An Issue of Ethics? Curation and the Obligations of Archaeology

Abstract

I want to thank the authors for their reflective responses to the issue of archaeological storage. I was concerned that my intentionally provocative opening salvo in discussing “someone else's problem” (implied by Green on p. 64) was going to reveal a wound that exists, yet remains predominantly under-examined and untreated. Surprisingly, many of the reactions were in agreement, particularly on at least one point—there is a global archaeological curation crisis. The problem of storage is exacerbated by a number of factors: a lack of institutional funding, the often unbridled desire to excavate, and what is referred to in legal circles as “willful ignorance,” that is, our ability as a discipline to turn a blind eye to the problem of what to do with all of the stuff we recover as part of our archaeological practices.I was inspired by the knowledge, insightful comments, and suggestions of the authors, but I will not attempt to summarize each of the positions. Instead, I will take this opportunity to highlight some of the recurring themes shared by these reactions and the original essay. I will also clarify a few points that may have been unclear in my essay. I want to end this rejoinder with a recent case which I think encapsulates the curation crisis—the controversial sale of Egyptian antiquities by the St. Louis Society of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA).In his stimulating essay, Kletter states: “Storage is basically a financial problem. It is not about technology, ethics, legal measures, or education” (p. 60). This comment describes a fundamental disciplinary problem. Many archaeologists do not see the proper care, handling, and long-term curation of artifacts as ethical obligations; but they are the responsibility of the discipline and its practitioners. In his response, Jamieson maintains that “archaeologists are ethically and professionally bound to make provisions for the preservation of their research” (p. 76), and while money does play a large role in our varying levels of commitment to curation, it is our ethical duty to care for the material we produce through excavation. Whether we dump it back at the site, sell it to the highest bidder, put it on display, or curate it in a museum or storage facility, something has to be done with the stuff we amass.Although I like the distinction between rarer “one-of-a-kind” artifacts and bulk items that Kletter makes regarding archaeological material, I am uncomfortable with the term “goodies.” The term “goodie” trivializes and decontextualizes the artifact making it all the more appealing to buyers who then see these items as objet d'art, prized for their uniqueness and museum qualities rather than the evidence they can provide about the past through their discovery in a specific context. This term also demeans the importance of bulk items when in fact we may be able to glean valuable information from the thousands of more prosaic items, creating new knowledge about function, economy, trade routes, and manufacturing techniques. The existing legal provision for partage in Jordanian law is not just about “goodies,” but about the ability of excavators to take the unwashed masses of sherds, animal bone, and flint for post-excavation analyses and for use as study collections in academic institutions across the globe. I acknowledge Kletter's point that in endorsing partage we may be ameliorating a storage problem in one country (i.e., Jordan) while creating one in another country (i.e., Canada). In many ways, shuffling sherds from one country to another does not solve the problem of storage. I would, however, disagree with Kletter's assertion that most of the curation crisis solutions I propose focus on “goodies”—there are, in fact, “somebodies” out there waiting for bulk items (see Kletter, p. 55). I recently returned from a visit to the Center for Near Eastern Archaeology at La Sierra University in Riverside, California, a new facility with numerous bulk items from Jordan currently under study and used in teaching. Kletter is right in declaring that “loan, lease, sale, and deaccession will not solve the problem of storage” (p. 57); we do need to think more creatively about bulk items and the “goodies” produced as a result of our ongoing archaeological investigations.In Kletter's critique of the Bab adh-Dhra‘ case study, he suggests that I am excessive in stressing the fact that terms like “sale” or “selling” do not appear in the archival documentation related to the ASOR/Department of Antiquities (DoA) Tomb Group initiative. I emphasized the series of euphemisms because no one—neither the archaeological communities in the United States or Jordan, nor ASOR or the DoA in Jordan—wanted the taint of commercialism to be associated with the endeavor. Money did change hands, but the proceeds were put back into ASOR and DoA publication projects and excavations, and tomb groups did not enter the general antiquities market place. As part of the on-going Follow the Pots Project (http://followthepotsproject.org), I am tracking the current whereabouts of the 24 tomb groups in order to determine if the artifacts are still in their initial locations and still on display. The University of Melbourne was one of the ASOR member institutions successful in procuring a tomb group. I was delighted that in Jamieson's paper he included an image of a school girl looking at a vessel from Bab adh-Dhra‘ tomb group A72S (see Fig. 1 on p. 75). This is exactly what the conceivers of this unusual plan envisioned—objects as ambassadors, inspiring awe and wonder all over the world. I have tracked about half of the tomb groups, and all are at their original institutions. Although most are not currently on display in traditional exhibits, many are available online with their associated archival documentation.I found Green's discussion of the storage problem from his perspective as a museum curator to be illuminating—pointing out that for most archaeologists storage and curation is someone else's problem, and more often than not, that “someone” is the museum curator and/or conservator. Green suggests that visibility is integral in our considerations of storage. Currently, most of the stuff we unearth in our archaeological projects is hidden from view, whether in the countries in which we excavate or in foreign museums, repositories, and storage facilities. Once we (archaeologists) excavate and study the material, we rarely give it another thought as it is hidden away—out of sight, out of mind—and someone else's problem.Careful attention to storage space and curatorial conditions play increasingly important roles in museums accepting large collections containing displayable (or “goodies” in Kletter's parlance) and bulk items leading to what Green terms “material collections bias” (p. 70). Museums and other institutions have become choosier in their acquisitions due to space limitations, which in turn may affect research agendas. In their responses, Green and Jamieson support the exhortations of King (2008) and Voss (2012) to excavate existing collections in order to utilize warehoused materials, which they argue will increase public awareness of both the material stored in institutions and the attendant issue of storage—perhaps making it everyone's problem? Silberman asks one of the most salient questions pertaining to this discussion: “why is the permanent storage of tons of excavated material so necessary?” (p. 62). He and Jamieson confront the elephant in the room about stored collections—why do we need to keep stuff if the material ends up in locked boxes, warehouses, and off-site facilities, largely unexamined? If a proposed answer to over-accumulation is less excavation, which no archaeologist really wants to admit is a solution, why doesn't everyone, everywhere practice a catch-and-release methodology, perhaps dispelling of the notion that every sherd is sacred (Silberman, p. 62). Sometimes a broken piece of pottery is just that and does not really tell us anything we did not already know. Erudite contemplations of this question are found in the author responses.Elsewhere, Jamieson has written thoughtfully about the subjects of storage, more specifically on storage as related to Near Eastern archaeological collections. He suggests that funding is the root problem, but, like Green and Silberman, he also argues that a lack of awareness about general collection management practices within the archaeological community may be of greater concern (Jamieson, pp. 73–74). Our own deficiency in acknowledging our ethical responsibilities and our shortage of engagement with the aftermath of excavations is a “dirty secret” of archaeology, exacerbated by the prevailing leitmotifs of “you are not a real archaeologist unless you excavate” (Jamieson) and that “every sherd is sacred” (Silberman). This heady combination linked with a paucity of financial support for the post-excavation phases of research has resulted in a worsening storage conundrum. Many of the respondents suggested that legal measures might also help with the curation crisis—those seeking permits for excavation would have to dedicate a percentage of their budget to storage (Kletter, p. 60 no. 3) as is/was the case in countries like Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. Collections management as a part of archaeological compliance—built into the local permitting process or as part of ethical obligations of national and international organizations—should always be an element of research design for all future archaeological endeavors.I want to leave the Storage Wars with a cautionary tale. In the fall of 2014, the AIA St. Louis Society consigned some Egyptian artifacts in their possession to Bonhams auction house. Excavated in 1914 by the British School of Archaeology in Egypt (BSAE) with the permission of the Egyptian authorities, this material from Tomb 124 at Harageh, the Fayum, near Lahun, was exported from Egypt as part of a partage agreement (Stevenson and Naunton 2014). The AIA St Louis Society, an independent not-for-profit organization, received the items in exchange for their financial contribution to the excavations of the BSAE. Under the terms of the arrangement, the 37 objects were sent to St. Louis “on the condition that they went to a public collection” (Stevenson and Naunton 2014). For many years, the collection was kept in storage at the St. Louis Art Museum. In 2011, it was moved to Washington University in St. Louis, and two years ago it wound up in private storage at a cost of $2,000 a year (Zagier 2014). According to the AIA St. Louis Society, it was that storage fee and the conservation challenge that drove the society to sell the Harageh collection. According to Howard Wimmer, secretary of the AIA St. Louis Society, “If there had been any way that we could have reasonably kept these items in St. Louis, we never would have pursued this course. One way or the other, we had to find a new home” (AIA St. Louis Society 2014). With no storage facilities of their own and dwindling financial resources, the AIA St. Louis Society was forced to sell the items. Again, the combination of a lack of funds with issues of space created an unsustainable situation for this Egyptian tomb group in St. Louis.This move by the society generated an outcry from archaeological organizations and individuals that was heard across the globe. The AIA, The Egyptian Exploration Society, and the Society for American Archaeology issued statements opposing the sale of antiquities and commercialization of the artifacts and decrying an absence of public access if the material ended up in private hands. “Disposing of artifacts through a public sale puts those artifacts at risk of being removed from public access” (AIA 2014). Under its charter with the AIA, the St. Louis Society is only explicitly prohibited from the sale or purchase of undocumented artifacts, so no matter how appalled the national organization was, it could do little to prevent the sale. At the eleventh hour, there was a deal that supposedly made everyone “happy.” The day before the sale the Egyptian artifacts were removed from Bonhams public auction, and the Metropolitan Museum in New York City acquired the materials for an undisclosed amount. “We are very pleased with the outcome,” said a St. Louis Society spokesperson, “The Metropolitan Museum in New York is the best home for the treasure. We are looking forward to seeing the objects and jewelry on exhibition” (Cascone 2014). In a website statement, the St. Louis Society stated that the funds from the Metropolitan Museum will be used to re-establish its “Community Archaeology” program, aimed at encouraging interest in science and archaeology in students 10 to 14 years old (AIA St. Louis Society 2014). Unfortunately, there was one lot from the AIA St. Louis Society's Harageh artifacts, a 10th–11th Dynasty travertine head rest (2150–1990 BCE) that did not get a reprieve. It sold to an unknown buyer for £27,500 ($41,390 [US]) (Bonhams 2014). At the same time, questions still surround the fate of the new Metropolitan Museum acquisitions. In an institution with other Egyptian artifacts of greater “goodie” status, will this group actually ever see the light of day in an exhibit? Or has the material just moved from one storeroom to another as Kletter has stressed as a problem with sell-offs and deaccessions?Neatly packaged in a single case study are many of the issues raised in my original essay and the various responses, illustrating the disciplinary divide over the storage of archaeological artifacts. As part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum will the public have access to the material? Or is the tomb group just moving from one storage facility to another? Was deaccessioning the only cure for the curation crisis for the AIA St. Louis Society, even in the face of censure and protest from the archaeological community at large? The challenge facing archaeology is storage. If we want to continue to excavate, we need to remain critical and reflective, not just about our research questions, but about our obligations to the very practice of fieldwork and the results of that research—the stuff we produce and what to do with it.

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