How do you translate museum labels and exhibition text correctly without flattening the scholarship, culture or visitor experience? Start by identifying what kind of museum text you are looking at. An object label, introductory panel, curator’s essay, artist quotation, provenance note, advisory notice, audio-guide script and digital collection entry perform different jobs. Preserve object identity, scholarly uncertainty, attribution, community terminology and cultural context first; then shape the target language for how a visitor actually reads in a gallery.
Searches for museum translation, exhibition translation, museum label translation, multilingual museum labels, cultural heritage translation, art exhibition translation, museum localization and multilingual exhibitions all point to the same challenge: museum text sits between scholarship and public communication. It must be accurate enough for curators and collections teams, clear enough for visitors, sensitive enough for communities represented by the objects, and concise enough to work in physical space.
This guide builds a repeatable museum-translation method. It covers tombstone labels, interpretive panels, names and dates, object titles, materials, provenance, contested terminology, artist voice, community self-identification, quotations, accessibility text, visual description, audio guides, digital labels, advisory notices, design constraints, version control and final review. It is distinct from historical documents and archives, which protects source evidence, and from literary translation, which protects artistic voice. This article owns public-facing cultural interpretation around objects and exhibitions.
Museum Text Has More Than One Job
A museum label may identify an object, interpret it, acknowledge uncertainty, describe how it was made, explain why it matters or situate it inside a historical debate. The visitor often sees only a few dozen words, but those words can carry years of research.
Translation should therefore begin by naming the label’s function. A factual object line needs terminological stability. An interpretive paragraph needs clear public language without turning one scholarly interpretation into settled fact. A quoted artist statement needs voice preservation. An advisory notice needs directness and sensitivity.
The same translation style should not be forced onto every museum text type.
Step 1: Identify the Label Type
Common museum text types include object tombstones, extended labels, introductory panels, section panels, chronology text, maps, captions, artist biographies, quotations, collection records, donor credits, accessibility descriptions and wayfinding.
Mark the type before translating. The expected length, register and information hierarchy will differ.
This simple step prevents a common error: writing a scholarly mini-essay where a visitor needs one clear sentence.
Step 2: Lock Object Identity
Before translating interpretation, establish the object’s identity: artist or maker, title, date, material, place, culture or community, accession number and collection ownership where provided.
These fields should remain stable across labels, wall panels, audio guides and digital records. If the object title or maker name has an established target-language form, verify it from authoritative sources.
Object identity is the anchor around which interpretation can vary.
Step 3: Distinguish Artist Titles From Descriptive Titles
An artwork may have a title assigned by the artist, a historical title, a curator-supplied descriptive title or a cataloguing title. These do not carry the same authority.
Do not translate a descriptive cataloguing phrase as though it were the artist’s official title. If an established translation of an artwork title exists, use it according to museum policy. If the title is deliberately untranslated, preserve that choice and provide explanation where needed.
Title handling should be documented, not improvised label by label.
Step 4: Translate Dates and Period Labels Carefully
Museum dates can be exact, approximate or ranges: 1872, c. 1872, 1870s, before 1872, early 19th century. Preserve the degree of certainty.
Do not turn “circa” into an exact date. Do not collapse “late 18th–early 19th century” into one century for convenience.
Historical precision is part of the interpretation.
Step 5: Research Materials and Techniques
Materials can be deceptively technical: tempera, gesso, cloisonné, albumen print, lacquer, stoneware, gilt bronze, ink on silk. Use target-language museum and conservation terminology rather than literal dictionary choices.
Comparable labels from reputable target-language museums can reveal conventional phrasing. Keep material names consistent with the collection database.
The Dictionaries, Corpora and Parallel Texts owner provides the evidence method for these terms.
Step 6: Preserve Measurements and Units
Object dimensions are structured data. Check height, width, depth, diameter and unit labels separately from prose.
If the museum presents both metric and imperial measurements, follow house style and verify conversions. Do not reorder dimensions unless the target convention and database mapping are clear.
Numbers should match the object record, not a translator’s estimate.
Step 7: Keep Credit Lines and Ownership Statements Stable
Credit lines can name donors, lenders, acquisition funds, collections and institutions. They may be legally or contractually required.
Translate generic wording according to house style but preserve names, fund titles and institutional identity. Do not shorten a lender credit merely because the target language expands.
Credit lines are part of the museum’s record of stewardship.
Step 8: Preserve Provenance and Uncertainty
Provenance text may use careful terms such as attributed to, possibly, probably, acquired from, formerly in the collection of, or ownership history incomplete.
Do not strengthen uncertain provenance into certainty. Do not turn “attributed to” into “by” or “possibly from” into a definite origin.
Museum scholarship often becomes more accurate by stating what remains unknown.
Step 9: Distinguish Fact From Interpretation
A label might say that an object “may have been used in ceremonial contexts” or “has been interpreted as representing…” These formulations mark scholarly interpretation.
Translate the modality. Do not convert interpretation into fact because a shorter target sentence sounds cleaner.
The same principle applies to contested iconography, historical motives and cultural meaning.
Step 10: Preserve Attribution
When the label attributes an interpretation to a scholar, community, historical source or artist, keep that attribution visible.
“According to oral histories…” is not equivalent to a universal statement. “Scholars have proposed…” signals a research conversation.
Attribution protects the difference between evidence, interpretation and institutional voice.
Step 11: Handle Contested Terms Deliberately
Museums may inherit colonial, outdated, externally imposed or contested labels for peoples, objects and regions. Translation should not automatically reproduce harmful or obsolete terminology as neutral present-day language.
Follow current museum and community policy, record historical source wording where relevant, and distinguish quoted archival terms from present curatorial terminology.
This work may require community consultation rather than a purely linguistic decision.
Step 12: Respect Community Names and Self-Identification
Names for Indigenous peoples, ethnic communities, nations and language groups should be verified through current authoritative and community sources where possible.
Do not substitute a familiar target-language exonym merely because it appears in an old dictionary. If several forms are current, follow the exhibition’s consultation and style decisions consistently.
Translation is one part of respectful representation.
Step 13: Know When to Transliterate Rather Than Translate
Personal names, place names, object types and culture-specific terms may require transliteration, retention in the original script, translation, or a combination.
Use established scholarly and museum conventions. Provide a short gloss if the term is important to visitor understanding but should not be replaced by a false equivalent.
The goal is legibility without erasing cultural specificity.
Step 14: Preserve Source-Language Terms When They Are Part of the Interpretation
Sometimes the exact source term matters because the exhibition discusses language itself, an Indigenous concept, a title, a ritual category or a historical classification.
Keep the term and translate its explanation. Do not collapse a culturally specific concept into a broad target noun merely to make the sentence easier.
Visitors can learn new words when the label gives them enough context.
Step 15: Preserve Artist Voice in Quotations
An artist quotation may be conversational, poetic, political, technical or deliberately ambiguous. Translate it as a voice, not as neutral curatorial prose.
Keep hesitation, humour, repetition or unconventional syntax when those features are meaningful. If the quotation has an existing published translation, verify whether the museum has permission or policy to use it.
Quoted voice should remain distinguishable from institutional interpretation.
Step 16: Do Not Turn Curatorial Paraphrase Into Direct Quotation
A label may paraphrase an artist or historical source. Keep it as paraphrase unless the source provides exact quoted wording.
Quotation marks signal evidentiary precision. Adding them casually can make a museum appear to possess exact words it does not actually have.
This is the museum version of attribution discipline.
Step 17: Write for Standing Distance
Visitors often read labels while standing several feet from a wall, sharing the space with other visitors and looking repeatedly at the object.
Translation should favour clear syntax and visible information hierarchy. Long target-language sentences can be divided if the scholarly relationships remain intact.
Natural public language is not simplification of scholarship; it is part of access.
Step 18: Plan for Text Expansion Before Layout
Target languages can occupy more or less space than the source. A fixed label box may become crowded.
Work with designers before the final print stage. Protect essential content rather than cutting dates, uncertainty or attribution at the last minute.
The layout should adapt to the language where possible, not force the language to lose meaning.
Step 19: Preserve Exhibition Hierarchy
An exhibition often has layers: title, introductory panel, section headings, object labels and captions. The target language should preserve the relationships among those layers.
Use consistent terminology for recurring concepts. Do not translate the same thematic heading three different ways across rooms.
A visitor should be able to follow the curatorial argument through the target language.
Step 20: Translate Navigation and Wayfinding Directly
Words such as entrance, exit, gallery, lift, stairs, audio guide, family activity and accessible route perform navigational jobs.
Use familiar target-language wayfinding language rather than literary alternatives. Where icons accompany text, make sure wording and symbol agree.
Navigation language should be easy to act on immediately.
Step 21: Accessibility Text Is Part of Interpretation
Museums increasingly provide accessible exhibition text in multiple formats. A translated accessible text version should preserve the same content and hierarchy as the visual label while remaining usable with screen readers and text resizing.
Do not hide essential information only in an image. Headings, object titles and descriptions should be structurally clear.
Accessibility and multilingual access should be designed together rather than added at the end.
Step 22: Visual Description Needs Its Own Translation Discipline
Visual descriptions support visitors who cannot access the object visually. They describe observable form, colour, composition, scale and spatial relationships without replacing interpretation.
Translate description precisely. Keep left/right, foreground/background, orientation and dimensions stable.
Do not add interpretive claims to a visual description unless the source does so.
Step 23: Family Labels Need Age-Appropriate Language Without Changing Facts
Family or child-focused labels may use shorter sentences, questions and concrete vocabulary.
Translate for the intended age without turning uncertain interpretation into a simple factual story. Children can understand phrases such as “we are not sure” or “researchers think.”
Age-appropriate language should preserve epistemic honesty.
Step 24: Audio Guides Are Spoken Museum Text
Audio-guide translation must sound natural when heard, not only when read. Sentence rhythm, pronunciation and reference to the visible object matter.
Keep directions such as “look at the upper-left corner” accurate. Verify names and specialist terms for pronunciation support.
Audio guides sit between transcript, narration and museum interpretation; they should connect to the same approved terminology as wall labels.
Step 25: Digital Exhibition Pages Can Carry More Depth
Online collection pages may allow longer scholarship, related objects, references and expandable notes.
Do not simply paste wall-label text into every digital field. Preserve core terminology while adapting the information depth to the digital format.
Searchability also matters: object names, artists, materials and cultures should use stable target terms.
Step 26: QR-Linked Content Must Match the Physical Label
If a gallery label links to a longer digital text, the object identity and core interpretation should agree across both versions.
Version the content so a later digital update does not contradict a printed label without review.
Multilingual digital content should not become an orphaned translation detached from current scholarship.
Step 27: Translate Advisory Notices Clearly
Exhibitions may include advisories about violence, human remains, sensitive images, flashing light, sound or other visitor considerations.
Translate these directly and respectfully. Do not sensationalize the content or soften an advisory until it becomes useless.
The visitor needs enough information to make an informed choice.
Step 28: Historical Quotations Need Source Awareness
An exhibition may quote archival language that is offensive, obsolete or historically specific. Preserve the fact that it is a quotation from its period.
The curatorial text can contextualize it, but the translation should not silently modernize the historical speaker into contemporary language if that erases evidence.
The historical documents owner provides the broader framework.
Step 29: Maps and Timelines Need Terminology Consistency
Place names, dynasties, events and period labels may recur across map, timeline and object labels.
Create one approved target form and use it consistently. Check dates and geographic labels against the curatorial source.
Visual information systems expose inconsistency quickly.
Step 30: Review With the Designer, Not Only the Text File
A label can be linguistically excellent in a spreadsheet and fail on the wall. Review final proofs at realistic size.
Check line breaks, orphaned headings, quotation marks, diacritics, non-Latin scripts, numerals and the alignment of language with object images or captions.
Museum translation is completed in the exhibition, not in the translation memory.
Worked Example: An Object Tombstone
Source fields: maker, title, date, material, dimensions, lender and accession number. Translate each field according to its function.
Keep the maker’s name and accession number stable. Verify the artwork title policy. Use museum-standard material terminology. Preserve circa or date ranges.
The label may be short, but every field is structured evidence.
Worked Example: Interpretive Uncertainty
Source: “This figure may represent a protective ancestor, although its original function is unknown.”
A weak translation might say, “This is a protective ancestor figure.” That removes both uncertainty markers.
The target should preserve the proposed interpretation and the unknown original function.
Worked Example: Community Naming
An older catalog uses one group name; current community sources and the exhibition use another. The target label should follow the approved contemporary terminology while an archival quotation can retain the historical wording with context.
Do not blend the two into one unmarked label.
Historical evidence and present-day institutional voice are different layers.
Worked Example: Artist Quotation
An artist says, “I wanted the cloth to remember the hands that touched it.” A literal but awkward target phrase may lose the metaphor.
Preserve the image of memory and touch if it remains natural. Do not replace the line with an explanatory paraphrase merely because the curator’s surrounding text is more formal.
Artist voice deserves its own register.
Worked Example: Advisory Notice
Source: “This gallery contains images of human remains.” The target should communicate the same content plainly.
Do not euphemize it into “sensitive historical material” if the purpose is to let visitors decide whether to enter.
Access language works when it is specific enough to be useful.
A Museum Translation Checklist
- Label type identified.
- Object identity fields verified.
- Titles handled according to museum policy.
- Dates preserve uncertainty.
- Materials use established terminology.
- Provenance and attribution remain qualified.
- Community names follow approved current usage.
- Historical quotations remain historically marked.
- Artist voice remains distinct from curator voice.
- Accessibility text included where required.
- Navigation language immediately actionable.
- Final layout reviewed in context.
A Museum Label QA Matrix
| Dimension | Question | Typical failure |
|---|---|---|
| Object identity | Is this clearly the same object? | Title or maker drift. |
| Scholarship | Are uncertainty and attribution preserved? | Interpretation becomes fact. |
| Terminology | Are materials, periods and cultures consistent? | Catalog terms vary by room. |
| Community | Does naming follow approved respectful usage? | Outdated exonym normalized. |
| Voice | Are artist, curator and quotation distinct? | Paraphrase presented as quote. |
| Access | Can target visitors read and navigate? | Overlong wall text or untranslated image text. |
| Visual context | Does translated text match object and layout? | Wrong directional reference. |
| Version | Does target reflect current scholarship? | Old provenance remains online. |
The Collection Database Is a Terminology Anchor
Museum collection systems often contain approved object names, makers, dates, materials and accession information.
Use the database to stabilize target terms, but do not assume every old catalog field reflects current curatorial language. Check updated exhibition decisions and community consultations.
Data consistency and scholarly revision must work together.
Build an Exhibition-Specific Glossary
Recurring names, periods, places, materials, concepts and community terms should be recorded before labels proliferate.
Add notes about capitalization, transliteration, source-language retention and contested alternatives.
The glossary supports both translators and designers who must retype or place text.
Use a House Style Guide
Museums benefit from rules for dates, dimensions, artist names, title formatting, quotation marks, credit lines, language names and capitalization.
A target-language style guide should combine museum house style with the natural conventions of the language.
Do not import English punctuation and capitalization mechanically into every language.
Curatorial Review and Language Review Are Different
A curator checks scholarship, object identity and interpretation. A target-language editor checks naturalness, readability and register. Both are necessary for important exhibitions.
Do not ask a language reviewer to decide unresolved provenance, and do not assume subject expertise guarantees excellent target prose.
Good museum translation is collaborative by design.
Community Review Can Be Part of Translation Quality
When an exhibition presents living communities, community members may have knowledge about names, concepts and respectful language that dictionaries do not contain.
Consultation should be planned, compensated and documented according to institutional practice. It should not be used as a last-minute burden placed on communities after text is already frozen.
Translation quality can include relational accuracy, not only lexical accuracy.
Sacred or Restricted Knowledge Requires Boundaries
Some objects or knowledge may be culturally restricted. Translation should not expose information simply because it exists in an internal source file.
Follow the museum’s consultation, access and rights decisions. If target visitors receive a shorter or restricted label by design, that is not a translation defect.
Access to language must remain inside ethical access to knowledge.
Colonial-Era Catalog Language Needs Context
Older museum records may use labels created under colonial collecting systems. Translating those terms without context can reproduce outdated classifications as if they were neutral present-day knowledge.
When the exhibition critically presents historical catalog language, keep the source status visible. When curatorial voice uses updated terminology, follow the contemporary framework.
The target should preserve the exhibition’s distinction between inherited record and current interpretation.
Provenance Updates Require Version Control
Research into ownership history can change. Restitution discussions, archival discoveries or corrected attribution may update labels.
When the source changes, trace every target label, website page, audio guide and digital collection entry that depends on it.
A multilingual museum needs change control so old scholarship does not survive in one language after another has been corrected.
Digital Collection Search Needs Stable Target Terms
Online collections depend on searchable object types, materials, makers and cultures.
Use controlled target terms for indexing while preserving nuanced public interpretation in longer text. Search metadata and wall prose do not need identical phrasing, but they should point to the same concepts.
This is where museum translation meets information architecture.
AI Can Help Draft, but Museum Translation Needs Human Judgment
AI can generate first drafts, compare terminology and identify repeated names. It can also flatten uncertainty, normalize contested terms or invent contextual explanations.
Feed approved object data and glossary terms into the workflow, then review scholarship, community naming and cultural nuance with qualified humans.
Do not let fluent generative prose become new museum authority without evidence.
A Practice Drill
Choose three objects from one public online collection. Create target-language tombstones and 100-word labels.
Before translating, build a glossary for maker names, periods, materials and places. After drafting, compare object identity, uncertainty and attribution line by line.
Finally read the target while looking at the object image. Does the label help you see the object without telling you more than the evidence supports?
Common Failure Modes
- Turning uncertain attribution into certainty.
- Using an outdated community name because it appears in an old dictionary.
- Translating a descriptive title as an artist-given title.
- Dropping “circa” from a date.
- Using general material vocabulary instead of museum terminology.
- Blending historical quotation into contemporary institutional voice.
- Making artist speech sound like curator prose.
- Cutting credit lines to fit layout.
- Ignoring text embedded in maps, timelines or graphics.
- Designing multilingual labels only after the source-language layout is fixed.
- Updating provenance in one language but not others.
- Using AI-generated cultural explanation without verification.
Translate Exhibition Titles and Section Headings as Part of the Curatorial Argument
An exhibition title is not merely a label attached after the scholarship is complete. It can frame the visitor’s expectations, establish a metaphor, name a historical question or connect several rooms into one argument. Section headings can perform the same function at a smaller scale. A literal translation may preserve the dictionary meaning while losing the curatorial logic that makes the title memorable or intelligible.
Start by asking what the title is doing. Is it descriptive, poetic, argumentative, archival, humorous or borrowed from a quotation? If it names a work or historical phrase, verify whether an established translation already exists. If it uses wordplay, preserve the conceptual frame before attempting a new target-language device.
Keep the title aligned with the body text. A target heading should not promise a topic or interpretation that the translated labels do not actually develop.
Respect the Information Budget of a Museum Label
Museum labels operate under physical and cognitive constraints. Visitors often read while standing, moving, looking back and forth between object and text, or sharing space with other people. A target language may expand substantially, but adding a second paragraph simply because the translation needs more words can damage the intended visitor experience.
Separate information that is essential to understanding the object from information that can move to a digital layer, audio guide or extended label. Compress through natural target-language syntax, not by deleting uncertainty, dates, provenance or culturally important distinctions.
The right question is not “How do we make the target as short as the source?” but “How do we preserve the same hierarchy of essential information within the visitor’s reading conditions?”
Design Multilingual Panels So Languages Have Equivalent Status
When several languages appear together, layout can unintentionally create a hierarchy. One language may receive larger type, better placement or more complete text while another is compressed into a secondary block. Translation quality therefore includes the spatial relationship between languages.
Agree early on whether every language receives complete equivalent content, whether some languages use shorter visitor summaries, and how the distinction will be labeled. Do not silently shorten one language because it occupies more space.
If the exhibition intentionally presents one original-language quotation alongside translations, make that relationship visually clear. The visitor should be able to distinguish source text, translation and editorial explanation.
Typography, Script Direction and Line Breaking Can Change Readability
Different scripts have different typographic needs. Right-to-left languages, vertical scripts, non-Latin characters and languages with longer words may require different alignment, line length, type size or spacing. A design that looks balanced in English may be difficult to read after translation.
Do not force target text into source-language line breaks. Review the actual final panel at intended size and viewing distance. Check punctuation, quotation marks, numerals and the direction of arrows or visual sequencing when script direction changes.
Typography should support the language rather than make the target visitor work harder to access the same scholarship.
Historical Periods, Dynasties and Movements Need Established Target Terms
Labels often place an object within a dynasty, reign, artistic movement, archaeological period or historical era. These terms may have well-established target-language forms that differ from literal translation.
Verify the convention used by reputable museums, academic publications and specialist reference works in the target language. Keep dates available when a period name might be unfamiliar or contested.
Do not silently substitute a target-culture historical category for a source-culture period simply because the dates overlap. Period labels describe a scholarly framework, not only a span of years.
Accession Numbers and Object Identifiers Must Remain Stable
Accession numbers, inventory numbers and collection identifiers connect the public label to the museum’s collection-management system. They should normally be preserved exactly, including punctuation, prefixes and leading zeros.
Do not translate letters inside an identifier as though they were ordinary abbreviations unless the museum explicitly defines a localized display form. If the label uses both an accession number and a catalogue number, keep the distinction.
Stable identifiers make multilingual labels auditable and help digital collection pages remain connected to the physical object.
Travelling Exhibitions Need Version Control Across Venues
A travelling exhibition may move between countries, institutions and galleries while object lists, lender credits, dates, room numbers or interpretive texts continue to change. A translation created for the first venue can become obsolete even if most of the wording remains correct.
Track source versions and venue-specific changes. When an object is removed, a lender credit changes or a curator revises an interpretation, identify every target-language label affected. Do not assume the earlier translation remains valid because the exhibition title is unchanged.
Version control is especially important when local institutions add introductory panels or community consultation notes. Those additions should be translated and reviewed as part of the new venue’s interpretive system, not pasted into an old language package without context.
Permanent Collections and Temporary Exhibitions Use Different Time Horizons
Permanent-gallery text may remain in place for years, while temporary exhibition text may be written for a specific moment, partnership or public debate. The translation workflow should reflect that difference.
For long-lived labels, invest in terminology that will age well, maintain a record of scholarly sources and plan for later corrections. For temporary shows, timeline pressure may be greater, but that does not justify weakening review of names, dates, provenance or culturally sensitive terminology.
The expected lifespan of the text should influence maintenance planning, not the standard of factual care.
Translator Notes Should Be Rare, Useful and Clearly Marked
Some cultural concepts genuinely need explanation. A short translator note can help when a source term has no compact equivalent or when wordplay is essential to understanding the object. But museum labels already compete for visitor attention, so notes should not become a second essay.
First try to solve the problem through a natural translation, a concise gloss or the surrounding curatorial text. Add a translator note only when it protects meaning that would otherwise be lost.
Make the note visibly distinct from curatorial voice so visitors know which information belongs to the source interpretation and which was added to support cross-language understanding.
A Second Practice Drill: Rebuild One Label System in Two Languages
Choose one object and write a fictional museum package containing a tombstone label, a 120-word interpretive label, a section heading, one quotation, an accession number and a short visual description. Translate the whole package rather than only the paragraph.
Then review it at three levels: object identity, scholarly interpretation and visitor usability. Check whether names, dates and materials match across every component; whether uncertainty and attribution remain visible; and whether the target package can be read comfortably in the intended physical space.
This exercise teaches that museum translation succeeds as a system of connected labels, not as isolated sentences.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is museum translation?
Museum translation adapts object labels, exhibition panels, audio guides, digital collection text, wayfinding and related interpretation into another language while preserving object identity, scholarship and visitor accessibility.
Should museum labels be translated literally?
No. Preserve facts, uncertainty, attribution and cultural concepts, then write clear target-language interpretation appropriate to the physical or digital visitor context.
How should artwork titles be translated?
Follow museum policy and established scholarly usage. Distinguish artist-given titles from later descriptive or cataloguing titles.
What should I do with contested cultural terms?
Use current approved museum and community terminology, distinguish historical quoted language from present institutional voice, and seek consultation when the decision is cultural rather than merely lexical.
Why is accessibility important in museum translation?
Multilingual visitors may also use screen readers, visual descriptions, audio guides or accessible routes. Language access and disability access should be designed together.
Can AI translate museum labels?
AI can assist with drafting and consistency, but curatorial uncertainty, community naming, contested histories and culturally specific concepts require qualified human review.
Next Routes in the Translation Series
For primary-source evidence, continue to Historical Documents, Archives and Primary Sources. For artistic prose and voice, use Literary Voice, Style, Rhythm and Imagery. For terminology systems, use Terminology, Glossaries and Quality Checks. The Vocabulary Learning Hub supports specialist word knowledge and the How English Works route supports public-language structure and interpretation.
The Principle to Keep
Museum translation should let a target-language visitor encounter the same object, the same degree of scholarly certainty and the same curatorial argument without forcing every culture into familiar target-language categories.
Preserve the object. Preserve the evidence. Preserve who is speaking. Then make the museum legible.