‘Archaeology is not the study of the remnants of the past: it's the science of human duration’ is a powerful statement repeated many times throughout Dan Hicks’ The Brutish Museums. His work speaks to the permeability and partibility of objects and people, and how material history has the potential to be deployed, manipulated and obscured. In his examination of Britain's punitive expeditions and the sacking of Benin, Hicks traces colonial ultraviolence to the modern museum, making a strong case that looted objects perpetuate violence.

From my perspective as a Black archaeologist working in the USA, Hicks’ use of the concept of a ‘war on terror’ provides one of his most compelling arguments (p. 79). Colonized peoples the world over have been subject to ‘wars on’ for centuries. The justifications for colonizing Africa included the falsehood that ‘the senseless massacre of native tribes on the Dark Continent was quite in keeping with the traditions of these tribes themselves’ (p. 125). That sounds an awful lot like ‘What about Black-on-Black crime?’ The same methods of surveillance and ultraviolence are repurposed time and again under the guise of protection. Here in the USA, Black communities are still suffering the effects of the wars on poverty and drugs. And yet African American culture is popularized, monetized and appropriated while many of us languish in poverty and prison.

In my own research on Black history, I often encounter problematic exhibitions, artifacts and collections in universities and museums. Take, for example, the recent outrage in April 2021 when it was reported that the skeletal remains of two children killed in the 1985 MOVE bombing had been used in forensic anthropology courses at the University of Pennsylvania. These children were among eleven people murdered when the Philadelphia police perpetrated an act of terror against Black revolutionaries by bombing a city block. Anthropologists and museum curators were forced to reckon with this act of violence, and the response was swift. Many Black anthropologists, including me, were called on to lead educational discussions and explain our country's long tradition of abusing Black bodies in both life and death. The human body and all of its parts evoke strong emotional responses from most people. The bones of dead children being used in this manner without consent was obviously reprehensible to most observers. Why is the response to other materials often so different?

It is not known how many people were murdered during the sacking of Benin, but we do have some idea of the number of items of cultural value that were looted. Therefore, Hicks tells this violent story by following the itineraries of the Benin bronzes, writing a necrography of human and cultural loss. He attempts to locate bronzes by tracing the histories of the various white men who stole them, and convincingly argues for their repatriation. The destruction of culture and the display of its remains work to subjugate those who are deemed inferior. The museums that hold such pieces are implicated in transforming sacred items into objects and continuously perpetrating violence every time they open their doors to the public. Hicks views this as part of the failure of ethnological museums. Perhaps, however, the museum has succeeded, if indeed its original purpose was to keep so-called ‘primitive’ people in place, reducing them to objects and using them for profit. In this way, Hicks’ work clearly reveals the slippage between neat categories such as object and subject. It also demonstrates how personhood can extend beyond the human body.

Archaeologists and museum specialists will benefit greatly from utilizing the concepts of necrology and necrography. I do, however, have some suggestions to keep in mind. First, be sure not to ask too much of your colleagues of colour and treat descendent communities with respect. Second, as Katherine McKittrick points out in her book Dear Science and Other Stories,Footnote ¹ do not accept Black death, suffering and degradation as legitimate scholarly findings. Often, when researching African and African diasporic populations, we focus on Black bodies rather than Black people. My own area of expertise is bioarchaeology; I interact with and arguably profit from dead Black bodies, and so I must not neglect Black personhood and life. This holds true when dealing with both human remains and material culture. From our necrographies we must create space for Black livingness, part of which includes repatriating all that has been stolen.