Why museums are returning cultural treasures
1,555,986 views | Chip Colwell • TEDxMileHigh
Archaeologist and curator Chip Colwell collects artifacts for his museum, but he also returns them to where they came from. In a thought-provoking talk, he shares how some museums are confronting their legacies of stealing spiritual objects and pillaging ancient graves -- and how they're bridging divides with communities who are demanding the return of their cultural treasures.
Archaeologist and curator Chip Colwell collects artifacts for his museum, but he also returns them to where they came from. In a thought-provoking talk, he shares how some museums are confronting their legacies of stealing spiritual objects and pillaging ancient graves -- and how they're bridging divides with communities who are demanding the return of their cultural treasures.
This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxMileHigh, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.
Read more about TEDx.About the speaker
Chip Colwell is an archaeologist who tries to answer the tangled question: Who owns the past?
Chip Colwell | University of Chicago Press, 2017 | Book
Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America's Culture
This book offers a lively personal account of the process of repatriation, following the trail of four objects as they were created, collected, and ultimately returned to their sources. These stories reveal a dramatic process that involves not merely obeying the law, but negotiating the blurry lines between identity and morality, spirituality and politics.
David Hurst Thomas | Basic Books, 2000 | Book
Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, and the Battle for Native American Identity
Renowned scholar David Hurst Thomas’ book investigates the historical development of archaeology and how it came to appropriate Native American culture and identity. The book swirls around one of the most contested skeletons in recent memory — the 9,000-year-old Kennewick Man — to argue that the central struggle between archaeologists and Native Americans is most basically about power and control.
Samuel J. Redman | Harvard University Press, 2016 | Book
Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums
Historian Samuel J. Redman has written an invaluable story about museums and how they became so enthralled with the human body. Hint: ideas of “race” and the realities of racism play central characters.
Kenn Harper | Washington Square Press, 2000 | Book
Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo
In 1897, explorer Robert E. Peary brought six Inuit to New York where they could be live “specimens” for anthropologists at the American Museum of Natural History. Four die soon after their arrival, and the body of one is stolen for scientific study. This tragic story is unforgettable and haunting.
Jay D. Aronson | University of Harvard Press, 2016 | Book
Who Owns the Dead? The Science and Politics of Death at Ground Zero
The struggle over human remains extends far beyond Native America. This chilling history of the 9/11 victims of the World Trade Center is necessary reading, and will make you ask hard questions about those with power over human remains.
Michael Kammen | University of Chicago Press, 2010 | Book
Digging Up the Dead: A History of Notable American Reburials
A surprising number of famous and infamous Americans have been exhumed from their graves—and returned back into the earth. This fascinatingly macabre history will keep you turning the pages and wondering it means to rest in peace.
Learn more
About TEDx
TEDx was created in the spirit of TED's mission, "ideas worth spreading." It supports independent organizers who want to create a TED-like event in their own community.
This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxMileHigh, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.
Read more about TEDx.