Recently, there was an Anglo-Saxon hoard found in Staffordshire, England. The hoard contained over 1800 pieces of gold, silver and jewelled objects, and was estimated to be worth 3.3 million pounds. The Birmingham museum is now attempting to raise the money to buy the pieces off of Fred Johnson, the Farmer who found the hoard.
There has already been a small book published with the images of the pieces, which I had found surprising seeing as how long it usually takes for publications within the archaeological community. What I find interesting about this hoard though is that the pieces in this hoard are thought to be somewhat of a “missing link” for Anglo-Saxon and medieval historians as the pieces demonstrate that there may have been a stronger Norse influence on Anglo-Saxon art than previously anticipated. Of course, the pieces must be examined to a further extent, but it also means that all the scholarship done on Anglo-Saxon art to this point in time must be reviewed as this discovery changes everything.
This is an excellent example of how things are constantly changing through the study of history, and had this man not come across this hoard (what others may believe is looting or treasure hunting) scholars and professors would still be operating under old ideas instead of moving forward with new and current research. I believe it is important for things like this to occur; had it not been for Fred Johnson academics would be unaware of this hoard – I believe that the UK has a good system wherein the “treasure hunters” do not face penalizations if they come across archaeological artefacts, but are instead rewarded. As I said in class, you hear a lot more about looting in the Mediterranean and other areas than you do in the UK so these laws may be worth examining and implementing in other areas.
The past two weeks we have been talking about publishing in the academic world. As it is essay season, I feel inclined to use my own experience in attempting to get articles to form this entry. I am not concerned so much with how often archaeologists publish or what they publish on, but the problem seems to be making this information available to the general public and even more-so the academic community, specifically students. I have spent the past 2 days searching for specific articles that come up on the Brock database when I search for them, but for some reason tracking them down online or in the Brock library has taken up more than 8 hours of my time. This is 8 hours of me searching for the article, not finding and reading the article.
Another point of frustration is that Brock says that they have an article in their periodical section, so taking time out of my day, going up to the school, going to the seventh floor, finding the periodical the article is supposed to be in – and behold! The article is not there, and Brocks records were incorrect. I ended up deciding that I would simply have to write the paper without the article – but really, students are being robbed!
As members of a university community there is an expectation that our money will go towards databases which contain these articles. It seems that Brock, and I don’t know about other universities, seems to buy memberships to sites which only provide the bibliography for the article. This is frustrating because now students know what is out there, but have no way to access it.
I guess the point of this entry in relation to the course is that if publications are meant to be accessible to the academic community, and in turn students then there needs to be a simpler way of getting this information to the students. There are databases but most require a subscription, so if a university does not subscribe to that particular database (which trust me, it’s happened), the students are out of luck.
Furthermore, if this information is supposed to be public knowledge why must libraries and academics pay for access to these online journals – it isn’t like they have to print the paper off… what are their overheads???
In class we discussed whether or not it is ethical to disinter the remains of humans in order to gain valuable knowledge about the past. One presenter argued that seeing as these people were buried “hundreds of years ago” there is no way for someone in contemporary society to feel a connection to them. To an extent, this may be correct for a large number of people, however, it seems that within smaller groups there is still a connection to the past. This should be taken into account, and not discredited as we must keep in mind that groups such as the aboriginal tribes have operated under the same religion for centuries therefore giving them a direct connection to their past and enabling them to hold their elders in high esteem.
It is wrong of current academics to force modern views onto these groups as they seem quite content with their oral history and find no need for there to be excavations in order for them to learn about their past. If it is bodies from a certain time period archaeologists are in search of, they should exhaust all the other resources before entering into a situation where parties may become upset or cause legal action due to the desire to know about the past.
Working at a cemetery for the last 4 years, it is pretty obviously that death is a very serious thing among families. Although there are newer parts to the cemetery, the older parts always interest me most, and I often find myself wondering at what point it will be permissible to dig up these graves and extrapolate from these bodies to gain knowledge about the Victorian period (not to mention all the amazing clothes that would be there… just a side note haha). Not to mention that being able to locate actual graves would help me greatly in my research and in putting together the history of the cemetery – but this is not an option and I must continually cross reference everything. From my experience at this cemetery, and even though it is only about 200 years old, I believe that if we started to disinter people in the older sections, many people in St. Catharine’s would get very upset. Sometimes we must sacrifice knowledge for culture, and if any one person objects to the opening of a grave, we must respect their wishes.
The November 10th New York Times article entitled “Dakis Joanou’s Show at New Museum Raises Ethical Flags”, gives an account of a new exhibit to be shown at The New Museum of Contemporary Art in Manhattan. The main issue being raised by this article is that Dakis Joanou is a trustee of the museum as well as a donor and long time patron of the curator. Within the antiquities world, some view this as a conflict of interest, as in these hard economic times, a museum displaying “contemporary” art may increase the value – therefore increasing what Joanou could sell these pieces for if he so chose.
The American Association of Museums has set “guidelines” for this sort of thing and when it comes to exhibiting borrowed objects they state that “transparency, intellectual integrity and institutional control” must be stressed, but the guideline is simply to outline the potential conflicts when members turn into lenders. In a phone interview, Joanou stated that this was a non-issue for him and insinuates that even if he were not a trustee, his collection would still be questioned.
I am leaning towards siding with Joanou in this case, as over the past couple of weeks it has come to my attention that in the art world, people are always going to have their opinions of what others are doing, and sure, it may look like Joanou is attempting to increase the value of his collection, but to be quite honest – this man lives in Athens, he most likely is very well off as apparently he has no problems spending $2700 on a basketball suspended in a tank of liquid – so why would he have any other desire than to share his collection with the American public?
Within the academic world it seems that very often collectors are scrutinized for wanting to exhibit their private collections, because certainly economic motivations are the only reasons they could possibly have for sharing. Even Shelby White, the epitome of “The Good Collector”, has her motivations questioned. I understand that museums and the antiquities world must maintain integrity, but at some point it becomes a paranoid scramble wherein everyone involved must be questioned. And I have to ask, to what point? It is normal for collectors to be trustees and patrons to museums, and the very title “collector” tells us that they collect – so naturally at some point they will want to exhibit their collections. If they chose to go to another museum, would this not cause another tidal wave of “ethical questions”, as they would have seemingly betrayed the museum to which they are a trustee, and they MUST have monetary motivations to this other museum. See… there is no winning!
During yesterdays class we discussed archaeology and war, and in turn the looting that comes out of it. As I have mentioned in previous entries sometimes things are out of our control and we must simply let our history do to monuments and objects what is intended to happen. That is not to say that we shouldn't do everything in our power to protect objects and buildings, but to recognize when we are being a little rediculous and that we cannot save every piece of the past. In my opinion this becomes very clear when human lives are involved. In all honesty there are bigger things happening in the world than archaeology and it is not worth losing lives over. For example, the case of the Bamyan Bhuddas which were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. Yes, this is a horrible occurance and should never have happened, but in all honesty, the Taliban has done a lot worse, and had there been mass protestations of the destruction of the Bhuddas, I'm sure the world would have seen just how much worse it could have been.
In class certain students went onto say that taking items from war torn countries is illegal and should not be done because "stealing is wrong". Obviously, I have some different ideas about this. It is my opinion that it is better to save objects and risk their provenance and risk that they may not be returned to a museum than to lose them forever. Even if the objects are not returned to a museum, chances are 50 years from now they will turn up and provide academics with the ability to study and learn from them. It seems that there is no right or wrong answer because let's say, hypothetically, that I knew the Bamyan Bhuddas were going to be destroyed and I knew of a way to remove them in their entirety without damaging them, and had a location in my home city where I knew they would be safe. So the night before they are set to be destroyed, I go with some colleagues and remove the Bhudda's and they are saved from being destroyed. With this argument, certain students in the class would make this an illegal action, but at the same time those students complain about how the Bamyan Bhuddas have been destroyed! I know this "hypothetical" stretches the argument out, but it just goes to show that there is no winning in archaeology and someone is always going to have a problem with what is being done. Frustrating? I think so.
Furthermore, I just wanted to clear up a statement I made in class when asked about excavations on occupied territories. I had said that when there are bigger things happening, (i.e. war and death) that no, excavations should not be allowed. But I didn't clarify the whole "war and death" thing. So... in the case of Cyprus, I suppose I would say that excavations can be carried out - as long as there is an agreement between Turkey and Cyprus... because then we enter into the argument of "Who does this belong to", which is tiring in itself.
