Reconstruction as interpretation: the example of the Jorvik Viking Centre, York

Abstract

The Museums Association of Great Britain, having devoted much discussion and careful thought to the question of what a museum really is (Museums Bulletin 1984), eventually promulgated this definition: an institution which collects, documents, preserves, exhibits, and interprets material evidence and associated information for the public benefit. Britain has about 1500 such institutions, which annually attract 54 million visitors. Eighteen institutions attract more than half a million people each, while even the average museum attracts 56000. Suffice it to say that whatever their role as collectors, documenters, and preservers of the nation’s past, museums have an important function and a remarkable opportunity to present the British past. Museums have the power to form attitudes and to alter interpretations about the past. The more effectively they present the past, the more fundamentally they can change people’s perceptions not only about their historic environment but also about themselves and their patterns of life.

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