Re: Iraqi Museum: Many of its reported
"missing artifa
I am having a one hell of a time with the
American
generated press releases trying to sanitize what
happened by saying now "it's only a few dozen
artifacts."
Just because they have been able to recover countless
heretofore stolen/missing artifacts so that the number
"lost" to us all today is much less doesn't for a
minute negate the fact that, when the situation first
happened, there were thousands of pieces unaccounted
for. ...
Lives that were lost and human beings
that were
tortured are horrific things. But the loss of
artifacts that have survived 4,000 years of wars and
were preserved for all to see will not be around for
the next 4,000 years (of wars because humans are so
unsophisticated in that regard no matter their country
of origin), and that is a genuine travesty.
I am embarrassed for these cover
uppers!
Indigo Nights
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============
May 9, 2003
I'm with you, Indigo, but I think I'm more disgusted with the
whole thing than embarrassed.
I sent the following message to the group two or three weeks ago
and only received one response. I can't believe that we as
museum people don't have something to say on the subject:
Since it appears on the surface that the
history of a country is not worth the temporary use of a couple of
tanks or a squad of soldiers, maybe we as museum people can make our
own plans. First of all, my idea does not address the physical
artifacts themselves. I'm assuming they're all gone. Just
like Iraq. But what can we do ahead of time to minimize the
hurt. ("Hurt" in this instance means going into a
totally empty museum or library. "Hurt" also means
what it does to us inside.)
Here's my suggestion: Take amazingly detailed photographs, make
photos that can be enlarged to high-quality frameable copies, make
measurements and detailed descriptions and histories of each and every
important item in your collection, starting from the most precious -
history-wise - on down. This includes both physical objects and
manuscripts and other paper materials, plus all documentation.
No doubt many of you do this now.
Then, send computer files of your collection to all the important
museums in the world. For the sake of argument we'll say you
send your collection file to 50 or 100 different museums in many
different countries.
The museum receiving your collection file will in turn store it in a
safe place. Based on the terms of your storage agreement, they
can either make use of it for themselves and their visitors or else
keep it sealed and in a vault. Or anywhere in
between.
Then when a museum or major library gets wiped out, as happened in
Iraq, access to several backup copies of the contents of the destroyed
institution would be available worldwide. Obviously these would
be invaluable in case your documentation (card catalogs, etc.) was
looted or destroyed as well as the artifacts themselves.
That's it in a nutshell. Granted it would take a great amount of
money to put into effect, and would have to be upgraded frequently,
but if the idea was presented to some of your major donors, perhaps a
few would be willing to dig a bit deeper in their pockets to
permanently record your collection.
Thoughts on this plan - to the group, if you will - are
welcomed.
-Jim
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