Who owns antiquity? Local museums or experts' countries
"That belongs in a museum!" Indiana Jones was scolding one of his many enemies, the last we heard from the hunky archaeologist, 19 years ago.
He has returned to the screen in the much-awaited sequel "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," and the debate about where antiquities belong is heating up again among Indy's less glamorous, real-world counterparts.
In an already controversial new book out later this month, "Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle for Our Ancient Heritage," author James Cuno argues for a return to the idea of "partage." The term refers to the system that persisted for many years in which foreign-led experts -- typically Europeans and Americans -- worked with locals to excavate antiquities in countries like Iraq and Egypt. Some of the material went to local museums, but much of the rest ended up in the museums in the experts' home countries.
But the system has been supplanted by conventions and national laws designed to keep antiquities in their home countries. Cuno, president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago, argues the changes have been harmful. He spoke recently to The Associated Press, and his responses are excerpted here.
AP: You write in the book that you've changed your thinking about how antiquities should be handled has changed? How and why?
Cuno: Initially, I thought like everyone probably the best thing was for (antiquities) to be preserved as is, for archaeologists to excavate and document. I then came to realize other people wanted other things from them. Those in power in nation states in whose jurisdiction antiquities lay wanted a kind of legitimization of their political position. So antiquities and ancient heritage became a means to a political end, when I thought originally it was the stuff of academic science.
AP: What's wrong with cultural property laws that require the retention of antiquities in the countries where they are found?
Cuno: We have put these antiquities, this part of our ancient heritage, at increasing peril because we have concentrated the risk in one place. Previously, through this partage, one could share these ancient antiquities, and they could be distributed to other museums. The risks of a calamity destroying all or most of these antiquities was less.
(The laws) have limited access to these ancient things, and deprived a large number of people around the world the benefits of seeing them and learning from them about the achievements and characteristics of our ancient forebears.
And they have perpetuated a false view of culture as a pure and static thing that has national characteristics. In a time of resurgent nationalism and sectarian violence, the perpetuation of the false view of culture as something that distinguishes one modern people from another modern people is dangerous. We know that culture has always been fluid, hybrid and mongrel, and has never accepted political borders, and it has linked more people together than it has separated. These cultural property laws ... put walls up between peoples.
AP: It's true that, for example, the modern nation of Greece is not the only cultural descendent of ancient Greece. But does that mean Greece really should have no more say than anyone else on the antiquities found there?
Cuno: I think any of these modern nations can exercise a greater claim than any other nation on antiquities found within their jurisdiction. But not in terms of an identity with those ancient people. It is not on the basis that they are the modern heirs to the achievements of these ancient peoples, that they descend from them in any kind of continuous or natural way and that the modern culture is akin to the ancient culture.
I'm not arguing that modern nations have no role to play, or no greater role to play, in determining the fate of antiquities fond within their borders. They may have some primacy in that regard. But we all have a right to them and would gain from a greater familiarity with them.
AP: Critics of this book are already taking aim at your argument, on the grounds it suggests Western superiority and cultural imperialism. How do you respond?
Cuno: It's not true. Historically, partage has not simply built the collections of the host nations of excavating teams. ... It also built the local museums and their collections. The Baghdad Museum, Kabul, Cairo, were built through he process of sharing the finds that foreign excavators found.
Partage encourages a broader understanding of the achievements of different ancient peoples, encouraging the sense that we all collectively have a stake in the preservation of this material.
AP: You write that what you really support is the principle of the "encyclopedic museum," where artifacts from a broad range of cultures are gathered in one place. But aren't those museums concentrated in the West?
Cuno: I recognize it's a legacy of the Enlightenment and that encyclopedic museums tend to be only where that legacy reached. It tends to be only Anglo-Saxon areas or where the French Enlightenment took place -- France and Russia. That isn't an argument against the principle of the encyclopedic museum. It's an argument for encouraging the development of encyclopedic museums everywhere.
AP: This whole field and debate is about to get a big dose of pop culture exposure with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."
Cuno: I have to confess I didn't know it was coming out. In fact, I don't know how many Indiana Jones movies there have been.
AP: Seriously?
Cuno: For some reason I've just not seen a movie in a very long time.
