Musée de l'Homme
Encyclopedia
Paul Rivet
Paul Rivet was a French ethnologist, who founded the Musée de l'Homme in 1937. He was also one of the founders of the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes, an antifascist organization created in the wake of the February 6, 1934 far right riots.Rivet proposed a theory according to...
for the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne
Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937)
The Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne was held from May 25 to November 25, 1937 in Paris, France...
. It is the descendant of the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro
Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro
The Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro was the first anthropological museum in Paris, founded in 1878...
, founded in 1878. The Musée de l'Homme is a research center under the authority of various ministries, and it groups several entities from the CNRS. The Musée de l'Homme is one of the seven departments of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
The Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle is the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France.- History :The museum was formally founded on 10 June 1793, during the French Revolution...
.
The Musée de l'Homme occupies most of the Passy wing of the Palais de Chaillot in the 16th arrondissement. Part of its exhibition will eventually be transferred to the Quai Branly museum.
Due to renovation, the museum will be closed from the end of March 2009 until 2012. The total amount of money appropriated for the renovation process is 52 million Euros.
History
The Musée de l'Homme has inherited items from historical collections created as early as the 16th century, from cabinets of curiosities, and the Royal Cabinet. These collections were enriched during the nineteenth century, and they still are today. The aim is to gather in one site everything which defines the human being: man in his evolutionEvolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
(prehistory
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
), man in his unity and diversity (anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
), man in his cultural and social expression (ethnology
Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
).
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Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
exhibition" from the Musée de l'Armée
Musée de l'Armée
The Musée de l'Armée is a museum at Les Invalides in Paris, France. Originally built as a hospital and home for disabled soldiers by Louis XIV, it now houses the Tomb of Napoleon and the museum of the Army of France...
of the Invalides, as it was then called, is composed of dummies representing people from the colonies
French colonial empire
The French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...
, along with weapons and equipment. This material was transferred to the museum in 1910 and 1917. Photos of the Moroccan population, taken by Clérambault
Gaëtan Gatian de Clerambault
Gaëtan Henri Alfred Edouard Léon Marie Gatian de Clérambault was a French psychiatrist.De Clérambault gained his thesis in 1899. In 1905 he became assistant physician at the special infirmary for the insane, Prefecture de Police. From 1920 he was head of this institution...
, were also displayed there.
Several members of the Musée de l'Homme, such as Paul Rivet
Paul Rivet
Paul Rivet was a French ethnologist, who founded the Musée de l'Homme in 1937. He was also one of the founders of the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes, an antifascist organization created in the wake of the February 6, 1934 far right riots.Rivet proposed a theory according to...
, during Vichy France
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
, formed a Resistant group
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
.
Mission
The museum is part of the Musée national d'histoire naturelle. Its original purpose was to gather in a one place all that can define humanity: its evolution, its unity and its variety, and its cultural and social expression.The creation of the new Musée du quai Branly and MUCEM will be taking the Musée de l'homme's ethnographical collections, breaking with its original mission. This change has aroused many debates because the curatorial choices of the new structure will be dictated more by aesthetic criteria than scientific. The permanent exhibition of the Museum of the Man counted more than 15,000 artifacts, reflecting the artistic but also technical and cultural treasures from five continents. Quai Branly, however, holds only 3500 artifacts, presented without cultural contextualization, chosen for their aesthetic qualities and their "exotic" origins (Africa, Oceania, Americas) and not on educational value. European ethnographical collections are going to be exhibited at MUCEM, and critics believe it is creating an unjustified discontinuity between human cultures.
This situation led the Musée de l'Homme to a redefinition of its mission.
Jean-Pierre Mohen and his team tried to arrange the mission of the Museum, without really succeeding in giving it a strong enough muséological program. We shall find in the future Museum, the Human defined through his biological evolution, through its adaptation to its environnement, through the elaboration of a culture (by the vector of the communication among others) which defines the hightlights of humanity. Finally, it will be question of a conscience of human pressure on its environment as to face the consequences of the evolutions, in the present, for the future.
According to this writer pre-historic people just flew over the Eberian peninsula and appeared all over Europe.
Notable directors and staff scientists
- René-Yves CrestonRené-Yves CrestonRené-Yves Creston , born René Pierre Joseph Creston, was a Breton artist, designer and ethnographer who founded the Breton nationalist art movement Seiz Breur...
, director of the Arctic section in the 1930s - Maurice LeenhardtMaurice LeenhardtMaurice Leenhardt, was a French pastor and ethnologist specialising in the Kanak people of New Caledonia.-Life:Leenhardt was born in Montauban....
- André Leroi-GourhanAndré Leroi-GourhanAndré Leroi-Gourhan was a French archaeologist, paleontologist, paleoanthropologist, and anthropologist with an interest in technology and aesthetics and a penchant for philosophical reflection.- Biography :...
- Paul RivetPaul RivetPaul Rivet was a French ethnologist, who founded the Musée de l'Homme in 1937. He was also one of the founders of the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes, an antifascist organization created in the wake of the February 6, 1934 far right riots.Rivet proposed a theory according to...
- Jacques SoustelleJacques SoustelleJacques Soustelle was an important and early figure of the Free French Forces and an anthropologist specializing in pre-Columbian civilizations. He became vice-director of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris in 1938. He was elected to the Académie française in 1983.- Biography :Jacques Soustelle was...
(vice-president in 1938) - Claude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
(interim director 1949-1950) - Henri Victor ValloisHenri Victor ValloisHenri Victor Vallois was a French anthropologist and paleontologist.He was one of the editor in chief of the Revue d'Anthropologie from 1932 to 1970, and director of the Musée de l'Homme in 1950.- Bibliography :...
Notable holdings
- The "Hottentot Venus" was displayed until 1974.
- A crystal skullCrystal skullThe crystal skulls are a number of human skull hardstone carvings made of clear or milky quartz rock, known in art history as "rock crystal", claimed to be pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artifacts by their alleged finders. However, none of the specimens made available for scientific study have been...
is held by the museum. - The skull of René DescartesRené DescartesRené Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...
, a scientist, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher also resides in this museum - The skull of Suleiman al-HalabiSuleiman al-HalabiSuleiman al-Halabi, also known as Soleyman El-Halaby , was a Syrian student who assassinated French general Jean Baptiste Kléber. He was tortured by burning his hand to the bone before being executed by impalement.-Early life:...
(1777-1800), a Syrian KurdKürdKürd or Kyurd or Kyurt may refer to:*Kürd Eldarbəyli, Azerbaijan*Kürd Mahrızlı, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Goychay, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Jalilabad, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Qabala, Azerbaijan*Qurdbayram, Azerbaijan...
ish student who assassinated General KléberKléberKléber may refer to:* Jean Baptiste Kléber , a French general* Kléber de Carvalho Corrêa , a Brazilian football player* Kléber de Souza Freitas , a Brazilian football player...
is also there.