A Shield Loaded with History

Encounters, Objects and Exhibitions

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12344153
AutoresMaria Nugent (0000-0001-5258-697X, Australian National University, autor de correspondencia), Gaye Sculthorpe (0000-0002-0881-8961, The British MuseumEmail)
Año2018
Volumen49
Número1
Páginas28-43
Fecha de publicación2018-01-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAustralian Historical Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1031-461X • E-ISSN: 1940-5049
EditorialRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1031461x.2017.1408663
OpenAlexW2792851053
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11

This article discusses an Aboriginal shield in the British Museum which is widely believed to have been used in the first encounter between Lieutenant James Cook's expedition and the Gweagal people at Botany Bay in late April 1770. It traces the ways in which the shield became ‘Cook-related’, and increasingly represented and exhibited in that way. In the wake of its exhibition at the National Museum of Australia in late 2015 and early 2016, the shield gained further public prominence and has become enmeshed within a wider politics of reconciliation. A recent request from the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council to the British Museum to review knowledge about the shield has contributed to a reappraisal of claims about its connection to Cook's 1770 expedition. Preliminary findings of this review are presented. In the process, the article addresses larger questions concerning the politics surrounding the interpretation of the shield as a historically ‘loaded’ object

Archaeology · Art history · Exhibition · Interpretation (philosophy · Object (grammar · Political science · Politics · Shield · Sociology · Conservation Techniques and Studies · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History · Law · Museums and Cultural Heritage · Philosophy · Geology · Paleontology