Greece, of course, is rich in history (if not money, at the moment) and the National Archaeological Museum is predictably impressive. One of the most striking artefacts I remember was a kind of miniature suit made out of pure gold leaf, complete with a little face mask with tiny eye holes. It was the death mask of an infant from Mycenae, buried about 3000 years ago and dug up in the 19th century.
That's fascinating of course. When you think about it, it's also tragic. This was someone's baby son or daughter. However, it's hard to feel sad over it. If that baby died in front of you, or even if it happened yesterday and you read about it on the news, it would be sad.
You'd even feel sad if it were an entirely fictional baby that "died" in a movie. But being so old, it's not sad, it's just interesting, which is why these things have ended up in museums.
Most of the best exhibits are grave goods, placed in tombs with the dead, in the belief that the deceased would be able to use them in the next world. One Mycenaean warrior was buried with his sword, the blade specially bent so as to "kill" it, and ensure that it would travel to the afterlife with him.
That's fascinating, and also rather weird. Killing a sword so its dead owner could use the ghost of it in heaven? Those crazy ancients!
When you think about it, that's a horrible thing to think. That guy was probably a war hero and that grave was the most solemn memorial his culture could erect to his memory. That was the Arlington, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, of his day. We could have let it rest in peace. But we put it in a museum.
My point here is not that we ought to stop doing archaeology because it's offending the memory of the dead. What's interesting is the fact that no-one would even consider that. We just don't care about the dead of 3000 years ago, except as historical data. Yet there'd be outrage if someone went into a churchyard and starting digging up the dead of 300 years ago. You wouldn't even stuck some chewing gum to a gravestone or use it as a seat.
So there are two categories of the dead. There's the alive dead, who are felt to be with us, in the sense that they have a right to respect. Then there are the dead dead, the ancients, who are of purely historical interest. The alive dead still have power - wars are fought over their memories, honour, property rights.
Eventually, though, even the dead die, and that's generally a good thing. The Hungarians, so far as I know, don't dislike the Mongolians because of the Mongol Invasion of 1237, although the Hungarians who died then would probably have wanted them to.
Fortunately for modern international relations, they're dead.
11 comments:
It's an interesting idea, how we consider the dead to be worthy of either respect or curiosity depending on their age. But it's actually something about which there has been quite a bit of debate I think - for example native American remains being returned (to descendants or other culturally-affiliated groups), questions over mummies having a right to privacy, and a government statement in the UK a few years ago saying that archaeological excavations have to reburied after a certain period.
While the question of respect is always a tricky one I think it rather over-cautious to refrain from potentially valuable research out of fear that the long-dead would not have wished it, and starts to get worryingly close to some kind of spiritual consideration (after all, it's not as if the dead have much use for their remains now). See also http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928030.100-removing-bodies-from-display-is-nonsense.html and http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727774.600-do-egyptian-mummies-have-a-right-to-privacy.html (full article requires NS subscription though, sorry).
--O
The value of archeology is for the most part the satisfaction of curiosity. What people once did or didn't has passed and it's relevance is only how it shaped our present day culture(s)
And whilst it's for example very interesting to know why tribe Turkey hates tribe Greece it's also the reason why they still do.
The past is best left buried, seeing a mummy adds nothing to ones life but a cheap thrill.
Archeology we can live without. History we can live without for the most part.
Evidently we are incapable of learning from it since we keep on making the same mistakes over and over and over again despite all (rewritten, redacted, rewritten,redacted over and over again) history books.
To argue that what's in the past is gone and has little relevance to us, and so is not worth finding out about, seems a rather limiting point of view, and denies the possibility of interesting or surprising insights about the past. And if you continue this line of argument further back, to remains of our more distant ancestors, we stand little chance of understanding our evolutionary origins.
Evidently we cannot learn anything from History, if we take the view that there is nothing more that it can teach us, and so don't bother looking. If we think we can't learn from our mistakes we never will.
While there may be something for the argument that seeing a mummy is merely a cheap thrill (or educational, depending on your point of view), there's certainly a lot more to archaeology than that. Even if finding out about how people lived and died in the past is just satisfying our curiosity, I think it's still interesting, and worthwhile, to know more about our history as a species.
--O
Osian: Thanks for the comment; I was aware that there had been some debate on this topic - when I said "no-one would even consider that" I originally wrote "almost no-one would..." and was going to cover some examples, but simplified it for space; maybe I shouldn't have glossed over it.
I think the point still stands though - the issue is debated but very few people feel strongly enough about it to take action. Whereas if you desecrated a "modern" grave (even one a few centuries old) most people would intuitively feel that was wrong. Yet that feeling doesn't attach itself to all of the dead. At some point it wears off.
I see - yes, it was your "no-one would ..." that prompted me to comment (plus the fact I had read one of the linked-to articles only the other day).
I agree though that most people are unlikely to think too much about this; maybe due to the discrepancy between the reverence shown to the recently deceased (especially surrounding issues like organ donation and post-mortem examination), and the lack of any direct emotional connection to the very-long dead. And I wonder if how this wears off is related to the point at which discarded items stop being considered rubbish and start being historical artefacts - again there is no clear boundary (though probably a different timescale).
--O
That looks like a man's face. You couldn't have picked Hawaii. Welcome back nerd brain.
It seems to me that the recently deceased are no different per se, from those who died a thousand years ago. The difference is that they are significant to someone still alive. thus, if you dig up a relatively fresh corpse, you can be reasonably sure that you are digging up someone's mum or dad. We aren't sympathetic for the corpse itself, just for the people mourning them, for whom they remain emotionally significant.
@Osian
It's weird, but i get the impression you write a rebuke to my post whilst when reading it to it's conclusion you basically say exactly what i said:
Archeology only serves to satisfy curiosity.
Which is fine, but not more then it its. And i still can't figure out indeed why desecrating a grave is ok as long as it's not yours or that of your family.
These guys got put there for the same reasons, so that begs indeed to question what's the expiration date on grave desecration?
Why can't i dig up a fresh corpse and take it's jewelery to make my own 'contemporary art' museum? Or built a nice skeletal remains exhibition showing the life as it was in 1990?
Bizarre is not a word that covers it completely. Cognitive dissonance it its finest.
Looking forward to hearing more about your Greek trip and observations it sparked. We just got back from two weeks in Turkey and I think I'd have to disagree with you about people getting over the ancient history.
It does seem to me that people bear grudges for centuries. The Armenians still hate the Turks. The Turks still hate the Arabs for betrayals egged on by the Brits in WWI and raids for a thousand years before that, tho they have other reasons to find common cause now.
Parts of Europe still beat the drum against the Fearsome Muslim Bogeyman, remembering Turkish invaders from centuries ago. Greeks and Turks have been invading each other for centuries....
I'm not trying to be obnoxious, just found that when we were travelling it seemed best when all of us talked candidly about our historic grievances--made it easier to get along in the here and now.
Visited Gallipoli with a bunch of Kiwis and Aussies making pilgrimage to their grandfather or greatgrandfather's graves or where they had served and talking with our Turkish guide about how his greatgrandfather had served there too and never been the same since...
As to archaeology, our middle pup spent the summer with her university on a dig in Nemea. But we are trying to persuade her to go to Turkey as there as so many things yet to be discovered or fully excavated there.
Troy, Ephesus, Cappadocia are awesome, as is Istanbul, obviously.
Retriever: Thanks.
It's certainly true that people don't always get over old grievances, but just as often they do -
The Germans don't hate the Americans for WW2;
The Jews don't hate the Germans (in general) for the Holocaust;
No-one hates the French on account of Napoleon as far as I can tell.
Yet there are plenty of grudges that go back much further in history and that are still "alive".
My point being, bearing a grudge is not a kind of automatic psychological reaction to the original event. Rather I suspect that the "default" is forgiveness - most people don't know much history and they have more important things to worry about in their lives than what happened centuries ago - when a grudge is maintained, it's because of an active attempt to keep it alive on the part some segment of the community.
I 'hate 'napoleon :) He stole part of my country....
Dutch 'hate'germans with vengeance. The french 'hate' the brits, and the germans.
It's just not considered politicor to express this.
Doesn't mean the general underbelly feeling isn't there. Walk into any bar and start a topic on country X when you are in country Y.......
It isn't written in the newspapers, and people nicely give proper answer in surveys so superficially all seems fine.
I live on the French/Italian border in France. No nice words are said about the Italian tourists.
Xenophobia is a primary survival mechanism deeply rooted in our brain. No amount of 'reason'is going to overpower that.
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