Ark Haim

Museum
International

Archaeological sites and site museums

Vol L, n2, april 1998

STOLEN
Oil painting on wood entitled Boerenhoeve (A Farm) by Pieter Balten, dated 1581, monogram at bottom
right. Diameter 23 cm. Estimated value NLG 150,000. Stolen on 13 April 1997 from a museum in The Hague,
Netherlands. (Reference 6.165.1/97.6261, Interpol, The Hague.)
Photo by courtesy of the ICPOInterpol General Secretariat, Lyons (France)
3 U N ESCO 1997 ISSN 1350-0775, Museum International (U N ESCO , Paris), N o. 198 (V ol. 50, N o. 2,1998)
U N ESCO 1998
Published by B lackw ell Publishers, 108 Cow ley Road, O xford, O X 4 1JF (U K ) and 350 M ain Street, M alden, M A 02148 (U SA)
Editorial
O n 26 N ovem ber 1922 the archaeologist H ow ard Carter lived w hat he later called the day
of days, the m ost w onderful that I have ever lived through. Standing before the sealed
door of the long-lost tom b of Tutankham en in Egypts Valley of the K ings, he m ade a sm all
opening and peered through it. W hen asked if he could see anything Carter replied, Y es,
w onderful things.H e w as, as he described, dum bstruck w ith am azem ent . . . as m y eyes
grew accustom ed to the light, details of the room w ithin em erged slow ly from the m ist,
strange anim als, statues and gold everyw here the glint of gold.
1
The story of Carters opening of Tutankham ens tom b has passed into legend, illustrating
how the archaeologists discovery of the past thrills and fascinates us today. Schliem anns
unearthing of Troy, Bingham s find of M achu Picchu, the exploit of four adolescent boys w ho
stum bled on the French cave of Lascaux and so on: the list is long of the fabled rem ains that
archaeology has brought to light, firing our im agination and creating an ongoing dialogue
w ith the past. Yet this dialogue is com plex and not w ithout contradictions, for the clues, the
keys to unlocking the secrets of ancient w orlds, reside in the present and in those vestiges
that have survived the vagaries of tim e; w e cannot know w hat has been irretrievably lost
w hich m ight shed a different light on w hat has rem ained.
But archaeology is nothing if not a lesson in resourcefulness, im agination and the
adaptation of science and technology to its ow n ends. Aerial photography, carbon dating,
pollen anaysis, satellite im agery and com puter sim ulation, are but a few of the advances
that have helped transform the archaeologists w ork. Biology, botany, chem istry, geology,
history, psychology and art are but som e of the disciplines that com e into play.
The success of archaeology in capturing the publics interest has, how ever, created new
challenges: the need for greater involvem ent of environm ental specialists in excavation
and field-w ork; the effects of m ass tourism and the establishm ent of that delicate balance
betw een the publics right of access to its cultural heritage and the w ell-being and very
survival of that heritage; the shift from a traditionally m ale-oriented interpretation and
em phasis on so-called m asculine activities hunting, toolm aking to a broader view of
how ancient societies m ay have functioned; a new aw areness and sensitivity to the view s
of indigenous peoples; a heightened concern w ith looting and illicit trade in archaeologi-
cal finds, to nam e but a few .
2
W hat, then, is the role of the site m useum , that repository of fragm ents, artefacts and objects
in situ in their age-old context? H ow can it preserve, protect and above all m ake m eaningful
the often random finds that could reconstruct past w ays of life and illum inate the processes
that underlie and condition hum an behaviour? Again, the issues are com plex, for they touch
on questions of politics and ethics, history and self-im age, w hich can in no w ay be w holly
scientificor objective, and w hich m ake clear that, in the last analysis, archaeology is no m ore
and no less than a critical contem porary discussion of the past.
3
U N ESCO has long been concerned w ith this subject; indeed, one of the O rganizations
early norm ative instrum ents w as the Recom m endation on International Principles
Applicable to Archaeological Excavations, adopted in D ecem ber 1956, w hich specifically
m entions the need for site m useum s. W e thus w ished to look at both the broader issues
now involved and the specific w ays in w hich m useum s are confronting them . O ur
profound thanks go to Rachel H achlili, professor in the departm ent of Archaeology and
M useum Studies at the U niversity of H aifa (Israel), w ho helped co-ordinate this special
dossier. H er breadth of know ledge, vision and enthusiasm w ere invaluable. M L
Notes
1. Arnold C. Brackm an, The Search for the Gold of Tutankhamen, N ew York, Sim on & Schuster, 1976.
2. Paul G . Bahn (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of Archaeology, Cam bridge U niversity Press,
1996.
3. Ibid.
4
Rachel Hachlili
U N ESCO 1998
A question of interpretation
Rachel Hachlili
In recent years, the problems confronting
site museums all over the world have
come to the fore. In May/June 1993, they
were addressed at an international
symposium, Interpreting the Past:
Presenting Archaeological Sites to the
Public, conducted by the University of
Haifa, Israel, and co-chaired by Rachel
Hachlili. Subsequently, an international
seminar on a similar theme, UNESCO-
Forum: Universities and Heritage, was
organized in Valencia, Spain, in 1996,
and a second seminar was convened in
Quebec, Canada, in October 1997. In
introducing this special dossier Rachel
Hachlili evokes some of the problems
encountered by professionals involved
with site museums, ways in which these
problems have been solved, and new
developments in the field. The author was
a founder of the Hecht Museum at the
University of Haifa and directed it for
four years; she also founded and directed
the Museum Studies Programme at the
university and has carried out fieldwork
at a number of excavations in Israel.
Among her publications is Ancient
Jew ish Art and Archaeology in the Land
of Israel, published by Brill, Leiden.
ISSN 1350-0775,Museum International (U N ESCO , Paris), N o. 198 (V ol. 50, N o. 2,1998)
U N ESCO 1998
Published by B lackw ell Publishers, 108 Cow ley Road, O xford, O X 4 1JF (U K ) and 350 M ain Street, M alden, M A 02148 (U SA )
The increase in archaeological excavations
all over the w orld w hich, during recent
years, have becom e tourist draw s, has
m agnified the problem of site presentation
to the public. It has becom e a m ajor
concern to m any archaeologists, archi-
tects, designers and m anagers of cultural
heritage. This popularity of archaeology is
reflected in the publics fascination, re-
sponse and participation in such sites.
But before the public can be invited to visit
a site, how ever, it is necessary to ensure its
preservation and protection. Am ong the
different problem s confronting site m use-
um s are how to preserve both the archaeo-
logical sites after excavations and rescue
operations, how to m aintain the m aterial
evidence of the past, and how to ensure the
salvation of our cultural heritage. Also
essential to the question of site m useum s is
how m uch inform ation is available for
display, and how m uch reconstruction can
be carried out.
O ther difficult choices confront m anagers of
national heritage in the face of financial and
tim e lim itations. W hich sites should
be rescued and w hich allow ed to be
destroyed? W hich parts of the past should be
preserved for the future? And, m ost im por-
tantly, on w hose behalf w ill the chosen sites
be preserved and sustained? Criteria m ust be
established regarding preservation decisions
and the designation of w ho w ill apply them .
O nce chosen for preservation, such sites
should serve the public interest, and offer
facilities for teaching and research, educa-
tional activity and program m es, scientific
w ork and experim ents. The visitor m ust be
provided w ith a portrait of the history of the
site, perm anent inform ative texts, and visitor
facilities. In the presentation and display of
archaeological sites it is necessary to m ar-
shal a w ide variety of educational, eco-
nom ic, tourist and recreational resources.
Site exhibitions should include ex-
planations of the m otivation for the
building of the site, and describe the
history and life of the people w ho lived
there. The social, econom ic and politi-
cal aspects of the site should be illum i-
nated, and the cultural history and her-
itage recounted, including an explora-
tion of its roots. The natural environ-
m ent of the site and how it changed is
also an essential issue. The display should
be concerned w ith public perception,
political attitudes, and national tradi-
tions. It should provide an integral pres-
entation w ith a vivid reconstruction of
life at the site, creating an environm ent
corresponding to the respective period.
A rtefacts excavated at the site should be
displayed throughout.
Exhibitions are an effective m eans of in-
terpreting the past, and conveying infor-
m ation to be assim ilated by the visitors.
The m ore they engage the visitorsinter-
ests and em otions, and create an enjoy-
able experience, the m ore likely they are
to learn. Studies conducted recently found
that the m ost im portant factors at visitors
centres appear to be the interpretive them e,
the presentation m edia, and the overall
atm osphere of the displays. The m ost
effective exhibitions in term s of increasing
understanding, enjoym ent and m otivation
w ere those that had historical and hum an
interest them es w ith w hich visitors could
identify.
W hile in older displays the static exhibi-
tion of objects prevailed, and they w ere
expected to speak for them selves, recent
trends in site presentation show m ajor
changes. Today, the im portance of inter-
pretation and interaction is em phasized. A
tendency tow ards com m ercialization is
also observable. M any displays aim for
m ore objectivityand less ideological
influence.
5
A question of interpretation
U N ESCO 1998
Several exam ples of recent trends in inter-
pretation used by m useum s built on ar-
chaeological excavation sites should be
m entioned. O ne of these, the Jorvik Vi-
king Centre in the U nited K ingdom ,
presents a full scale reconstruction. The
Y ork Archaeological Trust designed the
site, the Anglo-Scandinavian Coppergate,
based on all the archaeological data avail-
able from the excavations as w ell as the
addition of sights, sounds and sm ells.
Thus, a tenth-century neighbourhood w as
re-created. A special device of a ride in a
backw ards-m oving car is em ployed to trans-
port the view er. Visitors are further pro-
vided w ith descriptions of archaeological
w ork, archaeological rem ains, excavation
offices and laboratories, and a display of
artefacts.
Another exam ple is the Ancient Q azrin
Talm udic H ouse, in the G olan H eights.
The house is equipped w ith typical furni-
ture and displays actual household objects
and building m aterial recovered from the
original structure, and show s local and
period craft activities. M egiddo (Arm aged-
don), a site currently being prepared by an
international group consisting of the Israel
N ational Parks Authority, the D epartm ent
of Archaeology at Tel Aviv U niversity, and
the East Flanders G overnm ent, Belgium ,
w ill use an audiovisual program m e and
non-intrusive hi-tech equipm ent to en-
hance its presentation of local life.
These exhibitions succeed not only in
com m unicating inform ation, but attitudes,
values, and aesthetics as w ell. The activi-
ties of these site m useum s relate to real life.
As such, they reach out to the com m unity
and present hum an qualities w ith w hich
the visitors can personally identify.
Site m useum s are proliferating in m any
countries around the globe. Their popular-
ity is grow ing and w ith it the need for a
clearer understanding of the specific prob-
lem s related to them . It is hoped that the
articles in this special issue of Museum
International w ill prove a useful and w el-
com e addition to their study and develop-
m ent w orldw ide. I
Select bibliography
A D D Y M A N , P. V. Reconstruction as
Interpretation: The Exam ple of the Jorvik
Viking Centre, Y ork. In: P. G athercole
and Low enthal (eds.), The Politics of the
Past, pp. 257264. London, 1990.
G A TH ERCO LE , P.; LO W EN TH A L (eds.). The Politics
of the Past. London, 1990.
K A PLAN , F. E. S. (ed.). Museums and the
Making of Ourselves, The Role of Objects
in National Identity. London/N ew Y ork,
1994.
K ILLEB REW , A; FIN E, S. Q asrin Reconstructing
Village Life in Talm udic Tim es, Biblical
Archaeology Review , Vol. 17, N o. 3, 1991,
pp. 4457.
V A RIN E-BO H A N , H . D E . The M odern M useum :
Requirem ents and Problem s of a N ew
Approach. Museum, Vol. 28, N o. 3, 1976,
pp. 13143.
6
Christos Doumas
U N ESCO 1998
Excavation and rescue operations:
w hat to preserve and w hy
Christos Doumas
The major economic outlay that goes into
the excavation, conservation and
presentation of an archaeological site
justifies the question,Why should a
society underwrite this expenditure and
what should it expect in return? In other
words, as Christos Doumas points out,
the philosophy of site preservation should
be clearly defined and understood so that
public policy aims at both safeguarding
of cultural heritage and protecting
society from pointless effort and expense.
The author is a professor in the
Department of History and Archaeology
at the University of Athens.
U N ESCO 1998
M ans interest in his rem ote past is lost in
the depths of history and is echoed in the
creation m yths that exist in all cultures.
Architectural rem ains or graves of earlier
periods, attributed to heroes and m ythical
forebears, have alw ays held a special fas-
cination and have been treated w ith re-
spect. Indeed, for m any peoples these
ancestral m onum ents are, in a w ay, the title
deeds to a specific territory. M oreover,
instances abound of invaders and con-
querors vandalizing m onum ents and de-
stroying cem eteries in order to obliterate
the ethnic identity of those they subju-
gated. So the preservation of visible m onu-
m ents and the discovery of others is of
special significance for a people.
This significance w as dim inished if not
destroyed from the m om ent archaeology
w as established as a scientific discipline and
excavation becam e its basic m ethod of
research. In their endeavour to com e closer
to a distant past and indeed to eras for
w hich there are no w ritten texts archaeolo-
gists have used this m ethod to bring m any
m onum ents to light over the last 200 years.
H ow ever, excavation, as part of the investi-
gative process, is by definition a destructive
m ethod: it com pletely obliterates the envi-
ronm ent and the conditions in w hich the
archaeological evidence w as preserved for
thousands of years. And this destruction in
order to reveal a m onum ent exposes it
suddenly to a new environm ent and new
conditions that m ay w ell be hostile for its
subsequent survival. In other w ords, exca-
vation can be com pared to a book, each
page of w hich is destroyed im m ediately
after it is read for the first tim e. That is,
inform ation recorded in the ground and
relating to the history of the m onum ent from
the tim e of its creation until the m om ent of
the archaeologists intervention is destroyed.
For this reason the onus of responsibility on
the excavator as an individual and on the
body that decides to conduct an excavation
is great. W hat criteria determ ine w hether to
excavate or not? Answ ers to the questions
W hy am I digging?, W hat am I digging?,
H ow am I digging?, can help in form ulating
the criteria on w hich the decision to carry
out an excavation is taken.
Why am I digging?
It is thus clear that the sole aim of an
archaeological excavation is, or should be,
to advance scholarly research in the study
of the past. Such an excavation is fre-
quently com bined w ith the educational
process: it serves as a laboratory in w hich
young scientifists are instructed in the
process of archaeological research. H ow -
ever, experience has show n that scientific
research is often invoked as a pretext for
other, often spurious, am bitions. And by
this w e do not im ply grave robbing, that is
to say, clandestine excavation exlcusively
for recovering m ovable finds, ancient w orks
of art, for the purpose of selling them .
In G reece recently it has becom e the
fashion for just about every m ayor to lobby
for an excavation in his village, not be-
cause he w ants to learn or w ants his fellow
villagers to learn about the ancient history
of their area this m ay be a reason but as
a rule village m ayors w ith such interests are
the exception but to attract tourism . The
association of tourism w ith archaeology
and m onum ents is regarded as a panacea,
and since it is a com m on conviction that
tourism brings w ealth, excavation to reveal
m onum ents is deem ed essential for a re-
gions prosperity. This capitalizing concept
of the usefulness of excavation differs little
from the m otives for excavations con-
ducted in the past to legitim ize the national
identity of the G reek people after their
liberation from the O ttom an yoke. In both
cases excavation as a scientific m ethod is
suspect. Since the preordained aim is not
7
Excavation and rescue operations: w hat to preserve and w hy
U N ESCO 1998
strictly scientific, the danger of m anipulat-
ing the data is great. Excavations w ith such
aim s should alw ays be avoided.
There is of course the case of the so-called
rescue excavations, that is, those carried
out in order to salvage m onum ents or
inform ation about them , w hich are other-
w ise in danger of destruction due to con-
struction w ork on a m ajor or m inor scale.
What am I digging?
Prior know ledge of the kind and character
of the m onum ent that the archaeologists
spade is called on to bring to light is
extrem ely useful and can solve m any of the
problem s likely to arise in the course of the
excavation process. Isolated architectural
m onum ents, com plexes of m onum ents or
settlem ents, cem eteries or solitary graves:
each poses its ow n class of problem s,
dem anding a specific approach, particular
equipm ent and techniques, and appropri-
ate specialist technicians. For exam ple, the
m ovable finds recovered from the excava-
tion of a settlem ent are different from those
found in graves. The latter, constituting a
peculiar context, m ay produce evidence of
m aterials that are not norm ally preserved
in the ground, such as organic m atter,
bones, leather objects, papyrus, etc. As a
rule, this evidence is fragile and sensitive,
and at risk of perishing after sudden expo-
sure to another environm ent. W hen the
archaeologist know s that evidence of this
kind m ight w ell com e to light in the course
of the excavation, he w ill be better pre-
pared to save and conserve it.
How do I dig?
Starting from the prem iss that excavation is
by definition a destructive process, the
m anner of collecting the m axim um possi-
ble inform ation, keeping it safe and ensur-
ing future access to it m ust be the excava-
tors basic concerns. Since the excavation
is a book w hich is read only once, the
reader/excavator should understand it as
fully as possible. H e/she should also record
the inform ation from the ground in such a
w ay that it is possible, theoretically, to
reconstruct the environm ent (context) in
w hich it w as kept. So, albeit destructive,
excavation can be justified only to the
degree that the recording of the inform a-
tion perm its the potential reconstruction of
this environm ent. M odern technology al-
low s this detailed recording in the form of
Since the discovery of ancient objects
and their exposure to a new generally
hostile environment takes place
suddenly, their conservation essentially
begins in the trench, where first aid is
administered. Here, the discovery in
1995 of Hellenistic statues from between
the fourth and third centuries B.C. at
Loukos in central Greece.
8
Christos Doumas
U N ESCO 1998
w ritten description (daybooks), plans/draw -
ings, photographs, film s/videos, casts, etc.
The basic precondition for conducting an
excavation is the continuous presence of
specialist conservators, depending on the
kind of finds. Since the discovery of an-
cient objects and their exposure to a new
generally hostile environm ent takes
place suddenly, their conservation essen-
tially begins in the trench, w here first aid
is adm inistered. The belief that the conser-
vation of finds begins after their transfer to
the laboratory is erroneous. Very often it is
then too late.
O n account of the high cost of each excava-
tion, the num ber of system atic, i.e. pro-
gram m ed, excavations has been reduced
drastically in recent years. H ow ever, the
execution of m ajor technical projects, a
consequence of econom ic developm ent,
has led to an increase in both the num ber
and extent of so-called rescue excavations.
From the tim e hum an beings began living in
perm anent settlem ents they chose the m ost
suitable sites in term s of geom orphology,
natural resources and clim atic conditions. In
G reece, alm ost all the m odern tow ns and
cities have a history of several m illennia of
continuous habitation. Athens, Piraeus,
Thessaloniki, Patras, Larissa, Volos, Thebes,
Argos, Aegion, to m ention just a few exam -
ples, are cities and tow ns w hich conceal
thousands of years of history, recorded in
stratified deposits several m etres deep un-
der the m odern houses. So any w orks
intended to m axim ize exploitation of urban
land, by erecting m ulti-storey buildings, or
to im prove the urban infrastructure w ater
supply, drainage, sew erage, electricity, com -
m unications netw orks, etc. have to con-
tend inevitably w ith the existence of im por-
tant antiquities. The construction of the
underground railw ay system in Athens, w hich
has transform ed the city into an enorm ous
w ork site, is a case in point.
Building and other activities in and outside
the cities and tow ns has m eant that D epart-
m ents of Antiquities throughout the coun-
try have been transform ed into huge exca-
vation team s w hich carriy out their w ork
under the constant pressure of econom ic
interests, large or sm all, and under the
threat of m echanical diggers. The disad-
vantages of these operations, know n as
rescue excavations, are m any. The first and
greatest problem em erges from the lack of
co-ordination betw een the different state
services. D ecisions to carry out projects are
not taken in collaboration w ith the Ar-
chaeological Service, the only body re-
sponsible under the G reek Constitution to
uncover and protect antiquities. So they
are begun and then interrupted in order to
conduct excavations. Apart from the enor-
m ous financial burden on the project in
progress, this course of action also has
adverse effects on the antiquities. First of
all, the responsible D epartm ent of Antiqui-
ties is under the constant threat of surprise
and m ust be ready to go ahead w ith
excavations w ithout foreknow ledge of the
specific site and the kind of m onum ents
concealed there. In such cases it is difficult
to plan the excavation, w hich is often
conducted w ithout the essential provisions
described above.
City centres: a special challenge
The proliferation of rescue excavations,
prim arily in urban centres, conceals other
serious dangers for the antiquities. The
continuous recovery of m ovable and im -
m ovable finds m akes it im possible to
conserve them im m ediately. So, on the one
hand, the im m ovable m onum ents are ex-
posed from the outset to deterioration,
even before their docum entation is com -
pleted, and, on the other, the m ovable
ones are cram m ed into inadequate store-
room s until no one know s w hen their
9
Excavation and rescue operations: w hat to preserve and w hy
U N ESCO 1998
turn com es to be w ashed, cleaned and
conserved. As for their study and the
draw ing of conclusions on the history of
the site w here they w ere preserved for
thousands of years, the least said the better.
It is true that over the last few decades a
policy of preserving notew orthy im m ovable
m onum ents in the basem ents of new urban
buildings has been im plem ented, w ith satis-
factory results. The problem is m ore com -
plex w hen an ancient m onum ent extends
below m ore than one m odern property, and
its investigation, docum entation and evalu-
ation are consequently incom plete.
A second m ethod of protection that has
been applied in G reece is to rebury the
m onum ents after excavation by filling in
the site w here they w ere found. This
strategy, applied in both the urban envi-
ronm ent and the countryside, perhaps
constitutes the safest one for preservation.
Another effective m ethod is the roofing of
both single m onum ents and groups of m onu-
m ents. This ensures that the m onum ents
thus preserved are visible and visitable, that
is, accessible to both specialist and layperson
alike. H ow ever, apart from the considerable
financial outlay involved, the erection of a
shelter presents the problem of spoiling the
natural landscape. In recent years attem pts
have been m ade to reduce the unfavourable
effects on the environm ent w ith solutions
attuned to local circum stances. For exam -
ple, the roofing of the entire funerary com -
plex beneath a subterranean vault at Vergina,
W estern M acedonia, perm itted the restora-
tion of the form of the ancient tum ulus that
originally covered the royal tom bs. The new
roofing of the prehistoric city at Akrotiri,
Thera, w hich w as com pletely buried under
thick layers of volcanic ash in the m id-
seventeenth century B .C ., w ill also be under-
ground. Roofing also provides the possibil-
ity of creating m useum sites. By com bining
the enhancem ent of the m onum ents w ith
them atic on-site exhibitions, the educational
character of the site is m ore effectively
prom oted and the history of the society that
created the specific m onum ents is m ore
vividly experienced and understood.
O f the efforts m ade so far to protect and
preserve m onum ents it has becom e clear
that each case is a singular one and m ust be
confronted on its ow n m erits. In addition
to the factor of cost, that of purpose m ust
be taken into consideration w hen choos-
ing the m anner of preserving the testim o-
nies of the past. For if preservation is
ensured by filling in the site, for exam ple,
the m onum ent cannot be exploited for
tourism or education since it ceases to be
visible and visitable. I
Any works intended to maximize
exploitation of urban land . . . have to
contend inevitably with the discovery of
important antiquities. Building
construction in the Rocks quarter of
Sydney, Australia, was interrupted by the
discovery in 1995 of an important
archaeological site.
10
Bengt Edgren
U N ESCO 1998
Eketorp Rediviva: an ongoing
scientific discussion
Bengt Edgren
The subject of archaeological
reconstruction gives rise to heated debate
between detractors and supporters. Bengt
Edgren of Swedens Central Board of
National Antiquities, National Historical
Museums, makes the case that by
bringing the archaeological heritage to
life through careful reconstruction, a site
can become both a source of continuing
scientific discovery as well as a tourist,
educational and economic resource. The
encounter between excavation and
reconstruction, visitor and archaeologist
at Eketorp has been, in his view, a
resounding success, and the
experimental part of the project has often
led archaeologists to re-examine and
reinterpret the excavation results.
U N ESCO 1998
The first archaeological reconstruction in
Scandinavia w as a stone-age house built in
1879 in D enm ark. The house is still stand-
ing in the open-air m useum in O dense. In
Sw eden, a first attem pt appears in an
experim ent carried out in 1919 on the
initiative of the Sw edish ethnologist, Ernst
Klein. H elped by count Eric von Rosn, the
experim ent took place on his estate,
Rockelstad, south of Stockholm . Tw o stu-
dents w ith the right physical qualities w ere
em ployed to live Stone Age life during the
sum m er of 1919. That m eant gathering
food for them selves and building their ow n
house w ith replica Stone Age tools. The
experim ent is described by Klein in his
book Stone-Age Life.
1
Klein explains that he
w anted to get a clear view of som e of the
technical problem s people had to face at
that tim e and, if possible, find solutions. To
live under the sam e conditions w ould
m ake it easier to com e to a probable
conclusion than through a theoretical analy-
sis of Stone Age m aterial.
Kleins statem ent is very clear. Practical
experim ents can often be superior to theo-
retical hypotheses. I believe this opinion is
present in m ost projects dealing w ith ar-
chaeological reconstructions, although
m ore or less em phasized by the different
archaeologists involved.
In Sw eden, the next reconstruction cam e
in 1932 at Lojsta, on the island of G otland
in the Baltic. After having excavated an
Iron-Age house from the M igration Period
(A.D . 400550), the excavators asked the
D irector G eneral of the Central Board of
N ational Antiquities in Stockholm for per-
m ission to rebuild the house on the site.
Perm ission w as given under the condition
that the rem ains of the excavated house be
protected w ith a layer of soil. The recon-
struction at Lojsta still stands and is today
a m onum ent in its ow n right.
After Lojsta H all no reconstructions w ere
m ade in Sw eden until the Central Board of
N ational Antiquities started rebuilding
Eketorp ring-fort. Eketorp is situated on
the island of land, east of the Sw edish
m ainland, w here there are m ore than 10,000
registered prehistoric m onum ents. The
m ajority date from the Iron Age and m ost
of them are various kinds of graves.
The m ost im portant evidence of Iron Age
daily life is m ore than 1,300 preserved
houses w ith connected fencing system s.
There are at least fifteen ring-forts, all built
during the early Iron Age. The southernm ost
of them is Eketorp. The prehistoric m onu-
m ents are so conspicuous on land that no
visitor to the island can help adm iring them
and asking questions about w hat they
represent. To try to explain this by m eans
of reconstructions is therefore m ore natu-
ral and reasonable on land than in any
other province in Sw eden.
Eketorp w as described by the fam ous
Sw edish scientist Carl von Linn (Linnaeus),
w ho visited the site in 1741. H e w rote: W e
saw Eketorp ring-fort w ith its ruins and
collapsed w alls, w hich lay a quarter of a
m ile from the eastern shore and w hich w as
in tim es past one of the finest on this island:
for it w as one m usket shot in diam eter w ith
a w ell in the m iddle w hich alw ays yields
Lojsta Hall, an Iron
Age house
reconstructed in
1932.
11
Eketorp Rediviva: an ongoing scientific discussion
U N ESCO 1998
w ater. W ithout any doubt these forts w ere
places of refuge for the islanders before
pow der and bullets w ere invented.
2
Betw een the visit of Linnaeus and Eketorps
status today as one of the m ost visited
archaeological m useum s in Sw eden, the
excavation that took place from 1964 till
1973 confirm ed Linneaussupposition that
the fort had once been a refuge for the
islanders in ancient tim es.
The excavations
The excavations revealed three different
settlem ents, nam ed Eketorp-I, II and III.
These settlem ents all existed on the sam e
spot, on top of each other, Eketorp-I at the
bottom and Eketorp-III at the top.
Eketorp-I had a ring-w all w ith a diam eter
of 57 m etres. In the south w as a gatew ay
and w ithin the w all som e tw enty houses
w ith an open square in the m iddle. This
fort w as built in the fourth century A.D .
Eketorp-II follow ed im m ediately after
Eketorp-I and the new ring-w all that w as
built had a diam eter of 80 m etres. This
m eans that the enclosed area w as doubled.
In addition to a gatew ay to the south there
is another one to the north and a sm aller
one to the east, leading to a w ater-hole just
outside the w all. W ithin the w all are fifty-
three structures: tw enty-three dw elling
houses, tw elve stables, tw elve storehouses
and six houses w ith m ixed functions. M ost
of the houses w ere built along the ring-w all
and som e create an irregular block in the
m iddle of the fort. The Eketorp-II settle-
m ent w as abandoned in the seventh cen-
tury A.D .
Eketorp-III is a late V iking/early m edi-
eval settlem ent that reoccupied the
ringw all of Eketorp-II but had a totally
new type of house inside the w all. The
defence w as strengthened by keeping
only the south gatew ay; the north and
east gatew ays of E ketorp -II w ere
blocked. A low outer w all w as also
added som e 10 m etres outside the ring-
w all. Eketorp-III existed from the elev-
enth till the tw elfth century, w hen
Eketorp w as finally abandoned.
W hen the excavation w as com pleted, the
D irector G eneral of the Central Board of
N ational Antiquities appointed a study
group to draw up a schem e for the future
of Eketorp, w hich group agreed that the
fort should be partially restored and the
follow ing principles for the project w ere
defined:
The reconstructions are to give the visitor
a vision of w hat the last tw o of the three
settlem ents on the site looked like.
The visitor m ust be able to obtain inform a-
tion on the results and artefacts of the
excavation in their natural and histori-
cal context as w ell as the archaeologi-
cal facts that are the basis for the
reconstructions.
W hen archaeological evidence and facts
are lacking, hypotheses m ust take over,
w ith reference m ade to reasonable
ethnological parallels, and the recon-
structions them selves are to be seen as
a contribution to scientific archaeologi-
cal discussion.
The reconstructed fort m ust be kept alive
by m eans of various scientifically based
experim ents and activities designed to
stim ulate com m unication betw een the
public and scientists.
W ork on the site m ust be carried out
w ith respect for natural and historical
values.
12
Bengt Edgren
U N ESCO 1998
Today, three quarters of the ring-w all have
been rebuilt, as has one of the gates into
the fort. W ithin the w all five m igration
period houses have been reconstructed as
w ell as four m edieval houses from the last
settlem ent phase.
The reason for the decision to start this
large-scale project is given by Roland
Plsson, D irector G eneral of the Central
B oard of N ational A ntiquities at the
tim e:
The standing instructions laid dow n by
the G overnm ent and Riksdag attach
great im portance to bringing the cul-
tural heritage to life. There is a great
deal of interest in archaeological re-
m ains and cultural m onum ents, and
cultural tourism is an im portant but
often som ew hat neglected aspect of our
leisure outings, especially during the
sum m er season.
But in spite of their im m ediate im pact,
archaeological rem ains are often diffi-
cult to decipher, in w hich case they do
not convey the inform ation and living
experience that are w anted. U ntil very
recently, archaeologists in Sw eden w ere
very chary of historical reconstructions
m ore so than their colleagues in other
European countries. As scientists they
w ere inhibited by an aw areness of the
lim itations of their know ledge and of
the inevitable influence on a recon-
struction of contem porary ideas.
The reconstruction w ill not be 100%
historically truthful. It w ill, of course,
be based as far as possible on the
extensive m aterial resulting from the
scientific investigation, but it is also to
be regarded as an ongoing scientific
discussion. G aps in the docum entation
w ill have to be plugged hypothetically
in our efforts, by m eans of restoration,
The reconstructed ring-wall of Eketorp.
13
U N ESCO 1998
to create an effective illusion aim ed at
reproducing som ething of everyday life
in prehistory.
3
These quotations dem onstrate that Eketorp
w as a deliberate break w ith a long anti-
quarian tradition in Sw eden not to w ork
w ith reconstructions in any form , espe-
cially not on the actual site of a m onum ent.
The know ledge of w eaknesses in the ar-
chaeological base is com pensated by the
possibility of bringing the cultural heritage
to life for a broad public.
It can be said today that Eketorp has
broken new ground in show ing the need
to explain com plicated archaeological re-
sults to the public in a w ay that it under-
stands and finds exciting. Reconstruction
as a pedagogical instrum ent is now w ell
established. The fact that new know ledge
can be obtained from w orking w ith recon-
structions is also better recognized today.
The w ork in Eketorp has led to new
know ledge about m igration and early
m edieval house construction. It has also
deepened the understanding of the func-
tion of the houses of Eketorp and of the fort
itself.
The reconstruction
A lot of effort has been put into the
reconstruction of the w all of dry lim estone
m asonry from Eketorp-II. It is about 250
m etres long, 5 m etres thick at its base, and
the best preserved parts are over 2 m etres
high. The original w all has been retained
as m uch as possible, in som e parts up to
2 m etres, in other parts not at all w here the
stone is too eroded and the w all badly
dam aged. The reconstruction of the w all
w as based on a cross-section through it;
the volum e of the debris has been esti-
m ated and added to the preserved part of
the w all, giving a m inim um original height
of alm ost 5 m etres. A parapet on top of
the w all adds another 2 m etres H ow ever,
as there is no m aterial evidence of a
parapet rem aining in Eketorp, this is there-
fore a good exam ple of the dilem m a
archaeologists are faced w ith w hen recon-
struction is forced beyond the lim its of
their know ledge.
W hen dealing w ith the problem of how to
finish the top of the ring-w all, w e thought
the best contem porary breastw ork to im i-
tate w as the Rom an one, because of the
frequent contacts betw een land and the
Rom an Em pire show n in the im ported
goods found in landic graves and settle-
m ents. To say that the people w ho built
The Eketorp pig, a back-breed with an
Iron Age look.
14
Bengt Edgren
U N ESCO 1998
Eketorp had directly or indirectly seen
Rom an fortifications is not a bold supposi-
tion. W e therefore built a crenellated para-
pet of Rom an proportions. Although the
sam e thing had been done in draw ings of
Eketorp before w ithout any critical com -
m ents, w e w ere now accused of having
gone too far. Could the parapet not have
been m ade of w ood and had it really been
crenellated on land as early as this?
The reconstruction of the houses in Eketorp-
II is based on the rem aining w alls, the
position of the post-holes and supports
found in the houses and other stone struc-
tures indicating the function of the houses,
such as fireplaces in the dw elling-houses,
byres in the stables and typical stone
pavings in the storehouses.
From the m edieval houses, the position of
the w alls w as found through the preserved
stone sills. The type of house that is indi-
cated, a w ooden construction w ith a fram e-
w ork w ith horizontal planking, is still ex-
tant on land in an archaic form . W e
therefore have good reason to believe that
this building tradition goes back to the
early m edieval period on the island.
The building m aterials used in Eketorp all
com e from the island: lim estone for the w alls,
oak for the roof-supporting construction,
reeds from the shores of land and turf from
the Alvar plain around the fort. If not contra-
dicted by the excavation results, all m aterials
that still exist or are docum ented as having
been used in older buildings from land can
be fairly tested in the reconstructions.
W e have used m achines w hen they do not
effect the quality of the reconstruction but
accelerate the w ork and low er the cost in
a decisive w ay. The stone w e buy is broken
w ith the help of explosives, delivered to
Eketorp on lorries and then lifted by a truck
to its position in the w all.
The larger trees used in the houses are cut
w ith pow er saw s but are then cut m anually
w ith an axe to the requisite shape and
dim ension. H oles for the w ooden nails are
m anually drilled and different joints are
m ade w ith axe, knife or chisel. W hen
building the m edieval houses, only replica
tools from the early m edieval period have
been used.
Meeting the public
The experim ental side of the w ork in
Eketorp is of course dom inated by the
building-process itself and the w ider know l-
edge about all the different building tech-
niques that w ere practised in Eketorp. The
big difference betw een reconstructing on
paper and in reality is not surprising, but is
all the sam e w orth m entioning: w hat looks
difficult on paper is often easy in real life,
and vice versa. W e have learnt that build-
ing m odels that are not too sm all is a good
bridge betw een these tw o steps.
The w orks in Eketorp are am ong other
things m eant to stim ulate com m unication
betw een the general public and archaeol-
ogy. This is effectively achieved by doing
all reconstruction w ork during the sum m er
m onths w hen Eketorp is open to the pub-
lic. Visitors alw ays have an opportunity to
put direct questions to the archaeologists
and the craftsm en w orking in front of
them . W ork is slow ed dow n considerably
by this, but w e believe it is w orth w hile.
O ver 1.7 m illion people have visited
Eketorp since the reconstruction w ork
began in 1974. D uring a norm al sum m er,
100,000 visitors arrive over a four-m onth
period. In one season m ore than 1,000
guided tours are perform ed by academ i-
cally trained m useum -teachers. Special
tours for children show the anim als that
are m oving freely w ithin the m useum
15
U N ESCO 1998
area. A favourite is the Eketorp pig. It is
the result of a back-breeding project that
has produced a new pig w ith the appear-
ance of the Iron Age pig of Eketorp. The
project is based on the osteological m ate-
rial from the excavation.
A special archaeological w orkshop has
been set up w here children together w ith
their parents can try to m ake their ow n
arrow -head in the sm ithy, create their ow n
Iron Age pot, cook a m edieval dinner and
afterw ards eat it and w eave on a vertical
loom or listen to Iron Age instrum ents.
A m useum w as built inside the fort to
display som e of the archaeological finds
on the spot and to explain the know ledge
the excavations had yielded. It resem bles,
in shape and m aterials, the Eketorp II
houses from the M igration period. Al-
though the w alls of the m useum are not
original, their position is, and doorw ays of
the Iron Age houses have been reproduced
in the front of the building facing the
w estern square, w ith the north and south
w alls built using stones from the old house
w alls in the central quarter.
The m any m odern details of the m useum
building the w ooden floor, glazed w in-
dow s and roof lights, a supporting struc-
ture of arches and a m odern exhibition
m ake it clear to visitors that the m useum
does not form part of the authentically
reconstructed fort. The exhibits are m erely
a selection of the 26,000 finds, w ith the rest
deposited in the M useum of N ational An-
tiquities in Stockholm .
M y experience from w orking close to the
public in Eketorp is that the m ain interest
of visitors is not in the m onum ents or
artefacts revealed by the excavation but in
the people w ho once lived there. Q ues-
tions are m ainly about their everyday life:
w here did they sleep, w here w ere the
toilets, did they sw im , w hat did the chil-
dren play w ith, w hat language did they
speak? At the sam e tim e there is a difficulty
in understanding that prehistoric people
are the sam e species as ourselves, that on
land they w ere w ell fed and alm ost as tall
as w e are today, that they had the sam e
intelligence. Eketorp Rediviva helps peo-
ple realize these things better, the recon-
structions m ake prehistory less dram atic
and m ore hum an. I
Notes
1. Ernst K lein, Stenldersliv [Stone Age Life],
pp. 48 et seq., Stockholm , 1920.
2. Carl von Linn, lndska resa frrttad,
1741 (edited w ith com m ents by Bertil M olde)
Stockholm 1962).
3. Roland Plsson, W hy W e Banked on
Eketorp, ICOMOS Bulletin (U ddevalla), N o. 6,
1981, p. 188.
Interior of the museum at Eketorp.
16
Madline Y. El Mallah
U N ESCO 1998
The Luxor M useum of Ancient
Egyptian Art: the challenge of abundance
The city of Luxor may truly be said to be
a cradle of all humanitys cultural
heritage; however, it also remains an
urban environment which must cater to
the everyday needs of its inhabitants.
How to involve the local community in
the programme of a site museum which is
one of the worlds foremost international
tourist destinations was thus the
challenge facing the Luxor Museum of
Ancient Egyptian Art. The author is
general manager of the museum.
U N ESCO 1998
The Luxor M useum of Ancient Egyptian Art
is set in an exceptional location in the
ancient and w orld-fam ous tow n of Luxor,
w hich lies nearly 670 kilom etres south of
Cairo, the capital, and has a population of
approxim ately 70,000. The m useum is situ-
ated in a superlative position on the N ile
Corniche road w hich connects the Luxor
and K arnak tem ples, parallel to the great
River N ile and facing the Ram esseum on
the w est bank. The river traverses the tow n
centre, thus dividing it into tw o sections.
The first section is on the east bank, w here
the larger and principal part of the tow n lies
and w here ancient Thebes w as a m etropolis
of Egypt for a period of over three centuries
during the 18th and 19th dynasties of the
N ew Kingdom (15501196 B.C.). The other
section of the tow n is on the w est bank of the
N ile, w here the ancient Egyptians built their
m ortuary tem ples to the gods alongside the
dead pharoahs lying in their royal tom bs.
M agnificent tem ples w ere consecrated for
the w orship and hom age of Am on, his
consort the goddess M ut and their son
K honsu, w ho together represented the
Theban triad. The Luxor tem ple is located in
the southern part of the tow n and the
K arnak tem ple in the northern part.
The tow n has had various nam es since the
beginning of history; it w as called W eset by
the ancient Egyptians and w as referred to as
N u Am on, or the tow n of Am on, during the
period of the O ld Kingdom . Its G reek nam e
w as Thebes. Follow ing their invasion of
Egypt, the Rom ans established a large m ili-
tary garrison around the Luxor tem ple. W hen
the Arab conquerors saw the rem nants of its
forts, they thought that they w ere palaces
and so gave them the nam e of al-uqsur,
w hich is the plural form of the w ord qasr
(m eaning palaceor castle). The nam e w as
then distorted by European languages to
form the tow ns present nam e of Luxor.
General view of
the cache room
opened on 21
December 1991.
17
The Luxor M useum of Ancient Egyptian Art: the challenge of abundance
U N ESCO 1998
The w ealth of the Egyptian em pire, w hich

extended from the M editerranean Sea in
the north to the Third Cataract in the south
during the N ew K ingdom period, poured
into Thebes, m aking it the richest city in the
w orld. This w ealth w as reflected in the
different form s of art and architecture in
the tow n. As such, Luxor w as replete w ith
pharaonic antiquities of an abundance and
splendour w ithout com pare elsew here in
the w orld, the effect of w hich w as to turn
Luxor into an open-air m useum of hum an
history and age-old civilizations.
G iven the copious w ealth of rare and
valuable antiquities discovered in Luxor,
the Egyptian M inistry of Culture conceived
a plan in 1962 to build a m useum there and
com m issioned a leading Egyptian archi-
tect, engineer M ahm ud Al-H akim , to pro-
duce the necessary engineering and archi-
tectural designs. Construction w as finished
in 1969 and the m useum assum ed the
status of a regional m useum for the exhibi-
tion of antiquities discovered in the tow n
of Luxor. The exhibits w ere scrupulously
chosen from am ong the treasures in storage
in the region and, w ith the internal and
external displays com plete, the m useum
w as officially opened on 12 D ecem ber 1975.
O n leaving the m useum , visitors w itness a
unique panoram ic view of the w est bank.
The m useum galleries are on tw o levels,
w hich are connected by tw o ram ps. The
latest m useum display m ethods have been
used w ith a view to highlighting the artistic
beauty of the exhibits. These rely entirely
on artificial lighting, a background of dark
grey w alls and ceilings and sim ple stands
for the objects, the result being that the the
displays are not cram ped or crow ded,
leaving the eye free to focus on the exhib-
its. Visitors consequently have a relaxed
feeling w hich is conducive to becom ing
fully absorbed in the contem plation of
each individual w ork.
The Luxor tem ple cache (see below ) w as
stum bled upon by sheer accident in 1989
w hile routine soil sam ples w ere being taken
from the courtyard of K ing Am enhotep III.
The cache consists of unique and unusual
statues of various gods, goddesses and kings
w hich are very w ell preserved and excep-
tional in their beauty and m agnificence.
W hen the discovery w as m ade, it w as de-
cided that a special room be allocated for the
exhibition of this priceless treasure. Such a
room w as therefore added and an innova-
tive m ethod of exhibiting this unique collec-
tion w as also devised.
G enerally speaking, all the m useum exhib-
its w ere unearthed during excavations of
the area and w ere brought out of their
storage there. They also include various
pieces returned from the Egyptian M u-
seum in Cairo to their original hom e of
Luxor, w here they w ere found am ong the
funereal trappings of K ing Tutankham en
w hen his tom b w as discovered in 1922.
Creating value for the community
The w ord m useum is no longer restricted
in m eaning to a place w here w orks of art
from bygone civilizations are preserved,
exhibited and presented to the public as
befits their artistic and historic value. O n
the contrary, the m eaning of the w ord has
now broadened to signify a cultural institu-
tion of considerable im portance, w hich
plays an influential role in the education of
society, the enlightenm ent of hum an
thought and the grow th in aw areness of
civilization, art and history.
Those w orking in the Luxor M useum w ere
faced w ith a m ajor problem once it had
opened. Being situated in the tow n of
Luxor, w hich has such a w ealth of antiqui-
ties and is a focus of w orld interest visited
by tourists from all over the globe, the
18
U N ESCO 1998
m useum now represents a fresh tourist
attraction to w hich package and individual
tourists flock to be am azed and dazzled.
H ow ever, despite the status it has acquired,
the m useum constitutes nothing of value to
the tow nspeople, w ho are daily w itnesses to
the sites of antiquity surrounding them on all
sides in w hat resem bles an open-air m u-
seum w hose precincts they inhabit.
The m useum adm inistration w as therefore
com pelled to plan an educational project
w ith a view to creating a form of inter-
change betw een the inhabitants of Luxor
and the m useum , w hich houses w orks of
art bequeathed by their forefathers from
ancient civilizations. This educational
project w as based on a num ber of key
aspects.
First and forem ost, regular m onthly sem i-
nars and m eetings are held to w hich the
tow nspeople are invited, the aim being to
highlight the m ost significant of the ar-
chaeological discoveries w hich em erge
daily during the course of research and
excavation w ork carried out by Egyptian
and foreign archaeologists w orking on
archaeological digs. The result is to create
an aw areness of civilization am ong the
m em bers of the public and fam iliarize
them w ith the happenings in their m idst, as
w ell as to establish a link betw een them
and their history and civilization. These
sem inars and m eetings are run by a group
of top Egyptian and foreign scholars.
The m useum also devotes attention to
issues involving antiquities and m atters of
heritage w hich exercise public opinion
and arouse controversy. This it does by
occasionally holding public sem inars to
shed light on the specific subject, to clarify
any controversy surrounding it and to
elim inate any confusion over it. An exam -
ple of the issues tackled is the iniative to
dism antle, restore and reassem ble the col-
um ns in the hall of Am enhotep III in the
Luxor tem ple, w hich w as variously con-
doned and condem ned by the press, a
situation w hich divided the tow nspeople
into tw o groups, for and against the project.
In their com ings and goings, opponents of
the w ork saw these giant colum ns gradu-
ally dw indling in size during the dism an-
tling process and noted the resulting disfig-
urem ent of the tem ple courtyard. W hen
the colum ns finally vanished altogether
before their very eyes, they w rongly be-
lieved that they had seen the last of them .
W ith a view to elim inating this m istaken
belief, the Luxor M useum seized the initia-
tive and organized a scientific sem inar
attended by the archaeologists, soil engin-
eers and restorers concerned. Invitations
w ere addressed to the people of Luxor in
general and to those w orking in the fields
of tourism , antiquities and the m edia in
particular. The sem inar covered the scien-
tific, archaeological and environm ental
aspects that had m ade it necessary to
im plem ent the project aim ed at saving this
great hall. It also covered the scientific
m ethod used to carry out the w ork w ith the
help of sophisticated technology. The in-
terchange betw een the audience and the
specialists w as extrem ely positive; the
m em bers of the audience learnt w hat w as
going on in their m idst and ultim ately
found them selves in favour of the project.
The m useum has assum ed an influential
teaching role in society by devising an
educational program m e entitled M useum
Faade of the Luxor Museum overlooking
the Nile Corniche.
19
U N ESCO 1998
Education. The prim e focus is on aim ing
this activity at pupils in varying stages of
education. A num ber of m useum staff
received training in how to deal w ith
different age-groups and respond to their
queries. The staff w ere also supplied w ith
illustrative photographs, colour slides and
video film s relating the story of the m u-
seum exhibits and the history of the tow n,
as w ell as w ith the equipm ent needed to
project the slides and film s. A tim etable
w as draw n up during the academ ic year for
the m useum staff to go into schools and
give talks, w hich they w ould follow up by
providing escorted visits to the m useum .
All such action w as taken in co-ordination
w ith the tow ns educational departm ent and
school head teachers. The broad aw areness
of the pupils w as in evidence from the
questions w hich they put to their guides. At
the end of their tour, they com pleted a form
registering their im pressions of the visit and
their suggestions for im provem ents.
A m ajor accom plishm ent of the program m e
w as that it revealed the potential for lively
and positive interaction betw een the m u-
seum and its target public. The m useum
adm inistration used the suggestions to
develop and sim plify the form of labelling
so as to give sw ift yet com prehensive
inform ation on the displayed pieces. The
success of this key aspect has encouraged
us to pursue this sam e activity and further
extend it to the social clubs that serve as
m eeting places for young people and adults.
A constantly expanding collection
The Luxor M useum is a place of m ajor
archaeological interest in Egypt, located in
an area containing tw o-thirds of the coun-
trys antiquities. It w as therefore essential
that its collection of exhibits should be rich
and varied enough to show all aspects of
the history and art of Luxor. The m useum
adm inistration therefore proposed expan-
sion of the exhibition room s and extension
of the m useum so that acquisitions stored
in the area and unearthed by excavation in
successive seasons could be added to it.
The H igher Council of Antiquities re-
sponded favourably to this proposal and
the process of expansion is now under
w ay.
Cow head of the
goddess Hathor
made of wood
covered with gold
leaf. The horns
are fashioned
from copper and
the eyes are inlaid
with lapis lazuli.
20
U N ESCO 1998
The excavations in the region uncover,
som etim es by m ere chance, unique arte-
facts, w hich should be exhibited in the
m useum for the w orld to see. Such arte-
facts m ay be in urgent need of rapid
intervention in the interests of their restora-
tion and preservation so that they can be
suitably exhibited. In that connection, the
m useum faces a num ber of difficulties, as
there is no w orkshop w here restoration
and preservation w ork can be carried out
using the m odern tools and equipm ent
essential for treating the condition of such
artefacts. A request has been subm itted for
the establishm ent of an integral w orkshop
in the new w ing. D espite the lack of a
specialist w orkshop, how ever, there are a
num ber of expert restorers w ho are w ell
qualified to handle antiquities on the basis
of their raw m aterial or condition. If local
resources are incapable of caring for an
artefact, help is sought from specialists in
the central m useum adm inistration in Cairo.
For it to be successful, the activity of
conveying the m useum s educational and
cultural m essage concerning the surround-
ing site m ust be conducted inside the
m useum in a hall specially allocated for the
purpose, and not in schools and clubs, as
is the case at the m om ent. A request
therefore had to be m ade for tw o halls, one
in w hich lectures and sem inars can be held
and the other in w hich schoolchildren can
pursue m useum -related art activities. These
halls w ill form an integral part of the
m useum s new w ing.
The m ain antiquities on exhibition in the
m useum include the statue of K ing
Tuthm osis III of the 18th dynasty (149036
B .C .). M ade of green slate, this statue w as
discovered in 1904 in the K arnak tem ple
cache north of the seventh pylon in this
fam ous tem ple. As the tow n had no m u-
seum , the statue w as sent to Cairo for
exhibition at the Egyptian M useum w ith
other discoveries from the cache. It w as
then returned to its place of origin w hen
the Luxor M useum opened. This particu-
lar statue is regarded as one of the m use-
um s m ain acquisitions and is the one that
provokes m ost com m ent from visitors, as
the K ings noble facial features convey his
confidence in him self as a ruler and god,
the Egyptian sculptor having m asterfully
succeeded in bringing out that particu-
lar expression, thus m aking this statue
one of the m ost beautiful pieces of
ancient Egyptian art.
The statue of the god Sobek and K ing
Am enhotep III of the 18th dynasty (1403
1265 B.C.) is a singular piece m ade of calcite
Diorite statue of
King Horemheb
and the god Atum.
The plinth of the
statue was the first
item discovered in
the Luxor temple
cache.
21
U N ESCO 1998
and w as found inside a w ell m ade for it,
together w ith a num ber of paintings and
statues depicting the god as a crocodile,
during excavation w ork to clear a canal in
the area of Sum inu, now D aham sha, south-
w est of Luxor. A sm all tem ple w as un-
doubtedly consecrated to the god in this
spot, w hich w as show ered w ith votive
offerings by his slaves and believers in his
pow er.
This statue dem onstrates the Egyptian sculp-
tors success in creating a balance betw een
the physiques of the pharaoh and god,
despite their difference in size, by elim inat-
ing part of the rear panel above the phar-
aohs head and bringing his head level w ith
the gods head, crow n included. Ram ses II
claim ed this statue for him self, rem oving
the nam e of its original ow ner and replac-
ing it w ith his ow n nam e. Fortunately,
how ever, he did not touch the kings
distinctive features, w hich rem ained intact,
thus affirm ing the origin of the statue of
K ing Am enhotep III.
The harpist and fem ale dancers is a build-
ing slab in quartzite from the tim e of the
18th dynasty of the N ew K ingdom (1475
68 B.C.). The slab w as part of the obelisk
built by Q ueen H atshepsut in the K arnak
tem ple w hich w as later nam ed the Rose
O belisk because of the colour of its stone.
It show s a group of dancers and singers
accom panied by a harpist in one of the
religious festivals that used to take place in
Thebes during its heyday. The depiction of
the graceful bodies illustrates features of
the art of the 18th dynasty.
The Luxor Temple cache:
a major discovery
The site of the Luxor M useum continues to
reveal its secrets. The m ost recent discov-
ery, and also the m ost im portant of the
penultim ate decade of the tw entieth cen-
tury, w as m ade in the hypostyle hall of
Am enhotep III, the builder and founder of
the Luxor tem ple (14031365 B .C .), w here
a collection of rare statues know n as the
Luxor tem ple cache w as uncovered.
The initial cache discovery w as m ade on 22
January 1989 and produced tw enty-four
statues of gods, goddesses and pharaohs,
m ost of them in an excellent state of
preservation. D iscoveries continued to be
m ade until 20 April of the sam e year, w hen
the last piece w as unearthed at a depth of
4.5 m etres below ground level. This piece
w as the sacred beard of Am on, w hose
statue had been discovered previously on
28 M arch. Sixteen of the statues w ere
selected for exhibition in the Luxor M u-
seum , w here a room w as set aside for them
in the first basem ent, having been specially
designed to give visitors the freedom to
view the antiquities from all sides, using
focal lighting to draw the eye to the aes-
thetic elem ents of the exhibits. Care w as
taken to ensure that the chosen statues
w ere not placed on stands, but on a raised
platform reached by stairs, the effect of
w hich is to im bue the pieces w ith a divine
and aw e-inspiring quality befitting statues
of goddesses w ho w ere held sacred in
ancient tim es and of kings elevated to the
status of gods. The m ost fam ous and unu-
sual of the statues in this collection are as
follow s.
A composite statue of the god Atum and
King Horemheb consisting of two statues
in diorite from the 18th dynasty
(133808 B.C.)
The statue is set in a hollow carved in a
separate base, w hich w as the first item
found in the cache. This unique assem bly
of the three pieces (the tw o statues and the
base) is an incom parable find. It represents
22
U N ESCO 1998
K ing H orem heb kneeling in w orship to the
god Atum and offering him tw o spherical-
shaped vessels. H e is w earing a head-
dress, the front of w hich is adorned w ith
the sacred cobra, and the short tunic know n
as a shandeth. The god before him is
seated on his throne, w hich is decorated
on both sides w ith tw o N ile gods, w ith the
sym bol of the unity of the Tw o K ingdom s
entw ined by papyrus plants on the right
and lotus plants on the left, these being the
sym bols of north and south.
The statue in red quartzite of
King Amenhotep III from the
18th dynasty (1405-1365 B.C.)
This giant statue, w hich is 239 cm . in
height, is regarded as the m ost im pressive
of the discoveries m ade in the cache. It
show s K ing Am enhotep III in the prim e of
youth striding forw ard and tram pling on
Egypts traditional enem ies sym bolized by
the nine arches on w hich he treads w ithout
flinching. D espite the particularly solid
stone from w hich the statue is m ade, the
Egyptian artist has successfully em ployed
his skill to show the kings body in rem ark-
able sym m etry, as w ell as the details of the
short tunic w hich he is w earing and w hich
bears the nam e of K ing N b M aet Ra in the
bottom centre inside a cylinder called a
cartouche, encircled by four sacred cobras
w ith the sun above. W hen the statue w as
brought out of the ground, traces of gilding
w ere visible on the crow n, the w ide collar
and the bracelets adorning the king.
It is actually difficult to im agine the pains-
taking w ork involved in engraving the
m any fine and splendid details on the
kings tunic, particularly at the back. Visi-
tors have to see these details for them -
selves in order to appreciate the excep-
tional skill of the Egyptian sculptor and his
m astery of his tools.
The statue in diorite of the
goddess Hathor from the time of
King Amenhotep III
The goddess H athor is regarded as one of
the m ost im portant Egyptian goddesses.
The sky goddess and protectress of life and
love, she w as w orshipped either as a cow
or as a fem ale form w earing a crow n of
cow s horns w ith the sun lodged betw een
them . This statue depicts her as a w om an
seated on her throne, w hich is
unem bellished by engraving, w earing her
distinctive crow n over a w ig and holding
the staff of life in her left hand. Both sides
of the throne bear the nam e of K ing
Am enhotep, w ho is portrayed as H athors
lover.
The statue of the goddess Ayunet in
grey granite
A lthough this goddess had been w or-
shipped in the area of Thebes since the
11th dynasty of the M iddle K ingdom
(approxim ately 20611991 B .C .), only one
statue of this size and in such w ell-
preserved condition w as found. She w as
the consort of the god M ontu, w ho w as
a w arlord and m aster of Thebes at that
tim e. The statue portrays her as a grace-
ful w om an w ith an appealing sm ile on
her beautiful face, m aking it one of
the m ost attractive statues in ancient
Egyptian art.
It is clear that the m useum is indebted to
the tow n, w ith its rich heritage, for the
acquisition of its collection. I am confi-
dent that the future w ill unveil m any
w orks w hich are no less splendid than
the pieces already discovered in the
area. The soil of Luxor still shelters m any
of these antiquities and takes greater
care of them than w ould m any hum an
beings. I
23
The M useum of Carthage: a living history lesson
U N ESCO 1998
The M useum of Carthage: a living
history lesson
Abdelmajid Ennabli
The fabled city of Carthage has fired the
imagination of artists and poets since its
very beginnings more than 2,000 years
ago. A rival of ancient Greece, then of
Rome, Carthage has been razed and
pillaged by invaders jealous of its
fortunes, only to be reborn time after
time. In the twentieth century, creeping
urbanization and a tide of concrete
threatened to submerge it once and for
all until the international community
responded to the Save Carthage appeal
launched by UNESCO in 1972. Teams of
archaeologists from ten countries more
than 600 in all worked to uncover
layer after layer of history and to study
and preserve this unique site. Abdelmajid
Ennabli played a key role in the
international campaign and has been
curator of the Museum of Carthage since
1973. He is the author of several articles
and publications on Carthaginian
history and archaeology and is director
of research at Tunisias National
Heritage Institute.
U N ESCO 1998
The M useum of Carthage is first and fore-

m ost the m useum of a site, a great archaeo-
logical site w ith a prestigious history. It is
the site that nurtures the m useum and the
m useum that illustrates its history. Ever
since a princess from the East chose the
peninsula to build a N ew Cityover 2,800
years ago, people have alw ays lived, w orked
and concentrated their w ealth here, even
though the city that succeeded ancient
Carthage from the M iddle Ages onw ards
w as built a few kilom etres inland to w here
the peninsula joins the m ainland.
Today, w e have com e full circle. The site of
Carthage is now part of the D istrict of Tunis
and its future is linked to the developm ent
of the capital. But the site of the ancient city
has been spared the relentless building
activity that has taken hold of the present-
day m etropolis, and has been dedicated to
m em ory and culture. Today, w ith urban
developm ent stretching as far as the eye
can see, it has been safeguarded as an
archaeological park for excavation and
research. In the heart of this area, on the
m ost fam ous hill, the m useum stands as the
custodian and living w itness of the civiliza-
tions that flourished here.
By clim bing the hill, the visitor begins by
gaining an overall view of the geographical
setting and the physical vestiges of succes-
sive civilizations, and can also understand
the reasons for such continuity, for the city
w as built on a peninsula, looking out on to
a w ide bay, at the entrance to an accessible
hinterland an ideal location, as has been
proved over and over again. From the top
of this acropolis the topographical features
and historical significance of the site can be
fully appreciated.
The proposed itinerary for the tour can be
likened to a play in three acts: the first
covers the panoram ic view and discovery
of the site, the second takes the spectator
on a w alk am ong the rem ains of Byrsa, and
the third concludes w ith a visit to the
m useum .
Before setting out on this tour, a brief
outline or rem inder of the historical back-
ground m ay be useful. Carthage w as the
site of tw o cities belonging to tw o rival and
successive civilizations. The first w as the
Phoenician or Punic city founded by D ido
in 814 B .C . and destroyed by Scipio in 146
B .C . The N ew City, m odelled on Tyre,
established on the coast of Africa, the new
continent, w hich becam e the capital of a
new kind of em pire ow ing its prosperity to
m aritim e trade all over the M editerranean,
its position halfw ay betw een the civilized
East and the com m odity-rich W est w ith a
chain of ports and trading posts set up all
along the coast, ensuring constant defence
against both the G reeks to the W est and
indigenous peoples of the continent. The
city next fought a long and bitter duel w ith
Rom e lasting m ore than 100 years, ending
in a crushing defeat w hich razed it to the
ground. Then Rom e, w hich had destroyed
it, decided to rebuild it on the sam e site and
designed it to serve Rom e.
The city soon grew prosperous enough to
rank second in the Rom an Em pire in the
second century A .D . This w as hardly sur-
prising. The site had already proved its
w orth under the Phoenicians and its strate-
gic position w as now com pounded by the
scale of the Rom an Em pire, m aster of the
constellation of provinces around the mare
nostrum, am ong w hich the province of
Africa w as one of the brightest stars.
W ith the pax romana on land and sea,
agriculture prospered and harvests w ere
exported. Carthage w as the gatew ay to the
fertile African hinterland and its port faced
O stia, the supply route to Rom e and its
sovereign people. As the capital of a w ealthy
and prosperous province, cherished and
24
Abdelmajid Ennabli
U N ESCO 1998
controlled by all the em perors, it w as
endow ed w ith the largest and finest public
buildings and facilities and, in accordance
w ith a plan covering the w hole of its
territory, the hill w as surm ounted by a
grandiose forum . Apuleius called it the
M use of Africa.
From being pagan, the city becam e Chris-
tian, albeit at the price of persecutions. It
w itnessed several schism s and underw ent
Vandal occupation for a century before
being delivered on the orders of the By-
zantine Em peror. This resurrection did not
last for long. W eakened, as w as the w hole
Em pire, it w as taken w ithout the least
resistance by the Arab conquerors. They
then deserted it for Tunis, w hich w as
farther from the coast and safer. From then
on, Carthage w ent into decline and its
population dw indled. For m any centuries
it w as used as a quarry for building m ate-
rials. Its m onum ents w ere torn dow n, the
blocks of stone rem oved and its colum ns
and m arble carted aw ay. The flattened
ground returned to agriculture w hich pros-
pered until the nineteenth century, w hen
the enthusiasm for archaeological artefacts
once again caused the earth to be turned.
W ith the establishm ent of the French Pro-
tectorate, the first Catholic buildings ap-
peared, including the form er cathedral and
the theological college of the French m o-
nastic order of the Pres Blancs in w hich
the m useum is now housed. In less than a
century the w hole of the peninsula w as
built up, except for Carthage, w here an
effective developm ent plan has enabled a
large part of the area to be preserved. This
w as the w ill of the sovereign state of
Tunisia, supported by the international
com m unity headed by U N ESCO , w hich
included the site on the W orld H eritage list.
An area of 500 hectares has thus been
saved from urbanization and preserved for
excavation, research and rehabilitation as
the Carthage N ational Archaeological Park,
set up by the D ecree of 7 O ctober 1985.
The heart of this great enterprise is Byrsa
H ill w hich w as the historical nucleus of
Punic and then Rom an Carthage, and w hich
providentially is now w here the m useum
stands as a tem ple to the m em ory of these
illustrious civilizations.
Let us begin at the beginning.
Act 1: discovering the site
N o one goes to Carthage unprepared. W e
arrive w ith preconceived ideas and ready-
m ade im ages. And the contrast betw een
w hat w e have im agined and w hat w e actu-
ally see, betw een w hat the history books tell
us, w hat our im aginations have conjured up
and w hat now rem ains m ay bring disap-
pointm ent, for tim e and events have taken
their toll. And so the visitor m ust be jolted
out of any preconceived notions by a pow -
erful initial im pression. All flights of fancy
w ill be dispelled by the sheer beauty of the
sw eeping vista from the panoram ic terrace
at the top of the hill, taking in the bay and
the tw in-peaked m ountain rising above it, a
lake fringed w ith hills on the horizon and,
dow n below , the surrounding plain. These
are the salient features of the m ajestic setting
on w hich history has left its im print. For
Carthage ow ed its existence and prosperity
to its natural assets and to its skill in m aking
the m ost of them .
Aerial view of the site with Byrsa Hill in
the centre.
25
U N ESCO 1998
Act 2: a tale of two cities
The heart of its history is the sum m it of
Byrsa H ill, dom inating the surrounding
landscape. This is the U pper City, w here
som e vestiges of its ancient splendour still
rem ain. For Byrsa w as a pinnacle not just
topographically but historically of both
Punic and Rom an civilization. Today, few
visible m onum ents testify to its form er
grandeur: no tem ples, palaces or citadels.
Just a few w alls and pavem ent floors. But
for the discerning observer, there are m any
undeniable traces of the great buildings of
the Rom an forum . The terrace from w hich
the visitor now view s the surroundings is
just one of the elem ents of the very exten-
sive architectural com plex covering the
w hole area around the sum m it, w ith baths,
a theatre, an am phitheatre, a circus-hippo-
drom e, an odeum , villas, tem ples and basil-
icas spread over the w hole tow n, m any of
them still buried beneath the earth, covered
by land w hich is now either built up or
cultivated. And this is only Rom an Carthage,
w hereas the earlier Punic city is buried even
deeper. Thus, tw o great and pow erful cities
w ere built on the sam e site, on this hill and
around it, on this peninsula at the junction
of a bay and a plain.
The first grew up principally betw een the
shore and the hill and served its function as
a com m ercial and trading centre, w ith a
port on the coast, a residential area on the
slopes of Byrsa H ill and burial grounds
stretching across the other hill-tops.
The second, planned from the outset, radi-
ated from a centre on the sum m it of Byrsa
H ill and w as designed according to a regular
orthogonal plan based on tw o m ain perpen-
dicular roads, D ecum anus M axim us and
Cardo M axim us, w ith the centre set aside for
religious, political and civic buildings, the
coast for com m erce, the hill-tops for tem -
ples, the hill-slopes for housing and the
surrounding area for the great entertainm ent
edifices. Beyond this area w ere situated
necropolises and later m onum ents.
W hat rem ains of all that today? Really very
little. For Punic Carthage w as destroyed by
Scipio at the end of the Third Punic W ar,
and Rom an Carthage w hich cam e after it
w as dem olished over the centuries, pil-
laged for its building m aterials. The early
tw entieth century again saw the begin-
nings of urban developm ent, and there
w ere virtually no m onum ents left standing,
only piles of ruins and fields under cultiva-
tion. It w as the interest and passion show n
by m odern archaeologists and historians
that staved off this new invasion of the area
as they began to excavate the site, bringing
to light the rem ains of the ancient settle-
m ents and little by little reconstructing the
face of the city and its historical profile.
In the south-eastern corner, along the coast
but set back from the shore-line, the con-
tours of the tw o harbours can be clearly
seen, w hile in the south-w estern corner,
the vague outline of the circus-hippo-
drom e can be m ade out. To the w est lies
the am phitheatre, surrounded by a pine
w ood, and opposite are the great w ater
cisterns of La M alga.
O ther buildings that can be taken in at a
sw eeping glance are the colum ned build-
ing, the theatre, the odeum and the patri-
cian villas, and finally the great Antonine
The panoramic view from the Byrsa
terrace.
26
Abdelmajid Ennabli
U N ESCO 1998
baths on the coast. O ther m onum ents,
such as the basilicas of D am ous El K arita,
M ajorum and St Cyprian, lie beyond.
These are the largest and m ost clearly
visible m onum ents. All of them except the
harbours date from Rom an tim es. There
are other lesser m onum ents, and others
still, sm aller and buried deeper, w hich go
back to the Punic period. Som e have been
excavated thanks to the perspicacity of
archaeologists, a notable exam ple being
the Tophet, w hich w as the sanctuary of
Tanit and B aal H am m on, w ith its votive
stelae, and funerary urns and even som e
dw ellings, a tem ple of rem arkable archi-
tectural design, and above all the burial
grounds stretching from east to w est,
w ith their graves and especially the
deeply dug burial vaults, w hich con-
tained, along w ith the m ortal rem ains in
the sarcophagi, an abundant variety of
funerary objects. These objects have, of
course, been placed in m useum s, m ainly
the M useum of Carthage. Sim ilarly, nu-
m erous objects from the Rom an period
decorative architectural features, statues,
m osaic pavings, epigraphic inscriptions
and sm all objects w hich have survived
because they w ere m ade of such durable
m aterials as stone, m arble, pottery, ce-
ram ic, m etal, ivory and bone could not be
left exposed in the sites in w hich they w ere
found, and w ere rem oved and som etim es
chipped aw ay from their original setting to
be preserved in m useum s, particularly in
the Bardo and in the Pres Blancs M useum
in the theological college.
O n closer scrutiny, visitors w ho have just
taken in the view w ill in fact realize that the
platform upon w hich they stand is not a
natural platform but the reconstructed
ground plan of a great m onum ent, though
nearly all its constituent w alls, colum ns
and architectural features have disappeared;
all, that is, but for the m ortar on the ground
w hich still bears the im print of the torn-up
m arble slabs. This great hall, w hich m eas-
ured m ore than 70 x 30 m etres and stood
along the Cardo M axim us, w as part of a
vast urban com plex built on the sum m it of
the hill according to an orthogonal plan
w hich has been reconstructed from the
The remains of the Punic quarter.
27
U N ESCO 1998
rem aining vestiges. This w as of course the
forum , consisting of the civil basilicas on
the eastern side, opposite the capitoline
tem ple to the w est and, betw een the tw o,
the forum square flanked by colonnades.
The building from w hich the visitor view s
the site w ould have been the library and
belonged to a second area occupied in the
centre by a great tem ple dedicated to the
im perial cult. Architecturally, this w hole
m onum ental ensem ble m ade the U pper
City one of the m ost m agnificent in the
Rom an Em pire. To m ake space for it, the
Rom ans undertook a m assive earth-m ov-
ing operation to construct an im m ense
platform buttressed by a vast retaining w all
w ith supporting vaults all around the hill.
These earthw orks w ere in fact w hat cov-
ered over the rem ains of the earlier Punic
city. A w hole residential quarter dating
from the end of the third to the m iddle of
the second century, that is, the tim e of
H annibal, has been discovered at the south-
eastern corner of the Rom an platform ,
buried under the tons of earth tipped on
the hillside to build up a base for the forum .
The discovery of these rem ains pre-dating
the Rom an period, revealing for the first
tim e a hitherto unknow n aspect of the Punic
city, is of exceptional significance for an
understanding of Carthaginian civilization.
Continuing the w alk, after a panoram ic
view of the site, visitors w ill discover at
their feet a w hole section of Punic housing
built on the original hillside: a residential
quarter laid out on a regular grid system ,
w ith cisterns, terracotta m osaics, paving
and stuccoed w alls. Further on, they w ill
see an even older level of artisanal occupa-
tion dating from the fourth century, and
burial vaults going back to the seventh and
sixth centuries B .C . A special room has been
set aside in the m useum for discoveries
from this unique site.
The tim e has now com e to enter the
M useum of Carthage and appreciate its
exceptional significance as a site m useum .
Act 3: a museum full of mystery
The M useum of Carthage is, of course, an
archaeological m useum of ancient objects
that have been saved from destruction,
often found by chance, and carefully, at-
tentively and intelligently collected, ana-
lysed and interpreted. They are displayed
in such a w ay as to be accessible to the
public and are accom panied by presenta-
tions and explanations intended to help
visitors to see and understand, to attract
their interest and aw aken their curiosity.
This m useological program m e has had to
be handled w ith particular care as the
m useum stands on the actual site w here
the Carthaginian civilization to w hich it is
devoted lived and developed. It is there-
fore a unique place and one w hich, for all
the excavations and research, still rem ains
full of m ystery. But w hat has survived and
w hat has been found alone justifies the
m useum s existence.
The m useological approach is not system -
atic but successive and progressive, begin-
ning w ith a general introduction or retro-
spective approach and then elaborating on
a period or them e, so that the visitor is
progressively taken from one stage to
another, w ith each period or them e linked
to and com plem enting the others.
This general design w as dictated by several
constraints, not the least of w hich w as the
nature and variety of the collections. The
objects on display are m ade of hard and
durable m aterials such as m arble, stone,
pottery and m etal, w hich have survived
the ravages of tim e, to the exclusion of
fragile or perishable m aterials such as
leather, fabric and papyrus; in addition,
28
Abdelmajid Ennabli
U N ESCO 1998
the m osaics, sculptures, inscriptions,
decorative architectural features and
sm all m etal and ceram ic objects found
on the site of Carthage are by no m eans
all in the Carthage M useum . Som e are in
the B ardo M useum , notably those dis-
covered during the official excavations
at the tim e of the Protectorate.
The second problem concerned the m u-
seum buildings them selves as they w ere
not designed for their present use. O rigi-
nally they housed the m onastery built by
Cardinal Lavigerie to m eet the needs of the
Catholic m onastic order of the Pres Blancs,
and it w as here that a sm all m useum
containing a collection of objects exca-
vated by the Pres Blancs w as set up. The
m useum took over the old disused build-
ings, renovating them and adapting them
to their new function.
The m useological program m e thus had to
be devised to accom m odate these tw o
constraints, the collections and the build-
ings. The sim plicity of the plan and spatial
arrangem ent has been m aintained, for rea-
sons of both econom ic necessity and effi-
ciency. The exhibition is designed to be
instructive and illustrative, and the visitor
follow s an itinerary in w hich the item s on
display are m ethodically presented in tw o
distinct periods: Punic and Rom an. Particu-
larly representative of the form er period
are the funerary or votive stelae w ith their
decorative patterns, w hile those w ith in-
scriptions belong to the later period. In
addition to the sarcophagi and ossuaries,
these sites also yielded an abundance of
funerary objects, consisting of jew ellery,
am ulets, w ine vessels, bronze m irrors, glass-
w are and a w ide variety of terracotta ob-
jects m asks, statuettes, lam ps and quan-
tities of ceram ic vases, som e of the every-
day variety and others of m ore refined
quality, m any of them im ported from other
parts of the M editerranean.
The Rom an period is represented m ainly
by m osaics that originally paved the floors
of private, public and Christian buildings.
Then com e the inscriptions m ostly
funerary as far as the Rom an and Christian
periods are concerned, and rarely m onu-
m ental. There are also sculptures in low
relief and in the round, som e of them from
private hom es but m ost from official build-
ings, and architectural elem ents (colum ns,
capitals and fragm ents of cornices). The
m ost rem arkable statues and m osaics are
to be found in the Bardo M useum .
The Arab-Islam ic period is m ainly repre-
sented by glazed ceram ics from the elev-
enth to fourteenth centuries and som e
funerary stelae.
O n entering the hall of the m useum , visitors
w ill find the necessary general inform ation
to enable them to find their bearings and
choose an itinerary: a large m ap of the site,
w ith various photographs of the m onu-
m ents open to the public, and the ground
plan of the m useum . The visit begins on the
first floor, preferably in the south gallery
devoted to the Punic period, w hich can be
reached by crossing part of the m osaic
gallery. H ere there is a panel describing the
chronology of the history of Punic Carthage,
a m ap of the M editerranean occupying an
entire w all and show ing the position of
Carthage, and panels show ing the progress
of the Rom an-Carthaginian w ar w hich ended
in the citys destruction.
This inform ation serves as an introduction
and background to the objects displayed in
several show cases, each of w hich covers a
specific period. Together, they provide an
illustrated condensed version of the history
of Punic Carthage w hich began in 814 and
ended in 146 B .C . Further inform ation is
given in the form of docum ents, photo-
graphs and scale m odels, including a re-
constructed cross-section of the Tophet.
29
U N ESCO 1998
After this first contact w ith Punic Carthage,
the visitor proceeds to the general presen-
tation hall w hich runs the w hole length of
the central building, and is fronted by a
high gallery w hich looks out onto the
peninsula coastline.
A long history of grandeur, conflict
and decline
The room is divided into four chronologi-
cal sections: Phoenician-Punic, Rom an-
A frican, Palaeo-Christian, A rab-Islam ic.
A lectern for each period gives the es-
sential details: chronology, m ap, topo-
graphical plan all in three languages.
The journey on w hich the visitor is now
em barking is one of allusions and rem i-
niscences, a subtle interplay betw een
the objects perceived in the show cases
and the glim pses of light and greenery
through the w indow s, like a constant
pendulum m ovem ent sw inging betw een
the echo of history and the m irage of the
landscape a long history of grandeur,
conflict and decline captured for a fleet-
ing instant in the shafts of light from the
surrounding site.
This room leads into the adjacent m osaic
gallery and on to a room , sym m etrical
w ith the first Punic room , devoted en-
tirely to am phorae. Fifty specim ens of
terracotta am phorae in various shapes
and sizes show the abiding significance
of a utensil that proved its use through
the ages. Com ing from different regions
at different tim es, they give an idea of
the navigation routes and trade flow s
even though the products they con-
tained have disappeared, and offer a
fine anthology of the developm ent of
design for daily use. In one corner there
is a description of the w hole history of
barrel vaulting, an architectural feature
that spread across the w orld.
From this room , confined narrow ly to a
specific them e, the visitor enters the Byrsa
gallery, w hich is given over to a presenta-
tion of the objects and other artefacts
gathered over m ore than a century on the
Byrsa H ill, in the light of recent excavations
and as a com plem ent to w hat the visitor
has already discovered in situ, during Act
2 of the tour.
First, Phoenician/Punic Byrsa is portrayed
in five sequences that have been recon-
structed from the discovery of the residen-
tial quarter dating from third to second
centuries B .C , nam ely im ports, locally pro-
duced goods, buildings, religious prac-
tices and, finally, the fall and destruction
of the city. The Rom an period is then
evoked, centring around a scale m odel of
the forum , w ith its H igh Em pire architec-
tural decoration. A fresco on the far w all
show s the m assive scale of the w orks
undertaken for the construction of the
esplanade and buildings. Around this scale
m odel, fragm ents of architecture, sculp-
ture, inscriptions and other features are
displayed to illustrate the reconstruction
of the m odel.
A staircase at the far end of this w ing leads
to an equally large room w ith an archw ay
across the end, on either side of w hich are
The faade of the museum; the building
was formerly part of the monastic order
of the Pres Blancs.
30
Abdelmajid Ennabli
U N ESCO 1998
O n the other side of the entrance hall, a
room dedicated to the Palaeo-Christian
period contains m osaics, especially the
Lady of Carthage, architectural fragm ents,
bas-reliefs, ceram ics and religious objects
from the basilicas and necropolises, to-
gether w ith detailed explanations, a recon-
struction of the Carthage basilica, and
plans of the excavations.
Parallel to the sculpture room , a separate
gallery has an exhibition entitled Science
and Archaeology: A meeting in Carthage,
illustrating the conservation w ork and treat-
m ent and preservation m ethods used to
safeguard archaeological objects. This con-
cludes the m useum visit.
Visitors em erge from this journey through
space and tim e and are guided along a
short cut, in the shade of a portico and an
avenue of trees, from w hich they can have
a last look round at the landscape w hich
now com es to life w ith all the im ages they
have absorbed. It is no longer just a land-
scape, but a stage in w hich a long story has
been played out, and the visitor is no
longer the sam e person, for the past has
the tw o great bas-reliefs of Victoryand
Abundance, w hich w ere the principal
virtues of the Em peror and the Em pire. A
sm all adjacent room contains show cases
w ith early Carthaginian artefacts w hich
w ere excavated from the deepest strata of
the site on the D ecum anus M axim us, and
w hich serve as a com plem ent to the in situ
visit. These sm all objects are tangible evi-
dence of the far-off origins of Carthage
m odest and fragile w itnesses to the origins
of a tow n destined to becom e a m etropolis.
The next room , the Punic sarcophagus
room , contains a w hole collection of sar-
cophagi, w ith the m asterpieces, the Priest
and Priestess, displayed in the centre, in a
sunken recess. These lovely statues carved
in high relief from w hite m arble on the lids
of the sarcophagi represent the tw o figures
in an attitude of w orship.
Am ong the w ider variety of sculptures in
the Rom an sculpture room are som e im -
portant pieces, including three statuettes
from D em ech D em eter, Persephone and
a charioteer as w ell as several busts of
deities and em perors.
A view of the interior of the museum
showing the Roman Byrsa room.
31
U N ESCO 1998
com e alive and m em ory has been re-
gained. O bviously, such a m etam orphosis
com es about m ore by exercising the intel-
lect than by staging som e son et lumire
show . This m useological presentation in
three acts ending in a rapid unravelling of
the plot, as in a play, naturally calls for the
active participation of the visitor.
Behind the scenes
A site m useum is m ore than a collection of
show cases w ith objects arranged accord-
ing to a m useological script for the pro-
posed visit. The exhibition part w hich is
open to the public is only the tip of the
iceberg; the hidden part is m ade up of the
quantity of objects stored in the reserves.
The Carthage M useum collections consist
of objects characteristic of different histori-
cal periods. The m osaics, architectural frag-
m ents and sculpture are nearly all Rom an,
the funerary stelae and inscriptions are
both Punic and Rom an for the epitaphs
and ex-votos, and the sarcophagi com e
from all periods. M ost of the ceram ic
objects found in tom bs vases, figurines,
lam ps, m asks are Punic, som e of them
im ported. There are som e from the Rom an
period, but few of them , apart from the
lam ps, are intact. Alm ost all the jew ellery is
Punic, as are the am ulets, w hich cam e from
Egypt or w ere local im itations, glassw are
and bronze m irrors.
Finds from early excavations on the site
have been sorted, grouped, stocked and
inventoried. This is essential for scientific
research and the adm inistration of the
collections. In addition to the objects
kept in the m useum , there are those still
buried in the depths of the earth, w hich
w ill com e to light through m ethodical
excavations, or som etim es pure chance,
and w ill add to the w ealth of the existing
collections.
The Carthage M useum is the natural recipi-
ent for objects from the surrounding ar-
chaeological site and it is rich in the prom -
ise of treasures yet to be yielded up by
future excavations. For the m useum is also
dedicated to research: this is in fact its m ain
purpose. The m useological approach for a
m useum on an archaeological site is the
end-product of a scientific process. The
objects found, preserved and displayed are
above all of docum entary value and this is
som ething that only scientific m ethod can
elucidate and enhance. The function of an
archaeological site m useum is not to ex-
hibit objects for their aesthetic quality
alone, but rather to illustrate a civilization,
and in this respect the m ost hum ble of
objects or even fragm ents are just as m ean-
ingful as w orks of great beauty. Thus, even
if an exhibition is perm anent, it m ust not be
static but m ust evolve, change and be
transform ed w ith the progress of research
and m useological techniques. It m ust be in
tune w ith, if not ahead of, the tim es.
O rganically linked to the site it stands
upon, nurtured by the archaeological ex-
cavations, the M useum of Carthage is a
living organism sustained by the new dis-
coveries brought in, by the incorporation
of new objects into the old collections and
by abundant research w hich constantly
reopens the debate. It is a place of perm a-
nence and gestation, and consequently a
place for reflection. This is w hat explains
its versatility.
True to its international vocation, the M u-
seum of Carthage is open to researchers
and specialists and m any m onographs have
been w ritten on its treasures. Its archaeo-
logical library is based on three distinct
collections: that of the Pres Blancs, built
up by Fr Ferron; that of the form er French
Archaeological Cultural M ission, know n as
the Cintas library; and the collection do-
nated by Canon Saum agne. Together these
constitute a collection of specialized
32
Abdelmajid Ennabli
U N ESCO 1998
books and periodicals on Antiquity. Since
the beginning of the International Cam -
paign, this has been supplem ented by a
D ocum entation Centre w hich collects ar-
chaeological data from all the research
w ork and issues an annual new sletter,
called the CEDAC Bulletin, now in its
sixteenth issue. In order to strengthen the
im pact of the D ocum entation Centre
launched by U N ESCO tw enty-five years
ago, the m useum has plans to set up a
U N ESCO inform ation area to provide data
about the site, and is considering the
creation of an Internet site for w ider
public outreach.
A m odest but functional w orkshop-labora-
tory for the restoration and preservation of
archaeological objects has been set up
w ith a grant from the U niversity of Toronto
and Canadian bilateral funds. O n the ground
floor is a special gallery explaining the
m ethods used.
The m useum is particularly keen to appeal
to young visitors, and has consequently
produced and published a variety of gen-
eral inform ation m aterials, such as post-
cards, leaflets, inform ation packs and
guides, to be distributed free of charge. It
w ill soon offer an introductory and creative
w orkshop for young children. A m ultivisual
program m e created several years ago, w ith
the collaboration of U N ESCO , tells the
story of Carthage through a w all display of
im ages.
The M useum of Carthage, situated in the
heart of a renow ned site, is clearly an
exceptional tool as a collection centre for
all the m aterial docum enting the site, and
as an inform ation centre and a show case of
a great civilization. In addition to these tw o
basic functions, the m useum s location and
action w ill place it in the forefront of
activities connected w ith the future park of
Carthage-Sidi Bou Sad.
For it m ust be rem em bered that the
Carthage site is on both the U N ESCO
W orld H eritage List and the list of 100
M editerranean sites. It is one of the rare
sites to m eet the six criteria for inclusion
in these lists and has received a good deal
of financial support. In addition to that of
U N ESCO , there have been generous con-
tributions from Canada, the G etty Founda-
tion, France and G erm any.
The m useum bears w itness to the Tunisian
G overnm ents w ill to reassert the value of
the national heritage. It is here that Tuni-
sians can learn about their history and their
glorious past. I
33
Archaeology and ethnic politics: the discovery of A rkaim
U N ESCO 1998
Archaeology and ethnic politics:
the discovery of Arkaim
V. A. Shnirelman
The discovery in the southern Urals of a
perfectly conserved city some 3,600 years
old was not merely a significant
archaeological event. As V. A.
Shnirelman explains, it set off a chain
reaction of far-fetched speculation and
extreme ethnic nationalism which sought
to exploit the find for purely political
purposes. The author is a member of the
Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology
of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
U N ESCO 1998
N othing unusual w as foreseen for 20 June
1987. D uring the sum m er of that year a
team of archaeologists from Chelyabinsk
State U niversity headed by G ennady B.
Zdanovich w as to exam ine archaeological
sites in the Bolshaya K araganskaya river
valley, w here the construction of a reser-
voir had begun the previous autum n. The
valley lies in the south of Chelyabinsk
oblast (Southern U rals) at the confluence
of the Bolshaya K araganka and U tyaganka
rivers. The archaeological sites already
know n in the locality had yielded little and
had not aroused any great hopes. The
sum m er digging season appeared suffi-
cient to provide a general outline of cul-
tural evolution in a valley that w as to be
subm erged in the spring of 1988.
The inquisitiveness of tw o youths w as,
how ever, about to upset the plans of the
archaeologists and the developers. O n 20
June, Aleksandr Voronkov and Aleksandr
Ezril, tw o schoolboys w orking for the
expedition, inform ed the archaeologists
about som e curious em bankm ents that
they had found in the steppe. To the
experienced eye it w as apparent that som e-
thing m ost unusual had been unearthed.
That sam e evening Zdanovich inform ed
the m em bers of the expedition about an
outstanding discovery, and the school-
boys, w ho had been the first to spot it, w ere
rew arded w ith a tin of condensed m ilk.
W hat had the archaeologists seen in the
steppe and w hat had so astonished them ?
D uring the 1970s and 1980s Soviet special-
ists had been engaged in bitter disputes
concerning the w hereabouts of the origi-
nal hom eland of the Indo-Europeans, the
nature and developm ent of their ancient
culture, and the m igratory paths of indi-
vidual groups. The im petus for these dis-
putes had been provided by tw o linguists,
Vyacheslav V. Ivanov and Tom az V.
G am krelidze, w ho w ere of the opinion that
the Indo-Europeans had com e from Asia
M inor. They w ere opposed by the em inent
historian of the ancient East Igor M .
D yakonov, w ho located the early Indo-
Europeans in the Balkans. M any Soviet
archaeologists w ere convinced that the
m ain area of settlem ent of the early Indo-
Europeans had been the Eurasian steppes
and w ooded steppes w here the cultures
Aerial view of Arkaim.
34
V. A. Shnirelman
U N ESCO 1998
that developed had been m ainly those of
the cattle-herding population that had given
rise to the rem arkable cultures of the
Scythian w orld.
Linguistically, the Scythians w ere a Per-
sian people, and the languages spoken by
the Persian peoples are closely akin to
Indo-European languages, the best know n
of w hich is Sanskrit, the language of V edic
literature, the scriptures of the Indo-
Aryans. At one tim e the Persian and
Indo-Aryan languages had constituted a
linguistic w hole. Archaeologists connect
the Indo-Aryans w ith the steppe cultures
of the second m illennium B.C . W hat is in
dispute is w hen and w here the Indo-
Aryans em erged as a distinct group and
how they cam e to be in India. Som e
authors locate their original hom eland in
the southern U rals, w hile others seek it
along the northern shores of the Black Sea.
This is w hy the discovery of Arkaim caused
such excitem ent am ong archaeologists.
Arkaim is a circular fortified settlem ent,
roughly 150 m etres in diam eter, dating
back to the seventeenth and sixteenth
centuries B .C. It is surrounded by tw o
concentric defensive ram parts of clay and
adobe blocks on a log fram e. W ithin the
circle close to the ram parts are som e sixty
sem i-dugout dw ellings w ith hearths, cel-
lars, w ells and m etallurgical furnaces. The
dw ellings open on to an inner circular
street w ith w ood-block paving. A drainage
gutter w ith w ater-collecting pits w as con-
structed along it and a rectangular square
graced the centre of the settlem ent. En-
trance to the settlem ent w as via four intri-
cately constructed passages through w hich
it w ould be difficult for enem ies to gain
access. All the evidence suggests that the
settlem ent had been built to a com m on
plan, w hich is indicative of a society w ith
a developed social structure and local
leaders w ith high authority. This im pres-
sion is further strengthened by the fact that
m ore than tw enty circular and rectangular
settlem ent sites dating from the eighteenth
to sixteenth centuries B.C . have now been
found in the southern U rals and northern
Kazakhstan. The area, w hich archaeolo-
gists have dubbed the land of fortified
tow ns, covers an area of 400 x 150 km .
The answ er to the question of w hether
there w as anything unusual about the
discovery of Arkaim is both affirm ative and
negative. In the late 1960s and early 1970s
archaeologists had begun to find rem ains
in this area of fortifications and rich burial
grounds dating from the second quarter of
the second m illennium B.C. The best-know n
achievem ent of the seventies w as the exca-
vation of the Sintashta burial ground, w here
a rich cache, including rem ains of a chariot
and horse trappings, w as discovered. It
w as already apparent at that tim e that the
southern U rals w ere a m ost im portant
region in the form ation of a com plex
society that had acquired w ar chariots a
m arvel of m ilitary technology at the tim e.
Arkaim provided confirm ation of that as-
sum ption and im parted a new perspective
to it, by virtue of being the first w ell-
preserved fortified settlem ent to be studied
in som e detail by a team on the spot. The
fact that it w as Arkaim that w as investi-
gated in this w ay w as, of course, the result
of a chance com bination of circum stances.
It is a fact that w e now know of larger
fortified settlem ents of the sam e type w ith
far m ore im pressive stone architecture.
The battle for Arkaim
Arkaim acquired special renow n from the
very dram atic struggle to rescue and pre-
serve it. The reservoir w as being built by
w hat w as at the tim e the all-pow erful
M inistry of W ater Resources of the U SSR.
A s initially conceived, the w ork w as
35
U N ESCO 1998
scheduled for com pletion in 1989, but the
builders decided to force the pace and
com plete the project a year ahead of sched-
ule. The w hole valley, along w ith the
unique site, w ould therefore have been
subm erged in the spring of 1988. That had
to be prevented by all possible m eans. The
archaeologists did everything they could to
m obilize opinion for the saving of Arkaim .
Academ icians, leading scholars and public
figures spoke out in its defence.
Although the archaeologists w ere initially
asking no m ore than that the building w ork
be halted until 1990, there w as soon talk of
establishing a protected area or even an
archaeological m useum site in the Bolshaya
Karaganskaya valley. In M arch 1989, fol-
low ing a lively discussion, to w hich spe-
cialists and representatives of public groups
contributed, the Praesidium of the U rals
Branch of the Academ y of Sciences of the
U SSR issued a decree establishing a special
scientific laboratory to study the proto-
urban civilization in Chelyabinsk oblast
and requested the Council of M inisters of
the Russian Federation to establish a pro-
tected historical area.
The argum ents put forw ard by the scholars
w ere so convincing and public opinion
w as so vocal that m em bers of the local and
provincial ( oblast) authorities also cam e to
the defence of Arkaim . At the sam e tim e
the M inistry of W ater Resources rapidly
lost authority as the dem ocratic process
spread throughout the country, the Soviet
U nion m oved tow ards collapse at an alarm -
ing speed, and regionalism began to de-
velop in the Russian Federation. It w as
riding upon that w ave that the Council of
M inisters of the Russian Federation de-
cided in April 1991 to halt the construction
of the reservoir and to establish the Arkaim
historical and geographical m useum pro-
tected site. In the follow ing years w ork
w as put in hand for the creation of a
scientific cam pus, the provision of tourist
facilities and the setting up of a M useum of
N atural H istory and M an. It is proposed to
restore the natural landscape of the valley,
w hich has been greatly distorted by agri-
culture. At the sam e tim e, the parlous state
of the Russian econom y m eans that the
m useum site constantly faces financial prob-
lem s. Its directors quite often have to
accept charitable donations, especially from
astrologers, w hich is bound to put the
archaeologists in an equivocal position.
In the opinion of m any specialists, Arkaim
and sim ilar sites could have been estab-
lished by the earliest Indo-Iranians long
before their separation and their m igra-
tions along the Eurasian steppe corridor
and the southw ard m ovem ent into Per-
sia and India. Som e scholars draw paral-
lels betw een circular fortified settlem ents
of the type of A rkaim and the city of the
legendary K ing Y im a, reproducing the
m odel of the universe described in the
Avesta, the holy book of the ancient
Persians.
All these hypotheses w ere actively em -
ployed by the scholars in their struggle to
save A rkaim . In seeking to m ake their
argum ents m ore im pressive, they tried to
play on the im agination of officials by
having recourse to som e very risky as-
sum ptions. Arkaim w as presented as one
of the oldest settlem ents in the country, as
The archaeological experimental area
with some reconstructed features such as
an oven and walls.
36
V. A. Shnirelman
U N ESCO 1998
the centre of a form of statehood of
nom archical type, as a tem ple-observatory
com parable to Stonehenge, and w as even
referred to as the native land of the Persian
prophet Zoroaster. O fficials and tourists
visiting Arkaim could see a placard w ith
the inscription Zarathustra w as born here.
Furtherm ore, Arkaim w as included in the
list of national and spiritual shrines. In that
context, it w as som etim es asserted that
Arkaim had not been built by Indo-Irani-
ans, but by Indo-Aryans, w ho w ere alleg-
edly closely related to the Slavs and could
serve as a m odel for contem porary m an-
kind of harm onious interrelationships be-
tw een culture and the natural environ-
m ent. The land of fortified tow nsw as
referred to unequivocally on another occa-
sion as the land of the ancient Aryansand
endow ed w ith som e special spirituality.
The term Aryansbegan to be used arbi-
trarily in a w ider sense as a synonym for
Indo-Persians.
Arkaim and the Russian idea
As things turned out, the discovery of
Arkaim and the intensive archaeological
investigation of the land of fortified tow ns
coincided w ith the rapid collapse of the
Soviet U nion. The U SSR, the successor to
the Russian Em pire, had alw ays been looked
upon as having been created by the efforts
of Russians over the centuries, w ith the
result that until fairly recently Russians felt
them selves to be at hom e anyw here w ithin
it. The situation had begun to change in the
ten to tw enty years before the collapse of
the U SSR. The grow th of local ethnic
nationalism in the border areas m ade Rus-
sians feel for the first tim e as if they w ere
foreigners, and m any of them began to
return to the central regions of Russia.
G iven that the form ation of the vast Rus-
sian Em pire had taken place over the
centuries through w ars of conquest, acqui-
sition of territory and the rapid expansion
of the Russians into regions inhabited by
groups having different cultures and speak-
ing other languages, it is not surprising that
w ith the grow th of ethnic nationalism the
legitim acy of the presence of Russians in
various parts of the country should raise
questions for the indigenous non-Russian
population and the Russians them selves.
U nder these conditions Russian ethnic na-
tionalists began a feverish search for his-
torical justification for Russian dom ination
over the entire territory of the form er
A stone figurine
from the southern
Urals.
37
U N ESCO 1998
Em pire. The history of the recent and
m edieval periods, replete w ith cam paigns
of conquest, w as not w ell suited to that
purpose. The prehistoric past offered m ore
tem pting prospects for the propounding of
arbitrary constructs as prom ising theories.
Russian ethnic nationalists reopened on
their ow n account the long-forgotten and
rejected reasoning of the Slavic school of
historythat had vainly sought to identify
the Slavs w ith the ancient nom adic inhab-
itants of the steppe w ho spoke Persian
languages (Scythians, Sakians and Sar-
m atians). M oreover, having arm ed them -
selves w ith m odern archaeological data,
they began to insist that the ancestors of
the Slavshad already conquered the Euro-
pean steppe zone back in the Bronze Age.
They increasingly identified these ances-
tors w ith the Aryans, arbitrarily including
in that category those groups of Indo-
Europeans w hom they found m ost ac-
ceptable as forebears. In this w ay the
aggressive policy of the Russian Em pire
w as represented by them in a different
light as the return of the Russians to their
hereditary lands.
In that context the discovery of Arkaim w as
m ost opportune. Zdanovich him self did
not refrain from acknow ledging this trend.
W e Slavs,he w rote, consider ourselves to
be new arrivals, but that is untrue. Indo-
Europeans and Indo-Iranians had been
living here [in the southern U rals] since the
Stone Age and had been incorporated in
the Kazakhs, Bashkirs and Slavs, such is
the com m on thread linking us all.Al-
though archaeologists them selves seek the
cultural roots of Arkaim partly in the m id-
dle Volga region and partly in southern
Siberia, the Russian ultranationalists have
opinions of their ow n on the m atter. From
1991 onw ards, w hen it w as acutely felt that
the territory of the Russian state w as con-
tracting abruptly and shifting northw ards,
the hyperboreal idea, according to w hich
the original hom eland of the w hite people
w as to be found in the Arctic region, cam e
into vogue am ong them . Clim atic cooling
and the advance of the ice sheets had
obliged those Aryansto seek a new
refuge.
In their southw ard advance they chose the
southern U rals as the place w here they
w ould settle. It is there that the Russian
ultranationalists locate the second hom e-
land of the A ryans, from w hich they sub-
sequently spread out over the vast ex-
panses of Eurasia to the Carpathians in the
w est and China in the east. Those w ho put
forw ard these view s regard the southern
U rals as the source of the Vedic faiths and
consider that the area w as practically the
oldest exam ple of statehood in the w orld,
the capital of w hich w as in holy Arkaim .
Som e of them refer to this statehood as
Slavic. These are breathtaking fantasies
that entrance the spirit and, as is acknow l-
edged by one of their disciples, Arkaim
gives one the feeling of em bodying all past
m illennia, destinies and decisions, pains
and trium phs over difficulties. . . . There is
a realization of being the heir to and the
continuer of som e great undertaking that
turns out to have been alive w ithin you for
a long tim e. . . .
The feelings that Arkaim arouses in Rus-
sian ultranationalists are once again reach-
ing passionate heights. As one of them
declares, Ancient Russia [Rus] existed, there
w as a w ritten and spoken language, there
w ere its spiritual values and Arkaim is the
proof of all that.Another individual inter-
prets Arkaim as a sym bol of Russian glory
and his com m ent to that effect is published
w ith satisfaction by the Russian ultrana-
tionalist new spapers Russky Vostok [The
Russian East] (Irkutsk) and Za russkoe delo
[For the Russian Cause] (St Petersburg).
This idea is not w ithout a touch of racism ,
and it is called upon to inculcate openly
38
V. A. Shnirelman
U N ESCO 1998
xenophobic attitudes. It does, after all,
invite Russians to rem em ber their racial
roots and Aryan origin, declares Arkaim to
be the source of the proto-Slavic group of
the Aryan peopleand at the sam e tim e
lam ents the dependence of the w hite race
on som e kind of alien culture stem m ing
from the prophet M oses. The plans for the
inundation of Arkaim , that w ere success-
fully resisted w ith great difficulty by na-
tional patriotic forces, are instanced as an
exam ple of a blasphem ous attitude to the
heritage of the Aryan ancestors. The con-
clusion draw n is the declaration by Russian
ultranationalists that until such tim e as
national patriotic forces com e to pow er, it
w ill be im possible to repulse those w ho
insult and plunder Russia.
New fantasies, old assumptions
This idea suffers from m egalom ania and as
tim e passes is accum ulating new fantasies
and the m ost strange assum ptions. Those
w ho hold it have no difficulty increasing
the age of Arkaim by a m illennium or m ore,
m aking it older than the Egyptian pyra-
m idsand asserting at the sam e tim e that
iron w as sm elted there. Arkaim is also
identified w ith Asgard, the secret hom e-
land of the ancient G erm anic god O din.
The sources of this m yth are once again
sought am ong the ancestors of the Slavs.
N or is any greater difficulty experienced in
accusing Soviet freem asonsof having had
barbaric plans for the inundation of Arkaim
and in calling upon Aryansto return to the
Indo-European (Vedic) m ain line of devel-
opm entin the nam e of the restoration of
the Spiritual Superpow er(w ithin the 1975
boundaries of the U SSR).
A further theoryequally arbitrarily m akes
sites of the type of Arkaim and Sintashta a
thousand years younger so as to declare
the southern U rals to be the original
hom eland of the prophet Zoroaster, w here
he produced the holy book, the Avesta,
before taking the light of the new teaching
far to the south. The legendary K ing
Y im a is credited w ith the building of
A rkaim , the city of the A ryan hierarchy
and racial purity, and the Sintashta
burial ground is said to be the place
w here the great O ld Russian priest-
w arriorZoroaster is buried.
The sw astika is proclaim ed as the sym bol
of Russian Aryanism . It grieves m e to have
to w rite that archaeologists provided the
food that nourished this and m any other
Aryan ideasof the Russian ultranational-
ists by their attem pts to rehabilitate the
sw astika, in w hich they saw analogies both
in traditional Russian rural culture and in
the m aterials from Arkaim .
The A ryan theory w as also to the liking of
Russian astrologers, the best know n of
w hom , Pavel and Tam ara G loba, adher-
ents of Zoroastrianism and Aryan astrol-
ogy, had their ow n view on the im por-
tance of Arkaim . Pavel G loba stubbornly
insisted that the ancient Persian priests had
a special interest in the territory of the
future Russia, that the prophet Zoroaster
w as born in the Volga-U rals region and
that traces of the long-forgotten earliest
civilization w ere to be sought in Russia.
Tam ara G loba visited Arkaim in 1991 at the
tim e of the sum m er solstice. W hile there
she announced that the m em ory of it had
been preserved for centuries by the Indian
M agi and that its discovery had been fore-
told by the m edieval astrologer Paracelsus.
In later speeches she even let it be under-
stood that the discovery of Arkaim w as due
to her. She had no doubt that it w as the city
tem ple built by the legendary K ing Y im a,
ruler of the Aryans in the G olden Age. She
proclaim ed the U rals to be the centre of the
w orld and the land of fortified tow nsto be
39
U N ESCO 1998
the m iddle of the earth. She saw the fact
that Arkaim , an island of the past, had
seem ingly surfaced out of nothingness as a
pledge that the U rals w ill gather together
the Aryansand w ill becom e the place of
their spiritual concentrationafter m illen-
nia of the pow ers of darkness. Russia,
being in the constellation of Aquarius, had
a great future and w ill rule the w orld.
Tam ara G loba stigm atizes as guilty of trem -
bling w hen confronted w ith the future of
Russiaall those w ho have a sceptical
attitude tow ards the Aryan ideaand w ho
see in it the birthm ark of N azism . N or is that
all. She tries to vindicate the sw astika as
w ell as the Aryans, describing it as the
sym bol of the connection of Rus w ith the
Aryan race, adducing as proof the depic-
tions of the sw astika som etim es found on
clay pots from Arkaim and proclaim ing
that the sw astika w as em bodied in the very
design of this fortified tow n.
There are organizations of m ystics and
practitioners of the occult arts in Chelyabinsk
itself. They observe annual holidays and
hold festivals and gatherings of their fol-
low ers and w orshippers w ho com e from
all over the country and from abroad.
These activities usually take place in the
spring and sum m er, and the program m e
often includes a visit to Arkaim .
Ever since archaeologists declared Arkaim
to be a legacy of sun-w orshipping Aryans,
an atm osphere of secrecy has been built up
around it and it has been recognized as a
place w here there is a build-up of m ystic
forces. There has been an endless influx of
tourists, prom inent am ong w hom have
been follow ers of the teaching of Rereck,
1
astrologers, practitioners of the occult, neo-
paganists, follow ers of H are K rishna, fire
w orshippers and sim ply people eager to
be cured of crippling diseases. The m ost
popular festival is the N ight of Ivan K upala,
21/22 June, w hen there are heathen rituals
here, accom panied by dancing and leap-
ing over fires, m ass orgies w ith bathing in
the river, m editation and singing. The
valley is visited by pregnant w om en, w ho
believe that the w aters of the K araganka
river are at least as beneficial as those of the
G anges. Tourists love to clim b the Bald
M ountain that rises above the valley and
spend hours there tappingenergy from
outer space.
Arkaim has flared up like a blinding m eteor
in the m urky sky of post-Soviet reality,
giving rise to flashes of doubt and of hope
in the m inds of the inhabitants of Russia.
The m irages w ill disappear w ith the pas-
sage of tim e, but the riddle of the lost
southern U ralian civilization w ill long con-
tinue to excite the im agination of research-
ers. I should like to believe that the Arkaim
m useum and protected area w ill have a
long and fruitful life. I
Note
1. A tw entieth-century Russian artist and
philosopher and w ell-know n expert in
Buddhist and H indu philosophy Ed.
40
Eduardo Matos Moctezuma
U N ESCO 1998
Reaching beyond the site: the G reat
Tem ple M useum in M exico City
The Great Temple excavation in the heart
of Mexico City was one of the most
significant archaeological finds in a
country replete with world-famous
historical sites. The creation of a museum
on the spot was seen as a unique
opportunity to develop a variety of
innovative programmes to teach and
explain this rich cultural vestige to
ordinary people both near and far. The
author has been co-ordinator of the
project since 1978 and is director of the
Great Temple Museum. He has written
more than seventy-five articles and forty
books and has received international
recognition for his work: an honoris
causa doctorate from the University of
Colorado in the United States, the Andres
Bello Order of the Republic of Venezuela
and the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres of
France are a few of his many
distinctions.
U N ESCO 1998
O n 13 August 1521, after a siege lasting for
three m onths, the A ztec cities of
Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco fell into the
hands of H ernn Corts and his indigenous
allies, w ho w ere enem ies of the A ztecs.
The tw in cities had both been built less
than tw o centuries previously. They had
experienced unprecedented developm ent
in the m eantim e. Rivals from the outset,
pow er and control over the triple Alliance
betw een Tenochtitlan, Tacuba and Texcoco
w ere based in Tenochtitlan, w hile Tlatelolco
w as fam ous for its trade expansion into
different parts of M esoam erica. The expan-
sion of Tlatelolco w as short-lived. In 1473,
it w as defeated by the arm y of Tenochtitlan
and cam e under control of its neighbour
city. H ow ever, at the tim e of the Spanish
conquest, both cities united their endeav-
ours to confront the Spanish pow er and the
indigenous tributary peoples w ho had
joined forces w ith the Iberian arm ies against
their oppressors to w hom they w ere obliged
to pay tribute: the A ztecs of Tenochtitlan.
The w ar of conquest w as savage. Tem ples
w ere razed to the ground and destruction
spread everyw here. Friar Toribio de
Benavente, a Franciscan brother, likened
this destruction to the plagues of Egypt.
H ow ever, Corts w ent on to order the
construction of a neo-H ispanic city on the
sam e site as ancient Tenochtitlan. G radu-
ally, all traces of the old Aztec city w ere
w iped out and replaced by the Spanish
urban plan.
N early five centuries have elapsed since
those events. Today, M exico City covers a
vast area below w hich traces of various
pre-H ispanic cities and villages still exist.
O n 21 February 1978, em ployees of the
Electric Light and Pow er Com pany w ere
w orking in the heart of M exico City w hen
they cam e across part of a sculpture. The
N ational Institute for Anthropology w as
called in and the archaeologists found this
to be a huge stone sculpture w ith a diam -
eter of m ore than 3 m etres, representing
the G oddess Coyolxauhqui, the lunar deity
and sister to the Sun and W ar G od,
H uitzilopochtli. This find lay at the origin
of the G reat Tem ple Project, for w hich I am
responsible. The purpose of the project
w as to uncover the principal tem ple of the
Aztecs after five years of archaeological
w ork in the city centre.
O ne of the program m es resulting from the
scientific intervention of the archaeolo-
General view of the Great Temple
excavations.
41
Reaching beyond the site: the G reat Tem ple M useum in M exico City
U N ESCO 1998
gists, restorers, biologists, chem ists, histo-

rians and other specialists, w as the creation
of a site m useum alongside the vestiges of
the G reat Tem ple to display the rich ar-
chaeological finds m ade here. The general
m useum plan w as derived from the dual
nature of the G reat Tem ple: an edifice w ith
tw o flights of steps leading to the upper
part w here the tw o sanctuaries w ere situ-
ated. O ne w as dedicated to w ater and
agricultural production and w atched over
by the Rain G od, Tlaloc. The other half of
the building w as consecrated to the G od of
W ar, H uitzilopochtli. The m useum w as
accordingly designed in tw o parts w ith its
m ain elevation facing w est, like that of the
G reat Tem ple. The visitor enters a vesti-
bule w here a huge m odel of the Cerem o-
nial Precinct of the Aztec city separates the
tw o w ings: w ar and w ater, death and life.
Each w ing com prises four room s and on
the upper level visitors cross betw een
them by a balcony from w hich the colossal
and m agnificent sculpture of the G oddess
Coyolxauhqui can be adm ired. Before en-
tering the m useum , the visitor w alks past
the vestiges of the G reat Tem ple w hich
w ere unearthed by the archaeologists in
five years of strenuo us w ork. The
architectonic vestiges are therefore united
w ith the other exhibits in a w ay w hich
gives the visitor a clear idea of the signifi-
cance of the very place w here the m ain
Aztec edifice once stood.
A museum on a human scale
I have alw ays been w ell aw are of the
justification for the existence of great m u-
seum s. H ow ever, I believe that the m arvels
contained w ithin them , the outcom e of
hum an creativity in all ages and all circum -
stances, can hardly be taken in fully on a
single visit to these vast edifices. All the
m ore so as visitors to a different country are
often short of tim e, but still w ish to get to
know the w orks of the past and present.
The creation of the G reat Tem ple M useum
w as an opportunity to build an edifice that
w as adequate for its intended purpose,
bearing in m ind the fact that it is situated in
an archaeological zone in the very heart of
the capital and surrounded by colonial-
style buildings. The architect, Pedro Ram irez
Vazquez, therefore chose the m useum
design outlined above, on the basis of a
structured plan and the bold m useographic
approach of M iguel Angel Fernandez.
A visit to the ruins and the m useum lasts
no m ore than an hour. The M exican or
foreign visitor can therefore also take
in other im portant sites such as the
cathedral, D iego Riveras m urals in the
N ational Palace or any of the m ore than
forty other m useum s and cultural venues
in the historic city centre. The content of
the G reat Tem ple M useum has a succinct
and unified character, w ith a clearly
defined them e. W hat is m ore, the
m useum stands on the very site w here the
inform ation w as gathered. Inaugurated
Sanctuary with skulls in the northern
part of the Great Temple with the
cathedral in the background.
42
U N ESCO 1998
objects on display are explained in sign
language for their benefit. M entally re-
tarded children also com e to the m useum .
As can be seen, the program m e is specially
designed for all kinds of people w ho visit the
m useum . H ow ever, since its inauguration,
w e have also decided to create another
program m e entitled The M useum Com es to
You. This second program m e has been
very w ell received. A group of our guides
and curators present a show w ith an audio-
visual accom panim ent, explaining the na-
ture of the m useum and Aztec culture. The
interesting feature of this program m e is that
it is intended for sectors of the population
w ho cannot com e to the m useum in person.
W e have arranged visits to prisons for m en
and w om en in M exico City, and also to
detention centres for young offenders. W e
have also travelled to various places in the
country to present the m useum contents.
Som etim es, w e have had to arrange transla-
tion for the benefit of the populations of
rem ote villages w here indigenous languages
are m ainly spoken. In this w ay, w e have
succeeded in creating a considerable incen-
tive for these sectors of the population w ho
because of the circum stances in w hich they
are placed, w ould have difficulty visiting the
G reat Tem ple.
I m ight add that w e have also arranged
lectures and w orkshops for detention cen-
tres. In these w orkshops, the detainees
m ake ceram ic reproductions of som e of
the archaeological pieces that they have
seen on the slides. Finally, they are given
an attendance diplom a. G roups of m inor
offenders have on occasion com e to the
m useum to receive the aw ard for their
attendance at the w orkshops.
W e believe that a m useum , w hatever its
content, has an obligation not only to open
its doors to an ordinary audience. It m ust
also take a w ider interest in sectors of the
on 12 O ctober 1987 by the then President
of the Republic, it has since received over
6 m illion visitors, adults and children,
M exicans and foreigners alike.
Am ong the different activities proper to
any m useum , in the G reat Tem ple M useum
w e gave priority to those w ho are inter-
ested in getting to know this edifice. Sev-
eral program m es have been put together
for the visitors w ho habitually com e here,
such as tourists and school groups. W e
have also m ade suitable arrangem ents for
people w ho, for special reasons, have
difficulty in m aking a visit. That is the origin
of the program m e for the disabled called A
N ew O ption for Y our Sensesin w hich
specially trained m useum personnel take
charge of visits by groups of blind children
and adults. In the m useum room s, replicas
of pieces have been specially placed for
blind persons to touch, and explanations
are given in Braille. Provision is also m ade
for groups of deaf-and-m ute visitors. The
Human skull with flint knives exhibited
in the museum.
43
Reaching beyond the site: the G reat Tem ple M useum in M exico City
U N ESCO 1998
population w ho, for a variety of reasons,
are unable to pay personal visits. Prisoners,
residents of old peoples hom es, people
living in rem ote places and others all have
a right to learn about their heritage and
history. Taking the m useum to them is a
vital obligation.
At the sam e tim e, academ ic research is
continuing and further excavations are in
progress in the environs of the G reat Tem -
ple. The U rban Archaeology Program m e
(PAU ) is responsible for seven blocks of
the historical centre of M exico City, under
w hich the ancient A ztec cerem onial pre-
cinct is thought to lie. Architects from the
G reat Tem ple m onitor every public or
private construction project inside this
perim eter. O ne of the m ost im portant
projects is the consolidation of the cathe-
dral. This edifice had suffered grave struc-
tural dam age because of the settlem ent of
M exico City caused by the low ering of
groundw ater levels. W hen over thirty w ells
w ere opened up below the cathedral in an
endeavour to solve the problem of its
stability, our excavations brought to light a
w hole series of vestiges, ranging from
buildings to offerings w ith pieces of w ood,
ceram ics, stone objects, m urals, etc.
All these item s w ere put on display at a
tem porary exhibition w hich show ed the
public the rescue w ork in progress in the
environs. Exhibitions of this kind, lasting
for three m onths, gave a good illustration
of the w ork in progress. Finds m ade by
archaeologist colleagues elsew here in
M exico w ere also show n.
The exhibition plan includes a program m e
for the tem porary exchange of pieces w ith
other M exican m useum s. The idea is to put
on display in the G reat Tem ple pieces or
groups from provincial m useum s in order
to m ake them better know n. In its turn, the
G reat Tem ple has sent an exhibition of
som e of its pieces on tour to these m use-
um s. This schem e gives access to objects
w hich could otherw ise be adm ired only by
visiting the m useum s concerned.
The G reat Tem ple M useum ranks third
in term s of the num ber of visitors, after
the M useum of H istory in Chapultepec
Castle and the N ational M useum of
Anthropology. The m useum does not
have space for its ow n car park. But a visit
is a m ust because of its location in the
very heart of M exico City, the w orlds
biggest urban area. H ere the visitor can
adm ire the m odern city, its colonial pred-
ecessor and the rem ains of the ancient
Aztec city. I
Blind children
touching a copy of
an exhibit.
44
I. K. Sarma
U N ESCO 1998
Archaeological site m useum s in India:
the backbone of cultural education
I. K. Sarma
India has a century-old tradition of local
museums specifically created to preserve
and display archaeological finds. Backed
by a government policy to preserve relics
and objects in their natural
surroundings, major salvage and rescue
operations have brought to light a wealth
of cultural treasures that reflect the
countrys ancient and varied history.
Author of more than 200 articles and
several books, I. K. Sarma served for
many years in the Archaeological Survey
of India where he directed the excavation
of a number of well-known sites. He
retired after having been director in
charge of the museums, conservation
and antiquities sections, and is now
director of the Salar Jung Museum in
Hyderabad.
U N ESCO 1998
The site m useum s of India form a distinct
class by them selves and differ from other
m useum s such as the district, state and
national m useum s of India, w hich are
urban-oriented, m ulti-purpose m useum s
w ith various subjects and related objects
from m any places. The site m useum s are
specific cultural repositories, m ostly of
rural India, and are invariably located at
im portant archaeological m onum ents and
sites w here they preserve the antiquarian
w ealth resulting from the excavation, ex-
ploration and m ajor conservation w orks of
the site. These objects are appropriately
displayed in their natural context and their
ecological background is fully retained. So
the term site m useum connotes both the
geographical location and the archaeologi-
cal content and historical background of
the place in its totality.
The M useum of Archaeology at M athura
(form erly the Curzon M useum of Archaeol-
ogy), founded in 1874, w as the first of its
kind and contains archaeological relics of
the ancient ruins of the city of M athura.
N ext in point of tim e is Bijapur M useum
(1892) at K arnataka, w hich w as set up
w ithin the N aqqar K hana near the fam ous
G ol G um baz Com plex.
M useum s entirely based on archaeological
m aterial and orientation becam e increas-
ingly recognized after Lord Curzon be-
cam e Viceroy in 1899. W hen presenting
the Ancient M onum ents Preservation Bill,
1904, he spelt out the purpose of w hat he
called local m useum sin clear term s:
. . . the custody in collections or m use-
um s of rare or interesting objects that
have either been torn from their sur-
roundings or w hose surroundings have
disappeared. H onorary M em bers w ill
be fam iliar w ith the larger m useum s in
the capital cities of India w here there
are collections not w ithout value, but as
a rule surely m utilated, often unidenti-
fied and uncatalogued and som etim es
abom inably arranged. The plan has
hitherto been to snatch up any sculp-
tured fragm ent in province or presi-
dency and send it off to the Provincial
M useum . This seem ed to m e, w hen I
looked into it, to be all w rong. O bjects
of archaeological interest can best be
studied in relation and close proxim ity
to the group and style of buildings to
w hich they belong, presum ing that these
are of a character and in a locality that
w ill attract visitors. O therw ise if trans-
ferred elsew here, they lose focus, are
apt to becom e m eaningless.
1
In 1936, M arkham and H argreaves m erely
reiterated the view s of Lord Curzon: It has
been the policy of the G overnm ent of India
to keep the sm all and m ovable antiquities,
recovered from the ancient sites, in close
association w ith the rem ains to w hich they
belong, so that they m ay be studied am id
their natural surroundings and not lose
focus by being transported.
2
The ground for setting up site m useum s
w as thus firm ly laid. The rem arkable ar-
chaeological discoveries m ade after Sir
John M arshalls appointm ent as D irector
G eneral of the Archaeological Survey of
India (ASI) in 1902 aroused global interest
in Indian heritage. Sir John M arshall w as
indeed a pioneer w ho accredited him self
as the founder of various site m useum s in
quick succession: Sarnath (1904), Agra
(1906), D elhi Fort (1909), Khajuraho (1910),
N alanda (1917) and Sanchi (1919), apart
from others w hich are now in Pakistan. In
addition, sm aller sculpture sheds w ere
raised closer to the sites or m onum ents and
w ere at the root of the subsequent em er-
gence of site m useum s in both new ly built
m useum buildings or as part of a nearby
m onum ent, w ith suitable display arrange-
m ents as w ell as security m easures.
45
Archaeological site m useum s in India: the backbone of cultural education
U N ESCO 1998
Archaeology cam e to the fore w ith the
advent of Sir Alexander Cunningham , the
founder of the Archaeological Survey of
India in 1861. Cunningham s indefatig-
able zeal in the collection and study of
archaeological m aterial aroused w ide-
spread interest in research in Indian ar-
chaeology. Savants like him dug the sites
and docum ented the finds very w ell.
They saved the treasures from m isuse
and destruction at the hands of the
locals. But stripping the sculptures from
the sites w as certainly an over-enthusias-
tic schem e and, as Professor R. C. Childers
rightly rem arked in his introduction to
Cunningham s publication of his w ork at
Bharhut (1899), it carried w ith it a certain
arom a of vandalism .
3
Even after the establishm ent of site m use-
um s by Sir John M arshall, im portant sculp-
tures from ruined tem ples at H em avathy
and D anavulapadu w ere carried aw ay to
the M adras G overnm ent M useum to open
up fresh galleries. Yet another official ar-
chaeologist and m useum director, after
digging a stupa site at K esanapalli in 1965,
stripped all the inscribed architectural and
sculptured m em bers and carried them to
decorate the portals of an office at
H yderabad. The historical and archaeo-
logical background of the site, the associa-
tion of the sculptures and other antiquities
has thus been lost sight of forever and there
m ay be m any m ore such cases in other
parts of the country.
Safeguarding the sites
The grow th of the site m useum s during the
last 100 years has been slow but steady.
Lack of funds and adequate technical and
adm inistrative personnel blocked the trans-
form ation of sculpture sheds into site m u-
seum s. N evertheless, the G overnm ent of
India, through ASI, has a w ell-laid-out
integrated policy to establish archaeolo-
gical site m useum s as repositories of cul-
tural relics in the rural backw aters am idst
ancient sites and m onum ental com plexes
so as to im part a w holesom e educative
enjoym ent to the villagers of India. A
separate M useum s Branch w as form ed in

A transplanted fifth-century megalith
from Nagarjunakonda.
46
I. K. Sarma
U N ESCO 1998
salvage operations of an unprecedented
scale w ere undertaken at both these
places and resulted in the physical re-
m oval and transportation of the exca-
vated sites, standing m onum ents and
tem ples. Som e rem arkable sculptures,
inscriptions and architectural m em bers
of great beauty and artistic excellence
had to be preserved in safer zones. In
the case of N agarjunakonda, the entire
excavated archaeological w ealth includ-
ing m ajor and m inor structural units,
architectural parts, sculptures and antiq-
uities w ere salvaged and transplanted
over the hill of the sam e nam e. The
countrys first island m useum , w ith open-
air exhibits such as transplanted m onu-
m ents and scale m odels, thus cam e into
being and the original ecological and
historical background w as retained. Cer-
tain irreplaceable and original architec-
tural m em bers, sculptures and icons w ere
preserved w ithin the galleries of the m u-
seum , w hile true-scale m odel copies of
the icons and inscribed m em bers w ere
placed at the transplanted sites. These are,
of course, unique instances.
1946, w ith headquarters at the Central
Asian M useum , N ew D elhi. The num ber
of site m useum s w as only nine and in
1947, three of them Taxila (1918),
M ohenjodaro (1925) and H arappa (1926)
becam e part of Pakistan.
The tenure of A. G hosh at ASI from 1953 to
1968 w itnessed a phenom enal grow th in
site m useum s and their num ber increased
to tw enty. An unfortunate decision to close
the site m useum at Kondapur w as sug-
gested by a Review Com m ittee in 1965 on
the grounds that very few people are even
likely to visit and the site is not w orthy of
a site m useum . A. G hosh gave it a new
lease on life and today it stands m odern-
ized, though the site rem ains to be exca-
vated on a large scale.
D ue to the rise of large scale hydro-
electric irrigation dam s such as N agarjuna
Sagar (195460) and Srisailam (1976
82), both across the River K rishna in
Andhra Pradesh, large valleys abounding
in ancient sites and tem ples w ere threat-
ened w ith subm ergence. Archaeological
An exhibit in the main gallery of the
Sarnath Museum in Uttar Pradesh.
47
U N ESCO 1998
U ntil the 1930s, m useum s w ere per-
ceived as being run by and for scholars
and all the collections w ere exhibited.
In the site m useum s, the sorting of
objects for display is som ew hat different
from that in the district, state and na-
tional m useum s. A lthough objects are
sorted on the basis of typology stone
sculptures, coins, epigraphs, pottery,
other antiquities nevertheless the
stratigraphical and cultural sequence of
the excavated site m ust not be over-
looked. The display should reflect the
cultural sequence and contexts of the
site, substantiated by large photographs,
m odels and dioram as. W hile display in
the m ain galleries rem ains necessarily
m ore attractive than instructive for study
purposes, the spare collectionis m eant
for tem porary loan or for exchange.
The reserve collections are so arranged
as to serve as a true reference library of
antiquities. A w ide variety of art objects,
m inor antiquities unearthed on a larger
scale from the national resurrection
projects in m edieval cities such as H am pi,
Fatehpur Sikr and G olkonda, find their
place in a site m useum . They need to be
classified and arranged according to the
excavated site so that taken together the
display of objects and the reserves pro-
vide a vivid im age of the total cultural
history in sequential order.
Preserving the integrity of the site
In the early tw entieth century, m aterials
from im portant excavated sites (M o
henjodaro, etc.) w ere freely carried aw ay
to m ultipurpose m useum s at the state or
national level. The N alanda bronzes in the
Patna M useum , the rich Pearse collection
of gem s and coins in Indian m useum s,
relic caskets from various stupas of Andhra
in the M adras G overnm ent M useum , are
but a few exam ples of such a perm anent
distribution. Instances of large-scale re-
m oval of sculptures and their transporta-
tion to m useum s abroad is also know n
the fam ous Am aravati Sculptures adorn-
ing the front galleries of the British
M useum are the result of such rem oval.
A stupa railing from the site of

Bodhgaya.
48
I. K. Sarma
U N ESCO 1998
W hen requests for the loan of sculptures
and antiquities are received from universi-
ties or state governm ents, ASI considers the
m erits of the loan w ith a view to prom oting
archaeological studies, art appreciation and
research.
H ow ever, the loan of objects from site
m useum s should not be encouraged, as
these are inseparable entities of the site or
m onum ent concerned and cannot, there-
fore, be severed from their contexts. They
are to be studied am id their original asso-
ciations and should not be displaced or
exchanged on a long-term basis, even
w ithin the country. M oreover, ASI has no
system of acquisition of art objects or
antiquities to replenish or expand its m use-
um s except by further excavations w hich
m ay or m ay not yield additional w orks.
Even if considerable num bers of the sam e
or sim ilar objects are unearthed, this is in
itself im portant since large num bers indi-
cate the econom y and practices of the
people and are thus vital for cultural study.
The archaeological site m useum s m eans a
m useum to house and exhibit m aterial
found in archaeological excavations or
other system atic explorations; it does not
include a m useum of ancient objects of art
derived from various sources and different
m ethods.
4
In a paper presented at the Com m ittee
of G overnm ental experts on the Inter-
national Protection of Cultural Property
(U N ID RO IT Conference, Rom e, Septem -
ber 1993), em phasis w as placed on the
need for retrieval of cultural property to
the place of its origin. O bjects of out-
standing cultural im portance and inte-
gral to a m onum ent of great artistic and
historic m erit, even if law fully rem oved
and taken by a governm ent then in
pow er, should be rem itted to the state or
site concerned so that its art-historical,
architectural and contextual relevance is
preserved for hum ankind. This w as w ell
put by M atthew G . G albraith of London
in a letter to the editor of the publication
Hindu in w hich he expressed his an-
guish over the present status of the
w orld renow ned A m aravati stupa: To-
day the rem nants of this architectural
m arvel . . . are scattered, w ith portions in
the Calcutta and M adras m useum s and
in the B ritish M useum , London. Just as a
fur coat looks best on its original ow ner,
the anim al, individual m arble friezes
and sculptures are never truly at hom e
in any m useum or other setting. . . .
Today A m aravati stands forlorn and
neglected . . . presenting a brave but
lim ited vision of the stupas form er
splendour.
5
The inscribed architectural
m em bers belonging to the A m aravati
M aha Chaitya now in the B ritish M u-
seum and the M use G uim et in France
w ere exported out of the country by the
B ritish excavators. These scattered rel-
ics do not provide a full picture of the
great m onum ent. Vital com ponents and
ornam ental rail sections, copings and
cross-bars in the B ritish M useum are
incom plete exam ples, and sim ilar parts
lie scattered at the site m useum . A ll the
pieces should be sent to their place of
origin so that com pleteness is ensured,
particulary in respect of a m onum ent of
w orld class.
Som e top-ranking Indian m useologists
are now toying w ith the idea that art
objects and antiquities of national im -
portance from the site m useum s and
sculpture sheds should be transferred to
the district, state and national m useum s.
They posit that site m useum s and sculp-
ture sheds are located in areas that are
inaccessible to the Indian public and
scholars, and do not ensure the safety of
the objects against deterioration due to
clim atic variations, vandalism , thefts and
possible replacem ent.
49
U N ESCO 1998
These observations ignore the fact that the
site m useum s and sculpture sheds are
w ell m aintained and protected w ithin their
m onum ental setting, w hen necessary even
w ith arm ed guards, and that art objects
and antiquities are preserved by proper
chem ical treatm ent. Equally im portant,
they form the backbone of the countrys
cultural education. N o m onum ent or site
m useum is inaccessible in India today and
a visit to them generates thrill and joy to
rural people as w ell as visiting scholars.
The site m useum s are non-form al centres
of educational entertainm ent and it is vital
that em phasis be placed not on the role of
custodians of collections and docum enta-
tion specialists but on com m unication and
education. In fact, these m useum s can be
interlinked w ith the educational pro-
gram m es at the prim ary and secondary
levels, and at a higher level they deserve
to be considered as institutions of special-
ized research. To this end, a sm all but
specific reference library is attached to
every site m useum in India for use by
visitors.
A s W illiam Evans H oyle once rem arked,
The m useum m akes its appeal to the
average m ind, just as a good teacher
tries to bring up the average to his
class.
6
I
Notes
1. Lavat Fraser, India Under Curzon and
After, pp. 3634, London, 1911.
2. S. F. M arkham and H . H argreaves, The
Museums of India, p. 10,London, 1936.
3. A. Cunningham , The Stupa of Bharhut,
p.vii, London, 1879.
4. A. G hosh, A N ote on Som e Problem s of
Archaeological M useum s, Indian Museum
Bulletin (Calcutta),Vol. 1, N o. 2, July 1966,
pp. 534.
5. Letter to the Editor under the title
Am aravati Stupa, Hindu, 9 D ecem ber 1995.
M y elucidation thereon appeared in Hindu,
19 January 1996, and m ade the point that
Indian art, culture and thought w ere not
distorted or destroyed by British scholars;
rather, they w ere preserved, polished and
passed on to future generations. This
preserving aspect of an alien culture w as
indeed praisew orthy. It has nothing to do
w ith the im perialistic am bitions of the British
G overnm ent.
6. W illiam Evans H oyle, M useum s: Interesting
or O therw ise, Museums Journal (London),
Vol. 12, 1913, p. 8.
A scale model of the second-century
Amaravati M ahachaitya on display in the
museum.
50
Dirk Callebaut and John Sunderland
U N ESCO 1998
Enam e: new technologies perpetuate
the past
The archaeological site of Ename in
Belgium is situated on the old frontier
between the Kingdom of France and the
German Empire. The site preserves the
material world of medieval society, and
intensive archaeological and historical
research has revealed its exceptional
richness. It was therefore decided to
develop the site into an archaeological
park, which would popularize
archaeology, history and conservation
with integrity, using an innovative
museological approach and developing
new presentation techniques. Dirk
Callebaut is an archaeologist-historian
who specializes in the Middle Ages, and a
senior member of the Institute for the
Archaeological Heritage of Flanders. His
excavations include Petegem
(Carolingian royal villa), Ghent
(Gravensteen) and Ename, where he is
project leader for the development of the
archaeological park. John Sunderland is
the designer of some of Europes most
popular historical and archaeological
interpretive exhibitions and visitor
centres, including the Jorvik Viking
Centre in York and the White Cliffs
Experience in Dover. For the last three
years he has been working with the
archaeological team at Ename, where he
is responsible for the project design, and
has recently formed an international
company, TimeFrame Solutions, to
provide on-site interpretation systems to
archaeologists and others working in the
field of cultural heritage management.
U N ESCO 1998
Project Enam e started as an em ergency
excavation in 1982 and has evolved into a
large-scale interdisciplinary investigation.
The rich source m aterial allow s a thorough
study of Enam es past. Its history reveals
tw o key m om ents. Situated by the River
Scheldt w hich from A .D . 925 separated the
K ingdom of France from the G erm an Em -
pire Enam e played its part in the Euro-
pean theatre from 974 to 1050. D uring this
period, the settlem ent w as the centre of a
m argravate that helped to defend the bor-
ders of the Em pire. A fortress w as erected,
around w hich a trading settlem ent devel-
oped. Tw o churches m arked the rapid
grow th of this pre-urban settlem ent. In
1050, how ever, the Count of Flanders took
possession of Enam e, changing the nature
of the settlem ent. To dem ilitarize the
O ttonian site, Boudew ijn V founded a
Benedictine abbey. Enam e, once designated
as the m ost im portant seat of Lorraine,
evolved into a village that prospered in the
shadow of the abbey. And it w ould rem ain
so until 1794, w hen the French revolution-
ary regim e abolished the m onastery.
Extrem ely im portant and varied m onu-
m ents have been preserved, belonging to
the early m edieval occupational phase as
w ell as to the period of the abbey. They
consist of:
A large (8 hectare) archaeological site,
situated in the m eadow s along the
Scheldt, w hich contains the founda-
tions of the early m edieval fortress, the
trading settlem ent (portus) and the
Benedictine abbey.
The St Laurentius church, the only
building still standing that dates from
the O ttonian period of Enam e. W ith its
tw o choirs, its unm istakably m arked
sections and original decoration, it oc-
cupies an exceptional place am ong
Flem ish churches.
The landscape Bos tEnam e(Enam e
W ood), characterized by its rem ark-
able historic, aesthetic and scientific
value.
Each of these elem ents is (in its category)
notably w ell preserved, and the sam e holds
true for the historic source m aterial. Be-
cause of this, the m aterial relics can be
interpreted in their context in a concrete
w ay. M oreover, the lines of approach reach
further than the local atm osphere. To give
but one exam ple: a particular aspect of
m edieval history is the springing up and
grow th of the tow ns, and Enam e offers a
splendid opportunity to study the pre-
urban phase in that developm ent. The
im portance of this field of study is height-
ened by the fact that a short period of
occupation (w hich is exceptionally clearly
dated) is dealt w ith.
The scientific study of Enam es history is
intensive and w idely differentiated. The
Institute for the Archaeological H eritage is
responsible for the archaeological site,
w hereas the Adm inistration for M onum ents
and Landscapes accounts for the historic-
ecological research of Bos tEnam e. Sev-
eral universities (Am sterdam , Antw erp,
Brussels, G hent, Leiden, Leuven, Lige)
give assistance, along w ith the Royal Insti-
tute for the Arts, the Institute for the
Preservation of N ature, the Institute for
Forestry and G am e and the Royal Belgium
Institute for N atural Sciences. These com -
bined efforts not only highlighted the ex-
ceptional value of the m onum ents in Enam e,
but also led to the realization that Enam e
deserved to be opened up and m ade
know n by m ore than the publication of the
results of various study projects.
O n the initiative of the historian Jean-
Pierre Van D er M eiren, deputy of the
province of East-Flanders, it w as decided
to develop the site into an archaeological
51
Enam e: new technologies perpetuate the past
U N ESCO 1998
park. This project focuses on experiencing
and re-livingthe m onum ents and on new
techniques of presentation. In other w ords,
interpreting a m onum ent also m eans inter-
preting the people w hose lives w ere, to a
certain extent, defined by those buildings.
O ur approach also explores the evolution
of the landscape, in w hich these m onu-
m ents held such a dom inant position.
The tw o stories that are interw oven w ith
Enam es history are significant for the pres-
entation. O n the one hand there is the
history of the local com m unity, w hich
essentially differs very little from w hat
happened elsew here through the ages. O n
the other hand, there are the seventy-five
years w hen Enam e, as a guard post by the
Scheldt, suddenly played an im portant role
on the European stage. Enam es local his-
tory linked to an albeit tem porary
international presence provides the tw o
points of view from w hich the presentation
of Enam es m onum ents w ill be conceived.
The developm ent of the archaeological
park is being carried out by the Province
of East-Flanders, the Institute for the Ar-
chaeological H eritage and the tow n of
O udenaarde.
Telling the whole story
Enam es past is clearly illustrated to the
public in three places: the m useum in the
tow n centre, the historical w ood, Bos
tEnam e, and the open-air m useum on the
bank of the River Scheldt.
In the shadow of the St LaurentiusChurch
lies a nineteenth century building that w as
purchased by the East-Flanders Provincial
G overnm ent to accom m odate the m u-
seum of the archaeological park, w hich is
being designed under the responsibility of
John Sunderland. The m useum , w hich

View of St Laurentius church, built
around the year 1000, one of the best
preserved early-medieval churches in
Belgium; the nineteenth-century building
in the foreground will house the
provincial museum of the archaeological
park.
52
U N ESCO 1998
w ill open in 1998, explores the daily life
of the com m unity of Enam e during 1,000
years, from the early M iddle A ges until
the tw entieth century. The purpose is to
open the eyes of visitors to the history
that is all around them . Therefore the past
is presented as a puzzle pieced together
again by scientific research. V isitors w ill
be able to learn how it is done by assem -
bling the pieces them selves w ith the help
of available interactive techniques. The
educational departm ent of the m useum in
particular w ill teach young people the
m ethodology of the research in a playful
w ay.
South of the village centre of Enam e on the
green hills of the Flem ish Ardennes stretches
a particularly valuable historical-ecological
area: B os tEnam e. From the M iddle Ages
this w ood has been linked to the sm all
harbour tow n and the abbey. A footpath
starting from the m useum w ill stress this
historical bond w ith the landscape.
Then there is the archaeological site that
has been developed into an open-air m u-
seum . A com m on problem w hen present-
ing such a site is how to m ake the poorly
preserved and com plex rem ains com pre-
hensible. This is no easy task, for how ever
im pressive or picturesque the archaeologi-
cal vestiges m ay be, they can but rarely
continue to fascinate m ost visitors. This
w as the problem confronting the site of
Enam e. W hat the visitor sees is a labyrinth
of architectural rem ains of the foundations
of the Benedictine abbey that dom inated
life in Enam e from 1063 to 1795. The
Right: View of the archaeological
foundations of the Benedictine
abbey with an inset showing the first
TimeFrame, which is focused on
the foundations of the abbey church.
Below :The heritage of Ename
consists of an archaeological site
with the foundations of an early
medieval fortress, a commercial
settlement and a Benedictine abbey;
St Laurentius church and the
historic landscape of Bos tEname.
53
Enam e: new technologies perpetuate the past
U N ESCO 1998
rem ains of the early-m edieval trade settle-
m ent (9751050) are not visible, since they
consisted m ainly of ground traces that
w ere dug up during the search and thus
lost.
Som e archaeological parks attem pt to solve
the problem by partly or com pletely recon-
structing buildings, this being a rather
drastic m easure. If the reconstruction is
inaccurate, the past architecture is dis-
torted, in w hich case there is nothing left
but to pull dow n the construction. For this
reason a new technology has been devel-
oped for the site of Enam e w hich m ay
prove to have a w orldw ide im pact. This
presentation technique allow s a site to be
interpreted in a m ultitude of different w ays,
to different people, w ithout reconstruction
w ork. W e call this evolutionary approach
non-intrusive interpretation, a term cre-
ated for Enam e 974 by John Sunderland.
G enerally speaking, this refers to a num ber
of technological m eans, called tem poral
gatew ays, w hich w ill bring archaeological
sites to life.
The TimeFrame: combining the real
and the virtual
In Septem ber 1997 a first interpretation
system w as installed at the Enam e site: the
Tim eFram e. The concept is John Sunder-
lands and w as technically developed by
IBM . The Institute for the Archaeological
A sequence from the prototype
TimeFrame on-site system shows a
semi-solid three dimensional plan of the
church of St Salvator, synchronously
married to a real-time image of its
archaeological foundations. This is seen
by the visitor as if looking through a
window at the open-air site and provides
a moving interpretation of the evolution
of the archaeological site over time.
54
U N ESCO 1998
H eritage of Flanders w as responsible for
providing the archaeological inform ation
and the project w as com m issioned by the
East-Flanders Provincial G overnm ent. The
foundations of the abbey church w ere
used as a test case.
W hat is the Tim eFram e concept? The in-
strum ent essentially consists of a cam era, a
com puter system , tw o m onitors and a
touch screen. A booth protects the
Tim eFram e and visitors from the w eather.
The cam era faces the archaeological foun-
dations of the church and transm its the
pictures to the screens. The visitor sees a
real-tim e im age of the archaeological re-
m ains beyond, upon w hich photos, plans,
draw ings and anim ated virtual im ages de-
scribing the evolution of the site and its
buildings are synchronously m arried to the
real-tim e landscape. The touch screen al-
low s the user to select program m es and,
for exam ple, w hen a construction from a
certain period has been builton the
screen, the im age can be kept for virtual
interior exploration. The Tim eFram e cur-
rently on the site is a prototype. The system
is to be evaluated for tw o m onths and
adaptations w ill be m ade on the basis of
the experience gained. The initial response
by the public to the Tim eFram e can be
sum m ed up by the visitor w ho said, I have
com e to the site m any tim es, but now
because of this m achine I can really see
w hat it is all about.
In 1998 the system w ill be fully opera-
tional. Several Tim eFram es w ill be in-
stalled at key locations on a set route
around the site to give a com plete im age.
The use of the Tim eFram e does not m ean
that the classic aids becom e superfluous;
on the contrary, the first experiences at
Enam e are already m aking it clear that one
only arrives at a com plete understanding
of an archaeological site w hen the new
presentation m ethods are com bined w ith
traditional ones. So, descriptive graphic
boards w ith plans, illustrations and text,
com bined w ith a hand-held guide, leaflet
or audio tour in the archaeological park of
Enam e w ill still be used. The site of
M egiddo in Israel is also developing a
program m e to incorporate Tim eFram es in
their site presentation, based on a cultural
agreem ent betw een the East-Flanders
G overnm ent and the N ational Parks Au-
thority in Israel.
The archaeological site of Enam e is sci-
entifically so im portant that it w ould be
irresponsible to research the w hole area.
Therefore, at least 6 hectares w ill be left
untouched. A n im portant part of this
area extends to the south of the abbey,
w here the gardens w ere. To incorporate
this zone in the archaeological park a
new garden w ould be laid out here. If
possible, the historical evolution of gar-
d en in g w ill b e sho w n , fro m th e
Carolingian period up to the eighteenth
century.
Finally, there are plans to build a LifeScape
Centre, a m useum for the tw enty-first cen-
tury. The central them e of this centre is the
story of everyday life from birth to death as
illustrated through archaeology. The
schem e aim s to link sites around the w orld
and dem onstrate the sim ilarity of hum an
needs w hile highlighting the richness of
cultural diversity. I
55
O rganized diversity: the N urem berg m unicipal m useum s
U N ESCO 1998
O rganized diversity: the N urem berg
m unicipal m useum s
Franz Sonnenberger
Centralizing the management of
Nurembergs independent municipal
museums turned out to be the key to
modernization. The new administrative
structure, in place since 1994, has
enabled the towns many small- and
medium-sized museums to pool scarce
resources and operate with greater
efficiency and responsiveness to the
public. The author studied history at the
University of Munich and at Emory
University, Atlanta (USA). From 1981 to
1991 he was head of department at the
Nuremberg Centre for Industrial Culture
and served from 1992 to 1994 as
personal adviser to the Lord Mayor of
Nuremberg. He has been director of the
Nuremberg City Museums since May
1994.
U N ESCO 1998
N urem berg, a city of just under 500,000
inhabitants, has a rich cultural life in
w hich m useum s play a prom inent role.
The biggest m useum of G erm an art and
culture, the G erm anisches N ational-
m useum , w ill soon be celebrating its
150th anniversary. The Railw ays and
Post O ffice M useum s are also held in
high esteem far beyond G erm any. The
form er is run by a foundation and by the
G erm an Railw ays Corporation, w hile the
latter is the responsibility of the G erm an
Federal Post O ffice. Then there are
several sm all- to m edium -sized m unici-
pal m useum s m anaged by the City of
N urem berg itself.
The A lbrecht-D rer-H aus rem inds
visitors of N urem bergs greatest son.
A m odern extension has been added
to the historic m onum ent in w hich
the m aster lived and w orked. The
Fem bohaus M unicipal M useum is ac-
com m odated in a fine Renaissance
building. The Tucherschloss M useum
takes the exam ple of the von Tucher
fam ily to give an insight into the w ay
of life of the N urem berg patricians, a
kind of urban nobility w ho ruled the
tow n for centuries. The m unicipal art
collection not only adm inisters som e
70,000 graphic sheets, but also the en-
tire patrim ony of m ovable w orks of
art of N urem berg, consisting m ainly of
paintings and sculptures from the
M iddle A ges to around the year 1950.
The prestigious Toy M useum gives a
com prehensive overview of the history
of toys, w ith the em phasis on item s
m ade in N urem berg the capital of
the G erm an toy industry. The Centre
for Industrial Culture, accom m odated in
a form er factory building, is a synthesis
betw een a m useum of technology and
one of social history, w hich traces
N urem bergs path through the industrial
age.
1994 Snapshots of the municipal
museums
The Centre for Industrial Culture is prepar-
ing a photographic exhibition. As it has
few picture fram es of its ow n and no
possibility of m ounting the photographs
itself, an expensive order had to be placed
w ith a private com pany. N obody in the
Centre for Industrial Culture is aw are that
large num bers of picture fram es are lying
unused in the storeroom s of the Fem bohaus
M unicipal M useum , w here there is also a
m em ber of staff w ho could m ount the
pictures expertly. The m unicipal art collec-
tion does not have a specialist in restora-
tion. That is one reason w hy serious m is-
takes w ere m ade in the past over the
storage of valuable w orks of art. The
restorer in the M unicipal Toy M useum ,
w ho also has a sound training in pictures,
could help. But his services are not called
upon because he is em ployed by a differ-
ent m unicipal m useum . For transport w ithin
the old city, staff of the Fem bohaus use a
prehistoric hand trolley. They can only
dream of a m otor vehicle of their ow n to
m ove valuable w orks of art. Their m useum
is too sm all to be able to afford the pur-
chase of a van.
Three years later
Photographic and graphic exhibitions no
longer pose any problem to the Centre for
Industrial Culture: the picture fram es, like
the display cabinets and other furnishings,
have been assigned to a pool from
w hich they can be borrow ed by all the
m unicipal m useum s w hen the need
arises. Instead of a hand trolley, the
m useum staff now have a sm all truck of
their ow n. The restorer, based at the Toy
M useum , can be given w ork by the other
m unicipal m useum s. W here once the
storeroom s of the Toy M useum and

56
Franz Sonnenberger
U N ESCO 1998
m unicipal art collection w ere terribly short
of space, a noticeable im provem ent has
now been achieved. A spacious, shared
depository for both collections has been
set up on the city outskirts.
All these substantial im provem ents are the
outcom e of the reorganization of the m u-
seum s. W ith effect from 1 M ay 1994, a
decision of the City Council com bined the
previously independent N urem berg m u-
nicipal m useum s under a single m anage-
m ent w ith a shared organizational struc-
ture. N urem berg City Council expected
this to tighten up the decision-m aking
processes w ithin the m useum s and also to
save substantial resources by m aking good
use of synergy effects. The opportunity for
a decision to reorganize the m useum s w as
created by the near-sim ultaneous retire-
m ent of three chief m useum curators,
w hose duties w ere then com bined. The
new m anagem ent took in the m useum s
referred to earlier as w ell as the site of the
old Reich Party Congress. H ere, the City of
N urem berg has been organizing since
1985 a perm anent exhibition illustrating
the role of the city in the days of N ational-
Socialism .
The new ly structured m useum s of the City
of N urem berg em ploy 45 persons. The
annual budget (staff and running costs) is
around 7 m illion D eutschm arks (D M .). The
m useum s have on average a total of 330,000
visitors each year.
For a long tim e before the reorganization,
the num bers of visitors to the m unicipal
m useum s had been steadily declining. This
w as a clear alarm signal, pointing to the
urgent need for reform . The new m useum
m anagem ent and the politicians realized
that the attractiveness of the m useum s
m ust be enhanced. The goals of the re-
structuring and rationalization m easures
initiated by the m useum s them selves had
already been unanim ously adopted by
N urem berg City Council in D ecem ber 1994.
H ow ever, the politicians m ade no extra
funding available. D espite the prevailing
adverse econom ic conditions, the m unici-
The Motorradmuseum in the Centre for
Industrial Culture.
57
U N ESCO 1998
pal m useum s have nevertheless succeeded
in the m eantim e in arranging financing of
around 5 m illion D M . for m odernization
m easures by an innovative credit proce-
dure. O f this total, 3 m illion D M . are
specialm unicipal resources w hich have
been earned by the m useum s and m ust be
reim bursed to them . The rem ainder con-
sists of subsidies from foundations estab-
lished under public law and sponsorship
m oney. W ith the help of these financial
resources, the m useum s of the City of
N urem berg w ill have taken vigorous steps
by 1999 to m ake good the backlog of
m odernization accum ulated through re-
cent years or decades.
Better still, they have even succeeded in
successfully im plem enting projects that
w ould have been inconceivable previ-
ously. These include, in the first instance,
the reconstruction of the H irsvogel H all, a
Renaissance garden hall of the utm ost
im portance to art history. This jew el in the
crow n of art history had no longer been
open to visitors in its original state since the
Second W orld W ar. The new m useum
organization played an essential role in
m aking the necessary m illions available at
long last. O rganized as a single grouping,
the N urem berg City M useum s carried m ore
w eight w ith the m unicipal financial au-
thorities than the specialized m useum s in
the days of their independence. W ith their
new organization, they also proved m ore
attractive to foundations established under
public law and to private sponsors.
O ne m ajor structural advantage of the new
form of organization resides in the central
m anagem ent of the m unicipal m useum s.
Their director rationally com plem ents the
w ork of the individual m useum curators.
The m unicipal m useum m anager is still
close enough to the individual m useum s to
be able to judge and direct their w ork in an
expert capacity. H ow ever, he is sufficiently
rem ote from them to no longer approach
the running and developm ent of the m use-
um s entrusted to him solely from the
narrow er internal view point of a conven-
tional m useum curator. H e is therefore in a
position to keep his distance from routine
m useum business. This m akes it easier to
put questions that are often uncom fortable
about the purpose of everyday w orking
m ethods and accustom ed perspectives.
Thus, the higher-level m useum m anage-
m ent is also able to w ork as an advocate
of the public. This plays an indispensable
part in guaranteeing public acceptance of
a m useum . O verall, the new form of
organization of the m unicipal m useum s
has proved to be a driving force for
innovative action.
Marshalling resources
The creation of a central m anagem ent has
released new energies on m any levels.
Certain functions, such as contacts w ith
political authorities and other departm ents
of the m unicipal adm inistration, press and
public relations, and also to a substantial
extent the acquisition of sponsorship funds,
Detail of the faade of the Fembohaus
Municipal Museum, a Renaissance
building dating from 159196.
58
Franz Sonnenberger
U N ESCO 1998
are for the m ost part handled by the central
organization. Thus, the individual m use-
um s are relieved of w hat they frequently
perceive as unpopular activities. It has
therefore becom e possible for them to turn
their attention to tasks that had previously
been neglected. O ne good exam ple is the
Toy M useum , w hich first set about the
creation of an ED P listing of its inventories
in 1994 and has since done pioneering
w ork in this area. The sam e applies to
special events, together w ith exhibitions
and publications that have gained consid-
erable im portance in this and other m unici-
pal m useum s.
The N urem berg m unicipal budget reached
the lim its of available resources m any
years ago. The fact that m any invest-
m ents have nevertheless becom e possi-
ble for the m unicipal m useum s is not
due solely to the m obilization of new
funds but also to the better use of exist-
ing m oney. The creation of a central
financial poolenables action to be taken
quickly w ith less bureaucratic delay. The
purchase of a sm all truck is just one
exam ple am ong m any. W ithout cum ber-
som e application and authorization pro-
cedures, m easures can now be taken
quickly w hich w ould otherw ise have
dragged on for years. The new organiza-
tion has also replaced com petition be-
tw een the individual m useum s by a ra-
tional balance of interests. The financial
rew ardno longer goes to the applicant
w ho carries the m ost clout w ith the poli-
ticians, but to the one w hose investm ents
are the m ost urgent.
In the personnel sector, a pool of restorers
and specialist technicians has been set up.
This has enabled staff to be released, if
necessary, at relatively short notice from
their traditional activities and tem porarily
assigned to a different m useum . As a
general rule, this schem e w orks very w ell,
but it did take tim e for staff to becom e
A display of early twentieth-century toys
at the Toy Museum.
59
U N ESCO 1998
accustom ed to the new w ay of w orking.
The reorganization has also proved suc-
cessful in another respect: personal
incom patibilities am ong staff w hich had,
for instance, practically paralysed one of
the m unicipal m useum s have been solved
by transferring an em ployee to a different
post w ithin the N urem berg m unicipal
m useum s. This w as relatively easy to ar-
range, as it sim ply involved a m ove w ithin
the sam e departm ent.
The sam e consideration applies to job
conversions. For instance, posts for crafts-
m en or m useum keepers w hich w ere no
longer needed have been used to create
a new post for m arketing and public
relations duties. This reorganization ena-
bled the N urem berg City M useum s to
pave the w ay into the future: w ithout
professional public relations support,
the N urem berg m useum s cannot possi-
bly survive on the leisure m arket, w hich
is an area of increasingly keen com peti-
tion. This m easure w ould have been
inconceivable for any of the sm all and
independent N urem berg m useum s in
their previous form . The creation of a
larger m useum structure w as vital to
m ake this step both logical and feasible.
The m any benefits of centralization m ust of
course be w eighed against the draw backs.
These include, for instance, longer deci-
sion-m aking routes. M any things that had
previously been decided at the level of the
m useum itself are now ultim ately a m atter
for the central office. The best solution has
proved to reside in the lim itation of cen-
tralization to a reasonable extent. In the
first phase of reorganization, strong m an-
agem ent and centralization of decision-
m aking pow ers w ere vital. H ow ever, in the
long run this direct access of the director to
the individual m useum s is neither feasible
nor sensible. That being so, a balance m ust
be struck betw een central m anagem ent
and decentralized responsibility for re-
sources. The principle follow ed in N urem -
berg is clear: As centralized as necessary,
as decentralized as possible.
O n com pletion of the com plex restructur-
ing and rationalization m easures, the indi-
vidual m useum s w ill therefore again be
endow ed w ith annual budgets w hich they
w ill them selves adm inister. H ow ever, at
the beginning of each year, joint budget
estim ates w ill be prepared. There can
be no question of creating new reserved
budgetary areas. O n the contrary, an
attem pt m ust be m ade to enable key
decisions to be taken by consensus in
future, for exam ple, for certain acquisi-
tions or exhibitions. The final decision
on such m atters w ill continue to rest
w ith the director of the N urem berg City
M useum s.
All in all, the am algam ation of the N urem -
berg m unicipal m useum s proved to be the
right decision. The new form of organiza-
tion is undoubtedly m ore efficient in m any
respects than the previous coexistence and
rivalry betw een m any sm all m useum s could
be. O n the other hand, the type of organi-
zation adopted in N urem berg is certainly
not the right m odel for cities w ith large
m useum s. In such cases, centralization
w ould not m ake m uch sense because all
the benefits of such m easures can already
be achieved in a single building. For cities
w ith m any sm all- to m edium -sized m use-
um s, N urem berg m ight, how ever, be an
effective m odel, show ing how to derive
the m axim um benefit from the potential of
these establishm ents. I
60
A M useum International report
U N ESCO 1998 ISSN 1350-0775,Museum International (U N ESCO , Paris), N o. 199 (V ol. 50, N o. 2,1998)
U N ESCO 1998
The reopening of the Palais des
Beaux-Arts in Lille
A Museum International report
The reopening of the Palais des Beaux-
Arts in Lille in June 1997 was a major
cultural event in France, as this
renovated and enlarged institution is
now one of the countrys most prestigious
museums. M useum International was
invited to preview the premises.
After five years of closure and four years of
w ork, the m ajor project to renovate and
extend the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille and
to reorganize its rem arkable collections has
now been com pleted. The m useum now
covers an area of 22,000 m
2
.
This vast operation w as m ade necessary by
the obsolescence of the prem ises, particu-
larly the reception facilities, the outdated
m useographical m ethods em ployed and
the decision by the M inistry of Culture
(H eritage D irectorate) to deposit sixteen
scale-m odel relief plans previously kept at
the H tel des Invalides in Paris. It has been
carried out under an agreem ent betw een
the state (M inistry of Culture/D irectorate of
the M useum s of France), the city, the N ord-
Pas-de-Calais region and the N ord depart-
m ent.
The w hole project, assigned to the archi-
tects Jean-M arc Ibos and M yrto Vitart, w as
based on a few sim ple principles: to open
up the m useum to the city, to m ake it
attractive to the public, to enlarge it suffi-
ciently so that it could fulfil all the functions
of a m odern m useum , and to show off as
effectively as possible the prestigious Lille
collections.
The building, constructed betw een 1889
and 1892 by the architects B rard and
D elm as, has now recovered its original
layout and spatial arrangem ent. The
atrium , freely accessible to visitors, as is
the entire ground floor, has once again
becom e the heart of the Palais. It is
this central m eeting-place, w ith its re-
ception and inform ation facilities, that
gives access to the room s housing the
perm anent collections.
The creation of an open space beneath the
garden and the construction of an addi-
tional building (the Btim ent Lam e) have
given an extra dim ension to this w hole
project. The new underground room for
tem porary exhibitions is covered by a
series of glass slabs and is inundated w ith
natural light. The new building, set w ithin
a clear perspective, houses the adm inis-
trative services, the collection of draw -
ings, the association of the Friends of the
M useum and the ground-floor restaurant
facing the garden. It is, in the w ords of
the architects, a slender lam inate struc-
ture consisting of a succession of linked
vertical planes rising from the garden. The
first is a plane of transparent glass reflect-
ing from a netw ork of m irrored points an
im pressionistic im age of the Palais; set
back and on the sam e perpendicular are
gold m onochrom es on a red background.
The w hole com plex is a sym bol of the
m useum .
A book- and giftshop, a restaurant and a
tea room , rest areas, the forthcom ing
opening of an auditorium and, in m ore
general term s, inform ation facilities and
the organization of cultural events are
all factors that w ill help to m ake the
Palais m ore w elcom ing to French and
foreign visitors.
The new presentation of the m ost out-
standing w orks in the m useum , such as
Paradise and Hell by B outs, D onatellos
Feast of Herod, and Time and the Old
Women by G oya, is just one aspect of
the far-reaching w ork undertaken to
reorganize the collections. The sections
devoted to the M iddle A ges and the
Renaissance, the ceram ics departm ent
and the painting departm ent have, in
fact, all been totally rearranged.
The paintings of the Flem ish school
(Rubens, Van D yck, Jordaens and so on),
the D utch school (Van H em essen, D e
W itte, Codde, Van Ruisdal and Lastm an),
the Italian school (Tintoretto, G uardi, etc.)
and the Spanish school (G oya), together
The atrium as seen from the first floor of
the museum.
61
The reopening of the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille
U N ESCO 1998
w ith the paintings of the great French
m asters of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries (D avid, Courbet, Puvis de
Chavannes and so on), have now been
supplem ented by w orks hitherto kept in
the reserve collection. M any of them have
benefited from an extensive restoration
cam paign undertaken by the Restoration
Service of the M useum s of France. In all,
700 item s (paintings, sculptures and ob-
jects) can once m ore be seen in all their
glory.
Finally, the reopening of the Palais has led
to the establishm ent of tw o new depart-
m ents, one devoted to nineteenth-century
sculpture and the other to the spectacular
relief plans of tow ns fortified by Vauban in
the reign of Louis XIV. The relief plans are
three-dim ensional m odels on a scale of
1:600 of fortified tow ns located on the
borders of the form er kingdom of France.
They provide an extraordinarily accurate
and evocative picture of these tow ns under
the Ancien Rgim e. As w ell as being of
great docum entary interest in show ing the
urban fabric, m onum ents and fortifica-
tions, they also often show a considerable
area of the suburbs and the surrounding
countryside.
Y et it w ould be quite easy to forget,
as w e adm ire them , that they w ere
constructed for exclusively m ilitary
purposes. In the reign of Louis X IV ,
Louvois, Secretary of State for W ar, real-
izing the essential role played by forti-
fied tow ns in the conduct of w ar and the
consolidation of frontiers, decided to
have the m odels m ade so that it w ould
be possible to touch and see all the
w eaknessesof these tow ns and have
them corrected(letter from V auban to
Louvois, 1695). It w as in response to the
needs of the artillery that such a large
part of the surroundings of these tow ns
w as included.
H ow ever, the constant im provem ents
and advances in the m anufacture of
artillery throughout the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries m eant that after
1870 the m odels ceased to be of any
practical use. O f the 100 or so existing
m odels, sixteen are now displayed in
Lille as the result of an agreem ent
m ade betw een the state and the city in
1987. They include seven fortified
tow ns in the north of France, eight in
w hat is now B elgium , together w ith
M aastricht in the N etherlands. D ating
back for the m ost part to the eighteenth
century and located in a frontier area
repeatedly ravaged by w ar, they show
us how certain tow ns once looked
and provide rew arding com parisons
w ith fortified tow ns that are still
conserved.
W ith the opening of the Palais des Beaux-
A rts, in its enlarged and renovated form ,
the city of Lille, a European cross-roads
of com m unication w ith its high-speed
rail links, the Channel Tunnel and the
international business centre Euralille,
is consolidating the national and inter-
national reputation of an institution that
is now of m ajor im portance. Tw o signifi-
cant exhibitions planned for 1998 am ply
dem onstrate this: one w ill be devoted to
Lilles m ost fam ous artist, W atteau, and
the other to G oya. I
The new underground gallery for
temporary exhibitions is covered by glass
slabs and is inundated with natural
light.
62 U N ESCO 1998
Books
U N ESCO 1998
Books
Marketing the Museum by Fiona
M cLean. (London/N ew Y ork, Routledge,
1997, 257 pp.)
D uring the Post-m odern epoch Andy
W arhol and M arshall M cLuhan predicted
the future context for society and
m useum s.
In 1968, w hen Andy W arhol declared
that one day everybody w ill be w orld-
fam ous for fifteen m inutes, he
understood that w e are living in a w orld
that is driven and consum ed by hyper-
reality and that even notoriety w ill
becom e as com m on as grains of sand.
H is statem ent has an exponentially
greater ring of truth today, as our options
for receiving new s have expanded to
include round-the-clock new s netw orks
on cable television and instant access to
on-line new s services.
The m edium is the m essage,
pronounced so eloquently by M arshall
M cLuhan, captures the superficiality of
contem porary society. It also provides a
challenge to m useum s to offer their
authentic artefacts to the public so as to
create an experience, rather than m erely
show cases of rare objects. D oes this
m ean that m useum s should engage in
edutainm ent, rather than education, to
com pete w ith the various leisure options
available to a com puter-driven audience?
These are just a few of the external
factorsthat contem porary m useum s
m ust recognize and address if they are
going to prevail in the tw enty-first
century, according to Fiona M cLean in
her thoughtful and extensively
researched book, Marketing the Museum.
This book should be a resource, not just
for m useum m arketing professionals, but
also for m useum directors, trustees,
politicians and others w ho have
oversight responsibility for m useum s. As
M cLean says, M arketing is not to blam e
for the m ass deception of society. It is
m erely a m anagem ent tool, w hich in
enlightened hands can be directed
tow ards achieving all that a public-
m inded m useum could w ish.
It is clear that if m useum s are to
com pete effectively for leisure tim e,
touristsattention and alternatives to
education, they w ill have no choice but
to adopt som e of the techniques
em ployed by the com m ercial sector.
Though obviously geared to an
academ ic audience, Marketing the
Museum offers guidance to building the
relationship betw een m useum s and the
public. Concrete exam ples are cited to
illustrate how the techniques of
m arketing have been applied by
m useum s to help them fulfil their
m issions. N um erous studies are cited to
dem onstrate the im pact and effectiveness
of m arketing approaches.
In the first chapter, The M useum
Context, M cLean sum s up the
dichotom y of the m odern m useum : A
num ber of factors have contributed to
this dilem m a: betw een the im age of a
m useum as a tem ple and as a public
forum ; betw een the m useum as a
pedagogic pursuit and as a place for
enjoym ent; betw een the m useum as a
process of collecting and research, and
the outreach of education and
exhibition; betw een the scholar and the
laym an; betw een objects as specim ens;
and betw een m useum s as private and
public.
H aving set the stage w ith num erous
issues and challenges in chapters entitled
The M useum Context, The M arketing
Context, The M useum Environm ent
and M useum s and the Public, M cLeans
explanation of the m arketing context is
m ost valuable.
M cLean credits Peter D rucker as the first
com m entator to argue for a m arketing
orientation in business,
1
w here the
custom ers standpoint regarding the
product w as at the centre of the business
endeavour. The custom ers needs had to
be determ ined before producing goods,
63 U N ESCO 1998
Technology update
rather than m anufacturing products and

then persuading custom ers to purchase
them . Thus w as born research that
w ould analyse segm entation, targeting
and positioning in the m arket-place. In
order to be com petitive, products should
not only take into account the needs and
w ants of custom ers, they have to begin
w ith them . This theory, of course, opens
up the w hole question of com paring a
non-profit public institution to a
com m ercial enterprise.
M cLean goes on to m ake the case that
the m useum productdiffers from
goods, w hich can be defined in term s of
physical attributes and the bottom line.
M useum s, on the other hand, provide
services w hich are intangible, they are
not self-supporting and, except in rare
cases, do not generate a profit. It has
been argued that because of governm ent
cutbacks and loss of corporate support,
m useum s w ould be better off if they
w ere not based on a dependency
culture. This is the rationale for
introducing the m useum com m unity to
the dynam ics of D rucker and K otler
(Marketing for Non-profit Organizations,
1975) and M cLeans Marketing the
Museum.
M useum s, how ever, exist for the public
benefit, not to m ake a profit. This, then,
is the m ost im portant difference, and
w hile M cLean discusses the pros and
cons at length, the leadership role that
public institutions have to play in a
rapidly changing society is slighted.
Today, w hen tradition is translated into
m inutes and heritage equates w ith being
politically correct, m useum s have a
responsibility to exhibit, educate and
entice based on objective or scholarly
truths, not based on the bottom lineor
the donors gratuitous underw riting.
Sim ilarly, w hen M cLean talks about the
publics role in determ ining m useum
exhibitions, she cites the study by
Seagram , Patten, and Lockett,
2
com paring the traditional m andate-
driven m odelw hereby the m useum s
academ ic staff m akes the decisions to
the m arket-driven m odelw here the
audience m akes the decisions.
O bviously, in determ ining w hat
m useum s offer in their exhibits, a
conceptual fram ew ork should m ake
possible a coherent program m e of
audience research that is balanced. In
an ideal w orld, basic and applied
research w ould be conducted, but too
often this research is expensive and
m useum s do not have the tim e or the
funds. A gain, at the risk of alienating
populists, it is ultim ately the
responsibility of the m useum to exercise
leadership in determ ining its activities.
After all, that is w hy m useum s hold the
public trust.
M cLean points out som e of the pitfalls of
m arketing. She even suggests that
m arketing is too m anipulativeand that
m useum s have an inherent good that
w ill attract audiences regardless of
exploitive techniques. Sadly, at least in
the U nited States, w here every person is
defined as a consum er and m arketing
saturates society, m useum s cannot
rem ain above the fray w ithout risking
their viability.
D uring the 1990s, new trends that
m useum s should be aw are of include:
(a) establishing a lasting dialogue or
closer relationship w ith clients (M cLean
cites G ronoos1990 study, w hich
show ed that it costs five tim es m ore to
attract a new custom er than to keep an
existing one); (b) paying attention to
w hat the custom er w ants; (c) developing
specific prom otions that reach the right
audience; (d) utilizing im age-building
and identity transference to build and
expand the m arket; and (e) the
em ergence of individualizedm arketing,
replacing m icro-m arketing as the
catchw ord of the 1990s.
A good case for m useum survival in
the 1990s is m ade by M cLean. G iven
todays environm ent, m useum s should
Books
64 U N ESCO 1998
Books Books
im plem ent the best of the m arketing
techniques. For exam ple, m useum s
should actively pursue expanding the
potential for incom e-generation and
developm ent activities, and engage in
com m unicating the m useum product.
M cLean provides excellent case-
studies for all these activities. W hile
her citations are im pressive, they
m ainly concern m useum s in the
U nited K ingdom , reflecting a
trem endous am ount of research and
experience in the application of
m arketing to the m useum -and-heritage
industry in that country.
In our deconstructionist age, reality has
collapsed; w e are m anipulated by im age,
illusion or stim ulation, rather than
reality. The future is even m ore
uncertain and w ill undoubtedly
accelerate w ith greater speed than
heretofore anticipated. M useum s,
institutions that w ere created during the
Enlightenm ent, w ere not originally
intended for the public, and have faced
a trem endous transition. W hen m useum s
w ere first established in the U nited
States, they represented the traditional
purposes of collecting, curating and
conserving, but Am ericans took it a step
further. J. P. M organ, H enry Clay Frick,
John D . Rockefeller, and m any other
benefactors looked upon m useum s as
extensions of the dem ocratic process, a
w ay to educate the m asses. W hile the
im plem entation m ay have differed, the
intent w as to open the doors so that
equal opportunities w ere available to
everyone.
After m uch discussion, M cLean
acknow ledges that m useum s are
extrem ely com plex organism s w hich
encom pass scores of different activities
and events, w hile at the sam e tim e
possessing a com m on unique
denom inator their collections. In the
m arketing vernacular this is referred to
as a unique selling proposition (U SP).
Let us keep in m ind that there are
institutions today that do not possess
collections, yet they are considered
m useum s. D oes this dilute their
effectiveness?
To a generation that has grow n up in
a w orld of synthetic environm ents,
virtual reality and sim ulated
experiences, m useum s are the only
institutions that can provide
authenticity through real objects,
artefacts, paintings and sculpture. It is
the responsibility of the caretakers
and interpreters of this m aterial
culture to protect it for future
generations, and sim ultaneously to
attract a diverse audience.
Interestingly, M cLean concludes that
after the organizational m achinery and
the staffing and m arketing capabilities
are stripped aw ay, it is still the
individual w ho takes possession of
aspects of the collecting in a m anner
that transcends literal ow nership.In
the end, m useum s enhance the
visitors self-im age and present the
continuity of hum ankind through the
visible interpretation of a hum an
being.
To fulfil the institutions m andate at its
greatest potential, the contem porary
m useum is obliged to consider a
m arketing orientation program m e. Fiona
M cLeans Marketing the Museum offers
m uch to assist in that endeavour.
Book reviewed by Lee Kimche McGrath,
chief executive officer of Global Museums
China, LLC; executive director of the
Friends of Art and Preservation in
Embassies; and president of International
Cultural Communications, a firm
specializing in the development and
management of cultural projects
throughout the world.
Notes
1. Peter D rucker, The Practice of
Management, O xford, Butterw orth
H einem ann, 1954.
2. B . C. Seagram , L. H . Patten and C. W .
Lockett, Audience Research and Exhibit
D evelopm ent: A Fram ew ork, Museum
Management and Curatorship, Vol. 12, N o. 1,
pp. 2941.
international
Correspondence
Q uestions concerning editorial m atters:
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Fax: (33.1) 45.68.55.91
Museum International (English edition) is published four
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