“Who Owns the Past?” “Who Owns Antiquity?” “Who Owns Culture?” “Who Owns Art?” “Who Owns Objects?” “Who Owns History?” A flurry of similar-sounding questions has been circulating in the media for some time now. Varying on the same theme, they are used as headlines in an array of formats: books, articles, lectures, panel discussions, etc.
While these questions raise some interesting points, we would like to ask some of our own:
1. “Who Owns __?” advocates imply: The right to ownership and possession of artifacts trumps all other considerations.
SAFECORNER asks: By focusing on ownership, are we neglecting the single most important point: the discovery of our yet-unknown past through protection, and the proper excavation of, ancient sites and tombs and burial grounds? What about the "past" / "antiquity" / "culture" / "art" / "objects" / "history" that remains underground? What part do these arguments have in stemming the plunder of cultural heritage caused by looting and the illicit antiquities trade?
2. “Who Owns __?” advocates contend: International conventions and national laws have failed because looting persists.
SAFECORNER asks: Instead of challenging the best legal mechanisms we have, should not more effort be made to observe and respect them? We don't throw away the criminal justice system because crimes are committed, do we?
3. “Who Owns __?” advocates insist: The importance of archaeological context is overstated, because virtually everything we need to know is inherent in the object.
SAFECORNER asks: If not found in graves, or in context, what could the Tilya Tepe hoard tell us about ancient Bactria if it had been discovered as loose pieces of beautiful gold jewelry? One doesn’t need to be an Afghan to appreciate the value inherent in discovering an untouched ancient site. Conversely, aside from speculations, what do we know about who was buried in the now-looted tombs of Cerveteri? What do we really know about the Vicús culture, which has been looted to near-extinction, or the civilization that created the artifacts looted from Batán Grande, now on display at the Met?
4. “Who Owns __?” advocates suggest: The stakeholders in these debates are archaeologists versus acquirers: museums, dealers, and private collectors.
SAFECORNER asks: What about the rest of us? Many people from all walks of life who are not archaeologists, collectors, museum curators, dealers, nationalists, or socialists also feel very strongly about these issues. Our opinions also matter. After all, it is public opinion that shapes politics and policies and the politicians who create them. UNESCO is an organization of member nations that choose to join. And sovereign nations are governed by politicians who exercise power on behalf of the public, for the most part.
5. “Who Owns __?” advocates argue: Nations that did not exist in ancient times have no inherent right to ancient artifacts found within their territories. For example, does Italy really have the right to claim objects taken from institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of New York, which was actually built before the Italian state was formed?
SAFECORNER asks: Is a nation ever too young to assert its sovereignty or jurisdiction? What about the United States? Barely over a couple hundred years old since our founding fathers created the nation, should we give up all claims to Native American artifacts? Revoke the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)?
Finally, we recommend that ALL stakeholders ask themselves this question: what are we going to do to stop the continued destruction of our "past" / "antiquity" / "culture" / "art" / "objects" / "history"?
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
To own or not to own: Is that the question?
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5 comments:
Is SAFE addressing the issue of stewardship while museums and dealers talk about ownership? See:
http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2008/04/stewardship-vs-ownership.html.
I am glad to see SAFECORNER raising this discussion at this time and think it re-centers the "debate" in an appropriate way. The issues are not about "ownership," which is a simple obfuscation, but rather the material destruction of sites, the intellectual consequences of divorcing an object from its context without record, and what David calls "stewardship" in the blog entry he references above.
SAFECORNER is certainly right to point out that the age of a nation has nothing to do with the issues. The cultural heritage of younger nations in the new world is also threatened (see for example my blog entry
here) and I do not think we would (or do) appreciate the plunder of it.
Another dimension of this "ownership" notion is that some have claimed elsewhere that their actions are somewhat humanitarian in buying antiquities and providing financial rewards for the "peasant finders" of antiquities. This, however, is another obfuscation and dealers, smugglers, and middlemen often make much more money than the casual finders of antiquities that surface on the market; an exception may be the teams who work more systematically to loot sites and prospect for antiquities. See Neil Brodie's "
"Pity the Poor Middlemen"
It is frustrating that pro-collecting lobbyists insist on presenting what is clearly a conservation issue as one only of personal freedoms. Obviously they find it easier to deal with like that and by this means wish to mislead the public who are the real stakeholders. But this is simply intellectually dishonest.
So to take the "its a global heritage so therefore I want a bit of it" argument and putting it in a conservation context, it would follow that we ALL have the same shared responsibility of protecting it in all its forms. By no means is that done merely by digging bits of it up to put in a glass case somewhere. To "own". Whether that is a "universal" (or other) museum or a private collection makes no difference.
Time for a more rounded and informed public debate.
If ownership means nothing, then why is there such an objection to the sale of unneeded objects from completed archaeological excavations? We repeatedly hear about archaeologists abandoning or destroying artifacts because there is no place or no budget to store them. If ownership is not an issue, then why is anti-ownership an issue? As usual, the semantics are skewed in the above posts to support one ideological point of view and to ignore all others as invalid. Has it not occurred to anyone that there is far more than enough provenanced material being ignored by archaeologists after excavation and recording than it would take to saturate the collector market and make looting an unprofitable enterprise? A closed mind is hardly the basis for effective scholarship or cultural understanding. "Stewardship" is just a pseudonym for control and that is essentially ownership. The pot has no moral authority here to call the kettle black.
Read "The right to own antiquities, or the responsibility to care?" by Paul Barford
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