Peter Tompa observes ('Obsessive Compulsive Archaeologists?' January 16, 2016) that archeologists are talking of a clear case of obsessive compulsive hoarding behavior in their discipline. A good example is the article by Raimund Karl a professor at Bangor University in England 'Every sherd is sacred. Compulsive hoarding in archaeology'.
This hoarding behavior has stalled rational proposals for deaccession of duplicate artifacts. But when this would include collectable items like small pots or terracotta figurines or inscribed objects, funds generated by their sale to collectors would be better spent supporting archaeological efforts in places like Greece, Italy and Cyprus. The article's author reveals that the issue is one of control as much as conservation:
The decision what we then do with those archaeological objects we discard will also require quite some disciplinary courage. Whether they are thrown away and buried with the backfill after an initial assessment in the field or given to interested members of the public, the landowner and/or finder, there are many conceivable options. [...] the many millions of unnecessary objects already stored in archaeological archives, which could either be sold (with proper proof of provenance) on the international antiquities market (which might allow to create additional income for the discipline to have more resources for preserving truly important archaeology and even somewhat undermine the illicit antiquities market) [...] All this, under current positivist premises, of course is serious disciplinary heresy. [...] Even if it may hurt if we have to hand some of our priceless treasures to someone else, or even destroy them: it is better if the choice remains ours.I suppose the question is however what about all the millions of potshards which the article discusses?
No comments:
Post a Comment