Comments on Cultural Heritage in Danger: Talking about "partage"

A more direct link to Dr. Opoku's comment is here....

2010-05-25T14:29:15.525-04:00

A more direct link to Dr. Opoku's comment is here.

Readers may be interested to read the short note I...

2010-05-25T12:16:45.152-04:00

Readers may be interested to read the short note I sent to Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues.
http://paul-barford.blogspot.com

Kwame Opoku.

David, Agreed. It's great that the Internet has...

2010-05-23T10:56:49.304-04:00

David,

Agreed. It's great that the Internet has worked its magic so that the conversation has a public manifestation where all can have input. That is a good way to figure out where to go. I don't mean to put that in total opposition to your point about not engaging in conversations without knowing where they are going. I do think that there is a role for the "open ended" when starting such things.

Openness makes for a good process.

I appreciate your candor, Sebastian. I don't mean ...

2010-05-23T09:57:51.439-04:00

I appreciate your candor, Sebastian. I don't mean any disrespect, in fact I think archaeologists do very important work. I even understand your "I'll talk to just about anybody" but why engage in "retrospective" talk that you don't even know where it's going, when you are in a position to actually make real something happen? I think Paul Barford's thoughtful suggestion sounds like a wonderful first step. I think AIA members would expect as much. Action, not talk, speaks much louder.

John Muccigrosso has it pretty much spot-on in ter...

2010-05-23T09:30:19.935-04:00

John Muccigrosso has it pretty much spot-on in terms of my participation. The meeting was mainly retrospective: how can museums efficiently publish objects acquired via decades-old excavations. I avoid the term "partage" to the extent that one is talking about ways forward. To put it more simply: I don't think it is a way forward. As a description of what happened in the past, "partage" still sounds archaic and "colonial", but I guess that's the point.

And in terms of the larger issues involved in attending the meeting: I'll talk to just about anybody and, yes, it was clear that all concerned parties need to be involved if the conversation is to move forward. But I do not know what will happen. I am an archaeologist so I recognize the need to publish all objects from an excavation, regardless of which museum holds them now. Also, I am an archaeologists so I recognize the ethical dimension of all my work, particularly as it involves materials that were removed far from their original context.

I am puzzled as the rest of you what this group of...

2010-05-23T03:53:29.227-04:00

I am puzzled as the rest of you what this group of people gathered to discuss and why no representatives of the host nations of these "partnerships" were represented. It seems to me for example that one cannot write up Winlock's work for the Met at Thebes (D. Arnold at the meeting) in isolation from the Egyptian authorities for example. [BTW in Africa, not "Middle East"]. These are the people that "have experience" with the material, the records and the stuff that was not partaged away from the same projects.

I suggest that a useful first step would be to produce a full list of what quantities of material of what type are held outside the host countries in the form of "partaged" artefacts, samples and records, and where they are now, and what has been done with them since they left the country of origin. But for that you do not need a Levy Foundation, you need proper cataloguing in the recipient collections. Let us see how many of those institutions can provide that information at the touch of a button, despite sitting on this material for many decades.

You make some good points, John. But if partage ag...

2010-05-22T23:58:31.053-04:00

You make some good points, John. But if partage agreements were limited to European and middleastern sites, then why were two Asian experts at the meeting? According to my internet search, Jean-Francois Jarrige and Sergey Minyaev are Asian specialists, do they have experience or expertise with European and middleastern sites too? Clearly they were there because they have been beneficiaries of partake themselves. By the way, these two are from France and Russia, hardly "in the neighborhood", wouldn't you say? Unless I misunderstood what you mean by neighborhood.

What Safecorner has not asked is the bigger question: what is the AIA president grinning from ear to ear about, flanked between the 2 most publicized offenders of archaeology in recent memory? Sebastian Heath is supposed to be AIA's VP of Professional Responsibilities. Huh? I am actually surprised that officers of such a reputable established organization don't realize how such a photo op can be perceived, let alone participate in more business as usual that only helps the other side.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's OK to say no to a PR stint, even if you've been invited by Shelby White.

A couple of things here: Any chance that partage ...

2010-05-22T17:50:44.588-04:00

A couple of things here:

Any chance that partage agreements were limited to European and middle-eatern sites?

Is it clear for what reasons these people were invited? For example, Rose is president of the AIA; Heath doesn't run an excavation himself, but has been a leader in things digital in the world of classical and near-eastern archaeology; Herbert is associated with the University of Michigan, which may be one of the universities that had such agreements. (Just speculating on these)

As for the absence of "hosts," if the unpublished material is mainly being held in the collections or libraries of American institutions, does it not make sense to create a group that has experience with them? Also, it's one meeting, perhaps the first. Is it unreasonable to start with people "in the neighborhood"?