Cambridge museum to explain 'whiteness' of its sculptures under anti-racism campaign

Cambridge University's archaeology museum is to add signs to explain the “whiteness” of sculpture plaster casts, as part of the Classics Faculty’s new anti-racist strategy.

Plaster casts of Roman and Greek sculptures that are on display at Cambridge University’s Museum of Classical Archeology, as well as around lecture rooms, give a “misleading impression” of the whiteness and “absence of diversity” of the ancient world.

The Classics Faculty has said it will “turn the problem into an opportunity” by drawing attention to the diversity of those figured in the casts, to the ways in which colour has been lost and can be restored, and to the “role of classical sculpture in the history of racism”.

The new information panels about the “whiteness” of plaster cast sculptures are due to go on display later this year, according to the faculty.