Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 3853725, member: 93416&quot;]Personally I fear we are treating the symptoms rather than the causes in this thread. I judge 1920’s events - the backlash against the rolling out of democracy - long prefigured what happened at UNESCO in the early 1950’s. By looking merely at 1970+ we are missing the real point. I judge more sophisticated comments on the fundamental problems raised here are found in this paper, on the Adam Smith Society web site:</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56eddde762cd9413e151ac92/t/5a968ca2ec212d0e8e9e4364/1519815844247/who-owns-the-past.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56eddde762cd9413e151ac92/t/5a968ca2ec212d0e8e9e4364/1519815844247/who-owns-the-past.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56eddde762cd9413e151ac92/t/5a968ca2ec212d0e8e9e4364/1519815844247/who-owns-the-past.pdf</a></p><p><br /></p><p>It represents an analysis of what was happening to the tradition of amateur archaeology in the UK in 1997 – a battle that I think has since been lost.</p><p><br /></p><p>I quote the author, Andrew Selkirk, in his defense of amateurism:</p><p><br /></p><p>“We need some fresh &#039;independent&#039; ideas in the interpretation of the past. And we need to establish an intellectual &#039;marketplace&#039; where such new ideas can emerge.”</p><p><br /></p><p>Perhaps this is a little unfair to Valentinian - but elsewhere he wrote</p><p><br /></p><p>“I don&#039;t mind not knowing. We can have lots of fun, and scholars can spend ink on the route to tenure, speculating about such matters.”</p><p><br /></p><p>I feel that tends to point us in exactly the opposite direction to the one Selkirk and I favour.</p><p><br /></p><p>Selkirk called his paper “Who owns the past?” If we accept a world where numismatists merely “have lots of fun” and leave the interpretation of the past to professionals - who are centrally organised by ultimately political masters - then we have relinquished claims of ownership of the past to those political masters.</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob T[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in