tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/artefacts-15236/articlesArtefacts – The Conversation2024-01-30T09:51:37Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2220252024-01-30T09:51:37Z2024-01-30T09:51:37ZGhana’s looted Asante gold comes home (for now) – Asante ruler’s advisor tells us about the deal<p><em>After 150 years, 39 artefacts that form part of Asante’s royal regalia are due to return to the <a href="https://manhyiapalace.org/">Asantehene</a> (ruler of the Asante people) in Kumasi, Ghana, in February and April this year. The Asante empire was the largest and most powerful in the region in the 18th century and controlled an area that was rich in gold. Many of the gold royal artefacts were looted by British troops during the third Anglo-Asante war of 1874 (<a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2018/2/5/0z9u3mtcn3ra21uwolkj7rgpr8jai7">Sagrenti War</a>).</em></p>
<p><em>The first collection of seven objects is expected from the Fowler Museum at the University of California in Los Angeles. The second collection of 32 will arrive from the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in the UK. These artefacts are being loaned to the Asante people for six years. Archaeologist and <a href="https://www.theafricainstitute.org/institute-team/rachel-ama-asaa-engmann/">Ghana heritage specialist</a> Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann spoke to the Asantehene’s technical advisor for the project, historian and museum economist Ivor Agyeman-Duah, about the journey to return the items and its implications for cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums.</em></p>
<h2>What are these objects and how did they leave Asante?</h2>
<p>They were royal regalia that was looted in 1874 from the palace in Kumasi after the sacking of the city by British colonial military troops. There was another a punitive expedition in 1896 which led to further looting. They included ceremonial swords and ceremonial cups, some of them very important in terms of a palace’s measurement of royalty. For instance, the Mponponsuo sword, created 300 years ago, dates back to the legendary Okomfo (spiritual leader) linked with the founding of the empire, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Okomfo-Anokye">Okomfo Anokye</a>. This sword is what the Asantehene used to swear the oath of allegiance to his people. Chiefs used the same sword to swear their oaths to the Asantehene. </p>
<p>Some of the items were sold at auction on the open market in London; art collectors bought them and eventually donated some of them to museums (some were kept in private collections). The British Museum and the <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/">Victoria & Albert Museum</a> also <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/10/12/stealing-africa-how-britain-looted-the-continents-art">bought</a> some of them.</p>
<p>However, not every item you see at the British Museum was looted. For instance, there were cultural exchanges between the <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG205733">Asantehene Osei Bonsu</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Edward-Bowdich">T.E. Bowdich</a>, an emissary of the African Company of Merchants who travelled to Kumasi in 1817 to negotiate trade. Some gifts were given to Bowdich, who deposited them at the British Museum later on. There were 14 of these items.</p>
<h2>How was the agreement reached?</h2>
<p>The issue has been on the drawing board for <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-65614490">half a century</a>. It’s not just an immediate concern of the current Asantehene. It has been a concern of the last three occupants of the stool (throne). But this year is critical because it marks 150 years since the Sagrenti War. It also marks 100 years since the return of the <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2017/11/11/9q292hoy7x0uyv4ibm38vghy7mmax1">Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh</a> after his <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2017/11/11/9q292hoy7x0uyv4ibm38vghy7mmax1">exile in Seychelles</a> and 25 years since the <a href="https://manhyiapalace.org/profile-of-otumfuo-osei-tutu-ii-asantehene/">current Asantehene</a>, Oseu Tutu II, ascended the stool. </p>
<p>So, while in London in May 2023, after having official discussions with directors of these museums, he reopened discussions and negotiations. He asked me and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Asante-M-D-McLeod/dp/0714115630">Malcolm McLeod</a>, former curator and scholar at the British Museum
and <a href="https://www.myjoyonline.com/asantehene-leads-discussions-with-british-museum-over-regalia-taken-from-ashantis/">vice-principal</a> at the University of Glasgow, to help in the technical decisions that would be made. We’ve been working on this for the past nine months.</p>
<h2>Why is it a six year loan and not an outright return?</h2>
<p>The moral right to ownership does exist. But there are also the laws of antiquity in the UK. The Victoria & Albert and the British Museum are national museums. They are governed by very <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharyfolk/2024/01/25/british-museum-lends-ghana-looted-gold-artifacts-heres-why-it-wont-fully-return-them/?sh=60ccee735c7c">strict laws</a> which do not permit <a href="https://www.uaf.edu/museum/collections/ethno/policies/deaccessioning/">de-accessioning</a> or permanently removing a work of art or other object from a museum’s collection to sell it or otherwise dispose of it.</p>
<p>That had always been the constraining factor over the last 50 years. But there was also a way that we could have these items for a maximum of six years. Not all the objects are being exhibited at the British Museum. Many have never been exhibited and lie in storage in a warehouse.</p>
<p>Based on the circumstances and the trinity of anniversaries, we came to an agreement. Discussions will however continue between us and these museums to find a lasting agreement.</p>
<p>Of course, the Ghana experience will be important for restitution claims from other countries in Africa.</p>
<h2>What does this mean to the Asante people – and Ghana?</h2>
<p>The fact that over the last couple of months we were able to reach some form of agreement for this to happen is testimony of the interest in multicultural agreements.</p>
<p>Any set of objects that is 150 years old (or older) will be of interest to many people. Such artefacts help us to connect the past with the present. They are significant for how our people were, in terms of creativity and technology, how they were able to use gold and other artistic properties. They are also something that will inspire those who are in the craft of gold production today. </p>
<p>Manhiya Palace Museum reopens this year in April. The exhibition of these objects is going to increase visitor attendance at the <a href="https://ashantiobjects.commons.gc.cuny.edu/the-new-manhyia-palace-museum/">museum</a>. It receives about 80,000 visitors a year and we estimate that it could rise to 200,000 a year with the return of these objects. This will generate revenue and allow us to expand and develop our own museums.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A loan deal for the Asante artefacts offers an opportunity for these objects to return home.Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann, Director of Christiansborg Archaeological Heritage Project, Associate Professor at Africa Institute Sharjah & Associate Graduate Faculty, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2045692023-05-21T10:11:24Z2023-05-21T10:11:24ZNigeria’s city of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ has survived and thrived for 1,000 years: here’s how<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527512/original/file-20230522-8471-udx56t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Men arrive for the celebrations for the Olojo Festival in Ile-Ife.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/men-arrive-for-the-celebrations-for-the-olojo-festival-in-news-photo/1243465845?adppopup=true">Samuel Alabi/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>By the end of this century, the three <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956247816663557">most populous cities</a> in the world are expected to be in Africa, with Lagos in Nigeria leading as home to 88.3 million people.</p>
<p>When thinking about what city life is like now and could be like in future, it’s helpful to know something about African urban history.</p>
<p>It’s a <a href="https://markuswiener.com/books/the-history-of-african-cities-south-of-the-sahara-from-the-origins-to-colonization/">history</a> that goes far back, long before the onset of European colonial rule in the late 19th century. And the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-culture-geographical-Afolabi-Ojo/dp/B0007AJB6W">Yorùbá-speaking area of west Africa</a> was a key player in the continent’s ancient urban history. </p>
<p>Ancient Yorùbá towns and cities, such as Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Ọ̀wọ̀, Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde, and Ọ̀yọ́-Ilé, have attracted attention from different disciplines – especially <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1368563211">sociology</a>, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/26109263">anthropology</a> and <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/581348">geography</a>. But their deep history, including how, why, and when they developed, isn’t well known. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/pdf/10.1484/J.JUA.5.133451">recent article</a> I set out my findings on the early centuries of Ilé-Ifẹ̀, in south-west Nigeria. </p>
<p>Ilé-Ifẹ̀ <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/31069933">occupies</a> a central place in Yorùbá history and identity. It is claimed to be the <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/134236">harbinger of Yorùbá civilisation</a>. More than a thousand years old, Ilé-Ifẹ̀ is one of the oldest and longest-occupied cities in Africa. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/881237478">Ilé-Ifẹ̀ literally means “House of Abundance”</a>. The name also refers to a place that is diverse and always expanding. In my paper, More than a thousand years old, Ilé-Ifẹ̀ is one of the oldest and longest-occupied cities in Africa.
. </p>
<p>My archaeological and historical findings <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-New-History-Akinwumi-Ogundiran/dp/0253051495/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3JSE0VSNINING&keywords=the+yoruba+a+new+history&qid=1683303629&sprefix=the+yoruba%3A+a+new+%2Caps%2C103&sr=8-1">show</a> how Ilé-Ifẹ̀ became a commercial hub, a pilgrimage and intellectual centre, a magnet for migrants, and a legitimator of social order for a multi-lingual region about 1,000 years ago.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man holding work tools" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525583/original/file-20230511-18-99kbzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525583/original/file-20230511-18-99kbzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525583/original/file-20230511-18-99kbzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525583/original/file-20230511-18-99kbzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525583/original/file-20230511-18-99kbzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525583/original/file-20230511-18-99kbzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525583/original/file-20230511-18-99kbzb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author’s excavation in Oduduwa Grove in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Akinwumi Ogundiran</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>My research</h2>
<p>I began my study of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ in the mid-1980s, learning historical, ethnographic and archaeological field methods in shrines, temples and sacred groves in the city and its suburbs. I later researched oral traditions and ritual archives in the ancient city to understand indigenous urbanism (the way people relate to the built environment), social organisation and governance. My research extended to other parts of the Yorùbá-speaking region in Nigeria, combining archaeological methods with oral traditions, rituals and language history. I also benefited from published scholarship on Yorùbá history.</p>
<p>My comparative and interdisciplinary approaches highlighted three kinds of urban scale: complexity, multiplexity and referentiality. </p>
<p>Complexity is about social organisation and communities building from the ground up. </p>
<p>Multiplexity is about the way diversity of skills and social differences are cultivated and harmonised to form an organic whole greater than the sum of its parts. </p>
<p>Referentiality is about the values the city generates for its residents and a vast area beyond its core. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-long-view-sheds-fresh-light-on-the-history-of-the-yoruba-people-in-west-africa-162776">A long view sheds fresh light on the history of the Yoruba people in West Africa</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Community building as urbanism</h2>
<p>My key finding was that the <em>raison d’être</em> of urbanism in Ilé-Ifẹ̀ was community building. Unlike some other African urban centres, such as the <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/971462750">Swahili cities</a> in East Africa, Ilé-Ifẹ̀ did not begin as a terminus of long-distance trade routes. Neither did it begin as a hub of craftworks. </p>
<p>Rather, it started as a political unit integrating smaller social units called <em>ilé</em>. The city <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-New-History-Akinwumi-Ogundiran/dp/0253051495">came into being</a> as a result of the self-organising strategies that several <em>ilé</em> embarked upon at the end of the first millennium AD.</p>
<p>They did this to manage resources and potential conflicts in the face of increasing population and ecological stress.</p>
<p>Ilé-Ifẹ̀ soon set the pace for urbanism in the region through overlapping innovations in sociopolitical ideology, technology and cosmogony (ideas about how the world began). </p>
<p>The intellectuals and political leaders of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-New-History-Akinwumi-Ogundiran/dp/0253051495">developed</a> a coherent framework for Yoruba city-making by standardising the ideology of divine kingship and what an urban layout should look like. For example, spatial arrangement of the palace, markets, temples, city walls and gates, crafts centres, and road network. They developed a new cosmogony that unified and universalised the Òrìṣà pantheon -the deities in Yorùbá religion.</p>
<p>They also created <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/39540639">a new economy that centred on primary glass production</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/7053610462">The glass industry in Ilé-Ifẹ̀ was devoted to bead-making.</a> Glass beads were <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-New-History-Akinwumi-Ogundiran/dp/0253051495">used</a> to legitimise divine kingship across the region and to finance external trade that brought imports such as brass and possibly salt and silk from across the Sahara. Ilé-Ifẹ̀’s trading partners <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-New-History-Akinwumi-Ogundiran/dp/0253051495">included</a> cities on the River Niger and other parts of the western Sudan region, such as Timbuktu and Gao. </p>
<p>The city was also a centre of learning. Its intellectuals created schools, some of them devoted to <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/9530098196">healing and wellness</a>, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/824618137">astronomy</a> and <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/945376243">critical inquiry through divination</a>. They attracted students from far and near. </p>
<p>Commemoration and religious sites were set up across the city that attracted tourists. Many of these sites survive today as <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/205471">sacred groves</a>.</p>
<p>Our findings show that the community-building origins of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ made ancestor veneration important to the well-being of households, families and the city. <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/44441752">Mortuary art</a> was an important sector of the city’s economy. </p>
<p>The city’s economic buoyancy made it a magnet for immigrant labourers and fortune-seekers. The significance of its bead production also attracted diplomats, traders and pilgrims from across the region. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-found-the-earliest-glass-production-south-of-the-sahara-and-what-it-means-142059">How we found the earliest glass production south of the Sahara, and what it means</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>All of these made it a cosmopolitan city. Consequently, it attained the moniker “city of daybreak”, a nod to its status as a place of novelty and innovations. </p>
<p>During the 13th and 14th centuries, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/35790974">the core city was about 4km in diameter</a>. Beyond that, its satellite areas <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Yoruba-New-History-Akinwumi-Ogundiran/dp/0253051495">stretched for about 30km</a>. </p>
<p>The city of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ has weathered many storms in its long history. Its growth was interrupted at different times <a href="https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/pdf/10.1484/J.JUA.5.133451">by drought, famine, epidemic outbreaks, political intrigues, warfare and economic collapse</a>. Its community-building foundation and enduring institutions likely explain its resilience. Now a city of about half a million people, it offers lessons to urban planners and city managers everywhere.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204569/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>For the research related to this article, Akinwumi Ogundiran gratefully acknowledges funding from the Ijesa Cultural Foundation, Boston University Humanities Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Philosophical Society, and the Carnegie Foundation. </span></em></p>We need deep-time African urban history and theories to make sense of contemporary urban life and anticipate its future possibilities in African terms.Akinwumi Ogundiran, Chancellor’s Professor, and Professor of Africana Studies, Anthropology & History, University of North Carolina – CharlotteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2054422023-05-17T12:20:35Z2023-05-17T12:20:35ZFrom Indiana Jones to Netflix’s Beef – how ‘collectors’ of cultural artefacts have gone from heroic figures to villainous thieves<p><em>Warning: the following article contains spoilers for Beef.</em></p>
<p>Created by Korean director Lee Sung Jin and starring a predominantly Asian cast, Netflix drama Beef has <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/netflixs-beef-nailed-korean-american-evangelical-experience-rcna79353">won plaudits</a> for its gritty yet humorous portrayal of Asian American life.</p>
<p>The show explores racism and cultural appropriation through protagonist Amy Lau’s (Ali Wong) relationship with Jordan Forster (Maria Bello), the mega-rich white businesswoman who purchases her plant business. In one striking scene, Jordan shows off her collection of “exotic” crowns.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AFPIMHBzGDs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for Netflix’s Beef (2023).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not only does Jordan wear her favourite – one from the <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Chimu_Civilization/">Chimú kingdom</a> of ancient Peru – but she bemoans the fact she no longer has the matching earrings. These, she explains with an eye roll, had to be returned to the Peruvian government, implying they were originally stolen. Selfishness and bigotry lurk beneath Jordan’s facade of cosmopolitanism.</p>
<p>But Jordan’s collecting goes beyond priceless artefacts – she collects Asian women too. She tries to use the business deal to get close to Amy, turning her into another beautiful, foreign object in her collection.</p>
<p>Jordan’s other intimate relationship – with Naomi (Ashley Park), who she treats as an accessory as well as an assistant – emphasises her fetishistic interest in Asian women. This dynamic symbolises white western exploitation of ethnic minorities.</p>
<p>It also speaks to sociologist <a href="https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/baudrillard.collecting.pdf">Jean Baudrillard’s</a> claim that “there is something of the harem” about collecting historic artefacts. Beef shows the troubling link between collecting and sexual control.</p>
<h2>The history of collecting</h2>
<p>The second half of the 19th century was the “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=P_wcLQ-hKOYC&pg=PA67&dq=paul+goetsch+uncanny+collectors&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiUn--dreX-AhVYMcAKHTDUCe0Q6AF6BAgEEAI#v=onepage&q=paul%20goetsch%20uncanny%20collectors&f=false">age of collecting</a>”. Technological revolutions, international trade and imperialism brought masses of new things to Britain and the west, which were subsequently classified, studied and cherished.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525450/original/file-20230510-18623-pw3473.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Portrait of Austen Henry Layard with full white beard." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525450/original/file-20230510-18623-pw3473.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525450/original/file-20230510-18623-pw3473.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525450/original/file-20230510-18623-pw3473.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525450/original/file-20230510-18623-pw3473.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525450/original/file-20230510-18623-pw3473.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525450/original/file-20230510-18623-pw3473.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525450/original/file-20230510-18623-pw3473.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sir Austen Henry Layard: Politician, Diplomat and Archaeologist (1890).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/sir-austen-henry-layard-18171894-politician-diplomat-and-archaeologist-27795">Government Art Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Brits went abroad actively seeking treasures from ancient civilisations. Those that were successful became national heroes. <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/From_Archaeology_to_Spectacle_in_Victori.html?id=e6M9j_HoQIoC&redir_esc=y">Austen Henry Layard’s</a> plunder from Assyria, for example, was proudly displayed in the British Museum and inspired triumphant novels and plays.</p>
<p>As Britain’s empire expanded and collections deepened, novels dealt with the potentially grim consequences of collectors’ “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=P_wcLQ-hKOYC&pg=PA67&dq=paul+goetsch+uncanny+collectors&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiUn--dreX-AhVYMcAKHTDUCe0Q6AF6BAgEEAI#v=onepage&q=paul%20goetsch%20uncanny%20collectors&f=false">unruly passions</a>”. These “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt24hgbf">imperial gothic</a>” stories told of western plunder leading to haunted relics, which wreaked havoc on Brits both at home and in the empire.</p>
<p>In one of the first, Wilkie Collins’ <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/155/155-h/155-h.htm">The Moonstone</a> (1868), a precious Indian gem looted by an English army officer brings catastrophe to those that own it. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/H-Rider-Haggard">H. Rider Haggard</a> churned out numerous tales of Egyptian mummies seeking revenge against the daring archaeologists who had disturbed them.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525453/original/file-20230510-17-cnx7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of Henry Haggard." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525453/original/file-20230510-17-cnx7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525453/original/file-20230510-17-cnx7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525453/original/file-20230510-17-cnx7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525453/original/file-20230510-17-cnx7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525453/original/file-20230510-17-cnx7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525453/original/file-20230510-17-cnx7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525453/original/file-20230510-17-cnx7u8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">H. Rider Haggard (c. 1905).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2002710453/">George Grantham Bain collection/Library of Congress.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While casting doubt over Britain’s possession of colonial objects, these stories were not a straightforward condemnation of empire. Often, the plucky Brits get off scot-free.</p>
<p>In Haggard’s short story <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6073/pg6073-images.html#link2H_4_0001">Smith and the Pharaohs</a> (1912-1913), for example, resurrected pharaohs contemplate murdering an archaeologist for tomb violation. They let him go, however, as he is conveniently recognised as the reincarnation of an ancient sculptor, and he safely returns to England with spoils in his pocket.</p>
<p>Written at the high point of imperialism – and in the case of Haggard, by someone who had worked in an <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/11049/">official colonial capacity</a> – these tales reflect the imperialistic attitudes of the time. Loot was morally questionable, but the empire itself was not. </p>
<h2>From Indiana Jones to Black Panther</h2>
<p>The imperial gothic genre found new life in late 20th-century Hollywood. Set in India in the 1930s, Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (1984) depicts British colonial authorities as hapless and America as the hero. India is portrayed as a place of poverty, superstition and dark forces.</p>
<p>Jones is accused of looting by the prime minister of the Maharajah of Pankot, but this is quickly brushed over. It is the prime minister’s complicity in taking a sacred stone that causes actual destruction.</p>
<p>Jones’s role in getting the stone back for the innocent Indian civilians reflects the post-second world war and cold war climate for <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=lOnaDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT82&dq=indiana+jones+loot+temple+of+doom&ots=AHZs9z2e89&sig=p252ujnpcPg358IE-pyI4XnAGOc&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=indiana%20jones%20loot%20temple%20of%20doom&f=false">American humanitarian heroes</a>. And it is a similar story in <a href="https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC43folder/Mummy.html">The Mummy</a> (1999), where villainy is shared between American treasure hunters and the sinister Arabs and mummies. The heroes are a team of Americans and Brits who shoot their way to safety. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjHgzkQM2Sg">2017 reboot</a> of the franchise stars Tom Cruise as an Indiana Jones wannabe – a lovable US army rogue who sells Iraqi loot.</p>
<p>However, Beef and other contemporary projects, such as Marvel’s <a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/museum-worlds/9/1/armw090103.xml">Black Panther</a> (2018), have punctured this dominant narrative of western saviours of foreign cultures. The museum heist scene in Black Panther showed a descendant from the fictional African country Wakanda rescuing looted treasures from a British museum, in a <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/black-panther-museum-heist-restitution-1233278">thinly-veiled critique</a> of the British Museum’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/benin-bronzes-what-is-the-significance-of-their-repatriation-to-nigeria-171444">Benin bronzes</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tc2iC7iMc_g?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Black Panther scene set within the fictional ‘Museum of Great Britain’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As long as objects have been plundered, countries have called for their repatriation. Yet western popular culture has muted these voices, sometimes expressing anxiety over colonial plunder but ultimately reaffirming British and American supremacy.</p>
<p>Of course, the story is told differently in other contexts. The Chinese film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120538/">The Opium War</a> (1999), for instance, shows the brutal <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30810596">sacking of the Chinese Summer Palace</a> in 1860. But it is only since ethnic minorities have gained a foothold in mainstream English language media that western audiences have finally been confronted with unequivocal condemnations of their countries’ past offences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205442/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lewis Ryder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Through collector Jordan’s fetishistic interest in Asian women, Beef shows the troubling link between collecting artefacts and sexual control.Lewis Ryder, Lecturer in Modern History, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2047972023-05-03T20:17:39Z2023-05-03T20:17:39ZWho owned this Stone Age jewellery? New forensic tools offer an unprecedented answer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523993/original/file-20230503-16-syi8cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3982%2C3000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>An international team of researchers has recovered DNA from the owner of a deer-tooth pendant that was buried inside a remote Siberian cave for tens of thousands of years.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06035-2">research published in Nature</a>, Elena Essel of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and colleagues detail how they developed a new technique to extract DNA left behind on an artefact.</p>
<p>In much the same way police solve crimes using “touch DNA” – DNA recovered from skin cells or trace bodily fluids left behind when somebody touches an object – archaeologists will now be able to recover genetic traces of ancient humans from the artefacts they left behind.</p>
<p>These traces will reveal the biological sex and genetic ancestry of the individual who once held or wore a particular artefact, allowing archaeologists to link genetic and cultural evidence as they attempt to unravel the deep past.</p>
<h2>Prehistoric artefacts and touch DNA</h2>
<p>When archaeologists find artefacts such as tools and ornaments at a site, it’s not easy to work out who used them. </p>
<p>Until now, we have had to rely on finding artefacts in “direct association” with buried people. That is, we could only link an individual to an ornament if we found them buried wearing it. </p>
<p>Even then, this funerary association isn’t always a guide to what happened in life. The dead are buried with things their community think they should have, which may not have been theirs when they were alive. </p>
<p>This new method of ancient DNA extraction provides a more direct way of determining who used specific items in everyday life.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523725/original/file-20230502-1369-p0y4tt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A photo of a woman in clean-room gear holding a small bone object inside a perspex box." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523725/original/file-20230502-1369-p0y4tt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523725/original/file-20230502-1369-p0y4tt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523725/original/file-20230502-1369-p0y4tt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523725/original/file-20230502-1369-p0y4tt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523725/original/file-20230502-1369-p0y4tt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523725/original/file-20230502-1369-p0y4tt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523725/original/file-20230502-1369-p0y4tt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elena Essel working on the pierced deer tooth discovered at Denisova Cave.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The method can only be used for artefacts made from bone or tooth as these materials are porous and can soak up human DNA from repeated contact with bodily fluids (sweat, blood, saliva). Luckily, the <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_702#:%7E:text=%22Bone%20tool%22%20is%20a%20generic,address%20a%20variety%20of%20questions.">bones and teeth of animals</a> (and <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0182127">sometimes humans</a>) were widely used throughout the past to create everyday tools, sacred items, and personal adornment. </p>
<p>These osseous artefacts were held in the hand or worn against the body for extended periods, resulting in sweat and other fluids soaking into their surfaces over time. As a result, the artefact records the genetic information of the wearer. </p>
<p>Through experimentation with different techniques, Essel and her team found a way to recover that DNA record in a form that is intact enough to be read.</p>
<h2>Is this yours?</h2>
<p>Using this new method of DNA extraction, the researchers were able to extract a wealth of archaeological information from a single tooth pendant recovered from the famous archaeological site of Denisova Cave in Siberia.</p>
<p>The cave, tucked away in the foothills of the Altai mountains, has fascinated researchers for decades as its past inhabitants included not only <em>Homo sapiens</em> but also Neanderthals and another enigmatic extinct human species known as Denisovans.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A photo of the entrance to a cave in a tree-covered hill." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523756/original/file-20230502-26-glp9vv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523756/original/file-20230502-26-glp9vv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523756/original/file-20230502-26-glp9vv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523756/original/file-20230502-26-glp9vv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523756/original/file-20230502-26-glp9vv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523756/original/file-20230502-26-glp9vv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523756/original/file-20230502-26-glp9vv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Over the millennia, Denisova Cave has been inhabited by Homo sapiens as well as our extinct cousins the Neanderthals and Denisovans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard G. Roberts</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First, they were able to extract the DNA of the animal the tooth belonged to, a wapiti deer (<em>Cervus canadensis</em>).</p>
<p>They were then able to extract human DNA from the pores of the tooth and deduce that this DNA had come from a female individual whose ancestry is most similar to ancient people found further east in Siberia and with Native Americans.</p>
<p>They were also able to use the DNA data to estimate the date of the pendant’s creation, somewhere between 19,000 and 25,000 years ago. This date fits with previous radiocarbon dating of the layer of the cave floor sediment in which the artefact was found.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VYec_Ti2H4Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">DNA found in soil, or “environmental DNA”, can also inform our understanding of who used an archaeological site such as Denisova Cave.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Without the extraction and analysis of the human DNA held in the tooth, archaeologists would have been able to tell what animal it had come from and how old it was. However, we could never have guessed the owner of this ornament. Now we can identify a specific individual. </p>
<p>Using the additional DNA information attached to individual artefacts, archaeologists will be able to create an understanding of past societies with a level of detail never before possible.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dirty-secrets-sediment-dna-reveals-a-300-000-year-timeline-of-ancient-and-modern-humans-living-in-siberia-161585">Dirty secrets: sediment DNA reveals a 300,000-year timeline of ancient and modern humans living in Siberia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204797/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Langley is an Associate Professor of Archaeology in the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University. She receives funding from the ARC. </span></em></p>A way to recover the owner’s DNA from ancient artefacts will help archaeologists understand past societies in more detail than ever before.Michelle Langley, Associate Professor of Archaeology, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1942732022-11-10T11:51:44Z2022-11-10T11:51:44ZWhy stolen objects being returned to Africa don’t belong just in museums – podcast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494469/original/file-20221109-11-ojxf6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=137%2C82%2C4256%2C2773&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Benin Bronzes: 944 objects looted in the 19th century from the Kingdom of Benin are in the British Museum in London. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-july-2018-architectural-detail-benin-2175043265">Mltz via Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Momentum is growing for objects stolen during the colonial era that are now held in museums in Europe and North America to be returned to the places and communities that they were taken from. In this episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-conversation-weekly-98901">The Conversation Weekly</a> podcast, we talk to three experts about what happens to these objects once they’re returned and the questions their restitution is raising about the relationship between communities and museums in Africa. </p>
<iframe src="https://embed.acast.com/60087127b9687759d637bade/636ccbd22b51320012e7b6a9" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="190px"></iframe>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-561" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/561/4fbbd099d631750693d02bac632430b71b37cd5f/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The Benin bronzes are at the centre of the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1b32105e-428a-49e8-b2f2-d3ba381c4c65">restitution movement</a>. Many of these objects, made of brass, ivory, wood and other materials as well as bronze, were looted in 1897 when British soldiers invaded the Kingdom of Benin in what is today Benin City in Nigeria. Since then, they’ve been scattered in museums and collections around the world. </p>
<p>In early November, a new website was launched called <a href="https://digitalbenin.org/">Digital Benin</a> cataloguing the location of 5,246 bronzes across 131 institutions in 20 countries. It comes as a number of collections are now moving to return the objects to Nigeria. In July, Germany signed a landmark agreement to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-signs-deal-give-ownership-benin-bronzes-nigeria-2022-08-25/">transfer ownership of 512 Benin bronzes to Nigeria</a>. A few have already been returned from the <a href="https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/metropolitan-museum-of-art-returns-two-benin-bronzes-1234595399/">Metropolitan Museum of Art</a> in New York, as well as from the universities of <a href="https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/15479/">Aberdeen and Cambridge in the UK</a>. </p>
<p>Nigeria plans to build a new museum in Benin City, the <a href="https://www.emowaa.com/">Edo Museum of West African Art</a>, to house some of the returned objects. But some researchers think conversations about the objects’ future should extend beyond the national government and the present-day Oba, or king, of Benin. “There is a need to go beyond the elites and get to the members of the descendant communities whose ancestors produced and used many of these [objects] within their cultural context,” explains John Kelechi Ugwuanyi, a senior lecturer in the archaeology and tourism at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. </p>
<p>Involving communities in the way artefacts are used and displayed is a longstanding issue for African museums, even for objects that were never taken abroad. Farai Chabata, a visiting lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe and senior curator of ethnography at the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, told us part of this stems from the history of some museums on the continent. For example, he says the Museum of Human Sciences in Harare, where he’s based today, was founded when Zimbabwe was a British colony with the primary objective to understand the colony. “What you then see is a museum which was not actually serving the community in its inclusive form, but these were very exclusive, elitist museums that largely served a colonial white minority,” explains Chabata.</p>
<p>If objects are displayed in museums as works of art, it can <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02580136.2021.1996140">also strip them of their sacred meaning,</a> according to Aribiah David Attoe, a philosopher at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. “Some of those objects still retain their purpose or their usefulness in traditional societies,” says Attoe. “Perhaps we should give these objects their rightful place as religious objects, as sacred objects, not just artworks that can be displayed in museums, whether in Africa or in Europe or anywhere,” he says. </p>
<p>Listen to the full episode of The Conversation Weekly to find out more. </p>
<p>This episode was produced by Mend Mariwany and Katie Flood, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. The executive producer was Gemma Ware. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. </p>
<p>You can find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TC_Audio">@TC_Audio</a>, on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">theconversationdotcom</a> or <a href="mailto:podcast@theconversation.com">via email</a>. You can also sign up to The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/newsletter">free daily email here</a>. A transcript of this episode is <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2791/Ep78_Africa's_Stolen_Objects_Transcript_Template.pdf?1694452345">available now</a>.</p>
<p>Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/60087127b9687759d637bade">RSS feed</a>, or find out <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-listen-to-the-conversations-podcasts-154131">how else to listen here</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194273/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aribiah David Attoe receives funding from the Global Philosophy of Religion Project Grant, facilitated by the John Templeton Fund. He's received funding in the past from the Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa, University of Fort Hare and the Global Excellence Stature fund for Doctoral research, facilitated by the University of Johannesburg. He's a member and senior research fellow of the Conversational Society of Philosophy (CSP), Nigeria.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Kelechi Ugwuanyi is also a postdoctoral research fellow at the Global Heritage Lab at the University of Bonn. He's recevied funding from Nigeria’s Tertiary Education Trust Fund and the American Council of Learned Societies and the Overseas Research Scholarship at the University of York. Farai Chabata is senior curator of ethnography for the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, based at the Zimbabwe Museum of Human Sciences in Harare.</span></em></p>Momentum is growing for the restitution of objects, such as the Benin Bronzes, stolen during colonialism. Listen to The Conversation Weekly podcast.Gemma Ware, Editor and Co-Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The ConversationDaniel Merino, Associate Science Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1714442021-11-08T15:09:40Z2021-11-08T15:09:40ZBenin bronzes: What is the significance of their repatriation to Nigeria?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430815/original/file-20211108-13-1cbbsnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GettyImages</span> </figcaption></figure><p>After years of pressure, western countries are finally returning priceless artefacts and artworks that had been looted from Nigeria during colonial times and were on display in foreign museums. </p>
<p>Commonly called the <a href="https://theconversation.com/germany-is-returning-nigerias-looted-benin-bronzes-why-its-not-nearly-enough-165349">Benin Bronzes</a>, because the objects originated from the Kingdom of Benin (today’s Nigeria), these beautiful and technically remarkable artworks have come to symbolise the broader restitution debate.</p>
<p>Two British universities – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/oct/15/cambridge-college-to-be-first-uk-return-looted-benin-bronze">Cambridge</a> University and the University of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-59063449">Aberdeen</a> – recently returned two of the artefacts. And, in mid-October, Germany and Nigeria <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/smithsonian-african-art-benin-bronzes-repatriation/index.html">signed</a> a memorandum of understanding setting out a timetable for the return of around 1,100 sculptures from German museums.</p>
<p>Jos van Beurden – an expert on the protection, theft and smuggling of cultural and historical treasures of vulnerable states – offers his insights into this wave of repatriation. He also suggests a way forward for Nigeria to handle and harness the benefits of the artefacts.</p>
<p><strong>Photo:</strong><br>
Altar to the Hand (Ikegobo), late 18th century, Nigeria, Court of Benin, Edo peoples, Bronze. In the royal kingdom of Benin, cylindrical ‘altars to the hand,’ or ikegobo, are created to celebrate a person’s accomplishments and successes. Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/altar-to-the-hand-late-18th-century-nigeria-court-of-benin-news-photo/1296574449?adppopup=true">Getty Images</a>, <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/eula#RM">Rights-managed</a> </p>
<p><strong>Music:</strong>
“Happy African Village” by John Bartmann, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_Bartmann/Public_Domain_Soundtrack_Music_Album_One/happy-african-village">FreeMusicArchive.org</a> licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a>.</p>
<p>“African Moon” by John Bartmann, found on <a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_Bartmann/Public_Domain_Soundtrack_Music_Album_One/african-moon">FreeMusicArchive.org</a> licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1.0 Universal License.</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171444/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
After years of pressure, western countries are finally returning the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. What's next?Joey Akan, Freelance Arts & Culture EditorUsifo Omozokpea, Audience Development ManagerLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1665642021-08-31T05:17:30Z2021-08-31T05:17:30ZAustralia’s coastal waters are rich in Indigenous cultural heritage, but it remains hidden and under threat<p>When people arrived in Australia more than 65,000 years ago, they landed on shores that are now deep under water. The first footprints on this continent took place on these <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-a-first-discovery-of-its-kind-researchers-have-uncovered-an-ancient-aboriginal-archaeological-site-preserved-on-the-seabed-138108">now-submerged landscapes</a>.</p>
<p>More than 2 million square kilometres of Australia’s continental landmass — an area larger than Queensland — was drowned by sea-level rise over the last 20,000 years. This land was once home to thousands of generations of Indigenous peoples.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-coastal-living-is-at-risk-from-sea-level-rise-but-its-happened-before-87686">Australia's coastal living is at risk from sea level rise, but it's happened before</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Despite the scale of this vast drowned cultural landscape, Australia has fallen behind international best practice in locating, recording and protecting submerged Indigenous cultural places. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417521/original/file-20210824-25-1prymlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417521/original/file-20210824-25-1prymlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417521/original/file-20210824-25-1prymlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417521/original/file-20210824-25-1prymlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417521/original/file-20210824-25-1prymlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417521/original/file-20210824-25-1prymlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417521/original/file-20210824-25-1prymlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This is what Australia looked like for most of human history, complete with massive lakes in what is now the Gulf of Carpentaria and Bass Strait (Image: S. Ulm)</span>
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</figure>
<p>Last year, our team reported the <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0233912">discovery of nearly 300 stone artefacts</a> submerged on the continental shelf off northwestern Australia. </p>
<p>This discovery demonstrated that submerged Indigenous sites are likely to exist around the continent, but remain unknown due to a lack of investigation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-a-first-discovery-of-its-kind-researchers-have-uncovered-an-ancient-aboriginal-archaeological-site-preserved-on-the-seabed-138108">In a first discovery of its kind, researchers have uncovered an ancient Aboriginal archaeological site preserved on the seabed</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The big picture and the local scale</h2>
<p>In two new studies published in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/raaa20">Australian Archaeology</a>, we outline approaches to help us better understand and manage Indigenous underwater cultural heritage.</p>
<p>Through a two-pronged approach at both the local and regional level, we review big data to predict the location of sites. We also put boots on the ground and divers in the water to find and record them.</p>
<p>At the local level, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2021.1949085">our research</a> at Murujuga in northwest Australia indicates we must combine archaeological data from above and below the water to understand the past landscape at periods of lower sea level.</p>
<p>Drawing on evidence from across terrestrial, coastal and submerged environments, we found archaeological material in all three zones. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417366/original/file-20210823-29-1xcrr5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417366/original/file-20210823-29-1xcrr5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417366/original/file-20210823-29-1xcrr5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417366/original/file-20210823-29-1xcrr5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417366/original/file-20210823-29-1xcrr5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417366/original/file-20210823-29-1xcrr5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417366/original/file-20210823-29-1xcrr5a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The interface between land and sea. The intertidal zone of today used to be dry land (Photo: S. Wright)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our study also aligns archaeological practice with <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-ancient-beliefs-in-underwater-worlds-can-shed-light-in-a-time-of-rising-sea-levels-164154">histories of Indigenous Australians</a>, who describe cultural landscapes extending into Sea Country. Some oral histories describe past sea-level rise and drowned cultural landscapes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417367/original/file-20210823-27-1ul0c6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417367/original/file-20210823-27-1ul0c6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417367/original/file-20210823-27-1ul0c6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417367/original/file-20210823-27-1ul0c6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417367/original/file-20210823-27-1ul0c6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417367/original/file-20210823-27-1ul0c6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417367/original/file-20210823-27-1ul0c6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417367/original/file-20210823-27-1ul0c6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Archaeologists investigate a drowned cultural landscape at low tide to reveal stone artefacts (Photo: S. Wright)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the regional scale, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2021.1960248">our study</a> shows how research into submerged landscapes can be expanded across Australia. Taking the Northern Territory as a case study, we assessed the potential for archaeological material to be preserved on the seabed.</p>
<p>National environmental frameworks, such as <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/marine/marine-bioregional-plans">Marine bioregional plans</a> for Australia’s seabed focus largely on marine biodiversity and habitats, only acknowledging archaeology through a selection of historic shipwrecks. </p>
<p>With few regional or state-level mechanisms in place to inform marine management planning, Indigenous underwater cultural heritage has been ignored or marginalised. There is now an opportunity and an ethical obligation to integrate Indigenous perspectives and traditional knowledge into marine science research.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417368/original/file-20210823-25-2xsso2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417368/original/file-20210823-25-2xsso2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417368/original/file-20210823-25-2xsso2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417368/original/file-20210823-25-2xsso2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417368/original/file-20210823-25-2xsso2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417368/original/file-20210823-25-2xsso2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417368/original/file-20210823-25-2xsso2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417368/original/file-20210823-25-2xsso2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Divers discovered an ancient archaeological site that included stone tools used for grinding (Photo: S. Wright)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Threats to underwater Indigenous heritage</h2>
<p>Indigenous underwater cultural heritage is threatened by a variety of activities, including dredging, offshore cables and pipelines, seabed mining, and oil and gas exploration. </p>
<p>Such developments can cause significant damage and even explosions and fires in the sea, as witnessed recently in the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-03/gulf-of-mexico-fire-extinguished/100265178">Gulf of Mexico</a>.</p>
<p>We can expect increased pressure on coastal and submerged sites with the increasing impacts of climate change. Without mechanisms to consider the archaeology in the intertidal zone of Australia (the transitional area between land and sea) and the seabed, such disturbances will occur out of sight and out of mind. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417371/original/file-20210823-25-1apokjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417371/original/file-20210823-25-1apokjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417371/original/file-20210823-25-1apokjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417371/original/file-20210823-25-1apokjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417371/original/file-20210823-25-1apokjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417371/original/file-20210823-25-1apokjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417371/original/file-20210823-25-1apokjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417371/original/file-20210823-25-1apokjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This stone cutting tool with a serrated edge was found in the intertidal zone (Photo: J. Benjamin)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some state and local laws protect underwater cultural heritage, but these vary across the country. The national <a href="https://deephistoryofseacountry.com/2020/09/21/what-does-australias-underwater-cultural-heritage-act-2018-automatically-protect/">Underwater Cultural Heritage Act</a> also does not adequately protect Indigenous cultural heritage. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/underwater-cultural-heritage/">UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage</a> protects all heritage greater than 100 years old, including both colonial-era sites and Indigenous underwater cultural heritage. But Australia’s national policy currently does not align with the convention.</p>
<h2>Our systems must change</h2>
<p>Archaeologists working in partnership with Indigenous communities must take a central role in scientific research, management of marine environments and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/australia-indigenous-woodside-gas/underwater-australias-oil-industry-faces-new-indigenous-heritage-test-idUKL4N2FU1Y2">industry-led campaigns</a>, incorporating archaeology into environmental impact assessments.</p>
<p>Industry has begun to respond. One company, <a href="https://www.woodside.com.au/sustainability/indigenous-peoples/australian-cultural-heritage-management">Woodside Energy</a>, for example, has acknowledged the importance of this issue, and has engaged with the <a href="https://www.murujuga.org.au/">Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation</a>. The company says it has </p>
<blockquote>
<p>sought to understand the potential heritage values of the submerged cultural landscape for the proposed Scarborough pipeline. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417375/original/file-20210823-15-8ba89y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417375/original/file-20210823-15-8ba89y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417375/original/file-20210823-15-8ba89y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417375/original/file-20210823-15-8ba89y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417375/original/file-20210823-15-8ba89y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417375/original/file-20210823-15-8ba89y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417375/original/file-20210823-15-8ba89y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Industry has begun to acknowledge the significance of Sea Country and the industrial impacts on drowned Indigenous cultural heritage (Photo: S. Wright)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/australia-indigenous-woodside-gas/underwater-australias-oil-industry-faces-new-indigenous-heritage-test-idUKL4N2FU1Y2">new paradigm for the offshore sector in Australia</a> and a sign of things to come as industry and policy-makers respond to scientific advances and new knowledge.</p>
<p>Coastal peoples all over the world have made a significant contribution to human history. Only through underwater archaeology can we fully understand these past peoples who called coastal environments their home.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417372/original/file-20210823-19-1cajae5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417372/original/file-20210823-19-1cajae5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417372/original/file-20210823-19-1cajae5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417372/original/file-20210823-19-1cajae5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417372/original/file-20210823-19-1cajae5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417372/original/file-20210823-19-1cajae5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417372/original/file-20210823-19-1cajae5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417372/original/file-20210823-19-1cajae5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scientific divers investigate the underwater world, revealing a drowned cultural landscape (S. Wright)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166564/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Benjamin receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Northern Territory Government.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chelsea Wiseman receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Northern Territory Government.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John McCarthy receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Northern Territory Government. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Jeffries receives/has received funding from Woodside, ARC Linkage, AHG (Commonwealth) Lotterywest, Yara and Rio Tinto. Peter is also co-chair of the Forum for Directors of Indigenous Organisations (FDIO).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Ulm receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>With 300 stone artefacts submerged on Australia’s continental shelf last year, Indigenous underwater cultural heritage needs to be prioritised in marine science and industry practices.Jonathan Benjamin, Associate Professor in Maritime Archaeology, Flinders University and ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders UniversityChelsea Wiseman, PhD Candidate, Flinders UniversityJohn McCarthy, ARC DECRA Fellow, Flinders UniversityPeter Jeffries, CEO of Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, Indigenous KnowledgeSean Ulm, Deputy Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1564302021-03-09T12:45:41Z2021-03-09T12:45:41ZStatues: the UK’s plan to ‘retain and explain’ problem monuments is a backwards step<p>When Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol tore down the statue of a slave trader in summer 2020, it <a href="https://theconversation.com/public-sculpture-expert-why-i-welcome-the-decision-to-throw-bristols-edward-colston-statue-in-the-river-140285">sparked public debate</a> about how the UK handles and presents the <a href="https://theconversation.com/statues-are-just-the-start-the-uk-is-peppered-with-slavery-heritage-140308">darker parts of its history</a>. In response to this, <a href="https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/blog/the-launch-of-the-uncomfortable-truths-project/">numerous museums</a> and <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/addressing-the-histories-of-slavery-and-colonialism-at-the-national-trust">heritage bodies</a> have taken a look at their collections’ links to slavery and empire and the best way to handle them. </p>
<p>Unhappy about the way some have called for removal of contentious items, names and monuments, particularly statues, the government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-legal-protection-for-england-s-heritage">has announced</a> a new “retain and explain” policy. This aims to protect controversial monuments and artefacts from removal, instead asking for more information to be provided about them. As culture secretary Oliver Dowden <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/uk-culture-secretary-controversial-monuments">put it</a>, the policy is an attempt to “defend our culture and history from the noisy minority of activists constantly trying to do Britain down”.</p>
<p>As part of the policy, historic statues are given legal protection independent of whether the public heritage body Historic England has listed them as significant. All historic statues, plaques and other monuments can now only be removed once full planning permission has been obtained, making it difficult to take down controversial monuments.</p>
<p>At first glance, the notion that controversial statues should be explained and contextualised seems like a step in the right direction. However, for many activists and museum workers, this new law might feel like a step backwards. The emphasis of this law is clearly on the museum’s “duty to the nation to conserve and <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dont-be-bullied-by-left-on-statues-oliver-dowden-tells-museums-wrdfq262k">preserve our heritage</a>,” but with a very narrow view of that heritage.</p>
<h2>Addressing colonial history</h2>
<p>Over the past decade, many museums have been working hard to bring previously ignored histories and voices into the museum space. This process is known as decolonisation. It aims to tell the colonial history of our museums from multiple perspectives and recognises that how we used to collect and display artefacts has had harmful impacts and in some cases continue to reinforce stereotypes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Statue of Edward Colston." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387731/original/file-20210304-19-kewh2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387731/original/file-20210304-19-kewh2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387731/original/file-20210304-19-kewh2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387731/original/file-20210304-19-kewh2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387731/original/file-20210304-19-kewh2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387731/original/file-20210304-19-kewh2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387731/original/file-20210304-19-kewh2e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The removal of a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol sparked a nationwide debate about the UK’s history and how it’s commemorated.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joe Seer/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Simply adding more explanation to these displays is not always enough to combat these long established stereotypes. Museums might not have enough information or even know enough about the cultural practices in question or how the objects were acquired to put them in the appropriate context.</p>
<p>In other cases, only specific aspects of a culture were collected, which sought specifically to reinforce prejudices that they were “primitive” and “savage”, making it difficult to present a balanced view. A good example is the recent decision by the <a href="https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/critical-changes">Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford</a> to remove the “Treatment of Dead Enemies” display, which among other objects held shrunken heads and remains. The decision was prompted by audience research showing that the display was not able to adequately explain the practice, which occurs across several cultures. </p>
<h2>Displays of power</h2>
<p>To be successful, decolonisation needs to go beyond merely changing labels. It should represent more diverse stories, while at the same time addressing structural racism within our institutions. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/decolonising-museums/our-statement-on-decolonisation/">Museum Association</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Decolonisation is not simply the relocation of a statue or an object; it is a long-term process that seeks to recognise the integral role of empire in British museums – from their creation to the present day. Decolonisation requires a reappraisal of our institutions and their history and an effort to address colonial structures and approaches to all areas of museum work.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The proposal that monuments must be preserved at any cost falls within <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Uses-of-Heritage/Smith/p/book/9780415318310?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6caursyS7wIV0-7tCh2Imgc5EAAYASAAEgJ3hfD_BwE">a view of heritage</a> that privileges white and upper-class narratives. While there is no comprehensive list of all statues and monuments in the UK, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/53014592">most of them commemorate rich white men</a>. Out of the 610 named statues recorded by the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, only three are of are of black individuals. Only 4% of London’s Blue Plaques commemorate black and Asian people. </p>
<p>The idea that heritage must be preserved in its current form for an imagined future generation, leaves little room for necessary transformations and change. This long-held idea is one that museums have been trying to move away from as they try to embrace a more activist and active role, in today’s society.</p>
<p>The retain and explain policy fails to acknowledge that heritage and monuments not only represent history but are also <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/museums-prejudice-reframing-difference-richard-sandell/10.4324/9780203020036">displays of power</a>. What we preserve as heritage shows what and who we value as a society. So those who are commemorated in public spaces – and those who are not – signifies <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Politics-of-Heritage-The-Legacies-of-Race/Littler-Naidoo/p/book/9780415322119">who belongs and who does not</a>. An explanatory label or QR code will not change these visual cues. </p>
<p>While contextualising contested history is a step in the right direction, issuing a blanket protection for all monuments, whether listed or not, avoids a meaningful and deeper re-evaluation of the values of our society. It avoids discussion of whether we still feel it is appropriate for controversial statues to be a prominent feature of our cities. Cities and museum do not have an <a href="https://legalresearch.blogs.bris.ac.uk/2021/01/listing-controversy-ii-statues-contested-heritage-and-the-policy-of-retain-and-explain/">unlimited amount of display space</a>. How can we diversify our heritage if the prime locations are already taken up by the privileged few?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156430/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katharina Massing does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The proposal that monuments must be preserved at any cost hinders rather than helps institutions handle the decolonisation of their collections.Katharina Massing, Senior Lecturer in Museum and Heritage Development, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1513762020-12-04T22:01:42Z2020-12-04T22:01:42ZMystery monoliths: why conspiracists are ‘meh’ about the phenomenon — and how you can start a better conspiracy<p>The three recent appearances (and two <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/another-mysterious-monolith-disappeared-in-romania/">subsequent</a> <a href="https://ksltv.com/449486/dps-crew-discovers-mysterious-monolith-from-air-in-remote-utah-wilderness/">removals</a>) of “<a href="https://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/national-news/18919395.california-monolith-emerges-utah-romania-works-disappear/">monoliths</a>” in Romania, Utah and California are intriguing examples of what can capture the public’s imagination. </p>
<p>These constructions are metallic-looking structures about three or four metres tall, with a simple geometric design and reflective surface. </p>
<p>They’ll look familiar to fans of Arthur C. Clarke’s Space Odyssey novels, sharing an uncanny resemblance to a monolithic structure pivotal to the story. </p>
<p>Adding to the mystery, the Utah monolith was reportedly in place long before it came to light <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/mysterious-metal-monolith-discovered-in-remote-utah-desert/">on November 18</a>. While its location wasn’t announced, members of the public <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/utah-monolith-found-trnd/index.html">found Google Earth images</a> of the object dating back to 2016.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1333207303852613632"}"></div></p>
<p>So far, no credible source has suggested the structures are a product of alien technology or supernatural influence. And unlike with UFO sightings and <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a24152/area-51-history/">Area 51</a> news, governments have not been accused of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/aug/14/men-in-black-ufo-sightings-mirage-makers-movie">cover-up</a>.</p>
<p>So even though <a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=monolith">Google Trends data</a> shows global search interest in “monolith” has shot up since the structures were found, they’re not yet the subject of widespread conspiracy. And a reflection of past similar phenomena suggests they won’t be.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1333828686584324096"}"></div></p>
<h2>Intriguing artefacts</h2>
<p>The maker (or makers) of the curious objects are likely still around, but they’re not talking. In the meantime, the structures call to mind some major oddities and artefacts from the past, all of which gained considerable fame.</p>
<p>Peru’s <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/archaeology/nasca-lines/">Nazca lines</a> are one example. These shallow depressions in rock from around 500 BCE form colossal shapes of animals and plants which, intriguingly, are best observed from the air. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372787/original/file-20201203-13-1o5xfnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372787/original/file-20201203-13-1o5xfnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372787/original/file-20201203-13-1o5xfnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372787/original/file-20201203-13-1o5xfnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372787/original/file-20201203-13-1o5xfnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372787/original/file-20201203-13-1o5xfnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372787/original/file-20201203-13-1o5xfnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ancient Nazca lines in Peru cover almost 1,000 square kilometres, and form about about 300 different figures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/crop-circles-the-art-of-the-hoax-2524283/">crop circle</a> phenomenon may also strike a chord. These complex geometric patterns which apparently form overnight in fields across the world have captured imaginations <a href="https://www.livescience.com/26540-crop-circles.html">for decades</a>. </p>
<p>Both these phenomena have produced exotic accounts claiming to explain them. Some <a href="https://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/season-5/episode-8">have said</a> the Nazca lines were created to communicate with space travellers. Crop circles, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2011/06/15/137188796/mysterious-crop-circles-alien-messages-or-hoax">others say</a>, are the product of alien labour meant to send us a message.</p>
<p>No one knows why the ancient Peruvians made their lines. Their motivations may be hidden forever. Crop circles, however, are a modern occurrence. </p>
<p>And despite claims they couldn’t possibly be made by humans, humans make them all the time, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/10/world/2-jovial-con-men-demystify-those-crop-circles-in-britain.html">often for</a> the enjoyment of their effect on others. Crop circles also <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/pictures-crop-circles-tourism-wiltshire-england/">drive</a> <a href="https://stonehengetours.com/weird-wiltshire-stonehenge-crop-circle-tour.htm">tourism</a> in certain parts of the world.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372786/original/file-20201203-19-13dwm90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372786/original/file-20201203-19-13dwm90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372786/original/file-20201203-19-13dwm90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372786/original/file-20201203-19-13dwm90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372786/original/file-20201203-19-13dwm90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372786/original/file-20201203-19-13dwm90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372786/original/file-20201203-19-13dwm90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crop circles in fields tend to be heavily geometric and often display concentric circles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But why are we so easily grabbed by such peculiarities anyway? After all, our lives aren’t impacted by them.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/neverending-stories-why-we-still-love-unsolved-mysteries-141046">Neverending stories – why we still love Unsolved Mysteries</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>When things don’t make sense</h2>
<p>There are many possible reasons people fix their attention on potential oddities, and even start <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781429996761">believing</a> strange things about them.
One is that they short-circuit our sense of how the world works — injecting novelty into an otherwise routine and coherent existence. </p>
<p>As the physicist and Nobel Laureate <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1965/feynman/biographical/">Richard Feynman</a> <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691153032/the-quotable-feynman">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…the thing that doesn’t fit is the most interesting.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The tendency to imagine alternatives and to entertain a “what if?” scenario is the same reason we love reading speculative fiction.</p>
<p>If the Nazca lines really were etched to communicate with aliens — and if crop circles really represent alien messages targeted at us — the model of the world in our heads would be flipped. </p>
<p>But of course, as the great science communicator Carl Sagan points out, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114207/">paraphrasing</a> prominent polymath <a href="https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Laplace/">Pierre-Simon Laplace</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There’s nothing to suggest the above phenomena are evidence of anything extraordinary. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372940/original/file-20201203-17-usqili.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372940/original/file-20201203-17-usqili.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372940/original/file-20201203-17-usqili.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372940/original/file-20201203-17-usqili.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372940/original/file-20201203-17-usqili.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372940/original/file-20201203-17-usqili.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372940/original/file-20201203-17-usqili.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Antikythera Mechanism is an out-of-place artefact. These are artefacts of historical, archaeological, or paleontological interest which challenge widely accepted historical chronology.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another interesting “<a href="http://www.badarchaeology.com/out-of-place-artefacts/">out-of-place</a>” artefact is the ancient <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/decoding-antikythera-mechanism-first-computer-180953979/">Antikythera mechanism</a>. This is seemingly an analog computer once used to predict astronomical positions and events.</p>
<p>But perhaps most notorious are the old favourites: Egypt’s <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/archaeology/giza-pyramids/">Great Pyramid of Giza</a> (and the widespread conjecture surrounding its construction), <a href="https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/history-and-stories/history/">Stonehenge</a> in England, and the enigmatic <a href="https://www.easterisland.travel/easter-island-facts-and-info/moai-statues/">Easter Island</a> statues. All have been connected to aliens, lost wisdom or extinct civilisations.</p>
<h2>In case you need a summer project</h2>
<p>When it comes to creating a spectacle worthy of the public’s attention, there are some key lessons to be learned from past successes in making artefacts, including:</p>
<p><strong>Go big</strong></p>
<p>It pays to do something on a large scale, either by making a big artefact, or having small ones appear over a very large area.</p>
<p><strong>Stay obscure</strong> </p>
<p>The meaning of the artefact should remain unclear, or at least allow room for interpretation. It’s in these situations of uncertainty that the human imagination can run wild. </p>
<p>While the monoliths’ intent is unclear, they could be explained as art. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/arts/design/john-mccracken-utah-monolith.html">Reports</a> <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/analysis/destructive-sensationalised-and-maybe-not-even-art-the-short-and-shadowy-legacy-of-the-utah-monolith">have pointed</a> to their similarity with artwork by minimalist sculptor John McCracken.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1331627451001282567"}"></div></p>
<p><strong>Aesthetics matter</strong> </p>
<p>It’s nice if the artefact is aesthetically pleasing or interesting. The geometric precision of pyramids and crop circles speaks to significant care and perhaps mathematical sophistication. The monoliths are comparatively <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7493097/utah-monolith-romania/">basic</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Be original</strong> </p>
<p>A display that has never been seen before is far more newsworthy. The monoliths are highly derivative of those appearing in Stanley Kubrick’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/23/2001-a-space-odyssey-what-it-means-and-how-it-was-made">2001: A Space Odyssey</a>. </p>
<p><strong>Be difficult to copy</strong></p>
<p>The monoliths could have been knocked up in a workshop. The “wow” factor for artefacts usually comes through an appreciation of their complexity, or seeming impossibility of their manufacture. The scale of the Nazca lines speak to this, as do potential efforts to construct Giza and Stonehenge.</p>
<h2>Humans can do amazing things</h2>
<p>Whatever the true explanations, most phenomena can be attributed to human ingenuity and a willingness to persevere. Simply, we must ask: </p>
<ol>
<li>is it likely the means of construction were accessible to humans?</li>
<li>is it likely it served a meaningful purpose for the maker? </li>
</ol>
<p>In most cases, the former is true. Although the time and resources required must have been momentous, it was clearly not <em>impossible</em> to <a href="https://www.history.com/news/ancient-egypt-pyramid-ramp-discovery">build Giza</a>. We’ll probably have to face the fact humans are just very clever and industrious. </p>
<p>It’s harder to be sure the second point is true, although that doesn’t mean it isn’t. </p>
<p>But every now and then we also like to have fun with artefacts and generate something unique and novel, even if it is for entertainment value alone.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-ancient-egyptian-economy-laid-the-groundwork-for-building-the-pyramids-107026">How the Ancient Egyptian economy laid the groundwork for building the pyramids</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151376/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Ellerton is a fellow of the Rationalist Society of Australia</span></em></p>It’s no surprise the unexplained structures have the internet buzzing. But they haven’t entered the ranks of other great conspiracy material — and history helps explain why they probably won’t.Peter Ellerton, Senior Lecturer in Critical Thinking; Curriculum Director, UQ Critical Thinking Project, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1376512020-05-17T08:51:39Z2020-05-17T08:51:39ZWhat a bone arrowhead from South Africa reveals about ancient human cognition<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332256/original/file-20200504-83779-1rfism2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The bone arrowhead (insert) found at Klasies River main site has much to teach us.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Justin Bradfield and Sarah Wurz</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The origin of bow hunting has been a <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/early-bow-and-arrows-offer-insight-into-origins-of-human-intellect-112922281/">hotly debated</a> topic in archaeology for the past two decades. This is because knowing when it emerged has the potential to offer insights into the development of human cognition and the early development of complex technology.</p>
<p>Bone arrowheads were used throughout most of the world for the last few thousand years. But the examples found in South Africa predate anything from other regions by at least 20 000 years. Currently, the earliest evidence of bow hunting technology outside Africa comes from <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-0990-3">southern Europe</a>, and dates to around 45 000 years ago. The earliest non-African evidence of bone points used as arrow tips is at 35 000 years ago from <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248413002467">Timor Island</a>.</p>
<p>Because bows and arrows were made predominantly from organic materials, very little evidence of these weapons survives archaeologically. Nevertheless, at several sites in South Africa small <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440311001233">stone segments</a> have been found from 60 000-year-old horizons that are thought to have once formed part of arrowheads, either as tips or barbs.</p>
<p>Bow and arrow technology gives hunters a unique advantage over their prey. It allows them to hunt from a distance, and from a concealed position. This, in turn, increases individual hunters’ success, as well as providing an aspect of safety when stalking dangerous prey such as buffalo, bushpig, or carnivores.</p>
<p>The bow and arrow consists of multiple parts, each with a particular function and operating together to make hunting possible. This kind of “symbiotic” technology requires a high degree of <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190854614.001.0001/oso-9780190854614-chapter-23">cognitive flexibility</a>: the mental ability to switch between thinking about different concepts, and to think about multiple concepts simultaneously. </p>
<p>Until now, evidence for bow hunting technology using bone and dating back more than 60 000 years has only been <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440307002142">reported</a> from South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal region. Now an <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379120302572">in-depth examination</a> of a bone arrowhead found in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province extends the known distribution of this technology farther south – and slightly earlier than previously thought. </p>
<h2>The artefact</h2>
<p>Our study, published in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379120302572">Quaternary Science Reviews</a>, focused on a long, thin, delicately made, pointed bone artefact. It was found at the Klasies River Main site, along the Eastern Cape coast of South Africa. </p>
<p>This is an extremely important archaeological site. It has the most prolific assemblage of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248416302305"><em>H. sapiens</em> remains</a> in sub-Saharan Africa, spanning the last 120 000 years. Its archaeology sparked the first discussions raising the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=A%C2%A0late%20Pleistocene%20archive%20of%20life%20at%20the%20coast%2C%20Klasies%20River&author=H.J.%20Deacon&publication_year=2005&pages=130-149">probability</a> that complex human behaviour and cognition were represented in sub-Saharan Africa long before appearing in Eurasia.</p>
<p>The artefact we studied, which comes from deposits dated to more than 60 000 years ago, closely resembles thousands of bone arrowheads used by the indigenous San hunter-gatherers from the 18th to the 20th centuries. It was excavated in the 1960s, but its importance was not recognised until recently, owing to confusion surrounding its age.</p>
<p>Our study followed a combined approach, incorporating microscopic analysis of the bone surface, high-resolution computed tomography (CT), and non-destructive chemical analysis. The study found trace amounts of a black, organic residue distributed over the surface of the bone point in a manner suggestive of 20th century poisoned arrows. The chemistry of the black substance indicates it consists of many ingredients. Again, this is suggestive of known San poison and glue recipes.</p>
<p>We still do not know exactly what organic compounds went into the recipe for the black substance, but future chemistry work will address this question.</p>
<p>Microscopic analysis of the bone artefact indicates that it was hafted (or attached) to another arrow section – probably into a reed shaft. This was done after the black residue was applied. The micro-CT scan allowed us to look inside the bone, to see structural damage at a microscopic scale. These results showed that the bone artefact had experienced the same mechanical stresses as high-velocity projectiles, like arrows.</p>
<p>The study demonstrates that the pointed bone artefact from Klasies River was certainly hafted, maybe dipped in poison, and used in a manner similar to identical bone points from more recent contexts.</p>
<p>The artefact also fits in with what we know of ancient people’s cognition and abilities in southern Africa.</p>
<p>From at least 100 000 years ago people in southern Africa were combining multiple ingredients to form coloured pastes, possibly for <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/334/6053/219">decoration</a> or <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0136090">skin protection</a>. By 70 000 years ago they were making glues and other compound <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0140269">adhesives</a> using a range of ingredients, combined in a series of complex steps. These glues may have then been used, among other things, to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440311001233">haft</a> small stone pieces in varying arrangements, probably as insets for arrows or other weapons. </p>
<p>The presence of these technical elements in the southern African Middle Stone Age (roughly equivalent to the Eurasian Middle Palaeolithic) signals an advanced cognitive ability. That includes notions of abstract thought, analogical reasoning, multitasking and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0067270X.2015.1039236">cognitive fluidity</a> or the ability to ‘think outside the box’.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137651/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Bradfield receives funding from the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jerome Reynard receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marlize Lombard received funding from the African Origins Platform of the National Research Foundation of South Africa. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Wurz receives funding from the Centre of Excellence in Palaeoscience, University of the Witwatersrand</span></em></p>The artefact comes from deposits dated to more than 60,000 years ago. It closely resembles thousands of bone arrowheads used by the indigenous San hunter-gatherers from the 18th to the 20th centuries.Justin Bradfield, Senior lecturer, University of JohannesburgJerome Reynard, Lecturer in Osteoarchaeology, University of the WitwatersrandMarlize Lombard, Professor with Research Focus in Stone Age Archaeology, Palaeo-Research Institute, University of JohannesburgSarah Wurz, Professor, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1074792018-11-23T13:13:56Z2018-11-23T13:13:56ZReturning looted artefacts will finally restore heritage to the brilliant cultures that made them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247032/original/file-20181123-149338-1jkg488.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C258%2C2617%2C1804&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of the plundered Benin plaques, at the British Museum.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/plaque-warrior-attendants-16th17th-c-nigeria-751012396?src=da3MPHvFfZ4elDJvDArYtw-1-0">Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>European museums are under mounting pressure to return the irreplaceable artefacts plundered during colonial times. As an archaeologist who works in Africa, this debate has a very real impact on my research. I benefit from the convenience of access provided by Western museums, while being struck by the ethical quandary of how they were taken there by illegal means, and by guilt that my colleagues throughout Africa may not have the resources to see material from their own country, which is kept thousands of miles away. </p>
<p>Now, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/arts/design/france-museums-africa-savoy-sarr-report.html">a report</a> commissioned by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has recommended that art plundered from sub-Saharan Africa during the colonial era should be returned through permanent restitution. </p>
<p>The 108-page study, written by French art historian Bénédicte Savoy and Senegalese writer and economist Felwine Sarr, speaks of the “theft, looting, despoilment, trickery and forced consent” by which colonial powers acquired these materials. The call for “restitution” echoes <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-3-cases-explain-restituting-nazi-looted-art-difficult">the widely accepted approach</a> which seeks to return looted Nazi art to its rightful owners.</p>
<p>The record of colonial powers in African countries was frankly disgusting. Colonial rule was imposed by the barrel of the gun, with military campaigns waged on the flimsiest excuses. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853700010215">Benin expedition of 1897</a> was a punitive attack on the ancient kingdom of Benin, famous not only for its huge city and ramparts but its extraordinary cast bronze and brass plaques and statues. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=123%2C146%2C1462%2C1013&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Three British soldiers in the aftermath of the Benin expedition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Interior_of_Oba%27s_compound_burnt_during_seige_of_Benin_City,_1897.jpg">Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The city was burnt down, and the British Admiralty auctioned the booty – more than 2,000 art works – to “pay” for the expedition. The British Museum got around <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=621873&partId=1&searchText=benin+bronze+oba&page=1">40% of the haul</a>.
None of the artefacts stayed in Africa – they’re now scattered in museums and private collections around the world.</p>
<p>The 1867 British expedition to the ancient kingdom of Abyssinia – which never fully acceded to colonial control – was mounted to ostensibly free missionaries and government agents detained by the emperor Tewodros II. It culminated in the Battle of Magdala, and the looting of priceless manuscripts, paintings and artefacts from the Ethiopian church, which reputedly needed 15 elephants and 200 mules to carry them all away. Most ended up in the British Library, the British Museum and the V&A, where they remain today.</p>
<h2>Bought, stolen, destroyed</h2>
<p>Other African treasures were also taken without question. The famous ruins of Great Zimbabwe <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/article/abyssinian-difficulty-the-emperor-theodorus-and-the-magdala-campaign-18671868-by-darrell-bates-oxford-oxford-university-press1979-pp-xiv-240-map-plates-bibl-950/87357AE77ACA20265A82FD6BBCE7BF21">were subject to</a> numerous digs by associates of British businessman Cecil Rhodes – who set up the Rhodesia Ancient Ruins Ltd in 1895 to loot more than 40 sites of their gold – and much of the archaeology on the site was destroyed. The iconic soapstone birds were returned to Zimbabwe from South Africa in 1981, but many items <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=596305&partId=1">still remain</a> in Western museums. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zimbabwe’s soapstone birds, photographed in 1892.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Soapstone_birds_on_pedestals.jpg">Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While these are the most famous cases, the majority of African objects in Western Museums were collected by adventurers, administrators, traders and settlers, with little thought as to the legality of ownership. Even if they were bought from their local owners, it was often for a pittance, and there were few controls to limit their export. Archaeological relics, such as inscriptions or grave-markers, were simply collected and taken away. Such <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/cultural-property-global-commodities-case-mijikenda">activities continued</a> well into the 20th century.</p>
<h2>Making them safe</h2>
<p>The argument is often advanced that by coming to the West, these objects were preserved for posterity – if they were left in Africa they simply would have rotted away. This is a specious argument, rooted in racist attitudes that somehow indigenous people can’t be trusted to curate their own cultural heritage. It is also a product of the corrosive impact of colonialism.</p>
<p>Colonial powers had a patchy record of setting up museums to preserve these objects locally. While impressive national museums were sometimes built in colonial capitals, they were later starved of funding or expertise. After African countries achieved independence, these museums were low on the priority list for national funding and overseas aid and development, while regional museums were virtually neglected. </p>
<p>Nowadays, many museums on the African continent lie semi-derelict, with no climate control, poorly trained staff and little security. There are numerous examples of theft or lost collections. No wonder Western museums are reluctant to return their collections. </p>
<p>If collections are to be returned, the West needs to take some responsibility for this state of affairs and invest in the African museums and their staff. There have been <a href="http://www.getty.edu/foundation/initiatives/past/africa/geap.html">some attempts</a> to do this, but the task is huge. It is not enough to send the contentious art and objects back to an uncertain future – there must be a plan to rebuild Africa’s crumbling museum infrastructure, supported by effective partnerships and real money.</p>
<h2>The rightful owners</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Hoa Hakananai’a: a Moai at the British Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sheeprus/13335231584/sizes/l">Sheep</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Will the <a href="http://www.quaibranly.fr/en/">Musée du quai Branly</a>, that great treasure house of world ethnography in Paris, which holds more than 70,000 objects from Africa, be emptied of its contents? Or the massive new <a href="https://www.humboldtforum.com/en">Humboldt Forum</a> – a Prussian Castle rebuilt at great cost to house ethnographic artefacts in Berlin which opens early in 2019 – be shorn of its African collections? There are already fears at the British Museum that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/20/easter-island-british-museum-return-moai-statue">a very effective campaign</a> may lead to the return of its Rapu Nui Moai statues to Easter Island.</p>
<p>This year is the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Magdala, and the V&A Museum has <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/v-and-a-opens-dialogue-on-looted-ethiopian-treasures">entered into worthy discussions</a> to return its treasures to Ethiopia. But there are reports this would be on the basis of a long-term loan, and conditional on the Ethiopian government withdrawing its claim for restitution of the plundered objects. The Prussian Foundation in Berlin <a href="https://plone.unige.ch/art-adr/cases-affaires/great-zimbabwe-bird-2013-zimbabwe-and-prussia-cultural-heritage-foundation-germany">entered into a similar agreement</a>, unwilling to cede ownership of a tiny fragment of soapstone bird to the Zimbabwe Government in 2000.</p>
<p>The report by Savoy and Sarr offers hope that such deals could become a thing of the past and that Africa’s rich cultural heritage can be returned, restituted and restored to the brilliant cultures that made it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107479/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Horton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Colonial powers plundered the heritage of countries all over the world – restitution is long overdue.Mark Horton, Professor in Archaeology, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/681732016-11-23T07:19:13Z2016-11-23T07:19:13ZAngkor replicated: how Cambodian workshops produce fake masterpieces, and get away with it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147116/original/image-20161123-19676-14e8ozz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cambodian art produced in the Angkorian period are among the greatest artistic masterpieces of the pre-modern world.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/laempel/17139003557/">leo.laempel/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As part of my work as an archaeologist, my team and I recently discovered <a href="http://www.efeo.fr/base.php?code=643">an ancient artists’ studio</a> in UNESCO-listed Angkor, an area in Cambodia that was home to numerous capitals of the Khmer Empire and is now one of the <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/668">most important archaeological sites</a> in Southeast Asia.</p>
<p>The finest examples of Cambodian art produced at these sites during the <a href="http://countrystudies.us/cambodia/7.htm">Angkorian period</a> (circa 800-1400CE) are recognised as among the greatest artistic masterpieces of the pre-modern world.</p>
<p>Sadly, the looting of such material has caused considerable problems in a world that is progressively becoming concerned about the integrity of both public and private collections. </p>
<p>Since 2014, art institutions and private collectors have returned <a href="http://www.voacambodia.com/a/returned-artifacts-stir-new-interest-in-cambodian-antiquity/3283937.html">11 sculptures</a> to Cambodia. All were looted, or illegally obtained or exported. </p>
<p>This represents a significant post-colonial correction in the ownership of cultural property. But for about the same amount of time that looted art has been traded between buyers and sellers, another issue has remained hidden. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146954/original/image-20161122-24543-1ddv5ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146954/original/image-20161122-24543-1ddv5ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146954/original/image-20161122-24543-1ddv5ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146954/original/image-20161122-24543-1ddv5ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146954/original/image-20161122-24543-1ddv5ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146954/original/image-20161122-24543-1ddv5ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146954/original/image-20161122-24543-1ddv5ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Home to numerous capitals of the Khmer Empire, Angkor is now one of the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/arteegs/4000878278/">arielski/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.cambodiadaily.com/archives/fake-khmer-antiques-trading-thrives-online-99303/">Fakes have overrun</a> the Cambodian antiquity market, their authenticity obscured by the skill of the artists who make them. Indeed, a significant proportion of the artists are so accomplished that the modern origins of their work will probably never be recognised.</p>
<h2>A homage to Angkorian sculpture</h2>
<p>The art of Angkor and mainland Southeast Asia is particularly vulnerable. In correspondence with me, <a href="http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-nr90024465/">Helen Jessup</a>, an eminent art historian and the author of six books on Cambodian art, made the connection between war, looting, and fakes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Civil disturbances roiling Cambodia for 30 years made access difficult and led to a thinning of the ranks of experts in the field, including within Cambodia itself. Political uncertainty enabled illicit access to ancient sites and looting was rampant. Thailand was the usual destination for the stolen objects, handled by networks of middlemen and dealers and serving as models for skilled craftsmen to replicate. Provenance issues in strife-torn regions were fudged and acquisitions increased with few questions asked.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While peace has thankfully returned to Cambodia, the lucrative production of fakes continues. </p>
<p>Few know more about the production of replicas than contemporary artist <a href="http://jimsanborn.net/main.html#biography">Jim Sanborn</a>, who witnessed the skill of Cambodian fakers first-hand while researching an art project of his own.</p>
<p>He told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Over a four-year period I travelled back and forth to infiltrate the forgery trade in order to gain the knowledge that generations of forgers had used to age their pieces.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The result was Sanborn’s <a href="http://jimsanborn.net/main.html#recent_work">path-breaking work</a> Without Provenance: The Making of Contemporary Antiquity. It presents sandstone sculptures made in Cambodia and falsely aged in his US studio.</p>
<p>Jim Sanborn is a celebrated artist with pieces in collections worldwide, but he is still seeking an exhibitor for this challenging work that exposes the faking of Khmer art. The subversion of Without Provenance is testament to the unease with which custodians of Southeast Asian art approach authenticity and provenance.</p>
<h2>Makers and models</h2>
<p>In 2012, I accompanied Sanborn to a workshop in rural Cambodia. Posing as an art collector, I was offered contemporary replicas as genuine Angkorian sculptures. Objects like the ones we examined are sold at international auctions for anywhere between ten to one hundred times the sale price in rural Cambodia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144984/original/image-20161108-4708-1myzetn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144984/original/image-20161108-4708-1myzetn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144984/original/image-20161108-4708-1myzetn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144984/original/image-20161108-4708-1myzetn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144984/original/image-20161108-4708-1myzetn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144984/original/image-20161108-4708-1myzetn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144984/original/image-20161108-4708-1myzetn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144984/original/image-20161108-4708-1myzetn.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fake sculptures artificially ageing in bath of nitric acid.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jim Sanborn</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We were shown numerous sculptures in various stages of production. Even with an expert’s eye, often the only clue to the sculptures’ contemporaneity was the fact that we saw them in a workshop. </p>
<p>The art works were created using techniques not employed to produce art for the tourist market. Polishing obscures the giveaway marks that modern tungsten-tipped chisels leave behind, for instance.</p>
<p>At two or three months, the carving process is relatively quick compared to the task of artificial ageing, which can take many years. </p>
<p>Identifying a fake sculpture is not an easy task. Artists work within a family tradition, with knowledge passed from <a href="http://www.persee.fr/doc/arasi_0004-3958_2008_num_63_1_1658">master to apprentice</a>. Certain practices of cultural and artistic reproduction might well be unbroken since the time of Angkor.</p>
<p>Master craftsmen do not copy known sculptures, but design original works in the style of a particular time period. Variations in decoration, iconography and quality are commonly used to mimic actual antiquities.</p>
<p>To make matters more difficult, identifying a genuine sculpture is not very simple either. Even the most accomplished connoisseur will question authentic sculptures that intentionally reference iconography and motifs from earlier periods. For example, a group of sculptures produced in the ninth century have only <a href="http://www.efeo.fr/base.php?code=643">recently been identified</a> as 12th century copies.</p>
<p>When I asked Helen Jessup about identifying fakes and their proliferation, she said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It will probably never be certain which of the pieces acquired from as early as the 1980s are real and which are fakes, but it is fair to ask why nobody wondered why, after almost a century of diligent research and acquisition by the French, so many, and so many perfect sculptures were appearing.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Revisiting authenticity</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144986/original/image-20161108-4673-qcm3rp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144986/original/image-20161108-4673-qcm3rp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144986/original/image-20161108-4673-qcm3rp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144986/original/image-20161108-4673-qcm3rp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144986/original/image-20161108-4673-qcm3rp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144986/original/image-20161108-4673-qcm3rp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144986/original/image-20161108-4673-qcm3rp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An intentionally broken fake Angkorian sculpture being artificially aged.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jim Sanborn</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Technical analyses are the best tests. Regrettably, these are not foolproof either. Contemporary artists use the same sources of stone as the ancients; and fakers can replace clay cores of contemporary sculptures with ancient ones to avoid detection by scientific dating techniques. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ioa.ucla.edu/people/christian-fischer">Assistant Professor Christian Fischer</a> from the <a href="http://conservation.ucla.edu/">UCLA/Getty Conservation Program</a> is an expert in the types of stone used by ancient Cambodian artists. </p>
<p>Fischer told me about the extent to which fakers are one step ahead of would-be experts:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Fakers are aware of the published research that can help them to improve their artificial ageing procedures. For example, from the late 1990s, the appearance of questionable sculptures showing a surface layer enriched in manganese might be related to equivalent descriptions of manganese in the academic literature. This feature is absent on notorious fakes made in the 1970s and 1980s.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We continuously change the way objects of the past are appreciated and represented in terms of the present. Angkorian sculptures have always been treasured for their aesthetic beauty and as we learn more about them, we begin to recognise their significance to those who produced and venerated them, and especially their value to Cambodians today.</p>
<p>The ancient sculptures of Southeast Asia embody impressive examples of human creativeness and increase cross-cultural knowledge. But how might we accept replica sculptures acquired from a market full of objects with insufficient provenance? </p>
<p>Fearing the potential reputational damage that will follow if they’re known to have fallen prey to fakers’ deception, some custodians of Cambodian and Southeast Asian sculptures do not seek clarity on authenticity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144987/original/image-20161108-4694-13stpef.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144987/original/image-20161108-4694-13stpef.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144987/original/image-20161108-4694-13stpef.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144987/original/image-20161108-4694-13stpef.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144987/original/image-20161108-4694-13stpef.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144987/original/image-20161108-4694-13stpef.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144987/original/image-20161108-4694-13stpef.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Products of a faking workshop offered for sale at the site of their manufacture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jim Sanborn</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But as problematic as they are, rigorous independent technical analyses can test the legitimacy of sculptures. In recognising fakes, custodians can come to terms with how past collecting encouraged the production of forgeries and the looting of sacred archaeological sites.</p>
<p>Whether real or replica, the sculptures are original works of art and worthy of celebration. They are produced by Cambodian artists with abilities equal to that of their Angkorian ancestors. </p>
<p>Still, custodians have a responsibility to follow a process of due diligence to ensure objects in their possession are authentic. Acknowledging the true character of the sculptures is the only way forward for caretakers who wish to address acquisition customs of the past.</p>
<p>Failure to do so will see both real and fake sculptures languish in storerooms, have fakes attain legitimacy as ancient, or ensure buyers are fooled again by the fakers’ skills.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68173/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Polkinghorne receives funding from the Australia Research Council. </span></em></p>Fake Cambodian sculptures have infiltrated the antiquities market, where they remain unacknowledged and their production continues unabated.Martin Polkinghorne, Research Fellow in Archaeology, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/648332016-09-08T20:45:36Z2016-09-08T20:45:36ZTransforming higher education: first comes knowledge, then curriculum<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136711/original/image-20160906-6121-c0ej3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ancient fermentation techniques are an example of African chemistry in action.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Akena/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you want to learn about Africa, there’s no need to go to Algeria, Mali, Zambia or anywhere else on the continent. </p>
<p>Instead, you’ll need to visit – at great cost – institutions in the global north like Johns Hopkins or the School of Oriental and African Studies. Places like these host a wealth of <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-3147532381/supporting-capacity-building-for-archives-in-africa">African knowledge databases</a>. They’re also home to scores of useful <a href="http://library.ifla.org/1269/1/080-simon-en.pdf">archives</a>, artefacts and records. This begs the question: what does Africa know about itself if most of its vital data sources are held away from its shores?</p>
<p>This and similar questions have been given fresh impetus by recent student movements like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall">#RhodesMustFall</a>. Students want the curriculum at universities in the global south to be decolonised. But such demands are not new. Some of Africa’s brightest minds – among them <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/chinua-achebe-20617665">Chinua Achebe</a>, <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/wole-soyinka-9489566">Wole Soyinka</a>, <a href="http://www.ngugiwathiongo.com/">Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/20/ali-mazrui">Ali Mazrui</a> and <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/mesaas/faculty/directory/mamdani.html">Mahmood Mamdani</a> – have fought hard down the decades for decolonisation: of knowledge, of the curriculum and of the mind.</p>
<p>With all this energy and focus, why hasn’t decolonisation happened? Why have various generations failed to decolonise or transform the curriculum? My own struggle and failure to transform a course about the archaeology of farming communities in southern Africa has been instructive. </p>
<p>It’s convinced me that no full and meaningful curriculum transformation is possible without first transforming the knowledge that is taught. </p>
<h2>Knowledge is power</h2>
<p>The old saying states that knowledge is power. If you own it, you can control those without it. Since so much knowledge about Africa doesn’t sit on the continent, it’s apparent that Africa lacks power in this regard.</p>
<p>Most of the best archives and research facilities are located in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/oct/26/africa-produces-just-11-of-global-scientific-knowledge">the global north</a>. There, research budgets are more than generous. Comparatively, Africa’s research budgets are <a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/9214011e.pdf?expires=1473080089&id=id&accname=ocid56029661&checksum=FEC8C2D34BCE9EE17AAAFF5FB7BF7341">chronically low</a>; research and development makes up a <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS?view=map">tiny portion</a> of countries’ GDPs.</p>
<p>It would be utopian, then, to think that African researchers are best placed to produce knowledge about the continent. They may have the will, but they lack the money and institutional support.</p>
<p>This paucity of knowledge production is also <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-redraw-the-worlds-very-unequal-knowledge-map-44206">visible in academic journals</a>. Many of the world’s <a href="http://www.pambazuka.org/governance/africa-and-poverty-knowledge-production">most influential works</a> on Africa are written by those from and or working in the global north with access to good databases and generous research funds. The editors of influential journals appear to be most influenced by and interested in topics that are of interest to a western audience with deep pockets. </p>
<p>So their journals become stronger and stronger. Africa’s become poorer and poorer. Many African academics actively frown on journals from the continent, focusing their efforts on publishing in international, supposedly “superior” titles that will earn them promotion.</p>
<p>This lack of control or power over knowledge production explains why even though Africa is very much affected by poverty, conflict and drought it relies on specialists from the global north to tackle these wicked problems. Such specialists ultimately set the agenda.</p>
<p>Sometimes, grant awarding bodies – mostly based in the north – only provide funding to address <a href="http://www.whitaker.org/">specific issues</a> that they, and not us in Africa, deem important. This creates misaligned expectations. African organisations or institutions accept funds that don’t contribute much to changing local circumstances.</p>
<h2>Making knowledge address Africa’s challenges</h2>
<p>Much of this thinking, research and theory finds its way into African universities. These institutions favour material from international journals, mostly produced by international experts. The language is often very esoteric; it cannot be easily understood by common men and women who should be served by this knowledge. </p>
<p>My grandmother, a potter, was very excited to discover that I teach about pottery in a university’s archaeology department. But she was taken aback when I started talking about <a href="http://www.theory.org.uk/giddens2.htm">Giddens’ structuration theory</a> and others drawn from the global North.</p>
<p>And this sort of disconnect doesn’t just happen in my discipline: economics professors often use Germany’s post-first-world-war economy to illustrate the concept of hyper inflation. Why not look to Zimbabwe’s <a href="https://www.rt.com/business/267244-zimbabwe-currency-compensation-hyperinflation/">hyperinflation crisis</a>, which is closer to home and defied all imagination?</p>
<p>These external theories must be domesticated. This will make them meaningful to African situations and, more importantly, contribute towards solving local challenges.</p>
<p>Some of my colleagues have complained that chemistry and similar sciences can’t be decolonised. But there are numerous examples of African chemistry. Southern African communities produced beer by fermenting sorghum, millet and rapoko powder. They created distillation techniques. </p>
<p>In colonial Southern Africa a company that’s now owned by the global giant SAB-Miller started making a beer called <a href="http://www.delta.co.zw/trad/chibuku">chibuku</a> – a Shona word for “small book”. Today chibuku is sold all over southern Africa.</p>
<p>The problem right now is that it’s difficult to transform knowledge produced using benchmarks developed for non-African needs. It is difficult to produce a curriculum that responds to local needs without local examples and experiences.</p>
<p>In my view, this explains why despite so much talk about the need to transform the curriculum, not much happens in practice. It is one thing to talk about decolonising the curriculum with the right content at hand. But how can decolonisation really occur without the right, relevant content?</p>
<p>Without transforming knowledge, African universities cannot transform – let alone decolonise – the curriculum. </p>
<h2>Towards decolonised knowledge</h2>
<p>How can knowledge be decolonised? First, it is a process that must happen while discussions continue about curriculum change. Debating the curriculum will feed into the desired knowledge which must be created to solve contemporary challenges. </p>
<p>African countries also need to start directing funding towards research that answers the continent’s needs and challenges. This is happening elsewhere in the world, such as in China, and is bearing <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/science-major-plank-china-s-new-spending-plan">tremendous fruit</a> for those nations.</p>
<p>Finally, it’s crucial to understand that African knowledge systems can’t exist in isolation from others. This might sound contradictory but it is idealistic to ever think that we can return to an Africa that’s uninfluenced by the rest of the world. Rather, the knowledge revision project and its sibling curriculum reform must be anchored on the need to teach and produce knowledge that serves the continent. </p>
<p>If this work succeeds, Africa will be equipped to solve its own problems, intellectual and otherwise. The continent can start to produce homegrown development specialists, water experts, chemists and many others. </p>
<p>Now is the time to seriously consider knowledge production change as a catalytic factor in the much desired curriculum change. Africa urgently needs knowledge that addresses its challenges. This will then spill over into a transformed, decolonised curriculum.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64833/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shadreck Chirikure receives funding from the University of Cape Town Research Office's Africa Knowledge Project and the National Research Foundation of South Africa. </span></em></p>Knowledge is power. If you own it, you can control those without it. Since so much knowledge about Africa doesn’t sit on the continent, it’s apparent that Africa lacks power in this regard.Shadreck Chirikure, Associate Professor in Archaeology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/622342016-07-20T08:50:12Z2016-07-20T08:50:12ZWhat the world’s oldest calculator tells us about the ancient Greeks’ view of the universe<p>When we talk of the history of computers, most of us will refer to the evolution of the modern digital desktop PC, charting the decades-long developments by the likes of Apple and Microsoft. What many don’t consider, however, is that <a href="https://theconversation.com/20th-century-toy-computing-is-a-13th-century-beast-at-least-9592">computers have been around much longer</a>. In fact, they date back millennia, to a time when they were analogue creations.</p>
<p>Today, the world’s oldest known “computer” is the Antikythera mechanism, a severely corroded bronze artefact which was found at the beginning of the 20th Century, in the remains of a shipwreck near the Mediterranean island of Antikythera. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the importance of the Antikythera mechanism was discovered, when radiography revealed that the device is in fact a complex mechanism of at least 30 gear wheels.</p>
<p>The mechanism has since been established as the first known astronomical calendar, a complex system which can track and predict the cycles of the solar system. Technically, it is a sophisticated mechanical “calculator” rather than a true “computer”, since it cannot be reprogrammed, but nonetheless an impressive artefact.</p>
<p>Since 2004, an <a href="http://www.Antikythera-Mechanism.gr">international collaboration</a> has applied modern imaging methods to probe the mechanism’s structure and function. These techniques have now revealed many of the <a href="http://www.hpdst.gr/publications/almagest/issues/7-1">texts on its surfaces</a> and even much of the inscription which was buried inside the remaining fragments, as a result of damage during and after the shipwreck. </p>
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<p>So what do we know about the mechanism? And what has the deciphering of the texts added?</p>
<h2>Inside history</h2>
<p>When first made, the mechanism was about the size of a shoe box, with dials on both its front and back faces. A handle or knob on the side of the box enabled the user to turn the trains of gears inside –- originally there were considerably more gears than the 30 that still survive. On the front, pointers showed where the sun and moon were in the sky, and there was a display of the phase of the moon. On the rear, dials displayed a 19-year cycle of lunar months, the 18.2 year <a href="http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsaros/SEsaros.html">Saros cycle of lunar and solar eclipses</a>, and even a <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/07/080730-greek-computer.html">four-year cycle of athletic competitions</a> including the Olympic games.</p>
<p>The inscriptions are thought to have been a description for the user of what it was they were viewing as they operated the mechanism. However, the newly published texts add more to what we know of the mechanism: they establish that the positions of the five planets known in antiquity were also shown – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. </p>
<p>The planets were displayed on the machine in a way that took account of their rather irregular “wanderings” about the sky. Such a display had been suspected, and the confirmation reinforces that this was a very sophisticated and quite complicated device. The actual gear trains needed for the display of the planets are missing – presumably lost in the shipwreck – but we know from the very ingenious way that the sun and moon drives are designed and constructed that the makers of the mechanism certainly had the skills necessary to make the planetary drive.</p>
<p>The newly uncovered inscriptions include passages about what stars were just becoming visible –- or about to be lost in the glare of the sun – at different times of year. The style of these passages is very close to that of a <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8330.html">well-known astronomical text</a> by Greek astronomer and mathematician Geminos from the first Century BC. Not only does this tie in perfectly with the presumed date of the shipwreck (around 60BC), but also the latitude – which is implied by stellar data to be mid-Mediterranean – which would fit nicely with the mechanism originating on the island of Rhodes, from where there is a contemporary historic record <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/decoding-antikythera-mechanism-first-computer-180953979/?no-ist">from the writer Cicero</a> of such devices.</p>
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<h2>Uncovering the truth</h2>
<p>Some mysteries still remain, however. It is still not clear exactly what such a mechanism was actually for. Was it some kind of teaching device? Would it have had any religious significance? Was it a prestigious “toy”? The latter interpretation is seeming less and less likely. This was a serious bit of kit, with a very detailed astronomical description.</p>
<p>The mechanism is basically an astronomical device, which bears witness both to the Greeks’ astronomical knowledge and their extraordinary, and rather unrecognised, mechanical design skills. One other small detail may hint at its integration into our ancestors’ view of the wider world too. Some of the texts seem to be discussing the possible colours of eclipses, which might be interpreted in the context of whether the eclipse was a good or bad omen. It must be emphasised that this is the only astrological reference found on the mechanism though, despite careful searching.</p>
<p>To understand the Antikythera mechanism, what is really needed is more artefacts or texts on mechanical devices from the classical era. Unfortunately the recycling of valuable metal, both in ancient and medieval times, has resulted in nearly all mechanisms being destroyed. There is always the possibility that another device or text might turn up at an extensive archaeological site like Pompeii or Herculaneum, but probably the best bet for hardware remains classical-era shipwrecks. </p>
<p><a href="http://antikythera.whoi.edu/">Divers have returned</a> to the Antikythera wreck this year, so perhaps the missing parts of the planetary display will turn up. An enticing possibility is that the Antikythera mechanism was on the ship because it was being delivered to a customer. The mechanism was not, as sometimes claimed, a navigational device and navigation was not the reason for its presence. If one device was being delivered, might there be more – if not on this ship, then perhaps on others from Rhodes? New devices might help indicate how widely geared technology developed, before almost completely disappearing from view in the rather obscure period that lasted from 500AD until the sudden blossoming again of gearwork in the era of the medieval cathedral clocks from about 1180AD, well over a millennium after the Antikythera mechanism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62234/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Edmunds received funding from Leverhulme Foundation. He is a member of the Labour Party, fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a fellow of the Institute of Physics.</span></em></p>A bronze artefact rescued from a Greek shipwreck could hold the secrets of the universe.Mike Edmunds, Emeritus professor of astrophysics, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/382352015-03-04T02:45:42Z2015-03-04T02:45:42ZISIS is destroying ancient artefacts to send a message of intent<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73571/original/image-20150303-15950-loivgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ancient artefacts in the Archaeological Museum in Mosul in northern Iraq have been destroyed by ISIS.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screen shot via YouTube.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Distressing scenes of the destruction of ancient artefacts by ISIS in the Archaeological Museum in Mosul in northern Iraq have been <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/26/isis-fighters-destroy-ancient-artefacts-mosul-museum-iraq">widely reported</a> in recent days. </p>
<p>Video footage (see below) showed individuals wielding sledgehammers at ancient statues which the perpetrators claimed were images of gods. The exact identification of the destroyed artefacts is speculative, but most of the destruction appears to have been wrought on statuary of the Assyrian period (1365 BCE–609 BCE) and from the ancient trading principality of Hatra. </p>
<p>These items would be too difficult to smuggle out to the international black market for antiquities, a practice which ISIS appears <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/how-isis-pillages-traffics-sells-ancient-artifacts-global-black-market-1605044">to have been employing</a> for smaller looted items from museums and archaeological sites across Iraq and Syria.</p>
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<p>A number of rich archaeological sites lie in the immediate vicinity of Mosul and some of these rank among the most significant yet discovered in the Middle East. </p>
<p>Nimrud (ancient Kalhu) and Niniveh were successive capitals of the neo-Assyrian Empire (911 BCE-609 BCE) the latter thought to have been the largest city in the world in the seventh century BCE. </p>
<p>The remains of Nimrud lie approximately 30km to the south-east of Mosul while those of Niniveh are located on east bank of the Tigris in the immediate vicinity of the city. Foreign excavations of both sites began in the 1840s and many impressive items of statuary, architecture and other sculptures were transported to museums including the British Museum and the Louvre. </p>
<p>Some of this material stayed in Iraq where it is still held at museums in Baghdad and Mosul. </p>
<p>Mosul’s occupation of a strategic crossing point of the Tigris River for many centuries means that the city has a rich history, reflected in the museum’s holdings and the, until recently, diverse population of the city. </p>
<p>Mosul was a key crossing point for invading Parthian, Persian and Roman armies from the first century BCE to the seventh century CE and it formed an important trade connection between northern Mesopotamia and Syria, especially with the wealthy trading principality of Hatra (first century BCE – third century CE), some 90km south-west of Mosul, and the more distant trading emporium of Palmyra in central Syria. </p>
<p>Mosul was also an important trading centre during various Islamic Caliphates and in the Ottoman period. Today it is the second largest city in Iraq and its bridge across the Tigris is an important part of connecting the whole region of northern Iraq and eastern Syria, which ISIS controls.</p>
<h2>Cultural vandalism</h2>
<p>While the destruction of ancient artefacts in Mosul is without question cultural vandalism at its worst, ancient cultures in Iraq and elsewhere were equally capable of cultural vandalism, often on grand scales. </p>
<p>When the Assyrian empire disintegrated towards the end of the seventh century BCE, Nimrud was sacked and levelled by an alliance of enemies including Babylonians and Persians. In 330 BCE Alexander the Great looted the ancient city of Persepolis in Iran and burnt its palace to the ground in a drunken rampage. </p>
<p>Roman Emperors and Persian Kings besieged Hatra on five occasions in the second and third centuries before it was finally captured and mostly destroyed while the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE resonates to this day. </p>
<p>There is a clear distinction, however, between the devastation of priceless cultural items by ancient powers and the targeted destructive activities of ISIS. </p>
<p>The vandalism perpetrated in the Mosul Museum is part of a targeted program of desecration and devastation undertaken in Mosul by ISIS since it overran the city in June 2014. Reports of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/07/isis-destroys-shiite-mosque_n_5564373.html">the demolition</a> of six Shi’ite mosques and four shrines to Sunni and Sufi figures emerged in early July last year and later that month the 14th-century Prophet Younis (Jonah) shrine and associated mosque were blown up. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73570/original/image-20150303-15950-6d1ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73570/original/image-20150303-15950-6d1ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73570/original/image-20150303-15950-6d1ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73570/original/image-20150303-15950-6d1ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73570/original/image-20150303-15950-6d1ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73570/original/image-20150303-15950-6d1ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73570/original/image-20150303-15950-6d1ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73570/original/image-20150303-15950-6d1ung.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Antiquities are on display during the re-opening ceremony of Iraq’s National Museum in Baghdad, Iraq, February 28.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Ali Abbas</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The obliteration of other Islamic monuments and places of worship has continued while the Chaldean and Syrian Orthodox Cathedrals were occupied after the vast proportion of Christian residents fled the city. Reports emerged in late February that the Mosul Public Library <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-burns-thousands-of-rare-books-and-manuscripts-from-mosuls-libraries-10068408.html">had been ransacked</a> with approximately 100,000 books and manuscripts burned. </p>
<p>These actions are directly linked with the adherence by ISIS members to the <a href="http://www.theweek.co.uk/world-news/6073/what-is-salafism-and-should-we-be-worried-by-it">Salafi movement</a>, an extreme branch of Islam which views the centuries of development in Islamic theology and thinking after Mohammed as accretions which have polluted the faith. </p>
<p>The veneration of saints’ tombs and images is a particular problem for Salafists, which explains the destruction wrought on Islamic monuments in Mosul. It mirrors the destruction of saints’ tombs in Mecca and Medina in the early 1800s when Salafists captured the holy cities in what is now Saudi Arabia. </p>
<p>The destruction of artefacts depicting what are claimed to be gods in the Mosul Museum is part of making a broader statement to the Islamic world while enforcing an extreme doctrinal position in the city. It is also part of a message aimed more broadly at Iraq and the West. </p>
<p>On the same day that the video was released, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/arts/design/the-national-museum-of-iraq-reopens.html?_r=0">National Museum in Baghdad reopened</a> after 12 years of painstaking effort to rebuild it following the looting which took place during the US-led invasion in 2003. The reopening of the museum is a moment of national pride for a country whose very existence is under threat. </p>
<p>The destruction of artefacts in Mosul sends a clear message, reflective of the intent of ISIS, which is to destroy whatever stands in the way of its ideology. The release of video footage of this vandalism has other purposes as well, especially with regard to the West, where museums and the precious artefacts they hold are treasured and sacred. </p>
<p>The infinitely more gruesome video footage of defenceless hostages being murdered has a similar purpose, partly to terrorise all who see it but also to entice the West back into a high-stakes war which will be difficult to prosecute and far more difficult to win.
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38235/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Edwell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ancient artefacts in the Archaeological Museum in Mosul in northern Iraq have been destroyed by ISIS in recent days, behaviour that forms part of a pattern. The question is why.Peter Edwell, Senior Lecturer in Ancient History, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.