The foundation Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein in Gotha has decided not to show the skulls themselves but rather focus on the empty spaces they leave behind.
Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha / Robert Niemz
Colonial contexts

Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha completes project to establish the provenance of 41 skulls from Indonesia

The foun­da­tion Stiftung Schloss Frieden­stein Gotha has in­ves­ti­gat­ed the prove­nance of a to­tal of 41 hu­man skulls that were added to the ducal col­lec­tion dur­ing the colo­nial pe­ri­od. The project Prove­nance and His­to­ry of the Col­lec­tion of In­done­sian Skulls at Stiftung Schloss Frieden­stein Gotha was fund­ed by the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion. On the In­done­sian side, the re­search was spon­sored by the In­sti­tute for Dayak Stud­ies-21 in Palang­ka Raya, south­ern Bor­neo.

The col­lec­tion still con­tains 33 skulls which it was pos­si­ble to ex­am­ine more close­ly. The where­abouts of eight skulls has not been clar­i­fied, nor was it pos­si­ble to ver­i­fy some of the in­for­ma­tion in the mu­se­um records or re­con­struct some iden­ti­ties. How­ev­er, names were suc­cess­ful­ly as­signed to 19 in­di­vid­u­als whose skulls are in Gotha: Frobo­lo, Ab­dul Rah­man, Tjia Ah-Su, Ka Ap­at, Bi Ah-Boie, Yi Seng, Djë­na­gan Ah­san, Simien, In­di­an or En­dang, Au­gust, Thing Ho, Anang, In­t­je Don­gar, Tji­mat, Goesti Koesin, Be­sie, Jo­hannes Lumeke, Bo', Matahé. Most of them were young men aged be­tween 18 and 35. One skull is of a wom­an who died when she was no more than 30 years old.

Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1818-1893) re­ceived the skulls as a gift be­tween 1862 and 1880. They can un­doubt­ed­ly be at­tribut­ed to Dutch In­dia and can be at­tribut­ed to a colo­nial con­text. In the course of the project, it be­came ap­par­ent how close­ly a sup­pos­ed­ly pe­riph­er­al ducal col­lec­tion was in­ter­twined with the con­quest of colo­nial ter­ri­to­ries.

Sev­er­al skulls show traces of vi­o­lence around the time of death. In two cas­es of per­sons who were prob­a­bly ex­e­cut­ed, an­thro­po­log­i­cal in­ves­ti­ga­tions al­so in­di­cate prac­tices of ex­hibit­ing the corpses af­ter death. The prob­a­ble rea­son es­tab­lished for oth­er in­juries is that they were the re­sult of fights. Many of the skulls show traces of chron­ic de­fi­cien­cies or in­fec­tious dis­eases. Since many of the men were cap­tured free­dom fight­ers, these find­ings sug­gest length­i­er pe­ri­ods spent in pris­ons or prison hos­pi­tals.

Stiftung Schloss Frieden­stein Gotha is seek­ing to repa­tri­ate the skulls and sug­gests that an in­ter­na­tion­al work­ing group be set up to take all the next steps in co­or­di­na­tion with the In­done­sian Repa­tri­a­tion Com­mis­sion. The foun­da­tion says that it is not pos­si­ble for it to repa­tri­ate the items on its own, how­ev­er, with­out an ex­plic­it de­mand or re­quest from In­done­sia.

For short films, in­ter­views, lec­tures, dis­cus­sion for­mats and in­for­ma­tion films on the project, see www.frieden­stein.eu/hu­man-re­mains. The foun­da­tion has al­so pub­lished the mag­a­zine Men­schen – Hu­man Re­mains in der Stiftung Schloss Frieden­stein Gotha, which can be down­load­ed free of charge.