Norham Station
I can’t help but be fascinated with what is slipping from memory and becoming “history”. And the romance of the railway. Just found a wonderful site called “Forgotten relics” – it has a page on a favorite village of mine (the castle straight out of Scott’s “Marmion”) on a branch line in the Scottish borders [...]
Archaeological project design
Encountering the work of FARO in Flanders (see blog entry – [Link]) prompted me to think about our own project in the Roman borders at the Roman town of Binchester – VINOVIVM.org – and particularly in relation to the Council of Europe’s Faro Convention [Link] I talked about the implementation of broad principles and policies [...]
FARO – heritage futures
Faro – (Spanish, Italian, Portuguese) – lighthouse (after the Pharos of Alexandria, with its cultural beacons – the Library and Museum). Faro, Portugal – The European Convention of Faro: Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Council of Europe, 2005) – [Link]. FARO – the NGO cultural agency/consultancy in Flanders dedicated to [...]
Globalization – Mike Moore
Mike Moore, once new-labor Prime Minister of New Zealand, then Director General of the World Trade Organization, champion of neoliberalism, has written a new book about globalization. And he has made me think again about our world today, about the big picture. I wouldn’t have looked at the book if I hadn’t met Mike in [...]
Rotterdam – International Advisory Board
My second year serving as advisor to the Mayor of Rotterdam. Link Discussion at the top of the Port Authority HQ, Rotterdam Why? Because the politics of cultural heritage are now at the heart of any enlightened economic and social planning. My argument – figuring out where we need to go depends upon knowing where [...]
Behind the Locked Door
An archaeology of the store rooms of the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford Don’t you often wonder about what museums keep in their store rooms, but rarely manage to display? The hidden, perhaps forgotten, treasures of “The Archive” Last year, between March 2007 and April 2008, in a small gallery off the main stair well in [...]
Mortal remains, guilt and the loss of the past
Press release from the Ministry of Culture in the UK UK National Museums Get New Powers To Return Human Remains Nine national UK museums, including the British Museum and the Natural History Museum, have this week acquired powers to move human remains out of their collections as the Government brought section 47 of the Human [...]
“Heritage USA”
Abram (Stern) has put me on to the recent Boing Boing link to photos of the rotting Jesusland built by Jim Bakker. Illicitohio.com spcializes in urban exploration in and around Ohio, photographing abandoned buildings and structures. They have a gallery devoted to “Heritage USA” and the PTL Club – 2000 acres of a Christian evangelist [...]
Invented traditions – the case of the Percy family
Alnwick Castle, Scottish borders – Northumberland UK – home of Harry Potter As I prepare for a month of fieldwork along Hadrian’s Wall in the UK and north into Walter Scott country, never mind the rock art and superbly preserved agricultural landscapes, I came across a new attraction at Alnwick Castle, the fabulous medieval border [...]
Tim Webmoor on social software and heritage politics
Great talk last night from Tim Webmoor at our New Media workshop at Stanford. He is working at the fabulous site of Teotihuacan, Mexico, on different attitudes and understandings of the site – local and beyond. Teotihuacan has become emblematic of the Mexican state and Mexican heritage. I posted some comments last year from Meg [...]
Bulgaria’s golden archaeological hopes
BBC item today Bulgaria’s ancient Thracian heritage has been thrust into the spotlight this year with a number of key archaeological discoveries in the so-called “Valley of the Thracian Kings”. The golden treasures are attracting international attention and there is a push to make the Thracian heritage Bulgaria’s trademark abroad in a bid to boost [...]
Information is a verb (continued)
The beginnings of a digital dark age? Just came across this perceptive piece about digital archives in SAP INFO “Digital Information Will Never Survive by Accident” – an interview with Neil Beagrie of the British Library. (This came to me via the excellent blog – Stoa.org.) Here is an excerpt: Mr. Beagrie, in modern societies [...]
“The massacre of Mesopotamian archaeology”
More reports of the damage done to cultural heritage in the Middle East in The Daily Star (Lebanon) NASIRIYA, Iraq: In the southern Iraq desert, the standing structures of ancient archaeological cities dot the horizon – majestic monuments to times long gone.? Untouched for thousands of years, historic temples, palaces, tombs and entire dead cities [...]
land, community, heritage and Wal-Mart at Teotihuacan
Great comment from Meg (Butler) on past-present relationships in Mexico. Another interesting case of past/present relationships with landscape and monuments began getting press coverage this past week. I have provided below links to various articles. A controversial decision to build a Wal-Mart close to Teotihuacan provoked some very different responses from supporters and opponents. The [...]
the color of the past – technicolor and the physiognomy of nostalgia
The color of nostalgia? I mentioned last week our visit to Stanford Theatre and the showing of “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (and incidentally this movie appeared in my book “Experiencing the Past”). The technicolor print was stunning. Boonville September 2004 Of late, and in connection with my Metamedia Lab’s project to explore the metariality [...]
is ethnic identity genetic?
August 27 – DNAPrint Launches EURO-DNA(TM) 1.0 DNAPrint genomics has announced today that it has launched EURO-DNA(TM) 1.0, the world’s first genetic test for determining intracontinental subpopulation (i.e. “ethnic”) admixture. EURO-DNA(TM) 1.0 provides customers their percentages of Northern European, Southeast European (Mediterranean), Middle Eastern and South Asian ancestry. Price for new customers – $399 – [...]
cross-Atlantic rural nostalgias?
An example of that rural nostalgia embedded in a particular look or aesthetic that we have been talking about [Link] I bought the Thomas the Tank Engine stories for my Ben today. The series does very well in the US and plays heavily on something I thought quite unique to the UK – not just [...]
the innocence of rural remains?
Thanks to Cornelius, Matthew and Troels for some very astute comment on the recent BBC item about the decline of the English countryside and its transformation into a cultural or heritage playgound – [Link] Key points for me – the remains of the past are wrapped up in relationships between city and “countryside” (a great [...]
loss and history’s physiognomy
An elegy for the UK countryside Item in the BBC Magazine. Half a century ago, probably even in the last two or three decades, the UK countryside had a definite purpose. It was essential to the entire country, because it was where much of our food was produced, which meant employment. Today we depend on [...]
archaeological intimacy – on looking at everyday things
Meg Butler left a wonderful story as comment on the photos of the apartment in San Jose. Both the pictures and your comments remind me of a small town in Texas that I visited. My first impression was of a dying town. It isn’t on a main highway or interstate, it isn’t touristy in any [...]
the archaeological imagination
Some years ago back in Lampeter Julian Thomas and I used to talk about something we called the archaeological imagination. We were close to a host of superb human geographers in the next corridor who were reshaping their field (Chris Philo, Ulf Stroymeyer, Catherine Nash, Ian Cook, Tim Cresswell, Hester Parr, Miles Ogborn, Joe Painter, [...]
Greek Olympics?
An intelligent comment today in the NYT on the mismatch between modern and ancient Olympics [Link - "The Way We Live Now: What Olympic Ideal?" - Daniel Mendelsohn (Princeton)] (Thanks to Jody Maxmin for putting me on to this.) Main point – the Greeks were very different to how most people imagine them to be. [...]
