If for some reason you are not familiar with ArchaeoSoup, check out their website. In short, they are a team that works to increase awareness of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage. One of their regular features is the “Questions of Doom” videos, in which Marc Barkman-Astles tackles questions that viewers submit.
This video is one of my favorites. In this video, Marc tackles the question of whether there is a difference between Antiquarians and Archaeologists.
I find this question particularly interesting, especially given that I work in the field of “stuff.” I work with collections that were put together in the past by –as he puts it “stuff-obsessed” people. Often times, I have little further information besides the year it was purchased and what culture it came from (a hypothetical example is: 1932, Egypt).
So, when doing “Museum Archaeology”–research within already assembled collections– is it possible to keep from being stuff obsessed in the research? Is it possible to provide further context where there is none? Is it possible to re-contextualize these objects so that they are no longer “stuff” or “artifacts,” but, rather, objects that can tell us a deeper and more interesting story about human past?
It is well known that in archaeology, context is everything. As I am finding out in my research of objects in museums world-wide, if the object is separated from the original context (by inappropriate excavation methods, bad documentation, or simply, lost information) in the past, it is challenging to reconstruct the context in the present.
That said, it is possible. Earlier this year, I read a “brief communication” by Christina Riggs about a child’s mummy. In this article, she was able to trace a context-less mummy in a British collection back to its original site of origin. This type of research will provide valuable information about the object that otherwise would have been lost. Another example would be if there are similar objects that do have a documented context that can be compared across collections. For instance, if a number of pottery bowls from a site that match your undocumented pottery bowl, that may also help provide context (date, region of origin, use) for your piece. However, how it was buried, where it was buried, and with what will still remain lost for your particular piece.
Besides dealing with objects collected by “stuff obsessed” people and without much contextual information, I also must content with other forms of “stuff-obsessed” thinking in this area of research (and especially in my own research). For instance, I am currently putting together a dataset of objects. I’m not at the stage yet where I’m fully analyzing each individual object, or the group of objects as a whole. Since I’m not yet focusing on how they were used and by whom, can my current research currently be considered “stuff obsessed”?
When I’m trying to find out more information about museum pieces, I often come up against similar types of problems. Often, I get a short description of the object–name, date, what it looks like, what culture it comes from–but little else about how it was used and what the imagery means.Of course, it is possible that museum visitors want to know the basics of a piece, and do not want to be bogged down in further information, or that the researchers at the museum don’t have further information.
So, in short, it is challenge to add context to objects that have been collected in the past. More work needs to be done to add people into the narrative of a single isolated object. However, it is possible to learn more about the object by learning about the objects past (or “biography”). It is also interesting to consider, alongside questions about its origins and primary use, but also secondary uses. How did collectors see and interpret these objects? Did they see the piece as just ancient “stuff” or did they ascribe importance to it too? Is it the same or different to the importance that we ascribe to it?
As Marc notes, the question of Antiquarian v. Archaeologist seems obvious at first, but once you dive into it, there are lots of ways to think about this question, with important implications for research and for finding ways of re-contextualizing pieces.
Museum Archaeology 