On yesterday's ARD programme "FAKT" about human remains from the former colony of German East Africa / Parzinger does not rule out returns
Press release from 11/23/2016
Yesterday's programme FAKT (ARD, 21.45 hrs) reported on allegedly new finds of human skulls from the colonial era, including in an alleged in a supposed "secret depot" of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. Cultural Heritage Foundation.
In 2014 and 2015, the SPK issued several press releases about these human remains from ethnological contexts that are in its care. This is the so-called S-Collection of Felix von Luschan, which consists of around 5,600 skulls collected by the researcher between around 1885 and 1920. The SPK took over this anthropological collection in 2011 in a very poor condition from the Charité, where it had been stored in a bunker under inadequate conditions. The collection is now stored in the central depot of the National Museums in Berlin in a dignified and appropriate manner.
Since taking over the collection, the Museum of Prehistory and Early History, which is part of the SPK, has cleaned and comprehensively conserved the skulls. The exact origin of the human remains will now be successively clarified over the coming years. "We are not ruling out returns here," says SPK President Hermann Parzinger. A research database is currently being created, which will then also be accessible for scientific purposes, and it is also being checked whether the Charité lists, on which the "FAKT" report is apparently based, correspond to the Foundation's actual holdings.
As part of the provenance research, the skulls from present-day Rwanda and Tanzania are being prioritised for examination. The figures mentioned in the FAKT report are roughly in line with the current state of knowledge of the Museum of Prehistory and Early History. However, in view of the fact that in-depth provenance research is still pending, the SPK is currently unable to state whether or how many skulls are in the collection which, as FAKT reported, "come from rebels who were executed by German troops during the colonial wars and whose body parts were sent to Berlin for research purposes".
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation's basic position on the handling of human remains in its collections also applies. Among other things, these state the following regarding the handling of human remains from ethically questionable origins: "If, when researching the origin, it emerges that the acquisition took place under circumstances that are now considered unethical, a responsible decision must be made [...] regarding the further handling of the human remains in question. [...] The further course of action should be discussed with the representatives of the society of origin if necessary. However, this presupposes that a clear assignment of the remains to such a society of origin is possible. A responsible decision must then be taken [...] on how to proceed [...]. This may also consist of handing over the remains to the society of origin, if the latter so wishes. In special individual cases, burial of the remains is also conceivable where the remains cannot be assigned to a society of origin."
Further links
- Basic positions of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation on the handling of human remains in the collections of the National Museums in Berlin (PDF, 39 KB)
- Press release: "Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation presents its basic position on the handling of human remains in the collections of the National Museums in Berlin" (31 March 2015)
- Press release: "On the temporary care of the former Charité collection of human remains in the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz" (21 March 2014)