[MSN] Archaeologists Debate Whether to Ignore the Pasts of Relics

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

Archaeologists Debate Whether to Ignore the Pasts of Relics 
 Mannie Garcia/Associated Press
The National Geographic Society exhibition on the Gospel of Judas. 

Photos
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/arts/02publ.html
 
By HUGH EAKIN
Published: May 2, 2006
Inscribed on Sumerian clay tablets more than 4,000 years ago, the Code of
Ur-Nammu may be the earliest known recorded set of laws in the world: dozens
of rules written in cuneiform about commerce and taxes, family law and
inheritance.

 
Ali Jarekji/Reuters
Jordanian officials seized these cuneiform tablets from smugglers. 
But many scholars won't go near the one largely intact version of the code,
and the top American journal of cuneiform research won't publish articles
about it. The reason? The tablet was bought by a private Norwegian collector
on the open market and does not come from a documented, scientific
excavation. According to the ethics policies of the leading associations for
antiquities scholars, that means it is off limits.

As scholars grapple with the reality that a growing number of important
works - like the Ur-Nammu tablet and the recently unveiled Gospel of Judas -
lack a clear provenance, those ethics policies are the focus of heated
debate. 

On one side are archaeologists and other experts who say that most objects
without a clear record of ownership or site of origin were looted, and that
the publication of such material aggrandizes collectors and encourages the
illicit trade. On the other side are those who argue that ignoring such
works may be even more damaging to scholarship than the destruction caused
by looting.

Lending momentum to the debate is growing evidence that, amid the havoc of
the American invasion of Iraq, Iraqi sites have been looted on an industrial
scale. Many experts worry that the market will be flooded by vast numbers of
unprovenanced cuneiform tablets and other objects: illicit finds that, in
theory, should not be published.

"Its a real dilemma," said Piotr Michalowski, the editor of the top research
publication for the field, the Journal of Cuneiform Studies, which adheres
to the ethics policies of its parent organization, the American Schools of
Oriental Research. "What do you do with this material?" 

In recent days more than 100 scholars in the United States and Europe have
signed a controversial statement asserting that the publishing restrictions
are forcing them to "close their eyes to important information." The
statement was drafted by Lawrence E. Stager, an archaeologist at Harvard
University, and has been posted on the Web site of Biblical Archaeology
Review, a journal that does not have restrictions on unprovenanced works.

The scholars signing the statement say that they "recognize that artifacts
ripped from their context by looters often lose much of their meaning." 

"On the other hand, this is not always true," the statement says, "and even
when it is, looted objects, especially inscriptions, often have much of
scholarly importance to impart."

At issue are the publication rules of the two leading professional
associations for scholars of antiquity, the Archaeological Institute of
America and the American Schools of Oriental Research, the leading body for
specialists of the ancient Near East. "If you publish, you are contributing
to the illegal market," said Elizabeth Stone, an archaeologist of the
ancient Near East at the State University of New York at Stony Brook who
supports the restrictions.

But David I. Owen, a Near Eastern scholar at Cornell who signed Mr. Stager's
statement and who has drawn extensively on unprovenanced material in his own
research, countered, "Who ever heard of censoring knowledge?"

Some museum directors, facing demands from Italy and other countries for the
return of objects that may have been looted, have also seized on the
publishing debate to defend collecting and displaying works that do not have
a complete provenance.

The celebrated unveiling last month of the Gospel of Judas, a text that may
shed light on the evolution of early Christianity, has widened the split.
Some scholars have accused National Geographic, which published the text, of
commercially promoting a manuscript that emerged from the black market.
Others, including Mr. Stager, hold it up as an example of why the policies
of the Archaeological Institute and the American Schools of Oriental
Research are misguided.

"It's scare tactics to ignore this information," Mr. Stager said in a
telephone interview.

Yet representatives of both associations say the statement he signed with
other scholars mischaracterized their rules. "It's full of inaccuracy," said
Jane Waldbaum, president of the Archaeological Institute of America,
pointing out that the institute's policy, which dates from the 1970's,
simply bans its own journals from being the first to publish unprovenanced
works. "Our policy has never been totally restrictive," she said.

Andrew Vaughn, a biblical scholar who is chairman of publications for the
American Schools of Oriental Research, said, "It's, at best, misleading."

According to the group's 1995 ethics policy, "ASOR publications and its
annual meeting will not be used for presentations of illicit material." But
Mr. Vaughn said that the policy has some flexibility, and that "many of the
things" that Mr. Stager "is encouraging colleagues to consider are already
being done."

Many scholars stress that no single policy fits all unprovenanced objects.
There is a huge difference between, say, looted sculptures, which may be
impossible to identify with a specific historical setting, and objects
bearing inscriptions or texts, which can yield much information even when
their origins are unknown. And some unprovenanced works can easily be faked
while others cannot.

There is also a broad divide between archaeologists, who generally study
material from documented sites and rely on the good graces of host countries
with strict prohibitions against the antiquities trade, and scholars of
ancient texts, who often do not work in the field and may have no qualms
about drawing on unprovenanced objects in their research.

Adding complexity to the debate, Mr. Stager is a field archaeologist who
directs a site in Israel that has been supported by two well-known
antiquities collectors, Shelby White and her husband, Leon Levy, who died in
2003. The Shelby White-Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications at
Harvard, of which Mr. Stager is a board member, finances articles and books
about legitimate, scientific digs. Yet Ms. White's own collecting is the
focus of an Italian investigation into the illicit antiquities trade.

Even supporters of the two associations' current rules acknowledge that new
approaches are needed to address the recent plunder in Iraq and other
regions. In a 2004 paper, Mr. Michalowski, the cuneiform specialist, wrote
that analysis of such objects could "potentially change much of what we know
about ancient Mesopotamia and surrounding regions."

As a compromise, the American Schools of Oriental Research has adopted a
special policy allowing for publication of unprovenanced cuneiform texts if
permission is first obtained from the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and
Heritage. 

Last year the Archaeological Institute also revised its policy to allow its
journals to be the first to publish unprovenanced objects and to review
museum shows of such items if part of the purpose is to call attention to
the looting issue.

But it is unclear how well such changes will work in practice. Members of
both associations acknowledge privately that the ethics policies can
encourage a two-faced system whereby scholars simply go to nonassociation
journals and museum publications to publish unprovenanced works.

John Curtis, the keeper of Department of the Ancient Near Eastern East at
the British Museum, argues that the only sound approach is to avoid
publication of any unprovenanced Iraqi material that has surfaced since the
Persian Gulf war in 1991, the period in which much of the worst looting took
place. "The moral obligation is to impound it and send it back to Iraq," he
said.

But Mr. Curtis also acknowledged that the precarious situation in Iraq may
preclude such returns. "It's very problematic," he said. "Sending material
back to Baghdad would be possibly putting it at great risk."

http://www.nytimes.com/