Monthly Archives: July 2024

Cast number 1740 “Caverne de Baye” trepaned skull, La Plata Museum

When one skull can hide another!

by Séverine Georgin

Two trepaned skulls are now on display in a showcase in the Anthropology Room of the Museo de La Plata. Their museography highlights two trepanning techniques practised in Peru within a showcase entitled “modificaciones corporales”, associating trepanning with other bodily mutilations such as cranial deformation and dental alterations. Carved stone surgical instruments and a small metal tumi (a semi-circular-bladed ceremonial knife used in pre-Hispanic Peru) allow visitors to imagine the techniques used and perhaps the suffering endured [Fridberg, 2006]. The two labels indicate that these are replicas and that their provenance is Peruvian. The cast on the left, pierced by multiple circular holes, is made of resin and is recent. The second plaster cast, with its “trepanación rectangular de tipo corte Perú”, patina and number in red ink: 1740, is intriguing (fig.1). On closer inspection, a slightly faded inscription in black ink can still be read: “caverne de Baye”.

Fig.1 – Details of skull 1740. 2024 © Author.

These indications are consistent with the catalog of the anthropological section of the La Plata Museum in Argentina, written in 1910 by the German-born anthropologist Robert Lehmann-Nitsche (1872-1938) [Sardi, Del Papa, 2022]. The inscription in black ink refers to Neolithic hypogeum burials in the Marne region, east of the Paris Basin. These “caves” were excavated in the early 1870s by Baron Joseph de Baye (1853-1931), a young aristocrat with a keen interest in archaeology [Charpy, Homer, 2013]. The reference affixed directly to the skull would therefore indicate that the skull used as a model came from France, not Peru.

What does this discrepancy tell us?

An error on the label?

            A search in internet quickly reveals that rectangular trepanning is a widely publicized phenomenon, always associated with Peruvian trepanning. The 1740 cast echoes a debate that began in 1867, when the American diplomat Ephraim George Squier (1821-1888) brought Broca (1824-1880) a trepanned Peruvian skull bearing a scar very similar to the one presented by the La Plata museum. The famous surgeon and founder of the Société d’anthropologie de Paris (1859) made a diagnosis [Broca, 1867, 403-408] that was to sound like “a thunderclap in a serene sky” [Charon, Thillaud, 2010: 41], particularly at the Académie de médecine, where the skull was presented. At the time, skull surgery was outlawed as a highly lethal surgical procedure. Seven years later, the debate was to rally prehistorians when, in 1873, Barthélémy Prunières, in Lozère, then Joseph de Baye, in Marne, discovered skulls with strange openings associated with cranial disks [Prunières, 1873, 704]. People considered “primitive”, prehistoric or modern, were able to open the skull without causing the death of the patient, whereas western surgery failed.
            The “Squier skull”, the first of a long series, has since become a kind of icon of trepanning, to which authors writing on the subject must refer [Arnott, Finger, 2003]. The evocative nature of these skulls makes them of undoubted aesthetic, scientific and museographic interest.

A skull from “la caverna Baye [sic.]”?


            The first source for tracing the 1740 cast is the deed of donation from the Moreno collection to the province of Buenos Aires, dated November 1877. The plaster cast noted “caverne de Baye” appears there as part of a batch of fifteen, which arrived in Argentina from Paris in 1874, in gratitude for an initial consignment of American skulls sent by the young collector Francisco Moreno to Paul Broca [Farro, 2009]. Three casts of skulls from the Baye caves are listed in the same document as follows:
“dos habitantes de la caverna Baye […], “un cráneo trepanado de la caverna ó gruta de Baye [sic., …]”.

So the La Plata Museum was indeed in possession of a skull from Baye, France. Is it possible that the 1740 skull currently on display is French?

Trepaned skulls from the Baye caves have been described many times in the literature. Texts and illustrations provide clear information on the shape of the openings found in these burials.

Fig.2 – Drawing by Joseph de BAYE in his memoir: La trépanation préhistorique, published in 1876.

These openings are presented as circular, elliptical or irregular. Broca described two skulls sent by de Baye in 1874: “You can see on each of them a large, regular, elliptical opening with healed edges” [Broca, 1874, 553]. In 1876, de Baye presented five skulls that had “undergone well-characterised loss of substance”, two of which had not been presented by Paul Broca. The first had an “elliptical, bevelled opening”, while the second had an “almost round opening”. Illustrations accompany these two specimens. The third, diagnosed as hydrocephalic, is probably the one described by Broca in 1874, while the fourth has “two openings in the left posterior part”. The last, with its “loss of substance, the most considerable”, cannot be classified as trephined according to Joseph de Baye [De Baye, 1876, 12-13]. There is therefore no mention of a rectangular opening on these skulls.

In conclusion, a few unanswered questions…

            The confusion surrounding the 1740 skull is probably linked to the debate on trepanning, which leads to frequent comparisons between Neolithic and Peruvian skulls, and naturally leads to their association in museum collections. But there are still many unknowns surrounding this number and the two skulls it represents. For the time being, the identity of the original cast remains a mystery, and we don’t know what happened to the specimen that arrived from France in 1874, or how or when the error found its way into the collection.


            The questions surrounding number 1740 tell the story of a collection that, all in all, is fairly banal [Jardin, 2019]. It contradicts the idealized image that visitors may have of the order and permanence of museum objects [Podgorny, 2024], but also of the fabrication of science from these objects. Here, the history of trepanning was not written on the basis of the object. On the contrary, the specimen was chosen for its typicality on the basis of a pre-established story. Here, the object, conceived as a tangible trace of reality, is ‘reinvented’ by the museum’s narrative. The destiny of the 1740 cast is a reminder of the often chaotic path taken by objects, which carry within them “the traces of several strata of history” [Robert, 2010, 188], the fruit of debates rooted in their time, of varied arrangements and sensibilities [Appadurai, 2020].

Sources :

« Acta de donación y aceptación de noviembre de 1877 », 1910, Digesto de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Buenos Aires, Imprenta Coni Hermanos, p.142. [copy of document provided by Susana Garcia].

BROCA Paul, 1867, « Trépanation chez les Incas », Bulletins de la Société d’anthropologie de Paris, II° Série, séance du 4 juillet, pp.403-408.

BROCA Paul, 1874, « Sur les trépanations préhistoriques », Bulletin de la Société d’anthropologie de Paris, Paris, Masson, séance du 2 juillet.

BROCA Paul, 1876, « Sur la trépanation du crâne et les amulettes crâniennes », Association Française pour l’Avancement des Sciences, comptes-rendus de la 8e cession, séance du 28 août 1873, Budapest, Imprimerie Franklin-Társulat, p.140.

DE BAYE Joseph, 1976, La trépanation préhistorique, Paris, Ernest Leroux, p.13.

LEHMANN-NITSCHE Robert, 1911, Catálogo de la sección antropologica, del museo de la Plata, Buenos-Aires, Imprenta Coni Hermano.

PRUNIÈRES Barthélémy, « Sur les objets de bronze, ambre, verre, mêlés aux silex, et sur les races humaines dont on trouve les débris dans les dolmens de Lozère », Association Française pour l’Avancement des Sciences, comptes-rendus de la 2e cession, séance du 28 août 1873, Lyon, Imprimerie Pitrat Ainé.

References :

APPADURAI, Arjun, 2020, La vie sociale des choses – les marchandises dans une perspective culturelle, Paris, Les Presses du Réel.

ARNOTT Robert, FINGER Stanley, SMITH C.U.M, 2003, Trepanation : History, discovery, theory. Lisse, Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers.

CHARON Pierre, THILLAUD Pierre-Léon, 2010, L’invention de la paléopathologie, une anthologie de la langue française, Saint-Etienne, Publication de l’Université.

CHARPY, Jean-Jacques, HOMER, Isabelle, 2013, « Joseph de Baye, de la Marne au Caucase », Catalogue de l’exposition des Archives départementales de la Marne, Conseil Général de la Marne.

JARDINE Boris, KOWAL Emma, BANGHAM Jenny, 2019, « How collections end. Objects, meaning and loss in laboratories and museums », British Journal for History of Science, Themes, 4, pp. 1-27.

FARRO Máximo, 2009, La formación del Museo de La Plata, Coleccionistas, comerciantes, estudiosos y naturalistas viajeros a fines del siglo XIX, Rosario, Prohistoria ediciones, colección historia de la Ciencia.

FRIDBERG, Diana, 2006, The Enchantment of a Medical Technology, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford.

PODGORNY Irina, 2024, « Los museos, un espacio nada permanente », Sabers en acció, 10 janvier.

ROBERT Renaud, 2010, « Histoire d’objets. Objets d’histoire », Dialogues d’histoire ancienne, vol. 41, no. Supplement 4.1, pp. 175-199.

SARDI Marina, DEL PAPA Mariano, 2022, « Escrito en los huesos y el papel. Una revisión de las colecciones antropológicas del Museo de La Plata », Revista del Museo de Antropología, 15 (1).

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank the various members of the Museo de La Plata who made my research possible: Marina Sardi, Mariano Del Papa, Gustavo Barrientos, Andrés Di Bastiano and Juan Cruz Galván from the anthropological section, Ana Igareta and Mariano Bonomo from the archaeological section. My warmest thanks go to Susana Garcia for her expertise and kind guidance in the archives and museum, and to Irina Podgorny for her encouragement and her wonderful library. My gratitude also goes to my thesis supervisor Nathalie Richard, Alexia Comte and Chloé Rousseau for integrating me and organising the SciCoMove project.

Regarding the Visit to the Carre Plantagenet Museum

by Sebastian Luis Frete

In the context of the Second Doctoral SciCoMove Seminar in Le Mans, titled “Collecting practices, collections and collectors in the modern sciences (18th-21st C)”, which took place in late May at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Le Mans, we had the opportunity to visit the Jean-Claude-Boulard/Carre Plantagenet Museum. Located just meters from Saint Julian’s Cathedral, this museum focuses on archaeology and history, presenting the local history of the Sarthe region from prehistoric times to the Middle Ages. The visit allowed us to contextualize our academic work by observing various methods of organizing and managing collections, while also prompting reflection on the administrative and political challenges faced by the museum sector.

We were welcomed by the museum’s curator, who guided us through the permanent exhibition. The museum is divided into different halls representing Prehistory, Protohistory, the Cenomani, Gallo-Roman times, the Early Middle Ages, and medieval Le Mans. A division of time into stages or periods that follow one another, different from those of countries where a geographical order of collections was imposed. The displayed objects are showcased in large, well-lit display cases, each labeled with a numerical reference and briefly described.

The tour began with the oldest artifacts, dating back to the remote past: a collection of Middle Paleolithic artifacts (350,000-40,000 BP). Hand axes, blades, flakes, and Levallois cores attest to the lithic technologies of early human populations in the region. The display, though not extensive, features pieces of exquisite craftsmanship, especially notable considering some items are over 300,000 years old. Following this, there is a significant exhibition of Neolithic objects categorized into Copper, Bronze and Iron Age. Dioramas and models illustrate the ancient way of life of these populations, including burial practices, ceramics, and metallurgical artifacts.

The tour continued with objects related to the Roman conquest of Gaul. Numerous items such as ceramics, burials, glassware, gold, woodwork, and friezes recovered from historical archaeological investigations, chance discoveries, or urban renovations are on display. Sumptuous and everyday objects depict the multifaceted life in a Roman province. There is also a reconstruction of the ancient Roman wall that once surrounded the city, of which only a small section remains standing today, visible in the old town. The second part of the tour explored the temporary exhibition illustrating the life and development of the suburbs of Le Mans, focusing on industrial and automotive activities, as well as the cultural and recreational life of its inhabitants, especially in the 20th century.

Finally, we met with Nicolas Morel, former director of the Vert Museum and head of the Le Mans collections, who explained the future prospects facing local institutions. Le Mans currently hosts three museums: Carre Plantagenêt for history and archaeology, the Tessé Museum dedicated to Fine Arts, housing a significant collection of 19th and 20th century paintings and an exhibition dedicated to Ancient Egypt, and the Vert Museum of Natural History, showcasing local fauna, flora, and geology, with a focus on Sarthe’s Jurassic period. These last two institutions are set to merge into one. Anther city museum, the historical Museum “Reine Bérangère” is already closed due to building issues. The Vert and Plantagenet museums will soon close to make way for a new museum oriented towards new audiences and visitors, featuring smaller displays and virtual exhibitions.

Recently, two articles refer to the fragility of museums and the ephemeral nature of collections (Podgorny 2024; Burón et al. 2024). An idea entrenched in postmodern imagination views museums as permanent and imperishable institutions, overlooking the fact that many are housed in repurposed buildings with previous uses and meanings, and founded upon collections of diverse origins. For instance, the Plantagenet Museum, inaugurated in 2009 in a new premice, first occupied a building that was a convent in the 13th century. It will close its doors to merge with the Vert Museum.

Museums are not immune to the political and cultural vicissitudes of the societies they are part of. Today, many institutions face existential threats while debating not only which pieces to exhibit and why, but also seeing their very existence jeopardized. Some topics seem no longer interesting, while others are challenging to explain and fail to capture public interest. Museums continue to grapple with the dilemma of educating versus entertaining, adapting or disappearing, constantly threatened by human and non-human issues (Buron et al. 2024). In this regard, Podgorny (2024), echoing Adalgisa Luigi, notes that nothing is more ephemeral than a collection, subject to the life and death of its collector, as well as the institution that displays it or banishes it to storage. Exhibitions are assembled and disassembled based on criteria that are not fixed, subject to theoretical or political changes, trends, or monotonous administrative ambiguities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

-Burón, M, Podgorny, I y Richard, N, 2024, ¿Para qué un museo? A reflection from Latin America upon the fragility and necessity of museums. En: Humanities Research: Volume XX, Number 1, 2024, edited by Kylie Message, Frank Bongiorno and Robert Wellington, published 2024, by ANU Press, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. doi.org/10.22459/HR.XX.01.2024.09

-Podgorny, Irina, 2024. Los museos: un espacio nada permanente. Sabers en acció, 2024-01-10 https://sabersenaccio.iec.cat/es/los-museos-un-espacio-nada-permanente/.

SOBRE LA VISITA AL MUSEO CARRE PLANTAGENET

Por Sebastián Luis Frete

En el marco del Segundo Seminario Doctoral SciCoMove: “Collecting practices, collections and collectors in the modern sciences (18th-21th C)” que se dictó a fines de mayo en la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad de Le Mans, tuvimos la oportunidad de visitar el Museo Jean-Claude-Boularad/Carre Plantagenet. Ubicado a metros de la catedral de San Julián es un museo de arqueología e historia encargado de presentar la historia local de la región de Sarthe, desde el pasado prehistórico hasta la Edad Media. La visita nos permitió contextualizar el trabajo académico observando diferentes formas de organizar y gestionar las colecciones, a la vez que nos hizo reflexionar frente a los desafíos políticos administrativos en que se encuentra el museo, y los museos.

Fuimos recibidos por la vicedirectora y curadora del museo que  nos presentó la exposición permanente. El museo está dividido en diferentes salones que representan la Prehistoria, la Protohistoria, los cenómanos y la época Galo-Romana, la Alta Edad Media y el Le Mans medieval. Una división del tiempo, en etapas o periodos que se suceden, diferente a las de los países donde se impuso un orden geográfico de las colecciones. Los objetos exhibidos se exponen en grandes vitrinas, bien iluminadas, llevan una referencia numérica y son brevemente descriptos.

La recorrida comenzó por lo más antiguo, el pasado remoto: la colección de artefactos del Paleolítico medio (350.000-40.000AP). Hachas de mano, hojas, lascas, núcleos Levallois dan cuenta de las tecnologías líticas de las tempranas poblaciones humanas que ocuparon la región. La muestra no es muy grande, pero las piezas son de una manufactura exquisita, sobre todo teniendo en cuenta que algunas piezas tienen más de 300.000 años. Luego hay una importante exposición de objetos del Neolítico, al que dividen en edad de Cobre, Bronce y Hierro. Hay dioramas y maquetas que ilustran la antigua forma de vida de aquellas poblaciones, formas de enterramiento, cerámicas y objetos en metalurgia. La visita continuó con la exposición de objetos referidos a la conquista de Galia por parte del Imperio Romano. Los objetos son numerosos, cerámicas, entierros, vidrios, oro, madera, frisos recuperados en investigaciones histórico arqueológicas como en hallazgos fortuitos o en reparaciones urbanas. Objetos suntuosos y cotidianos que ilustran la polifacética vida en una provincia romana. También hay una reconstrucción de lo que fue el antiguo muro romano que cercó la ciudad y del que solo queda un pequeño pedazo en pie, y que aún hoy se puede ver en la ciudad vieja. La segunda parte de la recorrida fue por la exposición temporal que ilustra la vida y el desarrollo de los suburbios de Le Mans y su actividad fabril y automotriz, así como la vida cultural y recreativa de sus habitantes sobre todo en el siglo XX.

Por ultimo nos entrevistamos con Nicolas Morel, director del Museo Vert, quien nos explicó las perspectivas futuras que enfrentan las instituciones locales. Le Mans tiene tres museos: Carre Plantagenet de historia y arqueología, el Museo de Tesse, inaugurado en 1799, dedicado a las Bellas Artes, el cual alberga una importante colección de pinturas del siglo XIX y XX, así como una muestra dedicada al Antiguo Egipto, y el Museo Vert, de Historia Natural, que presenta la fauna, flora y geología local, poniendo énfasis en el Sarthe jurásico. Estas tres instituciones se fusionarían en una. El museo de Tesse ya se encuentra cerrado por problemas edilicios. El museo Vert y el museo Plantagenet cerrarán pronto para dar lugar a un nuevo museo orientado a los nuevos públicos y visitantes, con muestras más reducidas y exposiciones virtuales.

Recientemente dos artículos hacen referencia a la fragilidad de los museos y lo efímero de las colecciones (Podgorny 2024; Buron et al 2024). Una idea arraigada en el imaginario posmoderno piensa los museos como instituciones permanentes e imperecederas, sin reparar que muchos de éstos están emplazados en edificios reciclados, que fueron otra cosa, en otro momento y por lo tanto tuvieron otro significado, y a su vez fundados con colecciones de orígenes dispares. Por ejemplo, el museo Plantagenet fue inaugurado en el año 2009 en un edificio que ya en el siglo XIII era un convento. Tan solo 25 años después deberá cerrar sus puertas para reformularse en uno solo junto al museo Tesse, que tiene más de 200 años, y el museo Vert. Los museos no son ajenos a los devenires políticos y culturales de las sociedades de las que forman parte. Hoy muchas instituciones que además de debatir qué piezas exponer y para qué, ven peligrar su existencia. Algunos temas parecen ya no ser interesantes y otros temas parecen ser difíciles de explicar y no despiertan el interés del público. Los museos siguen debatiéndose entre la disyuntiva de enseñar y entretener, cambiar o desaparecer, permanentemente amenazados por problemas humanos y no tanto (Buron et al 2024). En este sentido Podgorny (2024) señala, retomando a Adalgisa Luigi,  que no hay nada más efímero que una colección, sujeta a la vida y muerte misma de quien la colectó, como la de la institución que lo expone o lo destierra a un sótano. Las muestras se arman y desarman según criterios que no son fijos, sujetos a cambios teóricos o políticos, a modas o grises cuestiones administrativas.

BIBLIOGRAFIA

-Burón, M, Podgorny, I y Richard, N, 2024, ¿Para qué un museo? A reflection from Latin America upon the fragility and necessity of museums. En: Humanities Research: Volume XX, Number 1, 2024, edited by Kylie Message, Frank Bongiorno and Robert Wellington, published 2024, by ANU Press, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. doi.org/10.22459/HR.XX.01.2024.09

-Podgorny, Irina, 2024. Los museos: un espacio nada permanente. Sabers en acció, 2024-01-10 https://sabersenaccio.iec.cat/es/los-museos-un-espacio-nada-permanente/.