From museum people I've known, it does seem to be a challenge to museums in
how to present archaeological artifacts as more than a series of discrete
neat objects.  There does seem to be some desire on the part of museums to
present the culture rather than just the artifacts, but I don't know how
successful this has been.  You can put a lot of text with the artifacts to
explain how they fit into an interpretation of the site/community/culture,
but how many people will stand and read dense text in a museum?  At a recent
exhibit on Vikings in New York they had a typical winged helmet along with
some text explaining how there has been absolutely no evidence of any
Vikings wearing winged helmets.  As I was reading the text people were
cruising by with comments about "look - there are the kinds of hats those
people wore."  People don't seem to go to museums to actually learn
anything, more to look at neat stuff, which gets back to the issue of how to
make the past relevant to the public (and to who is responsible for doing
it).

-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of geoff
carver
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 9:43 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: treasure hunting


just outside my window there's an advertising pillar of the type quite
common
here in europe - it just stands there, waiting for someone to change the
posters
glued onto it -
        right now it's advertising an exhibition called "treasures from X"
(not
going to bother with the country, it's not important) being shown at our
local
state museum of archaeology -
        am i alone in getting annoyed when all the work we do is reduced to
"treasure hunting" even by the people who should know better? the museum
here is
tied in with the state archaeological service (excavation is a state
monopoly,
with all that that entails); which has no standing exhibits (partly because
of
want of a permanent venue), and tends otherwise to glamourise the whole
thing
into a fairly empty bunch of superlatives: the oldest this, the earliest
that...
        i was also annoyed about 2 years ago when some of my finds were
described on a poster as "treasures from a latrine" -
        is this a general archaeological problem (assumption that all the
[assumed] stupid public wants to see is/are treasures), laziness on the part
of
curators, a general unwillingness to communicate with the public...?
        i'm not going to suggest that the public really likes this kind of
stuff
because they flock to erich von daniken readings but for the most part stay
away from serious museum exhibits...
        any ideas/comments?


geoff carver
http://home.t-online.de/home/gcarver/
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