Recently, the University Museum of Groningen has announced the removal of human remains from its exhibitions.
The museum holds one of the oldest historical anatomical collections in the Netherlands. Some of these remains were collected by Petrus Camper (1722-1789), a Dutch anatomist whose measurements and drawings of human skulls were foundational to ‘scientific racism.
Researchers from the program ‘Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums’ and the University of Groningen authored a themed issue about Camper’s colonial legacy – ‘Dissecting the anatomist’ (De ontleder ontleed) – in De Boekenwereld of Amsterdam University Press.
Among their findings was the provenance of ancestral remains of a Khoikhoi woman sent to Camper in 1774.
Her grave was robbed by one of Camper’s students about 50 kilometers southeast of Cape Town, South Africa, near present-day Gordon’s Bay.
These ancestral remains, and all of Camper’s ‘collection,’ were bought by Dutch King Willem I and gifted to the University of Groningen in 1820. They are still there today.
