Managing Archaeological Sites – Cultural Landscapes and Tourism

Often tourism is held up as the reason local populations should want to preserve an archaeological site.  But in some cases tourism has actually been the downfall of the archaeological site.  An interesting case is the Banaue Rice Terraces in the Philippines.  This post will look briefly at some of the things that were discussed in class concerning the protection, recognition, and management of cultural landscapes with regards to the affects tourism.

When should a landscape be set aside as a site to be protected?  UNESCO says that it should when it is demonstrated to have “outstanding universal value”.  But what does this mean?  Some of the criteria for a site to be declared of “outstanding universal value” are that it is a “masterpiece of human creative genius”, that it “becomes a unique (or at least an) exceptional testimony to a culture or tradition that is living or has disappeared”, that it is an “outstanding example of a type that illustrates significant history”, etc. 

The Banaue Rice Terraces in the Philippines were declared a “World Heritage Site” (although sites like Wikipedia claim that the rice terraces of Banaue were not actually included).  The Rice Terraces have been a source of pride for the Filipino people who sometimes even call it the “Eighth Wonder of the World”.  They are located primarily in the mountains of Ifugao where they are built into the side of the mountain (if you haven’t seen pictures I highly recommend googling them).   However, today they are almost all gone directly due to their receiving this designation.  What when wrong?

According to the story in our lecture, they are just one example of “World Heritage” status gone arye.  Apparently, when the status designation was explained to the local populace, they were given the impression that tourism would increase, which would be a good thing for them.  As tourist numbers did begin to increase the local village had a problem – there were no hotels for the tourists to stay in.  Local people opened their homes at first but soon industrious individuals began to build hotels.  Soon a local tourist infrastructure emerged.  The problem?  The local people found it to be easier to work in the tourist industry rather than on the rice terraces.  Where once they had to work it for food, now they had money from tourism to buy food.  As a result, the terraces fell into disrepair and have begun to erode at an alarming rate.  As the terraces began to disappear, so too did the tourists.

In this case (and others like it) tourism was not a blessing but a plague.

This case is not an isolated one.  Angkor Wat and other sites have faced similar issues.  Thus, when preparing to manage a site, it is important to think through the problems that might arise from the increase in tourism so that problems like the one in the Philippines can be avoided.

Archaeology and Education – Learning from Objects

Archaeologists are detectives.  That is one of the appeals of the discipline.  It is, however, an unfortunate state of reality that the public sees archaeologists as treasure hunters.  The two tasks could not be further from each other.  Treasure hunters seek to find objects for their monetary value.  Archaeologists seek to learn from objects.  (The fact that archaeologists must also seek the objects for study might be where the confusion comes in.)  This post will discuss how to learn from objects as discussed in our class – Archaeology and Education.

To the archaeologist, objects have value not in the material they are made out of but in the information they can relate about the past.  An archaeologist is just as excited about an object made from clay as they are about one made from gold.  Both contain information that needs to be extracted that can help us understand the past better.  An archaeologist doesn’t care about the value of the material because the archaeologist would never dream of “selling” the object.  Its worth is far beyond any amount of money – as it is irreplaceable.  (In a much later post I will discuss the topic of the illegal antiquities trade as part of a culture heritage lecture.)  The information contained is not duplicated in any other object.  Each object has its value in this way.  A group of related objects also has a value.  And any object connected with its original context has an even higher value (something illicit diggers fail to understand).  The task of the archaeologist is to educate the public regarding this. 

It is also important to get adults and children to think from an archaeologist’s point of view rather than from a historian’s.  What is the difference, you might ask?  (And just by asking the question the point is made.)  An archaeologist deals on the level of evidence.  The historian deals on the level of interpretation of the evidence.  Both work with evidence (and both can be the same person).  However, while interpretation is important for presentation reasons, it is still (at least in some part) speculation.  Interpretation depends on a paradigm to interpret.  This falls into the realm of theory (which is constantly changing as ideas change).  The paradigm is just a tool to work with to help in interpretation (very much like a pair of glasses that one might put on to see through).  The public needs to understand that what is “fact” is not the interpretation but the actual evidence upon which the interpretation is based.  The public must also understand the bias (good or bad) of the paradigm used for that interpretation.

One way to help in this might be to have our historians write in a different way by presenting the evidence that they are using to interpret and to explain why their interpretations were made the way they were by revealing the paradigm used.  Another way might be to teach the public to be the detective themselves and to recognize the difference between evidence and interpretation.

Objects can help in this educating process.  Dr. Corbishley suggested a few games that could be used.  One, he called the “Skeleton game”.  In this game a person is selected at random from a group.  They are made to stand before the group for “investigation”.  Purely through observation, the group must try to “discover” all that can be learned from this person (as if the person were buried and found in their present condition).  The teacher (archaeologist) guides the questions.  The group should notice material (metal eyelets on shoes for example), height, girth, distinguishing features, etc (the evidence part) and try to work out who this person might have been or done from only the evidence available (the interpretation part).

Another game might be to present “odd” objects to the group (trying to pick unfamiliar objects so that the group would not already know what it was).  The group could then try to work out the objects use (interpretation) from whatever clues they might be able to discover (evidence) before the teacher (archaeologist) reveals the “truth” about the object.  In this way it should become clear how different evidence is from interpretation (as quite often the interpretation is not close to the actual reality because of lack of available information/evidence).  Buildings are objects as well (albeit usually unmovable) and can also be used in this way. 

It seems that a more responsible way to treat history would be to look at the past from evidence instead of from interpretation by recognizing and stating the limitations of evidence.  (All of us have learned something in school that was taught to us as “fact” only to discover later that it was not actually true but only someone’s interpretation.)  To accomplish this will certainly involve a lot more work.  Books will have to be written and classes redesigned.  It might even be necessary to completely rethink how history classes are taught and consider having a class on archaeology instead of history or to find a way to combine the two in a clear way.  Part of this will also certainly involve reeducating the public concerning the role of an archaeologist (for treasure is out there to be found – just not the type of treasure that is in most people’s minds).  To not do this is certainly irresponsible.

Culture Heritage – Heritage and Destruction

Is there a difference in the destruction of the Great Wall of China verses the destruction of the Berlin Wall?  When is it ok to destroy heritage?  Does restoration justify destruction?  This post will explore some of these issues.

Everyone knows that archaeological excavation is destructive in nature.  The Rose Theatre here in London had its excavation stopped by the Arts because they feared the destruction of whatever remains there are of this important theatre where Shakespeare walked.  What remained?  Foundations only.  However, the remains of these types of theatres are very rare and the excavation of the remains would have provided much needed information about them.  For example, it is still not known how people reached the upper levels.  They obviously had to use stairs or ladders, but there is no physical evidence for either.  The excavation of the Rose might have provided that by revealing the existence of the suspected stair towers.  (For a modern example of these supposed towers see the reconstruction of the Globe Theatre on London’s River Walk).  Instead the remains were buried under dirt, concrete, and water.  You can visit the site but all you will see is a pond.

Most people (outside of the Pinheads in the Arts who stopped the Rose excavations) understand that responsible excavation is necessary destruction.  But what about the destruction of modern buildings to reconstruct the ancient as was done to build the Globe?  We all understand that the Berlin Wall was a simple of oppression and entrapment.  But few people realize that the Great Wall of China was the same to the people who lived then.  The atrocities connected with the Great Wall of China are astounding!  However, to touch it would be near anathema to most – me included.  Why?

The destruction of Saddam’s Palaces and statues was destruction of heritage because of what it symbolized, yet Auschwitz where millions were exterminated still stands.  To argue that ethically bad symbols need to be destroyed is not reality but is censorship and sanitation of history similar to what the Taliban did when they destroyed the Buddhas in Afghanistan or the Serbians who intentionally targeted more than 400 shells to the National Museum and Library in an attempt to erase evidence of other people’s culture.

While it is not realistic to save everything a decision needs to be made regarding what is “worthy” to be kept for posterity.  Some have questioned whether museums are really “temples where sacrifices are offered up as a way to apologize for the destruction of the past”.  This is certainly salvage language, but is it wrong?

Destruction is unfortunately a very real part of Ancient Egyptian history not only in the ancient past but also in the archaeologically more recent past.

There are two terms usually associated with heritage destruction: iconoclasm and iconoclash.  These were defined in our class in the following way…

Iconoclasm = when one knows what is happening and the motivation for the destruction is clear.

Iconoclash = when one does not know, one hesitates, or one is troubled by an action for which there is no way to know without further enquiry, whether something is destructive or constructive.

Unfortunately, issues in heritage studies are not clear.  We need to keep asking these questions and dialoguing in an effort to make better decisions for when history is destroyed for any reason it is lost forever.

Theory – Evolution

At the beginning the point must be made that this is not a post about the theory of evolution.  Archaeological evolutionary theory is not interested, per say, in biological evolution (although most archaeologists might assume this and work within that paradigm).  Rather archaeological theory is a look at social evolution and how it is used in the dynamics of culture.

 

Evolution may rightly be called the “ever-present” idea.  A look back over archaeological theory will demonstrate that it has gone in and out of fashion a few times.  This post will explore briefly how archaeological theory has used or not used evolution to explain social change.

 

The late 18^th century and early 19^th century saw the adaption of Darwin’s theory of evolution as an explanation for the change that occurs in culture.  This was called “Social Evolution”.  This was also the era of Enlightenment and Antiquarianism.  Archaeological theory moved away from this during the industrialization of the western world.  The end result was the rise of Cultural Historical approaches.

 

In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries the problems of industrialization and conflict saw the beginnings of a move from Culture History back toward evolutionary ideas.  By the mid-20^th century New Archaeology became informed by Neo-evolutionism.  This continued with Processualism.

 

From the 80’s until the present, Post-Processual archaeology tried to move away from evolutionary theory but recent trends are starting to show a return to what is called Neo-Darwinian Archaeology, which is mostly Processual with a mix of some Post-Processual ideas.  However, everything begins to overlap at this point.

 

I’m not so sure that social evolution is a solid theory.  I have nothing fundamentally against it, just that I don’t see that it ever has happened in history.  I can see technologies in cultures improving but evolution assumes that there is a process that progresses something from simple to complex and each step along the way is an adaptation that is also an improvement on the earlier form.  The end result is naturally a better product then that, which at first existed.

 

However, is this really what happens?  Evolution suggests a natural process.  However, humans are not  robots.  They are thinking and unpredictable.  Sure they adjust somewhat to the environment that they are in, but they also rule the environment that they are in and shape it.  Evolution was originally (as promoted by Darwin) against the concept of huge jumps and yet we see this over and over again in human culture.  Just because there is process, doesn’t mean that it is an evolutionary process.  This is the fundamental mistake that I see with this cultural theory.

Archaeological Photography – Darkroom Development

Most archaeological photographs, when taken with film, use a black and white media.  I have had no experience in the actual development of film, since I am used to the digital method of using a printer with photo paper, so I was looking forward to learning about how this was done.  This post will share what we were taught about how film is developed.

I always thought that darkrooms used red light and so was disappointed to discover that many dark rooms do not use a red light since that is still light and will damage film.  So how does the actual film go from being in your camera with a latent image on it to a photo in your hand?

The film has a silver powder on it that reacts to light: lots of light equals lots of silver and little light equals only a little silver.  This is what makes the negative image on the film.  Thus, the film must be rewound in the cartridge before the back of the camera is opened (so as not to overexpose it).

Once this is done the film needs to be extracted from the cartridge and wound around a specially designed spool.  This needs to be done in complete darkness.  The cartridge is ripped open and the film extracted (be sure not to have wet hands as this can cause some swelling in the film).  Then the spool is dropped in a canister and the canister is filled with a liquid chemical solution that fixes the silver onto the film in a permanent way so that the film can be exposed to light.  All of this has to be done in complete darkness, which means that sometimes things can go wrong (like if you drop something and can’t turn on a light to find it).  However, once the film is in the canister and the lid on then the lights can be turned on.

Once the negatives have been made permanent you will need an enlarger to impress the image onto photo paper.  The enlarger is like a projector that shines light through a filter and through one frame of the negative at a time onto a flat surface below where the photo paper is.  This has to be done in near darkness as the photo paper that is used is naturally sensitive to light as the film was.

When the image has been exposed to the photo paper, the paper needs to go through a few washes (this is usually the part where you see the red light used in movies).  The first bath is in the developer liquid for about 1½ minutes.  Then the photo has to be put in a stop bath to stop the development.  Then it has to be washed in water to get the stop agent off of the paper.  Once this is done the paper needs to be dried.  This can be done by hanging the photo paper from a line with clothes pins or by putting it through a special drier.

The whole process is not complicated.  However, where it begins to get complicated is in the various methods used during the enlarging process.  Just like when the original picture was shot there are lots of variables to account for, in this process there are also many variables: the amount of light used to expose the photo, the strength of the filter used, the amount of time the paper is exposed, etc.

I came away from the process with a healthy and newfound respect for the professionals that make a living this way.  Certainly the world I came from (point and shoot, upload digital photos, manipulate image in Photoshop, and print digital photos on a desktop printer) takes skill, but to do it the old fashioned way takes skill and a ton of talent that I had not realized before.

Egyptian Objects – Periodization

We are used to thinking of the various historical periods of ancient Egyptian history.  These generally include, Pre-history, Early-dynastic, Old Kingdom, 1^st Intermediate Period, Middle Kingdom, 2^nd Intermediate Period, New Kingdom, 3^rd Intermediate Period, Late Period, Greek Period, Roman Period, and Islamic Periods.  But is this the only way to think of dividing up Egypt’s past? 

There is a movement in Egypt today to be more inclusive in the display of the history of all of Egypt as opposed to just ancient Egypt.  But that has not always been true.  The Museum of Egypt in Cairo is really just a museum of ancient Egypt.  To fill in this gap other museums were erected.  How each of these museums chose to display their wares helps to show that Egyptian history is much more than just Pharaonic Egypt.

When Marriette designed the Museum of Egypt, he admitted that sometimes he chose aesthetic rather than “scientific” arrangements.  The Greco-Roman Museum was clearly focusing on a period of Egyptian history.  The Museum of Arabic Art divided up their displays based on material: glass, metal, ceramics, wood, etc.  The Coptic Museum tried to fill the gap left in all three of these museums to tell a story that still continues today.

However, this is not the only way to think of history.  Besides dividing history by who ruled Egypt we can use other factors to identify periods.  What if we divided up Egyptian history by religion (naturally with overlap)?  [Ancient Egyptian cult, Amarna, Cult, Greco-Roman, Coptic, and Islamic.]  Or what if we divided it by script?  [Early Egyptian Hieroglyph, Middle Egyptian, Late Egyptian, Hieratic, Demotic, Coptic, Greek, Latin, Arabic.]  Language spoken? [Egyptian, Coptic, Koine Greek, Latin, Arabic.]  There are also geographic divisions, aesthetic divisions, material divisions, etc.

The point is that there are more ways than just the one that we usually fall into by default.  Sometimes, the narrative is better told from a different perspective.  If you are doing history and you have having trouble telling a story, it might be because you are looking at things from the wrong angle.  You might have to re-invent the way you think of history.

Royal Wedding – Westminster Abbey

The Evening Standard is reporting tonight, that the date for the wedding of Prince William is set for Friday, April 29, 2011 at Westminster Abbey.  The date will be the start of a four-day holiday (there is already a national holiday on May 1).  Kate wants to keep the details of her dress a secret until the big day so naturally there is lots of interest in who will design it, etc.  When they get married, Kate will be 29 and William 28 (she is five months older than him).

The wedding will be paid for by the royal family, the honeymoon will be paid for by the Queen, and the security by the taxpayers of the UK.  Scotland Yard is happy that they chose Westminster Abbey because it is smaller than St. Paul’s Cathedral and will “only” cost about £5 million.  Because Prince William is not the next in-line for the throne, it is not a “State” wedding.  This is probably better because it means they can invite more of their friends, whereas, if it were a State Wedding, there would have to be more dignitaries (and thus more security).  The royal aides are now working on the guest list.

The only ones not happy about this date are the Liberal Democrats who are hoping to get voting reform to pass on a May 5 vote.  They say that this wedding date will distract from their efforts to have a national dialogue regarding the vote.  They want the system to change from “first one across the line” to a ranking system where voters rank the candidates in “first choice”, “second choice”, etc.  This distraction will help the Tories (the political party that strongly supports the royals).

One group that is very happy are those who make memorabilia.  They have already started turning out commemorative mugs, etc.  Now they have a date and location to put on their merchandise.

It is reported that Westminster Abbey was the choice because it has a more “intimate” alter area.  Westminster Abbey (relatively near to Big Ben, for those not familiar with the layout) is closer to Buckingham Palace (also requiring less police officers along the route) than St. Paul’s Cathedral.  It has been associated with the seat of royal power for about 1000 years.  King Edward “the Confessor” built the abbey in 1065 (commemorated a week before he died).  However, from this point on it was the place where kings and queens were crowned.  It is also used for royal weddings.  In 1923, the Duke of York (later George VI) married the now deceased queen-mother Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (Queen Elizabeth’s mum).  In 1947, a 21-year old Princess Elizabeth married Prince Philip of Greece there.  Princess Anne more recently married Capitan Mark Phillips in 1973.

The most recent (memorable) event at Westminster Abbey, was in September, 1997.  Prince William was in that event too, as he followed the casket of his mother at the funeral of Princess Diana.  At least this will be a much happier occasion.