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Archive for the 'Galton Collection' Category

‘Racial Type’ Heads from Memphis, Egypt

By Debbie J Challis, on 21 September 2011

Last week the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology put about 50 of the ‘racial type’ heads that Flinders Petrie collected out on display for the first time as part of the exhibition Typecast: Flinders Petrie and Francis Galton. There are over 300 of these in the museum’s collection but this tray is actually labeled ‘racial heads’. They were part of Petrie’s ideas around race and identifying racial groups in archaeology. Petrie thought that these heads were expressly modeled by Greek artists of foreigners. He described them, in his publications as belonging to different ‘racial types’, such as this one UC48501 as being a ‘Kurd’:

UC48501 The Kurd (73) has the crossed turban which belongs to the Central Asian and Kurd race, but not to the Semitic peoples. Mr Hogarth informs me that the type of the face agrees to that of the modern Kurds, who were well known to the Greeks as the Karduchi. This is the finest piece of modelling among all the heads; the delicacy with which the features are worked, the detail of the ear being pressed forward by the turban, wrinkling it on the inner side, and the spirit of expression put this in the front rank.

Memphis II, 17

Petrie only collected the heads and paid for the workers for heads, which means that not only is there little evidence about the rest of the terracotta but that they may also have created fakes for Petrie. Sally-Ann Ashton, Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, argued at an event last Thursday that this head was a good example of a fake head.

A postgraduate student Katherine Aitchison attended Sally-Ann’ s talk last Thursday and has blogged about the event here. Do pop along to the Petrie Museum and take a look for yourselves!

Race, Starkey and Remembering

By Debbie J Challis, on 16 August 2011

David Starkey’s comments that ‘whites have become black’ on the BBC2 programme Newsnight on Friday 12 August 2011 have been condemned in most of the media and by many politicians. There are a few who make the valid argument for freedom to say what we like, while others contend that Starkey was referring to a particular form of ‘black’ gangsta culture. The BBC has had over 700 complaints. The black MP for Tottenham David Lammy, whom Starkey described as sounding ‘white’, implied that Starkey should stick to Tudor history. The classicist Mary Beard has pointed out that any historian worth their salt should be able to apply their tools of critique to any period.  In this I concur.

David Starkey on Newsnight

Here I speak personally for myself and not for UCL or for any of my colleagues.

Starkey’s generalisations uncomfortably reminded me of Francis Galton’s letter to The Times on 5 June 1873 advocating that the Chinese move into Africa and take over from the ‘inferior negro’. Galton wrote: (more…)

The Grave of Francis Galton

By Debbie J Challis, on 7 July 2011

Occasionally I leave the museum bunker to give talks about the museum, exhibitions and my research. A few weeks ago I went out to the lovely village of Claverdon in Warwickshire to give a talk on Francis Galton.

2011 is the centenary of the death of the scientist Sir Francis Galton. Francis Galton's Grave in Claverdon GraveyardLast year the churchwarden Jonathan Evans got in touch with UCL Museums and Collections as they had received funding from the Galton Institute to clean up and conserve Galton’s grave in Claverdon church’s graveyard. (more…)

Typecast Today

By Debbie J Challis, on 6 April 2011

Typecast Today? News and Opinion on Genetics, Heredity and Race. . .

 

The exhibition Typecast opened at the Petrie Museum last week and we officially open together with the UCL Library’s Francis Galton: An Enquiring Mind tomorrow evening. Whilst I was preparing the ‘private view’ information a few cursory clicks on google brought up the following headlines around ‘genetics’, ‘breeding’, ‘family tree’  . . .

4 April 2011 BBC News

Five more Alzheimer’s genes discovered, scientists say http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12937131
(more…)

Borrowing Galton

By ucwenlm, on 8 February 2011

Although my main role is Manager of the Grant Museum of Zoology, one of my responsibilities is to act as Curator for the Galton Collection. Francis Galton (1822-1911) is best known today for being a pioneer of modern eugenics, a fingerprint enthusiast and a cousin of Charles Darwin. The collection consists of over 500 objects, largely made up of Galton’s personal belongings and scientific instruments. Although small, the Galton Collection provokes a great deal of interest from both researchers and artists, partly due to the relevance of many of the themes and questions it raises in terms of identify, race and human rights.

As the Galton is a small research collection that is available for viewing only by appointment, one of my main remits is to promote and facilitate loans to exhibitions taking place in other museums. In this way, as many people as possible get to access this material in a way that they wouldn’t do ordinarily. This is quite a time-consuming process, but the rewards are great – for example, the Wellcome Collection dedicated a large section of their excellent exhibition The Identity Project to Galton, meaning that nearly 80,000 people accessed a large chunk of the UCL Galton material in just a few months. It also means that the items can be seen by an international audience – I have just had loan of seven objects returned from the Hygiene Museum in Dresden.
(more…)