ABSTRACT
Religious objects in museums are seldom alone. Helped by their curators, they assemble together in order to tell a story, create an impression and to persuade. All use the building, together with the displays and objects, to create a total environment in which the visitor plays an active, almost ritual, role. In a secular museum, objects are normally seen as secular. The notion that museums are modern secular temples, and their objects the modern world's relics is very common; numerous commentators have seen museums as 'temples'. The Romantics' elision of Truth and Beauty almost created a religion of beauty, in which the worship of the beautiful was the duty and delight of all, and every object in the museum was by definition beautiful, and therefore holy. Religious objects can be stripped by museums of all their 'religious' character, so that in the museums intention they become mere works of art or simple scientific specimens.
