Interdisciplinary processing of the finds with a possible colonial background within the university collections of the FSU Jena - model processing of two skulls from the Phyletic Museum

The Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena was founded in 1558 and has today a large number of scientific collections, some of which go back to the time when the university was founded, but most of which were created within the last 200 years.

The University is currently trying to check these collections with regard to the provenance of the individual exhibits. For this reason, the aim of the project is to prepare the interdisciplinary processing of the entire collection with a possible colonial background within the collections of the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena by means of a model study using eight skulls from the holdings of the Phyletisches Museum and the Osteological Collection. The two skulls from the Phyletisches Museum are pieces from Papua and from the Maasai that were bought by Ernst Haeckel from the colonial trade Umlauff in Hamburg. The remaining six skulls come from the osteological collection and can also be assigned to Papua and the Maasai.

Provenance research on skulls is to be carried out as part of the interdisciplinary project with the participation of anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, mediciners, zoologists and evolutionary biologists, based on a processing of the archived material that has been handed down to the collection. After evaluating the research results and classifying them in the respective historical context, it can be stated that both skulls bought by Haeckel can also be found in the documents of the Umlauff company and confirm this provenance. The Maasai skull bought by Haeckel has not yet been found in the university's holdings. The skulls from the osteological collection were transferred to the then Institute for Social Anthropology at the University between 1930 and 1935. One of the skulls is a purchase from the company "Curiositäten Umlauff", one came to Jena as a gift from the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics. The entrance to the rest of the skulls has not yet been clarified, but the inscription on the Maasai skulls shows that the previous owner was the governor of German East Africa Gustav Adolf Graf von Goetzen or the painter Wilhelm Kuhnert.

The acquired knowledge should serve as a methodological basis for a later complete processing of the collection at the FSU Jena. The processed skulls are to be returned to their countries of origin, which is why the skulls have already been reported to them.

(c) Friedrich Schiller University Jena