- The stories lie between the gaps of what we already know
As Sri Lankans, if you were part of the state education system, then at some point in your school career you were loaded onto a bus together with your impressionable young classmates and carted off to either the Colombo National Museum, Sigiriya, or Polonnaruwa, all in the name of your historical education.
Having most likely gone through these sites at breakneck speed, treating it more like an obstacle course of sorts; racing your way to the top of Sigiriya, complaining about how hot Polonnaruwa was, or even how musty the museum smelled, it’s unlikely that we engaged with these locations the way they were intended to be experienced.
Turns out, it may not be entirely our distracted brain’s fault for not really appreciating what museums have to offer. To speak about what museums have to offer and how little we really interact with them, we reached out to University of Kelaniya Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology Professor Jagath Weerasinghe, who shared with us the story of the contested histories in archeological museums, and why these histories and their inclusion could potentially change the way that people interact with museums.
Weerasinghe explained this story of contested histories through two well-known examples – the Sigiriya archeological museum and the one in Polonnaruwa.
Sigiriya site museum
Weerasinghe shared that site museums exist primarily to further the experience that people have had with the archeological site they just explored. However, as a person responsible for curating and putting together the museum experience, he said that he wishes to raise the question: “Are we presenting these sites in their multiple histories?”
Often, what we would expect in museums is history as told by archeologists. They are the “authorised heritage practitioners” i.e. AHP who give way to the authorised heritage discourse. However, if you talk to the villagers in the vicinity of these heritage sites, for example, the inhabitants of the 22 villages that surround Sigiriya who have been there for several generations, their story of Sigiriya is slightly different to the kind of Sigiriya we present in the museum. Weerasinghe, being the current director of archeology at Sigiriya, said that he believes he is in a position to say this with some responsibility.
“It is not about which is the correct history. There is more than one past for anything, just as we have more than one present, or even future,” he said, adding lightly that it is quite evident now more than ever: with all the media and documentation that happens on the daily, if you look at a newspaper that is pro-government, then you get one history of today, and if you read Facebook or somewhere else there’s another, a potentially opposite story.
“As learned people, we talk about things and are well aware of the existence of these multiple histories. However, when it comes to archeological sites, we tend to think of a history that is more truthful, a history in terms of material data,” he said. While noting that this is the nature of an archeologist, he added that however, what happens on such occasions is, we exclude the other kinds of narratives that exist about that site in the process.
He said that there’s much to be considered; the history as told by villagers, which is the anthropological past, then the mythological past. He touched briefly on the infamous “Ravana” mythos that is presently being tacked on to Sigiriya. Regarding this Ravana narrative, he said that archeologists are supposed to be incredibly upset by this, since according to their way of thinking, “it is a lie”, but this is only based on the way that they operate. However, he also noted that he personally is of the opinion that “you will get upset by this only if you think there is only one true history or true past of these places”.
The practical past
Prof. Weerasinghe further said that while we have the archeological past, the anthropological past, and the mythological past, the practical past – which is a mixture of all of the above – is what people fight for, and therefore it is what elicits emotions. Thus, that is what we need to have in our museums.
He stated that this practical past is what motivates people to fight for something, it motivates action – an example would be when we say that we are fighting to preserve this land of ours where the Buddha visited three times; there is a level of gravitas to this. While there isn’t any archeological evidence to support the fact that the Buddha visited our island, it is the practical past that we all believe. While not in archeological discourse, it is still a part of the history we experience.
Therefore, he said that with regards to museums, they too can acknowledge the existence of the practical past. It is a way of empowering the common man, and it will be presented as transparently as possible; not by misleading people and claiming there is archeological evidence, but by presenting the awareness that archeology is not the one and only history of that site. In this case, the site being Sigiriya, it would mean to tell people that the historical presence of Sigiriya has so many other narratives.
He stated that our historical past does not align with our archeological past when it comes to Sigiriya. Using the example of consulting the Mahavamsa for the historical tale, where it states that King Kashyapa was hiding at Sigiriya in fear of his brother, Weerasinghe noted that archeology tells a very different story instead. It says that the king was not hiding, but that he was in fact thriving and having a wonderful life. He was a part of major world trade connections, living in a very busy urban centre. This would be the history and archeology of this site. Then comes the anthropological past; what the people say, which also differs from all the rest.
However, Weerasinghe shared that in the museum all these histories are not presented, and he argues: “Museums can be made more interesting, more relatable to people if we present these stories as well within their proper context, argument, and discourse, rather than claiming one as truth and the other as false.”
Polonnaruwa site museum
He took Polonnaruwa as his second example. Taking us through the relics, he recalls that when you take the main entrance to the Polonnaruwa archeological site, you find the Shiva Devalaya to your left hand side, and to the right hand side you walk past the “sithalaya” where the palace and the rest of the structures are.
However, if you walk into the Polonnaruwa museum, the Shiva and Hindu aspects are at the further end.
“I am a government servant, and I don’t know if I am capable of making any changes in any way, or maybe I can, but what I wish to propose is that in my opinion, the purpose of the site museum is to present the site in a way that enables the visitors to grasp it in its full complexity,” he said, noting that perhaps in order to do that, the special organisation of an archeological site should be replicated and followed in the museum arrangement. He said that it is just a proposal and he does not mean to say that the histories are not represented at the museums; they are in fact told vibrantly. However, what is highlighted is the Buddhist story and perhaps the aim should be to take visitors on a familiar journey to the one they just experienced on the site.
Do we even know how to experience museums?
If each of us were to think back to those times we visited these historical and archeological sites in school, how much history do we actually recall? It’s not even a matter of having forgotten what we learned, we simply didn’t know how to experience these sites.
To be totally frank, to this day, speaking only for ourselves, we can say that we do not truly know how to experience what museums have to offer. Often, it’s just a bunch of interesting-looking artefacts that potentially tell a story, but we don’t really know what.
Weerasinghe shared that this is quite literally what he means when he proposes that the museums represent more than the archeological history, and that we include those other histories that make the story more relatable to the visitor.
He said: “We do not really teach children how to spend time with images in museums, or even in Sigiriya with the frescoes. Museum education is very limited here.” However, he added that the national museum is trying hard to diversify their offerings to the public.
He shared that it is very important to experience history for numerous reasons, the main reason being for the sake of modern consciousness. “It is a sign of being modern, to know that there was a time that was different to ours,” he said, adding that since we reenact histories in a different way, this is necessary to understand contemporary society.
Museums are the only places where you can engage and have a dialogue with the past using your contemporary ideas. The museum allows you to fill the gaps between the labels of the relics and statues that it presents to you. “This is why you can spend hours in a museum observing and thinking deeply,” Weerasinghe said, adding that this is why he always says that “the story of the museum lies between the statues.”
So perhaps, if museums were to take on a more diverse representation of our many pasts, as kids race to the top of Sigiriya trying to reach the summit before everybody else, they’ll stop for a moment to observe the frescoes and think deeply about the stories they tell.
