{"id":1148,"date":"2010-09-14T16:40:34","date_gmt":"2010-09-14T15:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?p=1148"},"modified":"2011-01-27T21:48:33","modified_gmt":"2011-01-27T20:48:33","slug":"the-british-museum-and-a-forgotten-continent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?p=1148","title":{"rendered":"The British Museum and a ‘forgotten continent’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British Museum richly deserves the recent donation of 25 million from Lord Sainsbury.\u00a0 Over the last few years it has been playing at the top of its game, with some breath-taking exhibitions and intelligent curatorship.\u00a0 In Neil MacGregor it has a capable and charismatic Director, whose series A History of the World in 100 Objects<\/em>, now just drawing to a close, has been one of the broadcasting successes of the decade.<\/p>\n

But \u2013 and it is a very big but \u2013 there is one stain on an otherwise exemplary stewardship.\u00a0 Look around the Museum and the visitor will quickly notice that an entire continent has been side-lined<\/strong>, excluded from what claims to be a \u2018world museum\u2019.\u00a0 All the ancient civilisations have a gallery devoted to their achievements except one:\u00a0 South America.<\/p>\n

It is as if the achievements of the Incas and their extraordinary pre-Columbian forbears had never happened:\u00a0 the wonders of Machu Picchu;\u00a0 the gold tombs and masks of the Moche, often compared to Tutankhamen;\u00a0\u00a0the Nasca culture who produced the famous lines;\u00a0 or the many other intriguing pre-Columbian cultures of the Amazon and of Peru.<\/p>\n

There are a few objects scattered around amidst other wider collections \u2013 but no permanent and focussed gallery;\u00a0 nor has there been any exhibition about the Incas or South America for many decades; nor is the Museum planning to hold one, though it is perfectly possible\u2013 as Paris and New York do frequently \u2013 or to get long-term loans for a gallery. It is just that there is no particular will to do so. The Museum actually has plenty of holdings on South America shut up in the basement, left over from the old and now closed Museum of Mankind.<\/p>\n

The centenary of the discovery of Machu Picchu falls next year, for instance, an event that the rest of the world is already celebrating \u2013 Paris has an exhibition right now \u2013 and which we are doing absolutely nothing about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The last time that the Museum was given money and Andeanists expected a long-standing wrong finally to be put right, the new gallery unveiled was\u2026 a Watch Gallery. Perhaps this time around the money should be used to represent a forgotten continent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The British Museum richly deserves the recent donation of 25 million from Lord Sainsbury.\u00a0 Over the last few years it has been playing at the top of its game, with some breath-taking exhibitions and intelligent curatorship.\u00a0 In Neil MacGregor it has a capable and charismatic Director, whose series A History of the World in 100 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[62,63,32,64],"class_list":["post-1148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-peru","category-uncategorized","tag-british-museum","tag-incas","tag-machu-picchu","tag-neil-macgregor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1148"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1451,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions\/1451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}