SPK will return human remains to Australia
Press release from 09/11/2020
Human remains in the collections of the Ethnological Museum of the National Museums in Berlin are returned to Australia.
The Australian government has been in dialogue with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) for several years regarding human remains from the collections of the Ethnological Museum. These are human bones in a bark coffin and two mummified children's bodies. In February 2020, Australia requested the repatriation of these remains. The Board of Trustees has now approved the proposal of the President of the SPK to fulfil this request.
Both the coffin and the mummified children's bodies were added to the museum's collection in 1880. According to the museum documents, the human remains in the bark coffin originate from Queensland. They were given to the museum by H. Kortüm. The child mummies came to the collections via the missionary James Chalmers.
Hermann Parzinger, President of the SPK, says: "The human remains of the three people all come from burial sites. We assume that they were collected and brought to Berlin without the consent of the surviving relatives - and that is why we want to return them."
"By returning these human remains, we want to fulfil our responsibility. We regret the historical injustice committed and see it as our duty to contribute to reparation with this first step," says Lars-Christian Koch, Director of the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art of the National Museums in Berlin.
A repatriation policy has been in place in Australia since 2011, which supports Indigenous Australians in reclaiming and repatriating the human remains of their ancestors from abroad. The Office for the Arts of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications is responsible for the international repatriation of human remains of Indigenous Australians under the Australian Government's Indigenous Repatriation Programme. The President of the SPK will now conclude an agreement on repatriation with this organisation.