9 Aug
2012
9 Aug
'12
12:36 p.m.
Message: 13
Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2012 23:31:22 -0400
From: Paul Anderson < wackyvorlon at me.com >
I'm at university right now, studying classics(ancient rome and greece), and this
reminds me of something my prof told me. He was participating in one dig where they
>ended up uncovering a grand total of about ten *tons* of potsherds. That's about
nine thousand kilograms for the metric inclined.
The problem is that most of them had no real diagnostic value - no markings, nothing
unusual. Not really much to be learned from them. Of course, you couldn't put them in
>a museum. All the museums in the world put together don't have space for ten tons
of random, unmarked potsherds. I had thought they should see about selling them, lots
>of people would love to have a piece of ancient greece - but, no, my prof pointed out
that they would then become fodder for forgers. So, what to do? Fortunately, at the
>time, Athens Airport was building a new runway - and needed fill. Those potsherds are
buried under the runway.
Sometimes, there's just too much *stuff*.
I used to do archaeological field work in Peru, and have personally reburied pot sherds
and shells after the analysis was completed. I would include some indication that the
material was reburied, but in one instance that did not prevent a later project at the
same site from ignoring my note as intrusive and thinking they had found a large quantity
of one type of marine shell buried in a grave pit .
As to museums having much more material in storage than on display, my experience comes
from a natural history museum, where the collections try to encompass as much variation in
a species as possible. You might display one example of a bird or snail, but have 40 or 50
(or hundreds) more in storage. For cultural artifacts, storage is more dense than the
exhibit galleries, and space is limited, so that is one reason most of the collection is
kept in storage. Another reason is that even a good exhibit is more damaging to an
artifact than good storage. The museum is committed to preserving the artifact for an
indefinite period of time and is (or should be) very concerned about protecting the
artifact from damage.
As a curator, I was fairly broad in allowing access to the stored collections. You could
not just walk in off the street, but if you could give a good reason why you should be
allowed to see the collections (not just the desire to see more examples, however), you
could get an appointment. Other curators were stricter, but they were the ones who had the
legal responsibility for their collections. The Conservators were the strictest -- even
curators had to bow to them over questions about whether or how an artifact could be
displayed.
Bob