An estimated 350,000 African artifacts have been found in university collections, from human remains and photographs to natural history specimens and manuscripts.
Dr. Eva Namusoke spent 15 months liaising with librarians, curators and archivists at the University of Cambridge, delving into their shops to discover the objects.
It is “fairly common” for major museums not to display most of their collections, but it was “still surprising to see this scale and diversity across the African continent, and some have been there for decades,” she said.
The project is the latest work at the university to answer questions about its museums’ relationship with colonization and slavery and reveals that the majority of artefacts were acquired during British colonization.
This recipe for a medieval anesthetic cough syrup is one of 200,000 manuscripts or books found in a synagogue in Cairo and brought back to Cambridge, making it part of the world’s largest collection of medieval Jewish manuscripts [University Library]
Dr. Namusoke, senior curator of African Collections Future at the Fitzwilliam Museum, said the majority of the Africa-related artefacts have not been on display and she hopes they will now be shared and explored more widely.
They were found in the shops and archives of the eight museums and the Botanic Garden that make up the Museums of the University of Cambridge, as well as the University Library and lesser-known collections of university departments and institutions.
They range from Maasai [tribe] bracelets donated by a colonial administrator, a small mammal collected in a concentration camp from the Boer War (1899-1902), a collection of medieval Jewish manuscripts and early photographs of African people.
The connection with British colonization
A spring hare collected in South Africa in 1901, during the Boer War, a bitter colonial war between the British Empire and Afrikaans-speaking Boer farmers [University Museum of Zoology]
The majority of the artefacts were acquired during British colonization; some were donated, purchased, commissioned or excavated, while others were stolen, confiscated or looted.
The Museum of Archeology and Anthropology holds a gold necklace from Ghana believed to have been looted from the palace of Asantehene Kofi Karikari during the Third Anglo-Asante War of 1873-1874, while there are 116 objects related to the British-led punitive campaign and plunder of the Kingdom of Benin in 1897, in present-day southern Nigeria.
Dr. Namusoke said: “I was prepared to find such material, as is the case in many museums around the world.”
The necklace was looted during another colonial war and was later purchased in London by a graduate of Girton College, Cambridge and donated to the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology. [Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology]
She said the 19th century scientific method of collecting and colonizing “went very much hand in hand”.
“The university owns dodo skeletons because of a personal relationship between someone in Cambridge and the colonial administrator in Mauritius,” she said.
“There is a development happening with anthropology and the governance of colonies, which means researchers have the framework to study and research the people and their culture.”
Uncovering African labor and expertise
African people shared valuable knowledge, worked as translators, tracked and hunted animals, prepared specimens and artifacts for travel, among many other activities [Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology]
Dr Namusoke’s report notes how “frustratingly little” has been recorded about the skills, expertise and local knowledge deployed by African workers in collecting the specimens or artefacts.
“There is an example I give from Cameroon in the 1930s where it is clear that there is a huge amount of African labor involved,” she said.
“They tracked and hunted the animals, including Cameroonian men who lay on their bellies for hours with test tubes to collect spiders and snails.”
‘It was absolutely about using local labor and expertise, their intellectual, physical and creative labour.
“The focus was on the European scientists who did the collecting, not on the work that made it possible.”
Report findings at a glance
Tens of thousands of archaeological objects from Egypt, held by the Fitzwilliam and Archeology and Anthropology Museums, have been intensively studied since the late 19th century. [The Fitzwilliam Museum]
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Egypt is the best represented African country in the university’s collections, with tens of thousands of archaeological objects and manuscripts
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The Museum of Archeology and Anthropology has an estimated 137,000 objects, but less than 1% are on display
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It also curates more than 29,000 photographs, including early images of African people from the 1860s
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About 100,000 African specimens are kept in the Museum of Zoology, while the Herbarium (with preserved plants) has the least well-researched collection
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The Duckworth Laboratory holds about 4,800 ancient human remains from Egypt and 1,200 from Sudan, but there is little documentation of how about 750 other African remains were collected.
The report is an introduction to the university’s African collections, but is not comprehensive [Museum of Zoology]
The project is part of Collections-Connections-Communities, which has previously resulted in an exhibition at Fitzwilliam exploring the museum’s financial ties to the transatlantic slave trade.
The report concludes with a number of recommendations to promote further research, collaboration and engagement, especially with African scientists and communities.
“But the next big step is increasing visibility and allowing people to explore the collections for themselves,” said Dr. Namusoke.
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