Should a conservator risk her reputation to preserve Article courtesy of Archaeology magazine.
"A client of mine, an amateur historian and art
collector, brought me a deteriorating Roman sword he purchased from the online
auction site eBay. He asked me to clean, stabilize, and preserve it. As I
examined the orange-red corrosion and white salt encrustations, noting fragments
that had exploded off the surface and areas only a few millimeters thick, I
realized I might be professionally obligated not to conserve it. The sword had
no provenance or export documents to prove it had been scientifically excavated
or lawfully sold.
Art conservators are dedicated to preserving
cultural heritage and we deplore looting and damage to archaeological sites and
artifacts. We are also acutely aware of the harm that can occur from leaving
fragile objects unconserved. Deciding whether to work on the sword was a moment
of crisis in my career. Conserving it could be considered unethical or
unprofessional, while ignoring the piece could put it at risk of disintegrating.
Was I accountable to the physical artifact, my profession, or the archaeological
community?"
Why do museums refuse personal collections while accepting and glorifying unprovenanced objects donated by wealthier, more prominent collectors?
Why is there no blanket international agreement governing the antiquities trade?
Shouldn't we preserve looted objects if they are only traces of a destroyed archaeological site?
1 comment:
Well if it wasn't excavated legally, wouldn't it be best to preserve all that remains of the archaeological site in question? At the very least information can be obtained from the swords, if in fact the site was illegally dug up (which would imply that it was probably destroyed), and we can't get anything from the site itself. But then again, there's so many factors I probably don't even know about that could affect the decision to preserve them or not.
Well I don't really know, this is just my opinion, but everyone has different feelings on ethics, and what may seem like a small unimportant thing to one, could be the world to another. I guess I really can't say what this guy should do. Well I guess I didn't at all answer the actual questions, but since I went through the tedious work of writing this, I might as well post it, right?
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