Dear Everyone this letter was meant to go to the person directly but I lost the address! Dear Fritz, Thankyou so much for your response. I lost your direct address but I really want to reply. You wrote that an authentic object is "capable of proving certain facts without any doubt". I am not so sure about an object being able to prove certain facts beyond a doubt. It reminds me of the old joke about the doctor and the alcholic. The Doctor sits down with the al cholic with one glass of water and one glass of whisky. He puts an earthworm in each. The one in the water lives and the one in the alchol dies. His intention is to show the alcholic that water is essential to life but that over indulgence in alchol brings death. "Oh, I see", says the alch oholic, "the lesson here is that if I drink whisky I won't get worms". What I mean, in a long winded way, is that I think what we ultimately prove has a lot to do with what we had in mind in the first place. I think an object can be proof of its ta ngible qualities but not of meanings. Is it not possible that an object has no meaning whatsoever unless we attach meanings to it? Of course, I acknowledge that those meanings are highl y selective and are most certainly complicated. Moving on from this, if I view objects in this light then I guess I would see au thenticity largely as you defined it from the Greek but a `truth' that has an examinable va lue system. Thus we may call a painting an authentic Renoir meaning that is was painted by Renoir . This is true but I would be questioning the reasons why we cared who painted it as opposed to caring about the qualtiy of the painting or its subject matter. (This is not to say that these th ings don't come into it but I would say much further down the list of importance in this case). Also, if I pursue this line of thought further...If one centres the meaning in t he object then the museologist becomes the facilitator which is a far more passive role then if one claims that it is the museologist who gives the object meaning. By this I do not mean to say museologists are inventing heritage but that their interpretive action is influenced by outside f orces rather than anything intrinsic to the object. Anyway that is enough of my meanderings. My Duetsch is pretty scratchy but if I can find your book I will certainly attempt a reading! Cheers, Jennifer