This book provides the first concise, comprehensive overview of all the key issues surrounding a hotly debated topic: the presentation and inclusion of religious objects in museums.

In the past, museums often changed the meaning of icons or statues of deities from sacred to aesthetic, or used them to declare the superiority of Western society, or simply as cultural and historical evidence. The last generation has seen faith groups demanding to control 'their' objects, and curators recognising that objects can only be understood within their original religious context. In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in the role religion plays in museums, with major exhibitions highlighting the religious as well as the historical nature of objects.Using examples from all over the world, Religious Objects in Museums is the first book to examine how religious objects are transformed when they enter the museum, and how they affect curators and visitors. It examines the full range of meanings that religious objects may bear - as scientific specimen, sacred icon, work of art, or historical record. Showing how objects may be used to argue a point, tell a story or promote a cause, may be worshipped, ignored, or seen as dangerous or unlucky, this highly accessible book is an essential introduction to the subject.

Although museums and art galleries are often compared in role and function to shrines and temples, religion itself has mostly been ignored in museums, even those displaying works originally created for purely religious purposes. In recent years, however, there has been increased interest in the study of spiritual values, particularly those of non-Western cultures. Fourteen contributors from museums and universities worldwide look at the themes and artifacts of religion and examine how museums handle and present this subject, which although often difficult to grasp has pervaded every human society. The first three chapters examine, from different perspectives, the principal religious themes and rituals. Then, a series of chapters looks at how religions-from Methodism to Voodou-have been presented in museums, from Belfast to Taiwan. This book will be essential reading for all who work in museums as curators, conservators, or exhibition designers; it will be equally important for students of religion, art history, and cultural>

Sacred and Stolen is the memoir of an art museum director with the courage to reveal what goes on behind the scenes. Gary Vikan lays bare the messy underbelly of museum life: looted antiquities, crooked dealers, deluded collectors, duplicitous public officials, fakes, inside thefts, bribery, and failed exhibitions. These backstories, at once shocking and comical, reveal a man with a taste for adventure, an eagerness to fan the flames of excitement, and comfort with the chaos that often ensued. A Minnesota kid who started out as a printer’s devil in his father’s small-town newspaper, Vikan ended up as the director of The Walters Art Museum, a gem of a museum in Baltimore. Sacred and Stolen reveals his quest to bring the “holy” into the museum experience as he struggles to reconcile his passion for acquiring sacred works of art with his suspicion that they were stolen. The cast of characters in his many adventures include the elegant French oil heiress, Dominique de Menil, the notorious Turkish smuggler, Aydin Dikmen, his slippery Dutch dealer, Michel van Rijn, the inscrutable and implacable Patriarchs of Ethiopia and Georgia, and the charismatic President of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze—along with a mysterious thief of a gorgeous Renoir painting missing from a museum for over sixty years. When the painting suddenly shows up, it’s Vikan who tracks down the culprit. In his afterword Vikan explains his coming to grips with the realities of art dealing in our present dangerous world that includes the fanatical iconoclasm of the Islamic State. We know of the violent destruction and looting of precious treasures of antiquity and unscrupulous black market art dealers who take advantage of international conflicts to possess them. Sacred and Stolen is a truly eye-opening account of art dealing in the modern world.

We have long recognized that many objects in museums were originally on display in temples, shrines, or monasteries, and were religiously significant to the communities that created and used them. How, though, are such objects to be understood, described, exhibited, and handled now that they are in museums? Are they still sacred objects, or formerly sacred objects that are now art objects, or are they simultaneously objects of religious and artistic significance, depending on who is viewing the object? These objects not only raise questions about their own identities, but also about the ways we understand the religious traditions in which these objects were created and which they represent in museums today. Bringing together religious studies scholars and museum curators, Sacred Objects in Secular Spaces is the first volume to focus on Asian religions in relation to these questions. The contributors analyze an array of issues related to the exhibition in museums of objects of religious significance from Hindu, Buddhist, and Sikh traditions. The “lives” of objects are considered, along with the categories of “sacred” and “profane”, “religious” and “secular”. As interest in material manifestations of religious ideas and practices continues to grow, Sacred Objects in Secular Spaces is a much-needed contribution to religious and Asian studies, anthropology of religion and museums studies.

Critically examining the notion of 'world religions', Charles D. Orzech compares five purpose-built museums of world religions and their online extensions. Inspired by the 19th and 20th century discipline of comparative religion, these museums seek to promote religious tolerance by representing religious diversity and by arguing for underlying kinship among religions. From locations in Europe (Marburg, Glasgow and St Petersburg), to North America (Quebec) to Asia (Taipei), each museum advances a particular cultural history. This book shows how the curation of the objects they contain shapes public perceptions of religion, giving material form to the discourses about religion and world religions. Raising important questions about religion and secularity, museum displays and religious piety, Museums of World Religions questions the ideology that informs these museums. Building on recent anthropological work on the agency of religious objects, the author critiques these museums and suggests new approaches to displaying the matter of religion.

"Lost Treasures of the Bible contains photographs and detailed descriptions of more than one hundred biblically significant archaeological objects housed in over twenty-five museums worldwide. Clyde Fant and Mitchell Reddish's selection of artifacts - many of them relatively unknown - illuminates the history, culture, and practices of the biblical world as a whole. Each entry also explains that particular object's relevance for understanding the Bible and locates the artifact not only at its museum site but also by its specific identification number, which is particularly valuable for smaller and lesser-known objects - true "lost treasures.""--BOOK JACKET.