– iconoclasm and closed minds A thoughtful piece in the New York Times today by Roberta Smith Critic’s Notebook: Why Attack Art? Its Role Is to Be Helpful (Thanks to Tom Seligman for the link) In 2001 an international outcry met the Taliban’s destruction of two colossal Buddhas at Bamian in Afghanistan. The Buddhas were…
cultural politics
what Iran means to archaeologists
Guardian UK – Chicago’s Oriental Institute woos Iran with return of ancient tablets Three hundred ancient clay tablets which helped to provide information on the languages and daily life in the Persian empire 2,500 years ago are on their way back to Iran. The tablets are being returned by the oriental institute of the University…
the uncanny preservation of curse-laden mummies
archaeological archetypes Daily Telegraph | News | Ice Maiden triggers mother of all disputes in Siberia This story has it all. High in the Altai mountains of southern Siberia, where Shamans still practise their ancient rites and most people are descended from Asiatic nomads, there is a whiff of revolt in the air. Local officials,…
tipping points
On trust and digital photography – Sam put it this way – and very effectively – Yes, but I think this is the central point of all this – that sometimes, a big enough quantitative change in the ease of doing something makes a qualitative impact on some social action. I think you see this…
picking up the pieces – “Disaster Archaeology”
The Boston Globe is running a piece today about “Disaster Archaeology”[Link] When Richard Gould, an archaeologist at Brown University, took a walk in Lower Manhattan in October 2001, his trained eye fixed on a gravelly dust strewn on dumpsters and fire escapes that cleanup crews had missed. Looking closer, he saw that the coating contained…
origins
16 March – I made a comment about the discovery of the earliest human symbols. My old friend Cornelius Holtorf is surely right to point out that this story of “first occasion” belongs with a metanarrative of “origins”. The story – this was where things first began to look like they are today. The problem…