Courting controversy - the Lindow Man exhibition at the Manchester Museum

Abstract

The discovery of the well-preserved body of a 2,000 year old man at Lindow Moss near Wilmslow, Manchester, UK, in 1984 provided archaeologists and forensic scientists with a veritable time capsule of evidence concerning life during the late Iron Age and early Roman period. Not only was the body of considerable antiquity, but the forensic examination established that the man had suffered a violent death. He had been hit on the head, apparently garrotted and had his throat cut (the so-called ‘Triple Death’) in what appears to have been a ritual sacrifice to the gods. Exhibitions about Lindow Man, as the body came to be known, were held at the Manchester Museum in 1987 and 1991 to widespread acclaim. This article discusses the approach taken by the museum in its most recent exhibition about Lindow Man (April 2008-April 2009) which proved to be unexpectedly controversial. Acknowledging alternative interpretations of Lindow Man’s death, and changing attitudes towards human remains in society, the Museum adopted a polyvocal approach to the exhibition. Eight specially-selected contributors shared their personal thoughts and theories about the dead man. These included a forensic scientist, peat diggers involved in the discovery, a landscape archaeologist, a member of the local community, a Pagan and museum curators from both the British Museum and the Manchester Museum. Personal items belonging to each of the contributors appeared alongside more conventional museum exhibits in order to explore the different meanings that Lindow Man has for different people. The design of the exhibition was also challenging and made innovative use of MDF. Public response to the exhibition was mixed, though still broadly favorable. Thousand of visitors’ comments cards collected during the course of the exhibition provide a rich resource for future study of the public response to the debate about human remains in museums. Discovery and interpretation When the remains of an adult human male body were discovered during commercial peat extraction at Lindow Moss, near Manchester, during the summer of 1984, the police became involved in case they were linked to the disappearance of a local woman. After preliminary radiocarbon dating indicated that the remains were indeed ancient, Lindow Man, as the body became known, underwent painstaking archaeological investigation and forensic examination by a team of archaeologists and scientists led by Dr Ian Stead at the British Museum (STEAD, BOURKE & BROTHWELL 1986; STEAD & Turner 1987). The man had died violently, from blows to the head, perhaps being garrotted and having his throat cut. This classic pioneering study could not answer all of the questions definitively and there has been protracted debate ever since amongst archaeologists, anatomists, anthropologists and others about how, why and when he died (CONNOLLY 1985; TURNER & SCAIFE 1995). Subsequent work seems to show that Lindow Man dates from the late 1 century AD or early Roman period in the North of Britain (GOWLETT, HEDGES & LAW 1989). More recently, the debate has embraced the ethics of displaying human remains in museums (e.g. VASWANI 2001; RANDERSON 2007). The Manchester Museum exhibition The Manchester Museum’s exhibition Lindow Man a Bog Body Mystery (19 April 2008 – 19 April 2009) drew upon research carried out over the last 25 years and explored the different meanings that Lindow Man’s body holds for different people. This was not the first time that Lindow Man had been displayed at the Manchester Museum. Earlier exhibitions in 1987 and 1991 explored Lindow Man’s life and times and presented the results of the latest forensic work. Much had changed in the meantime,