Ethnology Museums and the issue of exhibiting human remains

In colonial times, human remains were routinely collected by archaeologists and anthropologists and displayed in ethnology museums - this article from the Deutsche Welle website examines this issue in conjunction with a new exhibition at Vienna's Ethnology Museum which explores the context and legacy of the work of Hans Liechtenecker in Namibia in 1931 and his "Archive of Dying Races" that displayed human remains and featured oral recordings.
The Deutsche Welle article also looks at cases involving Australian Aborigine and Naga remains that have come to be displayed in museums

More on the acquisition of "cultural assets" by museums

Report from Bloomberg news on the ceding of a collection of antiquities to Leipzig University's Egyptian Museum by the Jewish Claims Conference.
The sale of the artifacts by Egyptologist Georg Steindorff to the Museum in 1937 had been ruled earlier this year as being made under duress. Steindorff, who was of Jewish descent, escaped from Germany in 1939.

School of Museology to be established in Egypt: online article

Egypt's museums have been in the news following the looting that took place in major institutions and at archaeological sites during the country's recent political upheavals.

"The lack of trained museum personnel is indeed the overarching problem in Egypt's path towards the creation of a new effective museum system" says Ramadan Badri Hussein, supervisor of the office of the MSA's Minister for Archaeological Affairs.

As part of an ongoing programme of initiatives, a School of Museology is shortly to be established at the Casdagli Palace in Cairo.

Read more in Nevine El-Aref's report for the al-Ahram Weekly Online

Museums and ethics

The Smithsonian Institution in Washington is facing calls to cancel a planned exhibition of Chinese artifacts salvaged from a Tang-era shipwreck as they were recovered by a commercial treasure-hunter rather than by academic, archaeological methods.
Read more in this article from the online New York Times  

Antiquities : is it possible to "collect" them with a clear conscience?

Article from the Huffington Post on the legality of collecting "antiquities" and the problems faced by museums where items in their collection, or that they wish to acquire, are of dubious provenance