For years, visitors to the State Museum of Pennsylvania have been able to tour the museum’s extensive Native American collection, which includes thousands of sacred artifacts from Tribal Nations across the country, as well as funerary objects and human remains.

The exhibit is being dismantled and much of it is now inaccessible to the public as part of the museum’s compliance with a federal law mandating the repatriation of Native American human remains and cultural items held by federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding.

The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission has some 908 individual remains and 79,628 funerary objects in its collection, which are subject to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

The federal law is designed to protect Native American gravesites and human remains from desecration and give Tribal Nations a method by which to reclaim ancestral property, including human remains.