Set in Stone?

We worked under the black tarp shading us from the sun. We arrived at the site early in the morning to avoid the heat—by the time we left in the middle of the day, the temperature had reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Donning my garden gloves and cheap clothing, I crouched on some knee pads, hacking away in the trench. I got my assignment from the director: continue my work digging up tesserae (ceramic blocks used to make mosaics) and pieces of building material, typical findings at a Western Roman villa site. Layer by layer, we uncovered the remains of the villa, unearthing pieces of the former settlement.

Like many others interested in the field, images of Indiana Jones and his pursuits (however fantastical) sparked my fascination for archaeology when I was younger. After taking an archaeology class my sophomore year, I chose to spend my summer on a dig in Western Europe. The idea that I could be the first person to touch a vase or mosaic in centuries was thrilling. Physical objects seemed to me to hold a certain potency that could not be found in other fields, like history, which focus on written or oral records. An artifact meant proof of civilization, of the lives of people who lived thousands of years ago. I was fascinated by the objects of our past because, to me, they were imbued with a sort of objectivity and absolutism that could not be found elsewhere.

But there is nothing absolute about the way we produce meaning around the objects of our past. The role of the archaeologist is not always, if ever, one of an objective researcher applying the scientific method. The reasons why an individual chooses to do archaeology and study the ancient world, as well as their position in relation to the people and cultures they are studying, ultimately shape the stories they tell; and, thus, the way we conceive of our past, situate ourselves in the present, and understand who we—and “others”—are.

Those who are able to claim authority over these stories are those who have asserted owner ship over the recovered artifacts themselves. This ownership is a contested question in the field of archaeology, and its complexity is nowhere more visible than in the world of museums.

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The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), whose construction began in 2005 but was delayed by political and economic instability, is slated to open this year near the pyramids of Giza outside Cairo. It emerges from Egypt’s extensive history of archeological research, and will contain one of the largest collections of Egyptian artifacts in the world: all 5,000 artifacts found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922, as well as 100,000 other objects from Egypt’s long history. The building cost about $1 billion to build. The museum will provide visitors a glimpse into thousands of years of Egyptian history within a larger context that museums in Europe and the United States cannot provide.

As a kid, visiting a museum was nothing more than an exciting adventure to be shared with my family. Museums were places where I could visit to witness and learn about things I would otherwise never have had a chance to see. Regardless of your position on the ethics of displaying artifacts, you have to admit how incredible it is that we can see objects of the distant past and learn about people who lived such a long time ago. Walking through the RISD Museum as a child, I saw the little hippopotamus from Egypt, the wooden Buddha from Japan, and I knew that these places were real, that people existed hundreds of years ago and held these objects.

But these objects are more than snapshots from a static moment in time—they were created under the backdrop of Ptolemaic Egypt, or Heian Period Japan, and carry with them the context and human emotions that went into making them. And the history of the places and people that created them continued on. Modern Japan is built on Heian Period Japan; they are not separate entities with different histories. This interconnectedness and continuity is what makes the display and study of artifacts so complex.

How does ownership play a role in archaeology? When you take a step back, it can be quite jarring to think about possession of objects that were made by people thousands of years ago—can anyone today really be a rightful owner if there was no consensual exchange of ownership? If someone from 1000 BCE can’t give their amulet to a modern archaeologist, then can it really be passed on? When objects have been lying in the dirt for so long, they can begin to appear as symbols of the past—remnants of the lives of previous owners, but ultimately a part of our time, not theirs.

Museum Act of 1963 prohibits the return of artifacts except under very specific circumstances—only if they are “duplicates” or “unfit to be retained in the collections of the museum.” By housing an entire collection of exclusively Egyptian artifacts, the GEM offers one answer to the question of repatriation by situating artifacts in their cultural context—rather than fitting them into a narrative created by historically colonial institutions. But the complexities of making meaning around objects do not stop at the question of their ownership.

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You may think of archaeology in an idealized light, with researchers toiling away in the dirt to produce perfect specimens from ancient times, ready to be displayed behind a glass case in a museum. But the reality is much less glamorous. Most archaeological finds are not put on display, but rather cataloged and studied for research. An archaeologist may study the type of pottery found on a site to find out where and when the pottery was made, or the coins, which can provide some temporal context. After a site is excavated, it can never be recreated—the remains of the past, once stuck in the ground, become objects of the present.

In this sense, who is conducting archaeological research matters. It is impossible to rid oneself of implicit predispositions and prejudices. A person’s motivations for studying archaeology, the things they have learned in school and in the field, how they are situated in the society in which they are working—these all come together to shape the stories that come from archaeological research. Although many finds won’t end up in a museum for the public to view, they will be studied by researchers who then go on to publish their findings and teach at universities.

The researchers who study findings of dig sites are the ones who are making the stories, producing the knowledge that shapes our worldviews and ideas of lineage and culture. These stories are a reflection of those writing them, products of our time as much as they are products of the past. An archaeologist studying the remnants of a dig site may apply constructed ideas of the past that do not hold true to its reality.

We value the idea of ‘objectivity’ because it allows us the illusion of an uncomplicated and unambiguous relationship between the artifact and ourselves. To see archaeology as an objective science requires us to ignore the emotional ties people can have to these articles of their histories and cultures. Archaeology is important precisely because we know the significance of the objects we are excavating—so we cannot ignore this significance when deciding what to do with the artifacts, and where to place them.

The Rosetta Stone, one of the most important archaeological discoveries in history, is currently held at the British Museum. Calls to repatriate the Stone are based on its “illegal” extrication from Egypt by vying colonial forces: it was discovered during Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1799 and appropriated by the French. When the British defeated Napoleon in 1801, the Stone was handed over to Britain under the Treaty of Alexandria. This extrication stands in opposition to examples of consensual displays of Egyptian artifacts abroad, cases where the Egyptian government has given items to foreign countries and museums, such as the Southern Obelisk in Paris. One can easily refute patronizing arguments that Egypt is not responsible enough to safeguard such important goods and that the British Museum would be able to better protect them—that the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo safely holds invaluable artifacts like the gold mask of King Tutankhamun.

The famous archaeologist Dr. Zahi Hawass, former Egyptian Minister of Antiquities, created a petition demanding the Stone and other artifacts be sent back to Egypt. Another petition, called “Repatriate Rashid,” was created by a group of Egyptian archaeologists calling for Egypt’s prime minister himself to request that the British Museum return it. But the British

What do we do, then, if the study of the past is so shaped by the present and by our human perspectives? “Objectivity” is often seen as the gold standard, but in a field where humans are interacting with the remnants of another human’s life, subjectivity is impossible (and undesirable) to avoid. What we end up doing with archaeological artifacts should depend on the specific historical, social, and cultural context in which they are dug up.

The fact that we view artifacts subjectively, that we have emotional and cultural ties to these objects, is precisely why we value them and the whole field of archaeology in the first place. To ignore this subjectivity is to ignore the reason why we do archaeology, and why we put artifacts on display for all to see.

We must acknowledge our constructed worldviews and think critically about why we are doing archaeology—or any study for that matter—and what knowledge will be produced by this act. Knowledge produces knowledge. The narratives that emerge from archaeological studies are part of the production of public knowledge, which shapes our education, our politics, and the decisions we make in our everyday lives.

Vicente B’24 and Sylvie Bartusek B’24

Kayleen

Unititled Zine

Marker, pen, watercolor pencils, acrylic paint, stamps, magazine & paper collage

This is a piece of translations—translations between languages, between modes of expression and between people. Kayleen Vicente first wrote the poem on her own in Portuguese, then translated it into English as a way to allow her close friends to connect to her. Sylvie Bartusek then illustrated the poem while spending time with Kayleen. Both artists worked together to break the poem’s structure into the zine form, asking each other questions about the piece’s concepts and symbolism. The two artists work in the moment, creating first and unpacking after. While translations are imperfect, they behave here as acts of love and understanding.