![]() Here he tells the story of how it got there, and how it was eventually reburied. Both men were killed, after which revolutionaries sawed off their heads, put them on pikes, and paraded them through the streets, which was likely no easy task as a human head weighs about 7kg or 15.4 lbs. ![]() Although the tsansa have been very popular artifacts with visitors, when the museum reopens on September 22, they will be moved and will not be available for public viewing until further notice. Thirty years ago, Frank Westerman was shocked to find an African warrior's body on display in a Spanish museum. But when the Oxford institution reopens on September 22, the tsantsa will no longer be on. In a press release, the museum explains its choice by saying, “although popular with some, visitors mostly understood the Museum’s displays of human remains as a testament to other cultures being “savage,” “primitive” or “gruesome,” revealing that the displays did not align with the Museum’s core values of enabling our visitors to reach deeper understanding of humanities’ many ways of being, knowing and coping but reiterated racist stereotypes. A fter 80 years on display, Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum has removed several tsantsa, or shrunken heads, from display. Ancient Greek and Roman sources claimed that Celts living in Gaul decapitated their enemies after battle and hung the heads around their horses’ necks as trophies. This case was brought by a French Muslim woman who wears a burqa (a full-body covering including a mesh screen over the face) or a niqab (a full-face veil. Since going on display in the 1940s, the heads have been one of the museum’s most prominent attractions. According to the museum’s audience research, visitors often viewed the heads as an indication of the “savagery” and “primitiveness” of other cultures, reinforcing serious racist stereotypes. Touring the Paris Catacombs Artistically arranged human bones and skulls line the walls of these dark tunnels under the city of light, accompanied by plaques. Slowly but surely the quarrymen lined the walls with tibias and femurs punctuated with skulls which form the basis of most of the decorations that tourists see. Between 18 the museum acquired a total of 12 tsantsas - seven human heads (only three of which are deemed authentic while the rest are thought to be forgeries made from bodies taken from morgues) and the rest belonging to sloths or monkeys.Īn ethical examination has been made of the museum’s entire inventory, resulting in the heads being removed. ![]()
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