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A review by livrad
Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession by Craig Childs
4.0
This book dives into questions of ethical acquisition, provenance, indigenous land and artifact rights, the black market, and the purpose of archeology in general. This was one of those books that I kept bringing up to other people when I was reading it, telling the juiciest bits [like how the Peabody Museum once gave back artifacts to the Hopi without telling them first that they were now poisoned to the touch. Or, how conversely, the Peabody also now keeps its collection based on the requests of individual cultures, such as keeping items covered/positioning them toward a particular cardinal direction/keeping them out of the view of women/allowing offerings of fresh tobacco and cornmeal.].
The questions and answers posed in the book go along a whole spectrum of opinions toward archeology and how they have changed over time. One of the loudest arguments is for archeology in-situ. The other primary theme is that too many artifacts have been unfairly stolen and should be returned, something that many major institutions are starting to realize and comply with. "It matters where things are; stories are told differently as they get shuffled from one place to another. A statue in a museum guarded by a motion detector is not that same statue in a shrine with its feet being kissed off. Moving it under a roof may give us a new past to revel in, but at least consider the equal and opposite reaction: what has happened to the thing that has been lost?" From the archeologist who searched for years for a temple to discover a mural, restore and preserve it, and then leave it unmarked to the jungle once more--to the confusion of his colleagues--"But there isn’t a better spot, a place climate-controlled with an eternal power source not affected by earthquakes. The oldest building in the United States that is still standing is about three hundred fifty years old, and I’m not sold on that kind of longevity. This temple has been here for two thousand years. Beat that.”
The final question is about the future of museums and collections. The curator of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, questioned if in the centuries to come there would even be museums, but that for sure, "The collections you and I are now looking at will have gone home.”
The questions and answers posed in the book go along a whole spectrum of opinions toward archeology and how they have changed over time. One of the loudest arguments is for archeology in-situ. The other primary theme is that too many artifacts have been unfairly stolen and should be returned, something that many major institutions are starting to realize and comply with. "It matters where things are; stories are told differently as they get shuffled from one place to another. A statue in a museum guarded by a motion detector is not that same statue in a shrine with its feet being kissed off. Moving it under a roof may give us a new past to revel in, but at least consider the equal and opposite reaction: what has happened to the thing that has been lost?" From the archeologist who searched for years for a temple to discover a mural, restore and preserve it, and then leave it unmarked to the jungle once more--to the confusion of his colleagues--"But there isn’t a better spot, a place climate-controlled with an eternal power source not affected by earthquakes. The oldest building in the United States that is still standing is about three hundred fifty years old, and I’m not sold on that kind of longevity. This temple has been here for two thousand years. Beat that.”
The final question is about the future of museums and collections. The curator of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, questioned if in the centuries to come there would even be museums, but that for sure, "The collections you and I are now looking at will have gone home.”