‘Regular readers will know that I’m interested in both public misunderstandings of archaeology and heritage and ‘Wunderkammer‘ style museums. So I was interested when on 17 June 2024, the Telegraph newspaper published an article critical of the Pitt Rivers Museum. The reaction to this on Twitter and in this rebuttal by the museum revealed that the article demonstrated both significant misunderstandings about the nature and purpose of museums, and how those misunderstandings are politicised.
