About ProvenanceQuest
ProvenanceQuest is a collections-ethics case studio: you trace an object's history of ownership and decide what a museum should do — the kind of question a real registrar, curator, or ethics committee faces.
Why "who owns the past"?
Behind every glass case is a paper trail — and sometimes a hard question the label doesn't tell you: was this taken by force, sold under duress, exported without a permit, or acquired without asking enough? The last two decades have seen museums repatriate ancestral remains, return colonial-era objects, and research the gaps in their own records. ProvenanceQuest puts you inside those decisions, with the arguments on every side modelled fairly.
Contested by design
These are values cases: there is no single "right" answer, and the app never tells you that you chose correctly. Each choice is a defensible position tagged with the value it foregrounds — legal duty, restitution, stewardship, transparency, research — and you see the realistic consequence of each. The point is the reasoning, not a score.
What it's good for (and what we don't claim)
ProvenanceQuest is good practice for historical sourcing, contextualisation, and ethical reasoning (C3 D2.His; RH.11–12.7–9). It is not legal advice, does not grade your writing with AI, and makes no claim to a proven learning outcome.
Safe by design
- On your device. Nothing you choose leaves your browser — no account, no sign-in, no tracking.
- No dark patterns. No timer, no streak, no score — just the case and your reasoning.
- Respectful. Cases are illustrative and never name a real dispute or community; you never speak as a community; frameworks (NAGPRA, UNESCO 1970, ICOM) are cited as they are publicly stated.