ANTH 3130 Archaeology & Society
Class notes 25 Oct 2007
Welcome back!
Plan for Class today...
Attendance sheet...
Announcements
Part 1: Back to Troy, Holtorf, review of looting reading
Break - return marked work, hand in your paper outline / biblio
Part 2: Our guest lecturer, Morag Kersel!
Announcements
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Anthropology Hallowe'en Special:
You are invited to a special free screening of "Real Vampires", a television
documentary which is airing on the Discovery Channel (on Sunday 28th at 9 pm).
Join us to watch it at York on a big screen on Tuesday October 30th in Accolade
West 006, from 5 to 7 pm. Costumes are welcome!
The documentary examines modern day 'vampires', and vampire history, folklore,
and fiction, in a search for the truth behind the myth. It takes the viewer
from the jungles of Brazil to the mountains of Transylvania, covering
everything from bats to Dracula to contemporary vampire-hunters,
blood-fetishists and killers.
Dr. Kathryn Denning, a professor in the Department of Anthropology, is featured
in the program (along with British archaeologist Dr. Timothy Taylor), and she
will be your ghoulish guide for this Hallowe'en treat. She'll introduce the
show, talk a little about her experiences making the documentary on location in
England, Scotland, Germany, and Romania, and answer your questions about all
things vampiric.
Warning: The program involves vast quantities of blood, abundant corpses,
numerous fanged revenants, very eccentric medical and forensic specialists,
multiple murders, graphic medieval torture, bondage gear, and sexual
violence... so parental discretion is most definitely advised. There is also
one quite agitated bat.
For this week, this was your homework:
Reading for Thurs Oct 25: Read Holtorf 5-7, and skim these three articles on looting (we'll review them in class before the guest lecture). Click the names for pdfs.
For today, you were also asked to please come prepared to discuss these questions:
a) Stonehenge comes up a few times in the Holtorf book and the Skeates book. Pay special attention to those references. Consider: what's the best way to understand what Stonehenge means to people today?
b) Authenticity: what does it really mean to you? Does it matter whether something is real or a replica? Why or why not? Think about concrete examples from your own world.
c) Is the past a renewable resource? What do you think? What do Holtorf and Skeates each think?
Homework for Next Class, 1 November:
Reading for Thurs Nov 1: Holtorf Ch 7-9 AND Rowan Ch 1, 3, 4
Then back to the schedule as originally stated.
Write a 300-400 word discussion of the Parthenon Marbles, based on the readings to date and, if you like, online sources like those below. Why can't the different parties agree? What do you think should be done with them? On what basis do you make your argument?
Worth 3% towards your seminar participation mark.
Please come ready to talk in class.
OPTIONAL SOURCES ON The Parthenon Marbles (but I encourage you to at least look)
http://www.uk.digiserve.com/mentor/marbles/ Particularly look at "What are the Parthenon Marbles", "The History of the Marbles", and "Neal Ascherson on the Parthenon Marbles".
Also... Parthenon..... http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/gr/debate.html
Parthenon Marbles
Image from Hellenic Ministry of Culture
www.museum-security.org/The%20Parthenon%20Marbles.htm
The British Museum says:
“The British Museum holds in trust for the nation and the world a collection of art and antiquities. The Parthenon sculptures … are displayed in purpose-built galleries seen every year by some six million visitors, free of charge. The Museum is committed to … communicating to a world audience and providing an international context where cultures can be experienced by all... The sculptures from the Parthenon have come to act as a focus for Western European culture and civilisation, and have found a home in a museum that grew out of the eighteenth-century 'Enlightenment', whereby culture is seen to transcend national boundaries.
The Museum is always developing new ways of promoting the understanding of the sculptures by the widest possible audience.” From The 'Elgin Marbles': Ownership, on the British Museum’s Compass website.
Briefly, back to Troy...
Case study: Troy - video segments from: The Truth of Troy (York DVD #8333) and the feature film Troy (also available at York's Scott Library)
So...
Schliemann really wanted to find the real location of the Trojan War... to see the jewels of Helen, to uncover 'Priam's treasure' and to dig at Mycenae (the enemies of Troy) and 'gaze upon the face of Agamemnon'...
And this started the archaeology of Troy.
What should we make of the difference between "the story of Troy" (the Iliad version, or the feature film version) and the version of history that archaeology gives us?
'The Truth of Troy' showed us that there was a war at Troy, but it wasn't over love. It was a 200-year-long conflict between two superpowers of the late Bronze Age -- the Myceneans and the Hittites -- over greed and territory. As a major port on a significant trading route in a strategic location, Troy (or Wilusha) was caught in the middle.
Perhaps the Iliad version has endured and been popular because it tells us a story about humanity that (though tragic) is noble, comprehensible, and about individuals. But the
Maybe Homer gave us a past as we wish it was... a vision of humanity as we wish we were.
But archaeology gives us the past as actually was... and a vision of humanity as we actually are.
So... is there any harm in films like Troy (the feature film)?
Holtorf Reading
You were asked to please come prepared to discuss these questions:
a) Stonehenge comes up a few times in the Holtorf book and the Skeates book. Pay special attention to those references. Consider: what's the best way to understand what Stonehenge means to people today?
b) Authenticity: what does it really mean to you? Does it matter whether something is real or a replica? Why or why not? Think about concrete examples from your own world.
c) Is the past a renewable resource? What do you think? What do Holtorf and Skeates each think? WE'LL TALK ABOUT THAT ONE NEXT WEEK... this is from Chapter 8, for next week.
The Present Past
Your discussion question: Stonehenge comes up a few times in the Holtorf book and the Skeates book. Pay special attention to those references. Consider: what's the best way to understand what Stonehenge means to people today?
A little more on some cases from Holtorf / Skeates, especially Stonehenge
Maiden Castle, Dorset
Knowlton
Cerne Abbas Giant
Quick overviews of Stonehenge, if you want to know more: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.876 , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge,
Region Map: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/stonehengeinteractivemap/
Carhenge:
Holtorf - Monumental Past: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/holtorf/0.1.html
Particularly: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/holtorf/5.0.html
Authenticity
Last week, through the case study of the film Troy...
- the video segment on reconstructing Troy noted that 'authenticity' is what they were striving for, and yet they were consciously manipulating the past, creating a new one by creating a collage of photogenic bits from a variety of cultures....
- and the story is 'authentic' because it's very old... but it isn't *true*.....
Looting articles
Merryman - Two Ways of Thinking About Cultural Property - 1986
Cultural property - objectws of artistic, archaeological, ethnological, historical interest
a) Cultural internationalism - as components of common human culture (international / universal / global) - UNESCO Hague 1954 charter protecting heritage in war
OR
b) Cultural nationalism - as part of national cultural heritage (local / regional / specific) - UNESCO 1970 against illicit antiquities trade. (If you have the idea of national ownership, then you define the motion of antiquities as trade from some source nations (supply) to market nations (demand), and you have claims for repatriation to home.
These two different ideas stem from different historical sources.
One (1954) came out of attempts to make laws about appropriate modes of war... i.e. don't blow other people's stuff up 'cause it belongs to all of us, i.e. we all lose if it's destroyed
The other one (1970) came out of attempts to prevent some (poor/source) nations being taken advantage of by other (rich/market) nations.
Both approaches are enshrined in law. But they are in constant tension....
Smith - Looting and the politics of archaeological knowledge in Northern Peru
"Looting" and "Archaeology" are two different words for a range of activities concerning the archaeological record. One is illegitimate / illicit / illegal. The other is legitimate / licit / legal.
Why? What exactly is the difference?
Does it just come down to who has the social power to make laws?
"Looting" is a much more complex set of activities than is usually supposed....