Another major museum may well be supporting the illicit trade in dodgy (stolen, looted, even fake) works of art.

(See my comment in February on the Metropolitan in New York and some major collections of Graeco-Roman art - [Link])

CLEVELAND (AP) - Some archeologists say the Cleveland Museum of Art may encourage smuggling and the looting of ancient sites by acquiring a bronze Apollo sculpture with large gaps in its ownership history.

The museum proudly announced the purchase in June, saying the statue might be the only one among about 20 large bronzes in the world that can be linked to the ancient Greek masters.

Now some prominent archaeologists and other critics say the museum should not have bought the work because of the questionable history.

“The root cause of looting is collecting. It’s supply and demand,” Ricardo Elia, an associate professor of archaeology at Boston University, told The Plain Dealer for a story Sunday.

The museum’s director disagreed, saying sharing the work with the public was important and the sale was fair.

Malcolm Bell, University of Virginia art history professor and vice president of the Archaeological Institute of America, questioned the museum’s account that the artwork was discovered by a retired German lawyer on his family’s estate in the 1990s.

“It sounds like the kind of fabrication that is made frequently in the market,” he said.

Ernst-Ulrich Walter, the lawyer, declined through an interpreter to be interviewed by the newspaper.

Phoenix Ancient Art, the dealership that sold the Apollo to the museum, has run afoul of the law before, said Elia, Bell and others … [Link]

When you see the details of the piece you can understand the attraction to the art market - it has been attributed to Praxiteles and is claimed to be the statue mentioned by the Roman Pliny - it’s not just an anonymous bronze but can be associated with a legendary artist of antiquity - just what the market values most.

And it is rather beautiful!

I chair the Panel on Outdoor Art at Stanford - we acquire pieces for the sculpture collection and consider offers of donation. Stanford’s collection is one of the best on the west coast.

Like Colin Renfrew [Link] I think there is a strong convergence of interest in materialities and time that brings together contemporary art and archaeology. Though this is not the only reason I love the job. Contemporary art, especially, is so fascinating because it raises questions about things that matter, and the best art offers not simple answers but ways of thinking about the big questions (and yes, this is what archaeology should do too - who else but artists, philosophers and archaeologists can ask - Where do we come from and what has brought us to where we are now?).

This year we have been working with Dennis Oppenheim to get a piece of his at Stanford.

It is part of Dennis’s exploration of the interface between architecture and sculpture. It is called “Device to root out evil”. It looks like an inverted New England church.

We thought it would be a wonderful way to provoke some discussion - at the minimum! It is what art does so well. We thought that a university like Stanford should be the place where such discussion can happen - creatively, freely. And to start the ball rolling we invited Stanford’s Dean of Religious Life, Scotty McLennan, to comment. He said he liked it as art, but that the world views of art and religion don’t mix, and “Device” would cause a lot of anxiety to different religious groups on campus because of what it seems to be saying.

We took the project to Stanford’s President John Hennessy and he decided to cancel on the grounds that the cost of the project outweighed its benefits.

Dennis issued a press release last week giving his reactions. And today it reached the front page of the Stanford Daily.

He joked that the title of the cancelled Stanford sculpture, Device to Root Out Evil, which caused him trouble with the University, has grown ironically appropriate.

“It really did root out evil in a strange, circuitous way,” Oppenheim mused. “The President and others have conservative views and are afraid of a work of art, and now we know about it. It really worked.”

Contemporary art is no stranger to controversy [Link]. What I think we are witnessing here too is how artifacts - artistic, architectural, archaeological - elicit reaction because of the way their materiality makes all sorts of connections, reaching into all sorts of issues through the way things engage people.

The aura of the Parthenon marbles, there in the gallery in London - far more than any statement or image could ever convey - far more provocative.

And particularly when things are monumental (which is not the same as big). Archaeologists have always been interested in the way monuments work on people.

And it’s not that an image or artifact is worth a thousand words - their matter works quite differently, cutting across words - not at all a substitute - [Link on the archaeological witness].

Active materiality.

Great story in the Washington Post a couple of days ago - Caveful of Clues About Early Humans.

Archaeologists have been exploring an almost inaccessible cave in Romania, diving through icy underground sumps and making dizzying vertical climbs for the sake of a collection of fossil human remains washed into the cave 35,000 years ago.

Part of a skull found in the Pestera cu Oase cave in Romania: Erik Trinkaus And Ricardo Rodrigo

What makes these remains interesting is that they seem to be hybrids - between Neanderthals and modern humans. It is part of that fascinating speculation about our closest relatives - were they reclusive and autistic, or happy family members.

Trinkaus said the Oase fossils show features of modern humans: projecting chin, no brow ridge, a high and rounded brain case. But they also have clear archaic features that place them outside the range of variation for modern humans: a huge face, a large crest of bone behind the ear and enormous teeth that get even larger toward the back.

Trinkaus made a CT scan of the face to measure the unerupted teeth. “To find wisdom teeth that big,” he said, “you have to go back 500,000 years.”

The team considered whether early humans might have interbred with other hominids with Neanderthal-like features, but “in this time period,” said Trinkaus, “the only archaic humans those modern humans could have interbred with were Neanderthals.” The mosaic of Neanderthal and modern traits remind Trinkaus and Zilhao of similar traits they found in a 25,000-year-old fossil of a child in Portugal.

The team in Romania wants their finds shed light on whether the Neanderthals were such an inferior species to modern humans or whether they were serious competitors - serious enough for interbreeding.

But Neanderthals never made the cultural switch to what we understand as modern human life (about 50,000 years ago), even if we do find them in some limited kinds of symbolic behavior like personal ornamentation and displaying consciousness of death (things we associate with modern humanity). The evidence is too rare to support any idea that Neanderthals were seriously modern. The question is simply whether they were wholly replaced or swamped by modern humans (with their assimilated distinctiveness contributing Borg-like to the success of modern humanity).

More reports of the damage done to cultural heritage in the Middle East in The Daily Star (Lebanon)

NASIRIYA, Iraq: In the southern Iraq desert, the standing structures of ancient archaeological cities dot the horizon - majestic monuments to times long gone.� Untouched for thousands of years, historic temples, palaces, tombs and entire dead cities are the sole witness of the passing of time.

Properly excavated, these cities could reveal valuable knowledge on the development of the human race and resolve the big mysteries of history. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen. The Sumerian cities have been destroyed, ravaged by the incessant looting that started with the American invasion of Iraq. Once considered historical treasures, today crater-filled landscapes compete for space with hills of shredded pottery and broken bricks.

Looters - mainly farmers or jobless Iraqis of all ages - have destroyed the monuments of their own ancestors, erasing their own history in their tireless search for artifacts.

They leave their homes and villages seeking financial rewards. Poverty, ignorance and greed force them to change their lives and become tomb raiders - and they actually live on the sites they are robbing for months at a time. A cylinder seal, a sculpture or a cuneiform tablet can bring in desperately sought hard cash. They work all day long hoping to find an artifact that they can sell to the dealer for a mere few dollars. It is tough, dangerous work for bad pay.

“A cylinder seal or a cuneiform tablet brings in under $50 on the site for the looter from the dealer. The dealer then sells it at ten times the price,” explains the archaeologist responsible for the district of Nasiriya, Abdul Amir Hamadani.

“More than 100 Sumerian cities have been destroyed by the looters since the beginning of the war,” says Hamadani, who was appointed at the war’s end by the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage in Iraq. “It’s a disaster that all we are keeping watch on but about which we can do little. We are incapable of stopping the looting. We are five archaeologists, some hundred guards and, occasionally, a couple of policemen - and they are a million armed looters, backed by their tribes and the dealers.”

I commented last year on the ideas of cultural property revealed in reactions to the looting of the Baghdad Museum, complaining that the values espoused in the shocked reaction actually fuelled the trade in illicit antiquities - the motivation for stealing stuff from museums and archaeological sites.

But the destruction of so many archaeological sites in the wake of war and civil unrest is a simple tragedy for which there is no repair.

from Steve (Newman)

Sam thought you would be interested in this:

Slashdot — this was their summary:

What would you do if you found someone’s digital media card from their camera in your taxi? One such individual has decided to provide the world with 227 days of entertainment. I Found Some Of Your Life will post a photo a day and accompanying fictional narrative for the next 227 days using the photos found on a digital media card left in a cab.

Is it pure genius or pure evil? Who cares? Just be thankful they’re not your photos.

[Link - with comments]

Philip has found this very interesting archaeological blog - [Link] - at least an “archaeological” blog in my sense of the term!

Monday, July 26, 2004

Introduction

In my possession is one (1) memory card from a digital camera. This memory card was found in a taxi in New York City. I have no idea who the owner of the camera is.

The pictures on the memory card were taken over the course of exactly one (1) year in this person’s life, starting July Twenty-Fifth, Two Thousand and Three (07-25-03) and ending July Twenty-Fourth, Two Thousand and Four (07-24-04).

I am going to post one (1) picture here each day. As there are two hundred and twenty-seven (227) pictures, there will be two hundred and twenty-seven (227) posts. The pictures will appear in chronological order according to the timestamp accompanying each image.

As the images add up, I will attempt to assemble an identity for this unknown person. Each day’s new picture will be a fresh addition to this photographic life-documentation. Only with the unveiling of the final picture (the two hundred and twenty-seventh (227th)) will we finally have a full understanding of this person’s life over the past year - at least as far as these pictures will allow us to infer.

Further, in an attempt to present this pictorial information in a more personal manner, and also to better allow for some artistic license, I am going to pretend that I am the owner of the camera. I’ll call me Jordan, because that’s the name on my birthday cake (you’ll see).

I think it’s a fake.

How should we reconstruct the past?

Is the ideal Virtual Reality and photorealistic simulation? A CGI (pre)history? Under the supposition that this would be like it was back then?

My line is that this would be the death of the past. It forgets the material ruin, the archaeological condition that is our cultural and historical experience, that is the historical condition.

The opportunity offered by information technology is, for me, one of augmenting our archaeological relationship with the ruin of the past - helping us make more of what is left. Augmented Reality, rather than Virtual Reality.

[Link] [Link] [Link] [Link] [Link]

Chris (Witmore) came across this piece on

amplified intelligence: machines as brain boosters

When Ken Ford ponders AI, he thinks of boosting human brainpower through Amplified Intelligence, using machines to augment human cognition. It’s a less lofty goal than creating Artificial Intelligence, but also one that’s more realistic.

…

“The focus and theme of our research is what has become known as human-centered computing which, in a nutshell, is about fitting technology to people instead of fitting people to technology. The human is part of the system, and it is the performance of the whole system, including the human, that we are interested in. This requires that machines should be designed to fit us physically, cognitively, and perhaps even socially.

We think of AI as meaning “Amplified Intelligence.” The interesting thing is that many traditional AI technologies in fact are being used in just this way. We like to refer to it as building cognitive prostheses, computational systems that leverage and extend human intellectual capacities, just as eyeglasses are a kind of ocular prosthesis. Building cognitive prostheses is fundamentally different from AI’s traditional Turing Test ambitions — it doesn’t set out to imitate human abilities, but to extend them. And yet (unlike, say, the ambition of developing artificial insects) it keeps human thought at the center of our science.”

NASA is developing the Wearable Augmented Reality Prototype (WARP), a personal communication device. The voice- activated device would allow easy, real-time access to voice communication, pictures, video, people and technical reports. Credit: NASA/JPL

Imagine - we could work on the past with instant access, through such prostheses, not to VR reconstruction, but to information, images, sounds that amplify and augment our perception and relationship with the ruins.

Chris (Witmore) has sent me some comments about his fascinating research into early photography and archaeology -

Conze at Samothrace

Although photography had been used in the context of archaeological practice for some time, it was only with the Samothrace excavation volumes that photographs were placed directly into the publication (Conze, Hauser and Niemann 1875 and Conze, Hauser and Benndorf 1880). The incorporation of the actual photographic print into the final publication of archaeological sites was significant. First, the intermediate step of transforming the photograph through copper engraving or lithography had been removed. Second, and most importantly, an unparalleled degree of detail was maintained in the final publication. With the removal of the intermediary step of transformation involved with engraving photographs, publishers took out any direct human transformation of image (besides that of selection on location) and brought mechanical reproduction directly into the documentation of the field. This created an immediacy and intimacy, which was to have ramifications in terms of perceptions of photographs as objective and transparent media. In this the detail captured in the emulsion could not be replicated through engravings. This detail was only limited by the quality of the silver bromide or silver halide emulsion utilized. Archaeological contexts could be transmitted visually. This would have ramifications for field practice that were medium driven. For example, Cookson in “Photography for Archaeologists” (1954) regarded cleanliness as a virtue to be held above all others. He continues:

“no matter how correct the exposure and the development of the negative,
no matter how carefully a print is made, a wall with mud still clinging to
it, a floor poorly brushed, a pavement insufficiently washed, the badly-
trimmed edge of a cut can completely ruin the finest of photographs from
an archaeological standpoint. From experience, I know how heart-breaking
it can be to scrape a stone floor hour after hour, or to wash the
metalling of a Roman road pebble by pebble until I hoped that every stone
would come loose and there would be an end to any photograph ? but I know
the pleasure the ultimate result has brought when the photograph of the
finished work is seen. Some of the words on cleanliness will appear again;
they cannot be over-emphasized. ALWAYS KEEP THE SITE CLEAN! Cleaned stone
and caulk glisten in the light their shapes sharp and clean when the earth
on which they lie is undercut and they are well brushed.” (13-14).

Curtius at Olympia

Cleanliness for the sake of the medium.

Photographer Patrick Roddie has just posted his images of Burning Man 2004 - [Link].

The categories of this epic exploration of corporeality:

blue - chests - children - couples - dust & dance - etc - feet - hands - hips - masks - me - men - meta - music - night - paint and ink - paperwork - pendants - politics - sleep - symmetry - temple - the man - things - torsos - transport - wedding - women

Wonderful!

Archaeological context - Wicker Man - [Link]

Great comment from Meg (Butler) on past-present relationships in Mexico.

Another interesting case of past/present relationships with landscape and monuments began getting press coverage this past week. I have provided below links to various articles. A controversial decision to build a Wal-Mart close to Teotihuacan provoked some very different responses from supporters and opponents. The articles attest that there is some local support for the store’s construction because of the lower prices and variety of goods it will provide the community.

The opposition seems to take three different forms. One view is that the store will upset the community’s “cosmic equilibrium”, some sort of energy related to the monuments built at Teotihuacan. A second says the store’s presence will undermine the community’s perceived ancient heritage, which, according to this view, traces its roots back to ancient Teotihuacan (quotation from one article: “Opponents say it will ruin a way of life that dates back centuries”). The third line of opposition is the kind often found when Wal-Mart moves into small towns in America. Concerns about preserving small, locally-owned businesses as part of the community’s recent heritage seem to weigh heavily in the debate. One resident is concerned whether the Wal-Mart will drive a local street market out of business. An AP article quotes him as saying it should be preserved, even though it “is full of plastic stuff and Chinese goods”.

One of Wal-Mart’s concessions to the community is that they will build the store in “subdued” colors with a stone faÁade. I’m unsure whether this is to make it less conspicuous or an attempt to “match” the nearby ruins. They have promised also to preserve under Plexiglass an altar uncovered in what will be the store’s parking lot.

Much of the opposition to this store is from outside of the community, even outside of Mexico. I remember hearing a similar story on NPR when the first Wal-Mart was built in the far interior of China. The “international community” was outraged over modern Western encroachment on a “traditional” way of life. And yet when they interviewed the residents of the town in question, they were thrilled to have access to inexpensive goods and a wide array of choices. I was bothered by both sides of the debate. Wal-Mart in China seemed to represent a further step in homogenizing the world, in addition to the inevitable decline of small businesses (perhaps a new frontier in archaeology?). But the international opposition was in part a desire to mummify the community as a relic, as a model of a “traditional” way of life for our intellectual curiosity and appreciation, and as a “link” with the past unwillingly relinquished. Of course communities all over the world have taken economic advantage of this very desire, with residents turning themselves and their towns into “living museums”.

The Teotihuacan case is a little different in that the proximity of the store to the monuments is causing great grief. Besides obvious concerns over the physical preservation of the ruins, it seems that the monuments need to reside in a “timeless” space without physical intrusions of the modern era. This raises questions of “authentic” viewing experiences. What is the difference between experiencing Roman ruins amidst the chaos of the modern city and Colonial Williamsburg, where businesses are encouraged to play along with the early American theme and residents wear colonial garb? The first experience, without attempting to recreate the experience of ancient Rome, actually suggests continuity (busy city then, busy city now), whereas the staged experience of Williamsburg has done wonders for architectural preservation but little towards an experience of being anywhere but tourist camp.

[Link]
[Link]
[Link]
[Link]