Did the British Museum change a display due to UKLFI objections?

ONOMASTIC POLITICS, CONTINUED: British Museum did not remove Palestine from labels due to pressure campaign, museum sources say—as backlash continues. Some scholars however have questioned the wording used in the new labels in the Ancient Levant and Egyptian galleries (Melissa Gronlund, The Art Newspaper).

The Art Newspaper understands that the Ancient Levant wall labels were amended in early 2025, following staff changes in the Middle Eastern department. According to interviews with multiple former curators and individuals affiliated with the museum, the labels were updated according to the most recent scholarship, such as the move to use the terms for ancient people by which they were known at the time, and to refresh a display that had grown tired.

The letter that was sent to the British Museum from UKLFI came a year after these changes. ...

Of couse, not all scholars are happy with the changes. This article has a good discussion of the details of the debate.

For an earlier post on this story, see here. There I discuss the complexities of the terminology used to refer to this region, with special attention to emic usages in the Second Temple Period.

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