In November 2019, Justine Wintjes organized a field trip to the town of Moyeni in the Quthing district of Lesotho, with the participation of Ghilraen Laue, rock art researcher and curator in the Department of Human Sciences at KZNM, Anton Coetzee, PhD candidate in History of Art at Wits University, and TelangSekotlo, registered tour guide and rock art custodian in Lesotho. The aim of the field trip was to locate rock art sites in the Quthing area that had been previously recorded by German rock art researchers Elisabeth Mannsfeld, Agnes Schulz and Maria Weyersberg of the Frobenius expedition in 1928 as well as the research project ‘Analysis of Rock Art in Lesotho’ (ARAL) directed by Lucas Smits of the National University of Lesotho in the 1970s and 1980s. There are a number of rock art sites near to and entangled in the urban fabric of Moyeni, including several intriguing panels by the Phuthi artist Masitise commissioned by Marion Walsham How on the side of the house she and her husband were living in at the time.

TelangSekotlo, TselisoMandoro, Ghilraen Laue and Anton Coetzee examining rock paintings painted on the sandstone walls of the former British Residency, currently occupied by the Lesotho National Security Service, in the town of Moyeni. Photo by Justine Wintjes (2019).

In July, 2019, Claire Dean of Dean & Associates visited KZNM and conducted a needs assessment of the collections within both the Natural (DNS) and the Human Sciences (DHS) departments as well as considering the needs of items on exhibition. The recommendations in Dean & Associates’ report, along with the recommendations made by the accounting firm, Grant Thornton, in their Heritage Asset Assessment will be used to guide adjustments to the policies, protocols and practices of collections management at the KZNM. The goal of these assessments is to see where the KZNM can bring its collections management in line with best global practices.

DNS has well over 100,000 items in their collections, including some of the most significant collections of Malacology and Diptera in the world. DHS has some 40,000 objects across Anthropology, Archaeology and History collections. These collections are visited every year by scholars from around the world for their valuable scientific knowledge. The final report will be accepted by museum management by the end of 2019 and submitted to Council. In years to come, Dean and Associates’ recommendations will be implemented.

An example of insect storage in the DNS, all requiring the same environmental conditions, making it possible to consolidate storage space for thousands of individual specimens – a characteristic less common with DHS collections’ storage. Photograph by Claire Dean.

The KZN Museum hosted a roundtable discussion on issues surrounding human remains housed in South African Museums and how best to deal with repatriation of remains collected unethically. Part of the legacy of colonialism, human skeletons were often given to, or acquired by, museums in South Africa often under dubious circumstances. The Khoesan peoples were significantly affected by such unethical acquisitions. The skeletons within museum collections in South Africa today raise many challenges for how to deal with these remains and how to identify and repatriate them to relevant communities. Museums have often been slow to respond to such issues and to deal with restitution.

A new initiative, being led by Dr Wendy Black of Iziko Museums (Cape Town), seeks to map a new consensus amongst museum curatorial personnel on how best to deal with issues surrounding human remains within museum collections. To this end Dr Black hosted a one-day roundtable discussion on 25 October 2019, with personnel from Iziko Museums of South Africa, KZN Museum, Wits University, McGregor Museum, Albany Museum, Bloemfontein Museum, Ditsong Museum, the University of Stellenbosch, and the Department of Sports, Art and Culture (DSAC). The discussions were fruitful and the contributors were able to share their concerns and potential solutions to these issues. The participants were also able to comment broadly and provide important input on the Draft National Policy on the Repatriation and Restitution of Human Remains and Heritage Objects, currently in the process of refinement by DSAC.