A student with a pressing essay deadline emailed me last week to ask how many visitors we have had to the Lindow Man exhibition. I checked with Carole Knight, Project Admininstation Assistant here at the Manchester Museum, and she has recorded that 94,608 people have visited the exhibition during the period 18/04/08 to 17/01/09. The first exhibition in 1987 attracted 50,000 people in three months.
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It’s a great pleasure to know that the Lindow Man exhibition is still generating lots of interest. This morning I had an enquiry from a student about how the exhibits were selected and whether the people who helped us with the exhibition were consulted. How we selected the exhibits was dictated by our approach to the exhibition which emerged from the public consultation we did in February 2007.
In our public consultation meeting in February 2007 we were asked to two things: to tell the story or stories of Lindow Man from different perspectives and to treat his body with sensitivity. We decided to tell Lindow man’s story or stories from a number of different points of view, namely, those of: a forensic scientist, the man who found the body, a landscape archaeologist, a member of the Lindow community, a pagan, a museum curator and someone from the British Museum. We recognize that there are other perspectives of course but seven was an optimum number and the perspectives chosen seemed to give us the greatest breadth.
We interviewed all seven people and asked them to contribute material that would illustrate their connection with Lindow Man and say something about their own background and lives. In some cases the interviewees struggled to suggest material either because they genuinely couldn’t think of anything or because it simply hadn’t survived. All the peat working tools used at Lindow Moss appear to have been lost for instance so we borrowed some from Lancashire Museums Service to support Bruce and Andy Mould’s section. In those cases where the interviewee was at a loss to suggest something we proposed an object and asked the person concerned if he or she was happy with it. Don Brothwell was happy for us to show a range of lab equipment, for example, because all those used in the BM forensic study of Lindow Man had been lost or disposed of over the years.
In the case of Susan Chadwick, Susan had already made it known to us that she had material relevant to the repatriation campaign to bring Lindow Man back to the North West, including a t-shirt and a photograph of the Lindow School choir. This was one of the reasons we invited Susan to take part. When it came to suggesting something from Susan’s childhood that she had had at the time of Lindow Man only the Care Bear survived, and we decided to display it because it showed that Susan, though now a mature woman, had been a child when Lindow Man was discovered. Susan’s comments about seeing Lindow Man’s body on display at the Manchester Museum in 1987 have to be read in that light. We broadly agreed the exhibits that were more representative of the 1980s with Susan but sourced them according to what was available or what was offered to us. I think the boy band poster came from a friend of one of the ladies in the office, and the Grolsch shoes were mocked up based on what Susan told us she could remember about fashion in the play ground.
So all the objects were either selected by or agreed with the interviewees. In fact I can think of one example where Emma Restall Orr, our pagan contributor, said she didn’t like our suggestion that we display a copy of “Asterix the Golden Sickle” and we took it off our potential exhibits list. So the objects were selected in a collaborative and inclusive way that took account of the interviewees’ own suggestions. When we proposed something we obtained that person’s agreement.
Anna Bunney, Curator of Public Programmes, has passed on a letter from a member of the public, Paul Broadbent, who apologizes for not being able to attend the Lindow Man poetry night that Anna organized earlier in the year and includes the following poem:-
I were lay there warm and ‘appy, no one gave a toss
Till some peat cutta, wi’ welly’s on, dug me up on Lindow Moss
Glacial sand and gravel, me spring part of me bed
A nice layer o’peat, surrounds me body, and round me ‘ed
Not far, from the Black Lake, sometimes blue algae grow
Wild life In’t much bothered, dun’t stop them come and go
I were just enjoying the peace and quiet 2000 years you know
Then bundled off to London, no choice, I had to go
The’ were Doctors an’ folk all running tests, to see how I were dead
A knotted rope, a cut throat, and three bumps to me head
Me belly were full of ceral, wheat, barley, and some bran
The mistletoe gave Druids away, I were a sacrifical lamb
Now I’m back in Manchester, museum have a space
A part of hist’ry from Lindow Moss, your interest in’t human race
Thanks to Mr Broadhurst for allowing us to reproduce the poem.
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The New Year has brought with it more comments cards left by visitors over the holiday period. This is one of the longer contributions kindly copied for me by Cat Lumb (Lead Educator, Secondary Humanities):-
“I have no problem whatsoever here, I think he is very respectfully displayed & considering the apparent violent death Lindow Man suffered, we may well ask if there is any point to instigating ideas of ‘peace’ or ‘rest’ when they have not (arguably) been robbed from him in the first place…
P.S. I imagine there are people (like me) who would not object to their exhibition in 2000 years’ time. To a man with no knowledge of ‘museums’ (as we know them), perhaps there is justification in displaying him – the education of others-besides it’s the closest thing to living on after death, really. (Smiley face).”
The question I am struggling with is whether the manner in which people died in the past makes a difference as to whether they are displayed or not. If Lindow Man was put to death as a scapegoat, as I think it is possible to argue, does that mean we should be less willing to display him? The educational case is a strong one but what of Mary Bateman, the so-called “Yorkshire witch” who was tried for murder and hung in 1809. Her skeleton, or what’s left of it, is on display in the Thackray Museum in Leeds. You could argue that she’s paid her debt to society couldn’t you?
First day back at work since Xmas Eve and some of the first things to deal with are an enquiry from a lady on the Isle of Man who wants to bring her son to see Lindow Man in February and an enquiry from a student at Bristol University doing a final year dissertation on how opinions of the Lindow Man have progressed since the discovery. In the case of the student there must be a huge amount of material, much of it discussed on the Lindow Man Blog, or in the Collective Conversation that compared and contrasted the 1980s and 1990s exhibitions with the current exhibition. To help the lady and her son plan their visit I rang Anna Bunney, Curator of Public Programmes, to find out whether any public events or activities are taking place during that half term week. In the What’s On guide there’s a quote from a Museum visitor saying “The unfinished look and empty shelves suggest that our knowledge of Lindow Man is incomplete and that anyone can add their interpretation, if only symbolically, into them.” This reminds me that visitors interpret museum exhibitions in their own way and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. I seem to remember reading something about an author’s intentions not being authoritative in creating a work of fiction or drama. New meanings, new readings of the text are always possible and certainly not wrong. Underlying all of this is the realisation that Lindow Man only has less than four months to go before the British Museum loan expires. A sobering thought for anyone who wants to come and see him in Manchester.
