Exhibits Mislabelled from “Palestine” at the Royal Ontario Museum

History, Archaeology and Politics came to the ROM. History and archaeology came armed with facts. Politics came armed with power.

A flurry of online complaints in recent weeks – including a prominent one from Tafsik, a Jewish advocacy group – have revealed that the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto contains displays of potteries and earthenware originating from “Palestine.”

However, the dates on the pieces predate the period when the area was called by that name.

Various flasks and vessels from the Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Gallery of Rome and the Near East have their description cards marked “Syria or Palestine,” despite being dated several decades before the area was named “Palestine.”

From around 1,300 BC, the area now known as Israel was called Judea until Roman conquerors renamed it “Palestine” in the early second century, in an attempt to erase the Jewish connection to the land. It is believed the name choice was used to add insult to injury, by using the name of the Israelite’s arch-enemy, the Philistines, who disappeared seven hundred years before the Roman takeover.

The National Post reported that these specific artefacts had been on display at the ROM since 2012, and that the museum has been working on revisions for “several months.”