Additional information from Ancient Coin Collecting about the Archeological Institute of America's ongoing efforts to control the definition of cultural property: In the latest issue of Archaeology magazine (Nov-Dec 2010) AIA President Brian Rose proposes an intriguing professional goal, saying — "We must preserve the whole cultural record." By "We", I presume that he means archaeologists, since nobody else on the planet would dare to dream so big. We need not guess about what he means by the "whole" record. Dr. Rose decries a series of events from the Damnatio Memoriae of Nero to the anti-Saddam activities of president day Iraqis and views a panoply of destructive events in history as examples of "Iconoclasm". He makes the interesting statement that "For me, as an archaeologist, there is no excuse for the destruction of cultural property..." he goes on to say "We may never be able to temper the passion for destruction, but we can at least situate those passions in historical perspective and ensure that today’s historical evidence will still be here tomorrow." Full post here.
