Facing skeletons. Reflections on three Stone Age portraits

Abstract

The discussions in this article relate to the already existing literature about bodies in museum exhibitions and the tension between humanization and dehumanization, individualization and objectification. It approaches the archaeological exhibition practice called “forensic art”. Forensic art means giving a face and identity to human skeletons through specific methods. The point of departure is three different reconstructions based on the remains of two Stone Age women presented at two different museums, one in Norway and one in Sweden, from the beginning of the 1990s until 2006. These reconstructions are highlighted here as entangled and related objects. The article explores the tensions that arise between bodies as scientific objects and as individualized subjects and the tensions that occur between bodies as facts and as fiction. In addition, it examines the work of faces in museum exhibitions and discusses how race seems to be an issue, albeit not communicated nor discussed with the audience. At the same time, race is narrated into the reconstructed faces and becomes a bodily fact the audience meets physically.

Museums as Deathscapes

“…Accordingly, it is the bones belonging to the ancestors of a conceived 'majority population' that are on display, and not remains taken from a 'minority' group within Sweden, or skulls and skeletons brought to the museum from some far away indigenous people. Given the amount of ethical reasoning that in recent years has been directed towards the intrinsic dilemma of showing or not showing human remains in museums, this is no doubt an important circumstance (Fabian 2010, Exell 2016, Jenkins 2016, Hjemdahl 2017.…”