some of our museums falls well short of 'asset' status. To mark the closure of such outfits with the standard call to collective grieving would seem to indicate a profession in denial. Decay is just as likely to result when passionate belief gets in the way of competent decision-making.
Peter Stott, principal officer, heritage and learning, Falkirk Museums
Ted Nugent is a responsible hunter
I enjoyed Jamie Lewis' bubbling article about the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco, Texas (Museums Journal January 2007, p61). Lip-smackingly refreshing! However, at the risk of offending any vegetarian or vegan readers, I feel duty bound to contradict the implied link between rock guitarist Ted Nugent and 'the theme of senseless killing in the surrounding suburbs' of Waco.
As anyone with even a cursory acquaintance with one of Ted's CDs or his books would know, Nugent is a huge advocate of responsible hunting with bows. Indeed, his best seller is entitled Kill It & Grill It: A Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish. Served, of course, with a socially acceptable, locally produced, ice-cold soda!
Chris Drake, museums development officer, West Sussex
Martin Smith and Simon May, writing on behalf of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO) (Museums Journal January 2007, p18) think that pagan claims to advocate for pre-Christian human remains are 'bogus'.
Yet if BABAO had accepted the invitation to present its case and hear alternative voices at the recent conference - Respect for Ancient British Human Remains - at the Manchester Museum, it would have learned that the intellectual argument underpinning pagan involvement is philosophically robust.
Above all, pagans are not 'claiming' special status, they are expressing a religious interest and sensitivity that must be heard.
Other communities are increasingly advocating for the reburial of human remains excavated in their localities. The days when archaeologists decide unilaterally to retain human remains indefinitely, without wider consultation, are numbered.
Piotr Bienkowski, professor of archaeology and museology, University of Manchester; Emma Restall Orr, Honouring the Ancient Dead
Seven reasons not to return the 'Elgins'
According to an article in the journal (Museums Journal November 2006, p11), at a recent hearing of the Select Committee, when Neil MacGregor was questioned by MPs John Whittingdale and Adrian Sanders, he replied to the former that there was no need to return the 'Elgin' marbles to Athens because the British Museum (BM) would be giving the Greeks a video of them; and to the latter, that only in the BM could one see 'the cultural achievements of the whole world'.
This last statement is the current favourite track (no 7) on the British Museum's album of arguments against the return of the marbles.
Other reasons have included:
1) 'It would be a different matter if the marbles could be replaced on the Parthenon.' Performed once or twice in 2003, this track is so insincere that it has now been dropped.
2) 'Bought and paid for.' This is historically false, as applied to Elgin's dealings with the Ottomans. Last officially performed as the headline for a Times leader in 1961, it still appears occasionally in letters to the right-wing press.
3) 'The poor Greeks couldn't look after them properly.' This once popular hit has become too risky to play, with the imminent completion of the New Acropolis Museum (NAM) and the story of the 1938 London 'cleaning' now more widely known.
4) 'It would open the floodgates.' This is everyone's favourite, except, oddly, the BM seldom plays it. The appeal of this argument is weakened with each restitution from UK museums that has quietly taken place without repercussions.
5) 'More people see them in London than in Athens.' This again was very popular in 2002 and 2003, until evidence from opinion polls showed that it was probably already untrue, and that position will change when the NAM opens.
6) 'It wouldn't do any good, because eight other European museums have pieces too.' Always a weak track, this was not surprisingly dropped soon after its launch in 2003. The eight have since become seven and may soon be six or even five.
7) 'Only here can you see them against the background of world culture.' Based on the 2002 classic, Declaration on Universal Museums, this is clearly now seen by MacGregor as his best hit. It may prove to be a better tune than the others, even though the 'universal' standing of the museum would be greatly enhanced by major exhibitions in fields where the BM's collections are weak, which have been offered by Greece in return for a relocation of the marbles.
Despite the public spectacle since offered by two of the declaration's signatories - the Getty and the Metropolitan - we can expect it to run and run.
When people constantly seek new arguments for doing what they've already decided to do anyway, one may suspect them of not really having a good argument.
Anthony Snodgrass, chairman, British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles
Let's have a scheme for the working class
I read the Museums Association's Diversify supplement with interest. However, I find my feelings on the subject are mixed, mainly because of two key issues.
I think means-testing candidates who enter the Diversify scheme is an extremely important issue. I'm sure that candidates who are dedicated to a career in museums will continue to pursue their masters if they can afford it.
I felt sad when I heard that the social background of wealthier candidates was not being taken into consideration with regards to this opportunity.
I am a working-class white person and I have had to borrow a substantial amount of money to pursue a masters course. Although the Diversify scheme is a good idea, I feel there are issues.
There must be other white people like me who have had to borrow huge amounts to pursue a masters degree. By fault of birth these people don't have access to this type of funding and the pittance that is available every year from the Arts and Humanities Research Council doesn't match the amount of candidates who need funds.
Maybe I shouldn't be criticising the scheme in this way, but it needs to be said. I do feel the profession needs more ethnic diversity, but it also needs more social diversity too.
The other issue I would like to raise is what does diversity really mean? For me it is more than just ethnic background, it is about having people from different social backgrounds and a workforce that also represents disabled people. I was in the minority on my masters course and I am still a minority in the profession in terms of my social background.
It would be refreshing to see more opportunities out there for people who are trying to get into the profession. In order to be truly diverse, I feel the profession needs a wider scheme, or certainly more schemes. For me diversify means exactly that, diverse!
I hope my opinions are heard and that I am not the only one who feels this way.
Claire White, freelance education and outreach officer, Belton
Hungary tells Holocaust victims' stories
In the Yehudit Inbar's profile (Museums Journal December 2006, p20-23), she says: 'There is not a museum in the whole of Europe that tells the story of what they did [to us].' However, there is a Holocaust Memorial Centre in Budapest, Hungary, founded by the Hungarian government in 2002.
The centre remembers the more than 500,000 Hungarian Jews and Roma who were destroyed in the Holocaust. The theme of the permanent exhibition is the gradual removal by the Hungarian state of everything that makes a human being a human being - rights, property, freedom, human dignity and finally life itself.
The centre has a large archive of material available for research and an education programme, and is located in a former synagogue in Páva utca in the IX district. www.hdke.hu
Nicola Bell, Northumberland
The Lowry painting is gone forever
John Carter (Museums Journal December 2006, p16-17) does not seem to realise that when a treasure such as Bury's painting by LS Lowry goes from a public collection then something unique is lost forever. Reduced opening hours, or even, a temporary closure, however regrettable, can be put right when times improve. Carter has sold Bury short.
Gillian Spencer, Wakefield
Museum closures can be a good thing
Stories of museum closures often appear on these pages. Regardless of the details of each case, the stories paint pictures of pain inflicted on the profession, and a sector in decay. Are there no instances then, where closure is part of an active strategy of renewal?
The business cases, public demand and value of some of our museums falls well short of 'asset' status. To mark the closure of such outfits with the standard call to collective grieving would seem to indicate a profession in denial. Decay is just as likely to result when passionate belief gets in the way of competent decision-making.
Peter Stott, principal officer, heritage and learning, Falkirk Museums
Ted Nugent is a responsible hunter
I enjoyed Jamie Lewis' bubbling article about the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco, Texas (Museums Journal January 2007, p61). Lip-smackingly refreshing! However, at the risk of offending any vegetarian or vegan readers, I feel duty bound to contradict the implied link between rock guitarist Ted Nugent and 'the theme of senseless killing in the surrounding suburbs' of Waco.
As anyone with even a cursory acquaintance with one of Ted's CDs or his books would know, Nugent is a huge advocate of responsible hunting with bows. Indeed, his best seller is entitled Kill It & Grill It: A Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish. Served, of course, with a socially acceptable, locally produced, ice-cold soda!
Chris Drake, museums development officer, West Sussex
