Against "Possibly Ritual"

Every museum joke about the phrase possibly ritual exists for a reason. A small carved bone, a perforated clay disc, or an iron prong with a twisted handle arrives from an old excavation without context, and because nobody in the building can prove it was a bobbin, a gaming piece, or a cheese tester, the label solemnly declares it a ritual object.

Visitors are much more forgiving of honest ignorance than curators think. Saying "We do not know what this tool was for" does something remarkable in a gallery: it invites the person on the other side of the glass into the problem.

Try it on a bronze hook from a nineteenth-century dig: "We do not know which trade used this hook. The inner curve is worn smooth by rope or leather, but the point was never sharpened." Suddenly the visitor is looking at wear marks instead of nodding politely at a mystery they were told not to question.