Editorial.

Editorial. Is anybody now confident about the ethics of the antiquity trade?If cultural heritage is the property of descendant communities, thenthey presumably pre��sum��a��ble?adj.That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. have the right to destroy it. But if it belongs to allof us, then where should the objects be displayed and cared for? In thecountry of discovery, obviously--or is it so obvious? There areadvantages for the home country in promoting monuments as national iconsand tourist attractions; but there is every advantage too in spreadinghome-produced objects around the world to raise curiosity and teachpeople to appreciate cultural difference: showing Chinese artefacts toEnglish children and vice versa VICE VERSA. On the contrary; on opposite sides. . If archaeological finds are theambassadors of culture, who will decide where to send them? If themarket is the accepted democratic method of redistribution (which seemsto be the way things are going) then the rich, and the rich countries,will buy all the antiquities. We commercial democrats will have nojustification in using restrictive legislation to "keep treasuresin Britain" (especially if they were not "ours" in thefirst place). As an alternative, we might create something like a "globalorganisation for the origination and distribution of culturalproperty" (GOODCUP). This would decide where something "camefrom", what it is worth and who should have it, who should pay andwho need not--a market system, but a regulated and authenticated one,which might achieve security, fair distribution and descendant rights.It is true that a successful market might develop an appetite which canonly be fed by digging more objects up, and this would raise a dragonthat was famously flouted by Mortimer Wheeler Brigadier Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH, CIE, MC, FBA, FSA (September 10, 1890 Glasgow – July 22, 1976 London), was one of the best-known British archaeologists of the twentieth century. when he sold Iron Ageslingshots at Maiden Castle Maiden Castle,prehistoric fortress, Dorset, S England, near Dorchester. The finest earthwork in the British Isles, c.120 acres (50 hectares) in area, is there. . But at least the onus would then be oncontrolling access to sites rather than the sprawling internationalantiquities trade Antiquities trade is the trade in historical artifacts from around the world. This trade may be illicit or completely legal. The illicit antiquities trade involves non-scientific extraction that ignores the archaeological and anthropological context from which the artifacts derive. . If the regulation was good enough, all digging wouldbe controlled by licence, and an artifact without a context card wouldbecome impossible to sell. We look forward to hearing reader'sviews on this key element of the new world order: should the trade inantiquities be forbidden, regulated or permitted to flourish? Meanwhile, the miraculous reappearance of the Bactrian Hoardbeneath the Presidential Palace compound in Kabul is worth the attentionof Indiana Jones. The treasure was sealed in 1989 in a concrete bunkerbehind a steel door secured with seven locks whose keys were held byseven different people since dispersed around the world. Successiveregimes, including that of the Taliban, had tried and failed to get in.With the expectation of retrieving a mass of bullion, entry was achievedin August 2003 with the aid of German specialists. As well as theBactrian gold, the vault is now thought to contain trunks of objectsfrom the Kabul Museum, also put away for safe keeping by PresidentNajibullah in 1989. The 20 000 gold objects of the Bactrian Hoard,excavated in 1978 in northern Afghanistan, have been seen only once inthe last 25 years (in 1982) by Viktor Sarianidi, the archaeologist whodiscovered them. All the artefacts which had remained in the museum werebattered into dust by the Taliban in February 2001, and the followingmonth they notoriously dynamited the Bamiyan Buddhas. Many of the lost objects belonged to the hybrid east-west Gandharaart of the Kushan kingdom (first-sixth century AD), objects which have astrong attraction for collectors. The Art Newspaper's correspondentElspeth Moncrieff has pointed out that the western interest in Gandharaart, which developed in the 1880s, contributed to collections in Londonand Paris and that these survived when those in Kabul were destroyed.However in 2003 the market remained a bit flat. "The problem isthat there is very little good quality material around (although thereis a lot of minor), and if anything has come out of Afghanistan, it hascertainly not made its way onto the legitimate art market. Provenancehas become even more essential in this market, and wealthy collectorsare now being very circumspect cir��cum��spect?adj.Heedful of circumstances and potential consequences; prudent.[Middle English, from Latin circumspectus, past participle of circumspicere, to take heed : . This explains the world record price of$669 500 paid for a seated Buddha sold at Southeby's in New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of inSeptember 2002." This second-third century statue of grey schist schist(shĭst), metamorphic rock having a foliated, or plated, structure called schistosity in which the component flaky minerals are visible to the naked eye. had a good provenance. After its discovery by a local farmer in Peshawarin 1880 it was presented to Charles Pearson, a district inspector ofschools, who presented it in turn to his old school, Charterhouse Charterhouse[Fr.,=Chartreuse], in London, England, once a Carthusian monastery (founded 1371), later a hospital for old men and then a school for boys, endowed in 1611. The school, which became a large public school, was removed (1872) to Godalming, Surrey. W. M. (England), where it had remained ever since. Thus do antiquities becomeantiques. A British answer to the challenge of treasure-hunting--the PortableAntiquities Scheme--seems to be having some success, by dint of a charmoffensive where the message "reporting is good" has replacedthe more traditional snarl-offensive "treasure-hunting isbad". Metal-detectoring is praised on TV, local finders are hailedas heroes and the British Museum has put on a special exhibition BuriedTreasure--Finding our Past (reviewed in this issue). No-one can be surewhere this new love affair will end, bur nor can we grudge it moments ofhedonistic he��don��ism?n.1. Pursuit of or devotion to pleasure, especially to the pleasures of the senses.2. Philosophy The ethical doctrine holding that only what is pleasant or has pleasant consequences is intrinsically good. satisfaction. The Hollingbourne hoard is a Bronze Age weaponscache discovered by David Button whilst using a metal detector, andreported to Andrew Richardson (Kent Finds Liaison Officer), whoorganised an excavation on the site. In the latest annual report of thePortable Antiquities Scheme, Arts Minister Estelle Morris said theexcavation was "a prime example of involving local people inarchaeology and highlighting the educational value of the PortableAntiquities Scheme". Another cracking object is the so-calledLeopard Cup from Abergavenny, found by Gary Mapps, which is one of thehighest quality Roman vessels to have been found in Wales. Subsequentexcavation by the Glamorgan Gwent Archaeological Trust revealed apossible funerary fu��ner��ar��y?adj.Of or suitable for a funeral or burial.[Latin fner context for the vessel, for it was associated withcremated bone and potsherds of Roman date. Mark Wood, Chair of theMuseums, Libraries and Archives Council The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) is a government-funded body (a national development agency) in England with a remit in the area of museums, libraries and archives. [formerly Resource], which helpsmanage the Scheme, said that more than 49 500 other finds have beenrecorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme in the period of theirreport, many of which would otherwise not have been recorded. All thefinds registered by the Scheme are listed on an online database(www.finds.org.uk). Is the present the new past? Our correspondent Stephen Houstonfears that things are moving that way in the USA, partly at leastbecause academic archaeology tends to be situated in Departments ofAnthropology. He argues that the desire to integrate archaeology intothe current political agenda is hampering our ability to see the pastclearly, and he sends us this despatch: "Archaeologists feel the need to make their work interestingto anthropologists, who tend to command our departments by sheernumbers. Yet our socio-cultural colleagues pay little heed to theseproffered flowers, our sad acts of courtship. One response amongAmerican archaeologists has been to embrace "presentism Noun 1. presentism - the doctrine that the Scripture prophecies of the Apocalypse (as in the Book of Revelations) are presently in the course of being fulfilled ", theshifting, present-day response to the past. A specialist in hermeneuticsmight find something gratifying in this spectacle. For my part, Icontinue to press for attention to remote realities--to what actuallyhappened in the past. Some North American North Americannamed after North America.North American blastomycosissee North American blastomycosis.North American cattle ticksee boophilusannulatus. archaeologists have littlechoice in this thrust towards presentism. Their interpretations areclosely scrutinized and actively criticized, often with shocking,personalized passion, by Native Americans themselves. Sucharchaeologists could not ignore the present if they wanted to. But insome places it is not always a simple matter to cleave cleat, cleaveclaw of any cloven-footed animal. Native Americans(Maya) from Native Americans (European descent); the two arecomprehensively mixed in much of southern Mexico and northern CentralAmerica. How are ethnicities supposed to be clear-cut in places wherevirtually everyone lays legitimate claim to indigenous blood? There isalso a great deal of unfairness in attacking those who are, and willalways be, the most sympathetic to indigenous needs. What cannot be remedied easily is the gradual unravelling inMesoamerican scholarship of the old bonds between socio-culturalanthropology and archaeology. That beloved and gifted scholar, EvonVogt, not now in good health and long since retired from Harvard, forgedwith Gordon Willey a strong link between the two, with numerousreciprocal insights resulting from that friendly partnership. In ourhaste to "presentize" to see (correctly) the Maya and otherpeoples as something other than cultural fossils, that bond is no longerso strong, especially in the current focus among socio-culturalanthropologists on Maya intellectual or activist movements. Another move towards "presentism" is laudable, but wemust await further testimony as to its wisdom. This is the impulse tosee archaeological projects as development projects for the communities(not always Maya ones) that now settle around most archaeological sites.The days of exploration in remote jungle ruins is long past in most ofGuatemala and Mexico. The sight of malnourished mal��nour��ishedadj.Affected by improper nutrition or an insufficient diet. villages, with extremepoverty in all its forms, would soften the hardest heart. And the factof the matter is that these communities cannot be ignored: theirinhabitants will loot sites if not involved in their protection and canpose great physical danger to archaeologists who slight insistent, localneeds. For my part, a Guatemalan colleague and I had to negotiate withguerillas to dig at the ruins of Piedras Negras, Guatemala. Otherarchaeologists have had to bargain with innumerable, often warringcommunities that surround archaeological sites. Each, with equal force,lays claim to benefits accruing from those sites. However, I see threeproblems with this new focus on "development archaeology":first, archaeologists are not trained in developmental anthropology, afield guided, as the UN can tell us, by shifting objectives; second, thesums we deploy are tiny in comparison with other sources; this meansthat, having raised local expectations, we cannot possibly meet them,with yet further consequences of an ugly nature; and third, the"presentism" of such archaeology should not, at our peril,shift us from what we do best, studying the past. If archaeology becomessolely a matter of serving present-day needs, then why dig deeply atall? Why not simply tart up sites for tourists, fixing masonry surfaces,as has been done for years in many parts of Mexico?" Such thoughts have some relevance to the issue of how to treathuman remains, which is discussed further in the Debate section of thisissue. The Antiquity essay prize for 2003 was won by Nerissa Russell andKevin McGowan for their article "Dance of the Cranes" whichused analysis of the wing bones of grus grus to suggest their use inritual dances at Catalhoyuk (Antiquity 77: 445-455). The Ben CullenPrize for a young author was won by Jason Ur for his mapping of ancientroad networks in Mesopotamia using satellite images (Antiquity77:102-115). This prize, awarded by Ian Gollop, is intended forcontributors who are 30 years old or younger, so a coy indication of agefrom future competitors would be most helpful to the judges. TheAntiquity quiz at TAG (the Theoretical Archaeology Group) which met thisyear at the University of Lampeter, Wales, was won by a formidable teamconsisting of Professors Thomas, Bradley, Darvill, Tarlow, Hedeager andAustin. They generously offered their prize to the student winner of thetie-breaking question: "Who was the founding editor ofAntiquity?" First with the answer was Cole Henley, just finishing aPhD at Cardiff, who gets a year's free subscription. Views on howto regulate the formation of future quiz teams will be gratefullyreceived (especially from readers under 30). Farewell to David Oates, towering scholar of Mesopotamianarchaeology, excavator ex��ca��va��torn.An instrument, such as a sharp spoon or curette, used in scraping out pathological tissue.excavator (eks´k at Nimrud (1955), Tel al-Rimah (1964) and TellBrak brak1NounS African a crossbred dog; mongrel [Dutch]brak2AdjectiveS African (of water) slightly salty; brackish [Afrikaans] (1976) whose obituary we carry in this issue. We extend specialsympathy to Joan Oates, his long term partner and Antiquity'schairman. Martin Carver York 1 June 2004