Kimmel, Richard H SAW schrieb:
> Can it be that "treasure" is just being used in the broader sense of
> valuable stuff?  Are the posters and museums really promoting this as
> literally treasure or are they just marketing an exhibit.  Would the public
> be as likely to take notice if the poster said, "Smelly, non-descript bits
> of garbage from a latrine."  You and I understand that a tiny piece of
> pottery with a date or a family mark or whatever can be the key to
> unraveling an archaeological problem or inference but the public may have to
> be tricked into believing that our problem is a "mystery."  I have no
> problem with the fact that most words have more than one dictionary meaning,
> and are also fraught with personal meaning, political (correctness) meaning
> (remember "voodoo"?), and that they are used by politicians, advertisers,
> etc. to mislead.  That's just what we humans do.  The same tactic with
> different intent is poetry and prose, simile and metaphor.
>

yeah, but i don't like this idea of always being misleading - it's always
treasure, it's always the latest, greatest, slice-em dice-em razz-a-ma-tazz -
then when you try to explain to someone why the smelly stuff you hauled out of
the bottom of your cesspit really is more interesting than your gold-plated
wazzits, they just aren't too impressed -
        the problem also seems to be compounded by two factors: interesting
stuff always comes from far away, the local stuff is boring... which is not
exactly the idea the state museum (if it is serious about garnering public
support and - hence - funding for local research) really should be getting
across...
        german archaeology also tends to antithical to theory, with (i think)
really boring reports and exhibits resulting anyway, which doesn't help, but...


geoff carver
http://home.t-online.de/home/gcarver/
[log in to unmask]