Cost-cutting in academia is currently endangering the future of the last remaining archaeology programmes in #Leipzig and #Saxony as a whole. So students started a petition: https://chng.it/gTHf8fgbJT
@ladyofvix@archaeodons There's an object in the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna, a mezuzah found in Austria that antedates Christianity by several hundred years. Maybe the Germans would rather stuff like that not be found. They might have to give their own land back...
Tomorrow I'm travelling to my first in-person #conference in four years, and I'm very excited to see colleagues and friends NOT over Zoom! It's the 40th Annual Meeting of the #Aerial#Archaeology Research Group, held in #Zagreb, #Croatia 🙌🙌 For anyone interested, check it out at https://aargonline.com/
@CStamp@archaeodons As I'm informed, masking is encouraged, and masks will be available on the spot for everyone attending. As for myself, I'm always masked indoors, and I sure hope others will do the same 😷
since nobody seems to know, i officially declare that the English hashtag for the European Heritage Days 2023 is now #EHD2023
bear with it. @archaeodons
'I am horrified': Archaeologists are fuming over ancient human relative remains sent to edge of space
News
Scientists are calling the Virgin Galactic mission that carried the bones of #Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi to the edge of space a major ethical breach.
@NikaShilobod@archaeodons Another rich arsehole (Branson) getting his way without anyone having the presence of mind to say "no" and hit him in the mouth with a rolled newspaper.
Archaeologists: do you know of an antiquities looting/trafficking case that belongs in the Trafficking Culture Encyclopedia? A case from your region that should be up with the other 150+ cases on the site? Let me know! The site skews heavily toward Latin America because I skew toward Latin America. The Trafficking Culture site is well used by scholars, students, and others: I want good case study representation on there. See: https://traffickingculture.org/encyclopedia/case-studies/all/
PHILADELPHIA’S MÜTTER MUSEUM IS REVIEWING ITS COLLECTION OF HUMAN REMAINS. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS FOR DISABILITY REPRESENTATION by Riva Lehrer (Art in America, 2023).
"The Mütter joins medical and natural history museums around the world who are debating the ethical treatment of human remains. There is the question of provenance: at the Mütter, some specimens may have been accepted into the collection under dubious or outright unethical circumstances. Mütter curator Anna Dhoty has written about one unclear holding. Other provenance issues have recently been resolved after decades of negotiation. And in some instances, there is virtually no paper trail at all.
All this gets at a deeper, more troubling question: can it ever be ethical to own, or exhibit, someone else’s body? And if so, how should those bodies be displayed?"
I agree with your point of view, it is a question of context and a general rule cannot be established. It depends, among other factors, on the provenance and function of the human remains in the museum: whether they are only in the museum as a result of colonial brutality, whether they can provide significant knowledge, or whether they are only on display to sell tickets.
In Spain we have a very interesting case: that of the Guanche mummies.
The Swedish Rock Art Research Archive (SHFA) has launched a new digital platform for their collection. The database includes more than 24,000 digitized images. Apart from the digitalised archival materials, there are high resolution images (#IIIF), laser scans, 3D etc available as CC-BY-ND.
@Archasa@archaeodons
This is wonderful. For those of us who have been, for example, to Tannum and taken inadequate photos of our own it is marvellous to see the range and extent of the petroglyphs and the quality of the images here. Thank you. @ArchaeoIain
This is basically a recreation of a photo I took maybe six or seven years ago. As fortune would have it, I’m even wearing basically the same outfit 😅 Augustus remains unchanged.
Detail from the one of my favourite ancient Roman mosaics. There’s tentacles galore to enjoy here as well as many different examples of marine life 🐟🐙🦑🦐
I'd say Herculaneum did, because it's a less popular site and very well preserved. Although seeing the food stall remains at Pompeii and going back to Naples to have Pizza gave me pause.
We saw Herculaneum the day before we went back. When we were waiting for the train we had pizza at the small place at the top of the hill. So I feel I reflected more on the people and the lost history there.
It's clear people like archaeology. It's just big time Netflix producers gatekeep & prefer fantastical claims to solid archaeology based on up-to-date methods
@FlintDibble@archaeodons you are so right. WE need to be extra careful to let people know that we base our work on the archaeological evidence and the careful assessment of it. I suspect that is not good enough to destroy the anti-science crew, but we need to keep emphasising our point.
(By the way, Flint, did you happen to see my DM to you?)