Speaker 1: Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: you welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. You know, humans are aware of history.
Speaker 1: That's that's one of our our key attributes. Not always though,
Speaker 1: well to varying degrees, we're aware of history, or we
Speaker 1: have awareness of of of what we think history to
Speaker 1: be uh and uh. And not just our own personal history,
Speaker 1: but history across generations, across decades, across centuries, millennia. Even
Speaker 1: we're aware of what came before via oral traditions and
Speaker 1: the evidence of the world around us, even as we
Speaker 1: continually change in anticipation of the future. And then of
Speaker 1: course we have recorded history as well, and we have
Speaker 1: a concept of history that goes beyond concern for literal
Speaker 1: accuracy about what happened in the past. I think about
Speaker 1: everything from ancient mythologies in which people tried to construct
Speaker 1: a you know, not not literally existent version of their past,
Speaker 1: but something to sort of explain the present, all the
Speaker 1: way to the kinds of mythical histories that people still
Speaker 1: like to engage in today. You know, ancient aliens and all,
Speaker 1: you know, half the stuff on the history shows on TV.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, inevitably history ends up melding with myth, and
Speaker 1: you really don't have to go too far back in
Speaker 1: history for that to take place, for for the historical
Speaker 1: to become the legendary at least. But one thing that
Speaker 1: makes clear, I think, is that we have a kind
Speaker 1: of craving for something that we think of as history
Speaker 1: that is not always exactly the same thing as knowing
Speaker 1: what's actually true about what happened X number of years ago, right, right,
Speaker 1: So establishing just from the get go that the human
Speaker 1: contemplation of history is in and of itself kind of
Speaker 1: a complex thing. Uh, narrative becomes an essential part of it,
Speaker 1: but also a complicating aspect of it. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: their additional concerns we're going to get into, know when
Speaker 1: we when we think about history. I mean, one of
Speaker 1: the things about human use of history is that we're
Speaker 1: able to pass information on in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: depend on our genetics. So a big part of it is,
Speaker 1: of course just recorded histories literature about the past. But then, uh,
Speaker 1: there are the artifacts of the past. Uh, there are
Speaker 1: the artifacts of the distant past, the the the relatively
Speaker 1: recent past, um, artifacts of the present, and all of
Speaker 1: these things find their way into museums. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: to think about what you're feeling about ancient Egypt would
Speaker 1: be if you could only have read about it and
Speaker 1: you never could have seen any of its artifacts, any
Speaker 1: of its artwork. You've never seen images of the pyramids,
Speaker 1: never seen the ancient figurines or the sarcophag guy or
Speaker 1: anything like that, there would be a necessary texture that
Speaker 1: would be lacking. Do your understanding of what ancient Egypt was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and of course to today, we have so many tools
Speaker 1: at our disposal to say, understand ancient Egypt of one thing,
Speaker 1: We just we have a better understanding than ever before.
Speaker 1: There's still a lot of things we don't know, but
Speaker 1: we but you know, we're at the bleeding edge of
Speaker 1: our understanding. Um and uh. And on top of that,
Speaker 1: we have photography, we have the motion picture, we have
Speaker 1: computer imagery, we have just a whole host of of
Speaker 1: inventions that have made it, first of all, made it
Speaker 1: easier for us to understand what agent Egypt was like.
Speaker 1: And it's made it easier for people all around the
Speaker 1: world to get a grasp of it. Like you, you
Speaker 1: no longer have to travel to ancient Egypt as certainly
Speaker 1: even the Romans, did the ancient Romans uh consider in
Speaker 1: their contemplation of the even more ancient Egyptians. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then likewise you don't even have to be able to
Speaker 1: travel to a museum that has artifacts that have been
Speaker 1: transported from Egypt. Obviously you can go to websites, you
Speaker 1: can go to uh two books, to films, etcetera. Of
Speaker 1: the museum is still important. Yeah, that's exactly right, and
Speaker 1: it's important in multiple ways. I mean, I think about
Speaker 1: the two main ways it's important. Number one, of course,
Speaker 1: is just the preservation and display of artifacts to show
Speaker 1: you what they looked like, you know, to give you
Speaker 1: the physical representation. But then I think equally as important
Speaker 1: is the contextualizing literature of a museum, the interpretive material.
Speaker 1: Because you know, this is often pointed out by archaeologists
Speaker 1: and historians that if we only form our picture of
Speaker 1: a past civilization by looking at its physical artifacts, there
Speaker 1: is a necessary sort of uh, filtering mechanism there. That's time.
Speaker 1: You don't see all the aspects of the civilization that
Speaker 1: are prone to that are biodegradable, or that are prone
Speaker 1: to erosion breaking down over time. Uh, so I mean
Speaker 1: there's sort of this joke about like, you know, if
Speaker 1: you only look at the artifacts and you don't read
Speaker 1: about the other things or see sort of artists representations
Speaker 1: of what the other thing surrounding these artifacts might have been.
Speaker 1: You could assume that everyone in ancient Egypt like walked
Speaker 1: around in stone clothes. Yeah yeah, Or you know that
Speaker 1: that all the the art, all the sculpture and ancient
Speaker 1: Rome was unpainted and you know, stoic and gray. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's essentially in this sense, the archaeological and the
Speaker 1: anthropological are very much like paleontology. Uh, you know, It's
Speaker 1: it's one thing to look at the even the reassembled
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, the resembled fossils of a prehistoric creature.
Speaker 1: But then there are all the things that did not
Speaker 1: survive that we have to piece together, uh to get
Speaker 1: a full understanding of what this creature was or might
Speaker 1: have been. Yeah, the skin across time. Uh, that can
Speaker 1: all be represented in the interpretive materials of a museum.
Speaker 1: So those are I think equally as important as just
Speaker 1: like having an artifact and preserving it from being destroyed
Speaker 1: by the elements. Oh yeah, Like I think of the
Speaker 1: like the really great museums I've been to, and I'm
Speaker 1: and I've been fortunate enough to get to go to
Speaker 1: you know, a number of more fortunate enough to live
Speaker 1: in a city that have some very nice museums as well. Um.
Speaker 1: But but there's a you know, there's a journey you
Speaker 1: go on. There's there's a story that you involve yourself
Speaker 1: in when you're when you when you're in a really
Speaker 1: good museum or a really good exhibit. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: think you know, part of that too is like it
Speaker 1: appeals to spatial learning. UM. For instance, free plug for
Speaker 1: the Firm Bank Museum here in Atlanta. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: they have a section called the like the Georgia walk
Speaker 1: Through Time and uh it's something that you know, kids
Speaker 1: that grew up in the Atlanta area have been going
Speaker 1: to for a long time and they probably end up
Speaker 1: taking it for granted. But you know, there's this it's
Speaker 1: like a spatial journey you do walk through time you
Speaker 1: get to uh, you know, go through these exhibits and
Speaker 1: get kind of a you know, a walk through of
Speaker 1: geologic history and uh. And I think that's important likewise
Speaker 1: with with fossils and and reproductions or even u taxidermy
Speaker 1: um animals. There is something about being in the physical
Speaker 1: presence of either this creature or representation of this creature
Speaker 1: that that just gives you an understanding of it that
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily get from a book or a description
Speaker 1: or a film or even some sort of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a virtual reality simulation. Yeah, that's right. And so later
Speaker 1: in the episode we are going to discuss some of
Speaker 1: the potential drawbacks and other considerations to have about museum culture.
Speaker 1: But there is certainly a thing that is great about
Speaker 1: museum culture, like the tendency to want to preserve history
Speaker 1: and explain it right and to and also can can
Speaker 1: forge an emotional connection. Like I believe it was the
Speaker 1: Field Museum. I believe we we we were there together
Speaker 1: because we had a work thing up there, and uh,
Speaker 1: they had an exhibit about where they had an artistic
Speaker 1: recreation of slave ship and you like walk through the
Speaker 1: hold of it and it's, uh, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: a really emotional experience. It just brings you know, I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, it brought tears to my eyes, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was like that's an example where you know,
Speaker 1: you have this positive emotional manipulation to a certain extent
Speaker 1: by the by the museum, you know, to give you
Speaker 1: this emotional connection with the topic. And I think that's
Speaker 1: easy to overlook when we think of museums because you
Speaker 1: can think of them as as just like a stoic
Speaker 1: presentation of artifacts that are perhaps lacking in context, or
Speaker 1: acquire a great deal of reading a fine print, but
Speaker 1: they could also help you feel the pain and passion
Speaker 1: of people who have been long dead, right um. The
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Museum here in Atlanta also does a tremendous
Speaker 1: job through you know, all sorts of like multimedia of uh,
Speaker 1: you know, being able to like there's one exhibit where
Speaker 1: you you sit at a lunch counter and you wear
Speaker 1: headphones to give you the experience of of being a
Speaker 1: protester during the civil rights movement in America. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's little things like that often with with you know,
Speaker 1: some technological bells and whistles which you've you've used wisely,
Speaker 1: you know, can just really enhance what the museum is
Speaker 1: able to do from you know, an education an old perspective.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, And that's that's a good point about
Speaker 1: how you know, museums today are much more than just uh,
Speaker 1: the storage and display of physical artifacts. I mean that's
Speaker 1: the sort of classic museum tradition is like you have
Speaker 1: an object of some kind of significance. It's a work
Speaker 1: of art or an artifact found through archaeology or something
Speaker 1: or a you know, it's natural history. Maybe it's a
Speaker 1: mineral or a bone or something like that, um, and
Speaker 1: and that's on display. But yeah, museums are bigger than that. Now.
Speaker 1: They're there in many ways a sort of just like
Speaker 1: place you can go to engage with some form or
Speaker 1: other of history, right and and or so, or even
Speaker 1: celebrate it, you know, such as you know, when I
Speaker 1: think of some of our better, you know, science and
Speaker 1: technology museums, it's like a a space where where science
Speaker 1: is celebrated, and there will be various uh activities going
Speaker 1: on to aid in that celebration, from say a science
Speaker 1: themed playroom for very small children, to say a lecture
Speaker 1: series for uh, for for older individuals who you know
Speaker 1: who needs something more, you know, so stances. So I
Speaker 1: guess the question is how did humans start doing this?
Speaker 1: Like when did the museum tradition begin? When when did
Speaker 1: we first get the idea that you would uh that
Speaker 1: you would put objects on display or have some kind
Speaker 1: of a place where you could you could go to
Speaker 1: interact with educational materials like this, right. And I think
Speaker 1: an important thing that we're we're kind of skipping over
Speaker 1: and all this is that, um is that a museum
Speaker 1: ideally and um and generally the better examples that we
Speaker 1: tend to focus on are going to be open for everyone.
Speaker 1: So it's it's not just a matter of oh, well,
Speaker 1: this university has a storeroom of artifacts, or this, uh,
Speaker 1: this institution or this family has some wonderful pieces set aside. Uh.
Speaker 1: You you'd love it if you could see it. Now,
Speaker 1: A museum is ideally a place that is open to
Speaker 1: the people and the and and and everyone is allowed
Speaker 1: to venture in and engage with the materials there. Right. So,
Speaker 1: just the king's treasure room of like artifacts collected from
Speaker 1: the you know, from the cities he has conquered, is
Speaker 1: not necessarily a museum because that's just his treasure room. Right.
Speaker 1: And you're probably not invited, And it's probably better if
Speaker 1: you're not invited, because it sounds like like a dangerous
Speaker 1: place to venture into. Uh. You know, when I started
Speaker 1: thinking just sort of you know, casually at first, you
Speaker 1: know about the history museums. I started thinking, okay, well
Speaker 1: what are you know? What are some of the museums
Speaker 1: that I've been to and how old are they? And
Speaker 1: if if everyone else does his exercise as well, I
Speaker 1: think you'll know that, you know, most of the museums
Speaker 1: that come to mind our products of fairly recent history. UM.
Speaker 1: And obviously this holds true for the various American museums
Speaker 1: I've visited, and even the British Natural History Museum is
Speaker 1: a product of colonial expansion and wasn't found into the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, um, spun off from a private collection and uh,
Speaker 1: and we still see that that kind of movement going
Speaker 1: on to this day. You know, we'll have large private
Speaker 1: collections that are either um continued that you're donated to
Speaker 1: a museum or spun off into a useum of some sort.
Speaker 1: But the oldest museum in the UK, for instance, the
Speaker 1: Royal Armories in the Tower of London, only goes back
Speaker 1: to fifteen two, with public access emerging in sixteen sixty.
Speaker 1: Now generally at this point in the podcast, you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about what came before the invention, what was
Speaker 1: the world leading up to that? And I think probably
Speaker 1: the best exercise here is to is to and not
Speaker 1: to try and think of like a world without museums,
Speaker 1: but think of the various things in history that are
Speaker 1: sort of like a museum but not quite. Okay, So
Speaker 1: first of all, we already mentioned like the King's treasure room. Right.
Speaker 1: You know, you have conquered many cities and many great lands,
Speaker 1: and maybe you you took artifacts that were sacred to them,
Speaker 1: and then you brought it back to your treasure room
Speaker 1: and you kept it locked up for yourself. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's certainly kind of like a museum,
Speaker 1: but not a museum. And we should note I mean
Speaker 1: that many museums. I mean one of the sort of
Speaker 1: like counterpoints to the good things about a museum is
Speaker 1: that lots of great museums around the world today do
Speaker 1: represent a kind of colonial under Yeah. I mean there
Speaker 1: there are cases whereas there are objects, you know, in
Speaker 1: British museums that are of great historical significance, but that
Speaker 1: you know, we're taken from other peoples around the world
Speaker 1: by colonial invaders from Great Britain exactly. So yeah, the
Speaker 1: King's Horde of Treasures is uh, it's it's not a museum,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, it does have a lot
Speaker 1: in common and I think that's going to be the
Speaker 1: case with all these not quite museum examples we're gonna
Speaker 1: touch on. You know, it's also worth pointing out that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's been long fashionable in human culture to
Speaker 1: steal treasures and art from a defeated adversary. Um on
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind. We had a couple of
Speaker 1: episodes about the Ark of the Covenant, and of course
Speaker 1: the stories of the Ark of the Covenant involved it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's captured by the Philistines and later it's captured and
Speaker 1: possible destruction by the Babylonians, and the Philistines were said
Speaker 1: to have displayed the captured arc in their own Temple
Speaker 1: of Dagon. Uh though of course, uh, you know this,
Speaker 1: we don't know to what extent this you know, there's
Speaker 1: reality behind this, or if it's just a myth, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But still it drives home that like this is this
Speaker 1: is the sort of thing people did. Uh. They were
Speaker 1: to crush or defeat an enemy, sacked their cities where
Speaker 1: they would take their their treasured items back with them.
Speaker 1: Right now, another case from from history that that kind
Speaker 1: of lines up with with a lot of this are
Speaker 1: the Roman triumphs, in which the treasures, art, wealth, and
Speaker 1: armies of defeated enemies were marched through the city as
Speaker 1: a spectacle. Uh and you know, along with captives, some
Speaker 1: to be executed or displayed. Further so sort of a
Speaker 1: you know, an even more intense example of sort of
Speaker 1: the more brutal aspects of museum like enterprises. Seem to recall,
Speaker 1: there's a scene of this Entitus Andronicus, I think, where
Speaker 1: there's like a yeah, there's like a parade of the enemies.
Speaker 1: Yeah they defeated some Germanic tribe or something, right, and
Speaker 1: yeah they're they're the famous accounts of that, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like this awful Roman circus of
Speaker 1: of you know, it's read rather uncomfortable to contemplate um,
Speaker 1: and so we we don't want that to be our
Speaker 1: music ms. But then again, like the shadow of that
Speaker 1: is cast over even our modern museums, and of course
Speaker 1: in the even in just in the last century, we've
Speaker 1: we've seen museums raided, looted, or destroyed due to military action.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's sad like continues to be the
Speaker 1: case that when when groups of people go to war
Speaker 1: with each other, um treasures, artifacts, items of historical or
Speaker 1: cultural importance are often targeted. Now the like rooms full
Speaker 1: of artifacts are not only created when, say, you know,
Speaker 1: a conquering power or colonial power or something goes and
Speaker 1: takes from one culture and brings back home. People also
Speaker 1: create rooms full of artifacts from their own culture. I
Speaker 1: mean a common way you find this is in tombs
Speaker 1: in the ancient world exactly, yeah, I mean unstuffable in
Speaker 1: your mind. Especially we've discussed the tombs of ancient Egypt,
Speaker 1: the tombs of ancient China, uh, and these are you know,
Speaker 1: these are examples where generally it has to do with
Speaker 1: some contemplation of the afterlife, or the at least the
Speaker 1: idea that if if there is not a world for
Speaker 1: the ruler to pass into and presumably take their things,
Speaker 1: then there is still some continuation of identity in the
Speaker 1: body that is preserved, and therefore the the items, the wealth,
Speaker 1: all the material possessions or some form of them need
Speaker 1: to be preserved there as well. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a museum, but for the most part you are
Speaker 1: not invited to enter into Generally, it's it's looked down upon.
Speaker 1: It's not designed to serve an educational purpose, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't have interpretive materials. These are these are just I'm
Speaker 1: taking all my lute to the next world, right, and
Speaker 1: I might put a crossbow trap in there just in
Speaker 1: case you try and enter. Now another we we touched
Speaker 1: a little bit on this already bringing up Dagon, but
Speaker 1: uh temple is another example of something that's kind of
Speaker 1: like a museum, a place where valuable and important artifacts
Speaker 1: may well be displayed for lots of people, if not everybody,
Speaker 1: then at least for a key demographic to view and admire.
Speaker 1: And many cases the works are instructional in nature, you know,
Speaker 1: a means of seeing the form of a god or
Speaker 1: goddesses or visually contemplating complex theological concepts like one sees
Speaker 1: so particularly in Tibetan art. I mean, I think about
Speaker 1: the relics and uh, the ways that many Catholic basilicas
Speaker 1: will say, preserve the remains of a sainted person. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and then yeah, so we kind of have like a
Speaker 1: dash of the tomb there as well. Right, But there's
Speaker 1: something kind of museum e about that. Here's an object
Speaker 1: from the past, it's on display for people to come
Speaker 1: look at. Yeah. Yeah, and then there's also the shrine,
Speaker 1: which you know, can be something like a tomb and
Speaker 1: something like a temple. But of course there are secular
Speaker 1: versions of this as well throughout the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: you go to Washington, d C. And you have all
Speaker 1: the you go to these monuments, these essentially shrines, and these,
Speaker 1: you know, often are about celebrating something that is tied
Speaker 1: to cultural or national heritage. Large scale statues as well
Speaker 1: public statues are generally a good example of this as well.
Speaker 1: Right now, speaking of shrine, this actually brings us to
Speaker 1: the word museum itself. So museum derives from the Latin
Speaker 1: what is it tom in, which means precisely this a
Speaker 1: shrine to the muses um the muses of course with
Speaker 1: the Greek goddesses of creativity and inspiration. Yeah, so, so
Speaker 1: we've got a shrine to the muses as the museon
Speaker 1: and then that becomes the idea of the museum. I
Speaker 1: guess that that word is coined probably much later, to
Speaker 1: refer to what we think of this museums. Right. For instance,
Speaker 1: if we go back to the third century b C.
Speaker 1: We have the Museum of Alexandria to consider, which included
Speaker 1: the famed Library of Alexandria, and it was founded by Ptolemy,
Speaker 1: the first Soter and noted for being who is noted
Speaker 1: for being the traveling companion and chronicler of Alexander the Great. However,
Speaker 1: the museum in this case was was not a display
Speaker 1: of collected art, but a center of learned ing that
Speaker 1: ultimately has more in common with a university. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know that we might think of today. Um, and uh,
Speaker 1: this was seemingly destroyed in the late third century. See um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, more more like a university, a place of learning,
Speaker 1: a place where learned individuals would gather and celebrate knowledge.
Speaker 1: So you've got a lot of stuff kind of like
Speaker 1: this in the ancient world, but nothing that is quite
Speaker 1: like we think of a modern museum, right. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you can you can make a case that specific
Speaker 1: museums or museums in general reflect these general attitudes to
Speaker 1: this day. But yeah, none of these. You can't look
Speaker 1: at any of these and go like, oh, that was
Speaker 1: a museum, and it's like no, one, No, it was
Speaker 1: a treasure hoard. It was really more of a temple.
Speaker 1: So indeed, museums are would seem to be more of
Speaker 1: a modern venture, right, largely rooted in the private wonder
Speaker 1: rooms or cabinets of curiosities, uh than individuals and families had.
Speaker 1: And then the more modern museums tend to emerge out
Speaker 1: of these traditions. In fact, you know, if you look
Speaker 1: around for some of the example, the oldest examples of
Speaker 1: things that are museums, uh, you know, a few that
Speaker 1: often pop Two that often pop up are the Capital
Speaker 1: Line museums, the oldest public collections, the oldest public collection
Speaker 1: of art in the world. This is in Rome dates
Speaker 1: back to fourteen seventy one and Pope six to the
Speaker 1: fourth donation of art to the people of Rome. You
Speaker 1: have the Vatican Museums have their origin as a public
Speaker 1: in public display in fifteen o six under Pope Julius
Speaker 1: the Second. But uh, and we might be tempted to
Speaker 1: stop there, right and say, oh, well, okay, well there
Speaker 1: you go. This is these are some of the earliest examples.
Speaker 1: But uh, there is a much older example we're going
Speaker 1: to get to in this episode that certainly predates anything
Speaker 1: that happened with the Catholic Church. Yeah, and this one, also,
Speaker 1: I guess is a matter of interpretation, because what you
Speaker 1: define as a museum is going to be a matter
Speaker 1: of interpretation. But this is going to be, uh, the
Speaker 1: earliest known music. I'm according to the great British archaeologist
Speaker 1: Charles Leonard Woolley. So we don't know for sure when
Speaker 1: the first museum was created, but I think there's a
Speaker 1: really reasonable chance that the earliest museum we know about
Speaker 1: was actually the first one in history. So let's take
Speaker 1: a journey to ancient Mesopotamia. Oh yes, all right, So
Speaker 1: we're going to go to the city of or. Or
Speaker 1: was once one of the great power centers of ancient Mesopotamia.
Speaker 1: And if you see photos of the sand covered ruins
Speaker 1: of the city and it's partially restored great ziggurat today,
Speaker 1: it might be hard to imagine that this was once
Speaker 1: like a really thriving, lush, fertile settlement in the ancient world.
Speaker 1: Today it's situated in the desert of southern Iraq, about
Speaker 1: sixteen kilometers or about ten miles from the Euphrates River.
Speaker 1: And uh and this is a rough measurement that I
Speaker 1: calculated through Google Maps. It's about two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: kilometers or about a hundred and fifty miles from the
Speaker 1: coast of the Persian Gulf, and I've read in some
Speaker 1: sources that in ancient times Or was considered more like
Speaker 1: a coastal city. That I guess the Persian Gulf stretched
Speaker 1: farther up into where you would now have southern Mesopotamia.
Speaker 1: But in ancient times, the Euphrates River it took a
Speaker 1: different course and it ran much closer to the city,
Speaker 1: making it this this lush, fertile place that was it
Speaker 1: was a great place for a city, and it's a
Speaker 1: place to consider the scale of history because archaeologists believe
Speaker 1: that it was founded sometime in like the fourth millennium
Speaker 1: b C, so that that's going to be many thousands
Speaker 1: of years old to us. In the early Dynastic period
Speaker 1: of the ancient Sumerian kings, Or became the capital of
Speaker 1: southern Mesopotamia, and this would have been around the twenty
Speaker 1: fifth century BC. So to do a history exercise that
Speaker 1: we've sent sometimes done on stuff to blow your mind before,
Speaker 1: just reminding you, like how much time elapsed through the
Speaker 1: part of the world history that we think of as ancient.
Speaker 1: Imagine your Julius Caesar and you're living in the first
Speaker 1: century b C. To you, as Julius Caesar, the old
Speaker 1: Kingdom of Egypt, which was liked, and the ancient dynasties
Speaker 1: of Mesopotamia. I wish it would have been roughly the
Speaker 1: same time. Those time periods were more ancient to you,
Speaker 1: as Julius Caesar in the Roman Republic than the Roman
Speaker 1: Empire is to us. Ancient Rome is significantly more recent
Speaker 1: to us than those ancient civilizations were to the ancient Romans.
Speaker 1: More time passed between Sargon of a Cod and Julius
Speaker 1: Caesar than between Julius Caesar and us. That's the scale
Speaker 1: of the history of civilization. And when you think about
Speaker 1: all that time, all the relics and remains of all
Speaker 1: those thousands of years coming and going, it's hard not
Speaker 1: to realize that the people who are ancient from our
Speaker 1: point of view, also had to contend with history and
Speaker 1: the idea of its memory, its preservation, and its destruction.
Speaker 1: And so sometimes history and even nostalgia can kind of
Speaker 1: feel like recently invented concepts. They're absolutely not. And a
Speaker 1: great example is a Neo Babylonian king who lived in
Speaker 1: the city of or So that This was a man
Speaker 1: named Nabonidas who was the last real king of Babylon
Speaker 1: before the City of Or declined in power in the
Speaker 1: late sixth century b c. And was subsequently abandoned over
Speaker 1: the following decades. Uh So, Nabonidas seemed to have a
Speaker 1: great sense of historical consciousness. He wanted to revive elements
Speaker 1: of past civilizations from Mesopotamia. One of the things we
Speaker 1: were reading for this episode was an article by h
Speaker 1: professor of languages and literature of Ancient Israel from Macquarie
Speaker 1: University named Louise Prike, and one thing that she pointed
Speaker 1: out is that this ancient king, Nabontas is often referred
Speaker 1: to as sort of like an ancient archaeologist king. He
Speaker 1: was sort of like, you know, one of the first archaeologists,
Speaker 1: sort of an ancient Indiana Jones type. Here was word
Speaker 1: of except he's a king, so he's got all this
Speaker 1: power to command with the the belongs in a museum mentality.
Speaker 1: Um so yeah. So so this ancient sort of archaeologist king,
Speaker 1: apparently he conducted excavations to retrieve lost written records from
Speaker 1: past civilizations of the area. Uh Later in life, he
Speaker 1: attempted to restore the ruins of the Great Sumerian Ziggurat
Speaker 1: of Or that had decayed significantly by his time. You
Speaker 1: may have seen representation their pictures of the ziggurat. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and what we're seeing is a restoration of Nabonidas's
Speaker 1: restoration of the Ziggarat. So it's been through several it's
Speaker 1: got a few different coats of paint on it, and
Speaker 1: that alone, you know, brings up the question of, you know,
Speaker 1: the authenticity with artifacts, you know, like like which one
Speaker 1: is the real ziggurat? I mean they're all the real Zigarat.
Speaker 1: But but uh, but but then you know, you know,
Speaker 1: we have to take into account like how much time
Speaker 1: has passed two and then when to what the extent
Speaker 1: does that get in our way of understanding the past? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a weird question to think about. If something was
Speaker 1: restored in the ancient world after having decayed for hundreds
Speaker 1: of years, is that just as original to us? Basically?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, it's it's it makes you
Speaker 1: question the concept of what an original artifact is, what
Speaker 1: is archaeological authenticity? And maybe it's some degree, uh, to
Speaker 1: some degree undermines the concept of originality, which might be
Speaker 1: a good thing. We'll talk about that later again, um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so he he attempted to restore the ruins
Speaker 1: of the Great Sumerian zigguratador He and he was also
Speaker 1: he was a religious revivalist, bringing back cult traditions that
Speaker 1: had long fallen by the wayside. Specifically, he revived the
Speaker 1: cult of the moon god Scene also known and that
Speaker 1: spelled like sin like s i n is brown scene,
Speaker 1: also known to the ancient Sumerians as the god Nana. Now,
Speaker 1: the city of Or has a lot of cool stuff
Speaker 1: about it over over these you know, thousands of years,
Speaker 1: but one of them is that it has some of
Speaker 1: the most awesome high priestesses in history. I know she's
Speaker 1: come up on stuff to blow your mind before, but
Speaker 1: one of my favorite ancient Mesopotamian figures is the earliest
Speaker 1: known named author of a work of poetry, so not
Speaker 1: necessarily the first poet ever, but the first poet in
Speaker 1: history whose name is recorded and known to us. And
Speaker 1: this is the ancient Sumerian poet, Princess and high priestess
Speaker 1: in Headuwana. Yeah, in Headuana lived in Or long before
Speaker 1: in Abanitas. She lived in Or when it was an
Speaker 1: ancient Sumerian city state in the twenty third century b.
Speaker 1: C under the rule of her father Sargon of a
Speaker 1: cod and in Hituana was appointed by Sargon. Is the
Speaker 1: high priestess of the goddess in Anna and the moon
Speaker 1: God Nana. I know that might be kind of confusing.
Speaker 1: The goddesses in Anna and the Moon God is just Nana,
Speaker 1: and then of course later became seen. So technically her
Speaker 1: title is in e n which is a position of
Speaker 1: religious and political significance. She refers to herself as the
Speaker 1: radiant Inn of Nana. And one of her great works
Speaker 1: of poetry known to us is known to us today
Speaker 1: is the Exaltation of in Anna the Goddess, which is
Speaker 1: this amazing poem to look up. You should especially look
Speaker 1: up a translation translation of the Exaltation of Anna if
Speaker 1: you're ever trying to like work up a real sense
Speaker 1: of defiance and righteous anger. The best stuff, Uh, Robert,
Speaker 1: would you indulge me to read a few lines certainly, okay,
Speaker 1: from the Exaltation of Ananna. This is from the translation
Speaker 1: in the James Pritcher edition in nineteen seventy five. You
Speaker 1: have filled this land with venom like a dragon. Vegetation
Speaker 1: ceases when you thunder like Ishkur. You bring down the
Speaker 1: flood from the mountain Supreme One, Who are the Ananna
Speaker 1: of heaven and Earth, who reign flaming fire over the land,
Speaker 1: Who have been given the me by on Queen who
Speaker 1: rides the beasts. Okay, I got a one from later,
Speaker 1: my Queen. All the Anunna, the great gods fled before
Speaker 1: you like fluttering bats, could not stand before your awesome face,
Speaker 1: could not approach your awesome forehead. Who can soothe your
Speaker 1: angry heart? These hymns are amazing and they are definitely
Speaker 1: worth looking up. So you've got in head to Wana.
Speaker 1: She's this fireball hurling poet, the high priestess of the
Speaker 1: moon god Nana in Or in the twenty third century BC.
Speaker 1: And then a little less than two millennial later, you've
Speaker 1: got this Neo Babylonian king Nabontas ruling over Or, who's
Speaker 1: looking back into the past. And in looking back into
Speaker 1: the past, one thing he decides to do is revive
Speaker 1: the worship of the moon god Nana, who they now
Speaker 1: called Seen, and like Sargon, Nabanitas appoints his daughter the
Speaker 1: priestess of the moon god, consulting ancient records to get
Speaker 1: details about what this moon priestess role would be, like
Speaker 1: what the duties would be, what the rituals would be. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is a point that that Prike makes in her article.
Speaker 1: Is this like looking back into the records for what
Speaker 1: the priestess is role would be, because he's, you know,
Speaker 1: in a way, he's sort of trying to be the
Speaker 1: next Sargon. So who is the priestess, the daughter of
Speaker 1: Nabonidus who gets this role? Well, her name is in
Speaker 1: a galdy Nana, also known as Belle shalty Nana. And
Speaker 1: unfortunately we know far too little about who in a
Speaker 1: galdy Nana was, but we do know that, in addition
Speaker 1: to a religious role, in a galdy Nana is recorded
Speaker 1: as having been the administrator of a school for young priestesses.
Speaker 1: But so in a Galdy Nana was more than just
Speaker 1: an educator. She was more than just a princess, more
Speaker 1: than just a high priestess of the moon. It's here
Speaker 1: that we come to the first museum known to history,
Speaker 1: because it appears that in a galdy Nana was its curator.
Speaker 1: And this is this is fascinating to behold because we
Speaker 1: have not only you know, you know, the case for
Speaker 1: the museum, but for a strong fake case for you know,
Speaker 1: why it was created, what purpose it served? Uh, the
Speaker 1: ruler of the day, Yeah, exactly. So maybe we should
Speaker 1: take a break and then when we come back we
Speaker 1: can have a look at this museum. Alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: We're discussing the history of the museum as we know
Speaker 1: and understand it today, and we're looking at what may
Speaker 1: well be the earliest example of something that we can
Speaker 1: reasonably call a museum. Yeah, and so we should look
Speaker 1: again at what would be the criteria there. Right, how
Speaker 1: would we know if we had found the first museum
Speaker 1: in history? Because, as we've discussed before, just having a
Speaker 1: treasure room of artifacts isn't really a museum, right, Um, So,
Speaker 1: a museum as understood today has two main parts. Right,
Speaker 1: He's got preservation and interpretation. You've got objects or artifacts
Speaker 1: that are preserved and kept on the display this preservation aspect,
Speaker 1: and those objects are explained and contextualized by educational interpretation materials,
Speaker 1: you know, like the little written placards you find next
Speaker 1: to objects at a museum exhibit today. And I think
Speaker 1: it's also important that it must be clear that this
Speaker 1: institution has some sort of public educational purpose. Right, it
Speaker 1: can't just be like a private thing that's just for you, Right,
Speaker 1: It's about it's about sharing this information with the world.
Speaker 1: And we see that in our you know, our our
Speaker 1: best examples of museums. You know, it's say, like a
Speaker 1: really good science and technology museum is about you know,
Speaker 1: sharing the passing on the torch of of of of
Speaker 1: scientific inquiry and uh and and celebrating what it can
Speaker 1: do for human civilization. And then on the other hand,
Speaker 1: you have, say a creationist museum, which takes it a
Speaker 1: different approach, but is ultimately trying to do the same thing. Right,
Speaker 1: it is it is it is using artifacts are supposed artifacts.
Speaker 1: I mean sometimes it's using actual uh, remnants of the past,
Speaker 1: but then using it to push in a different narrative.
Speaker 1: I guess that's true. Like even if we judge the
Speaker 1: educational purpose of a museum to be misguided and leading
Speaker 1: to incorrect conclusions, I mean, I guess thet'll if the
Speaker 1: goal of it is educational according to the people who
Speaker 1: made it. Even if that education is you know, maybe look,
Speaker 1: make making your king look good or something, you could
Speaker 1: consider that a form of a museum, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: and certainly even our better museums have had to evolve
Speaker 1: with the times and if I had to, had to
Speaker 1: change the way that they present particularly you know, things
Speaker 1: from a cultural but even a historical standpoint to to
Speaker 1: you know, to to either you know, keep up with
Speaker 1: the changing norms, to correct past errors and then uh um,
Speaker 1: you know, and also to to take into account new
Speaker 1: information about the cultures and the time periods that are presented. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. I mean, one great thing about modern
Speaker 1: museums is you know, they can often be away, uh
Speaker 1: to see into other cultures that you might not encounter firsthand.
Speaker 1: But you know, a lot of these exhibits, if the
Speaker 1: museum has been around a long time, they may have
Speaker 1: initially been established with a kind of condescending colonialist attitude
Speaker 1: or that that sort of shows other cultures but in
Speaker 1: a way that might not be accurate, maybe that looks
Speaker 1: down on them, that doesn't regard them as you know,
Speaker 1: equally valid cultures. Right. I mean, yeah, it's important to
Speaker 1: note that, like the the basic idea of the museum, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it can be skewed for different purposes. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a difference between the neuter museum in Philadelphia and
Speaker 1: say a you know, a a circus side show, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, just like a display of preserved human remains
Speaker 1: with either no context or faulty context regarding what those
Speaker 1: jars contain. There's a difference between an actual museum about say,
Speaker 1: human evolution and uh the Bigfoot Museum that we have
Speaker 1: in the North Georgia Mountains, which is a wonderful museum,
Speaker 1: but it has it has a definite agenda, definite narrative
Speaker 1: that it's pushing, and hopefully a lot of people that
Speaker 1: go there are you know, engaging with a sort of
Speaker 1: tongue in cheek or people were able to suspend disbelief,
Speaker 1: you know and enjoy it. But but yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a slightly different expert exercise or any you know, like
Speaker 1: roadside attraction you know from decades past where where something
Speaker 1: maybe on display that is uh you know that is
Speaker 1: maybe uh you know, lacking in terms of it's you know,
Speaker 1: scientific or historical believability. Right. So I guess I want
Speaker 1: to trying to say is we can often think of
Speaker 1: a museum as a medium as opposed to like message. Okay,
Speaker 1: so to get back to in a Galdi Nana throughout
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties and thirties, there was a British archaeologist
Speaker 1: named Sir Charles Leonard Woolley who worked on the excavation
Speaker 1: of the ancient city of Ur And in nineteen five
Speaker 1: Willy and his colleagues were excavating a Babylonian palace within
Speaker 1: the ancient city, and they began to uncover a very
Speaker 1: strange clustering of artifacts. Within this palace were artifacts from
Speaker 1: different geographical locations and different periods of ancient history, all
Speaker 1: neatly arranged together in this one building. And it appears
Speaker 1: that this collection was created sometime around the year five
Speaker 1: thirty b C. And now the earliest artifacts they found
Speaker 1: went back almost to the time of Sargon, and in
Speaker 1: Headuana they went back to about b c uh And again,
Speaker 1: I was trying to find a point of comparison for
Speaker 1: historical scale. So if these people living in the sixth
Speaker 1: century b C had artifacts from b C, that's like
Speaker 1: us today having artifacts from the personal effects of Attila
Speaker 1: the Hunt who was invading the Western Roman Empire in
Speaker 1: the middle of the fifth century CE. That's the the
Speaker 1: approximate time difference. So what was among this collection of
Speaker 1: things that Willie discovered here in this in this ancient site,
Speaker 1: one thing was the partially restored remains of a statue
Speaker 1: of the great king Shulgi of Or, who ruled in
Speaker 1: the twenty one century b c. And you might remember
Speaker 1: Shulgi came up in our episode about walls, actually because
Speaker 1: Shulgi is credited with creating one of the first known
Speaker 1: defensive boundary walls in history. The wall he built was
Speaker 1: known as the Wall of the Land, or the Amorright Wall,
Speaker 1: or the keeper at Bay of the Nomads. It's a
Speaker 1: little on the nose, it was. It was designed to
Speaker 1: defend Sumar against attacks from nomadic people's called the Amorites,
Speaker 1: who lived to the north of them. And Shulgi's wall
Speaker 1: is thought to have been more than a hundred miles long,
Speaker 1: stretching between the Tigris and the Euphrates river Uh. And
Speaker 1: in this Uh this other episode, I quoted from an
Speaker 1: ancient Sumerian poem which mentioned it by recalling with nostalgia,
Speaker 1: how quote, the wall of Unag extended out over the
Speaker 1: desert like a bird net, you know, comparing it to
Speaker 1: this thing they used to actually catch birds. And so
Speaker 1: in this poem, the speaker is lamenting. How you know,
Speaker 1: there were better days back when their civilization had been
Speaker 1: more powerful and more glorious, And it was the time
Speaker 1: of Shulgi in this wall. But in reality, of course,
Speaker 1: these walls did not accomplish the goal of protecting Sumir,
Speaker 1: which fell to invasions from the Amorrds and the Elamites.
Speaker 1: It was not an effective strategy and uh And in
Speaker 1: his own autobiographical writings on the excavation of or Charles
Speaker 1: Leonard Willey notes something interesting about the statue of Shulgi.
Speaker 1: So he describes it quote as a fragment of dear
Speaker 1: white statue, a bit of the arm of a human
Speaker 1: figure on which was an inscription. And the fragment had
Speaker 1: been carefully trimmed so as to make it look neat
Speaker 1: and preserve the writing. So there appears to be evidence
Speaker 1: here of an ancient preservation work to keep the carvings
Speaker 1: on the statue from being damaged and to keep them legible.
Speaker 1: Also among the things found here was an ancient Cassite
Speaker 1: boundary stone, a type of artifact known as a kudaroo
Speaker 1: now kudaru or stone boundary marker, is used in ancient
Speaker 1: Mesopotamia and these things are pretty cool. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like if you could have a stone pillar with a
Speaker 1: written copy of the deed de your house noting how
Speaker 1: you got the land and which notaries witnessed the sale
Speaker 1: of the property, and also possibly containing carvings of gods,
Speaker 1: celestial objects and monsters and definitely curses. It's going to
Speaker 1: be full of curses. The kudaru in in a galdy
Speaker 1: Nana's museum is from around four b C. And well,
Speaker 1: he noted that it contained an awesome curse against anybody
Speaker 1: who displaced or destroyed the stone. So what are these
Speaker 1: curses like? Right? I was looking at an example of
Speaker 1: a kudaru excavated from tell Abu Habba, So it's not
Speaker 1: the same kudaru, but it's curse warning tells about what
Speaker 1: you cannot do or else face the curse. So it says,
Speaker 1: winsoever in days to come among future men, an agent
Speaker 1: or a governor, or a ruler, or anyone or the
Speaker 1: son of any one at all, who shall rise up
Speaker 1: and in respect of that field, shall make a claim
Speaker 1: or cause a claim to be made, or she'll say
Speaker 1: this field was not presented, or she'll change that stone
Speaker 1: from its place, or she'll cast it into the water
Speaker 1: or into the fire, or shall break it with a stone,
Speaker 1: or because of these curses shall fear, and she'll cause
Speaker 1: a fool, or a deaf man, or a blind man
Speaker 1: to take it up and set it in a place
Speaker 1: where it cannot be seen. That man who shall take
Speaker 1: away the field may Anu, the father of the gods
Speaker 1: curse him as a foe. This covers so much. I'm
Speaker 1: about to get into exactly what the curses in a second,
Speaker 1: but I love this. It's like, Okay, you cannot erase
Speaker 1: the record of who owns this field. You can't throw
Speaker 1: it in the water, you can't throw it in the fire.
Speaker 1: You can't get a blind person who can't read these
Speaker 1: warnings to pick it up for you and do it
Speaker 1: for you. Now, one one wonders if they were, say,
Speaker 1: if this was simply you know, they were just thinking
Speaker 1: of potential loopholes. This had been a loophole that was employed,
Speaker 1: that there was, that there was a blind individual who
Speaker 1: was often employed to you know, muck around with people's
Speaker 1: property rights. Right, Okay, so here's what So what happens
Speaker 1: if you violate this this boundary marker, you try to
Speaker 1: move it or something. Here's a little bit of the
Speaker 1: curse play. The first line has some illusions, so it's
Speaker 1: it's Maya Dodd, the lord of the crops, do something.
Speaker 1: It's been worn off. But after that it gets going.
Speaker 1: May Nergal in his destruction not spare his offspring. May
Speaker 1: shook A Muna and Shuemlia pronounce evil against him. May
Speaker 1: all the gods whose names are mentioned on the stone
Speaker 1: curse him with a curse that cannot be loosened. May
Speaker 1: they command that he not live a single day. May
Speaker 1: they not let him, nor his name, nor his seed
Speaker 1: endure days of drought, years of famine. May they assign
Speaker 1: for his lot before God, King, Lord, and Prince. May
Speaker 1: his whining be continuous, and may he come to an
Speaker 1: evil end. That's a pretty stiff curse. Yeah, okay, May
Speaker 1: his whining be continuous. So to quote from Charles Leonard
Speaker 1: Willy's own account of the other objects they discovered, apart
Speaker 1: from these two we just explained quote, Then came a
Speaker 1: clay foundation cone of a larsa king about seventeen hundred BC.
Speaker 1: Then a few clay tablets of about the same date,
Speaker 1: and a large votive stone mace head which was uninscribed,
Speaker 1: but may well have been more ancient by five hundred years.
Speaker 1: What were we to think? Here were half a dozen
Speaker 1: diverse objects found lying on an unbroken brick pavement of
Speaker 1: the sixth century BC. Yet the newest of them was
Speaker 1: seven hundred years older than the pavement, and the earliest
Speaker 1: perhaps sixteen hundred and so. Wooly writes that the evidence
Speaker 1: made it pretty clear that it was impossible that all
Speaker 1: these different artifacts would have ended up arranged together like
Speaker 1: this by accident. And he he notes again the trimming
Speaker 1: of the inscription on the Shulgi statue, which seems like
Speaker 1: a deliberate act of preservation. And then finally came the
Speaker 1: answer of what they were looking for. Wooly writes, quote,
Speaker 1: then we found the key. A little way apart lay
Speaker 1: a small drum shaped clay object, and which were four
Speaker 1: columns of writing. The first three columns were in the
Speaker 1: Old Sumerian language, and the contents of one at least
Speaker 1: were familiar to us, for we had founded on bricks
Speaker 1: of Boor Sin king of Or in two two two
Speaker 1: zero BC, and the other two were fairly similar. The
Speaker 1: fourth column was in late Semitic speech. These it said
Speaker 1: our copies of bricks found in the remains of Or
Speaker 1: the work of Boor Seen, King of Or, which while
Speaker 1: searching for the ground plan of the temple of the
Speaker 1: Governor of Or, found and I saw and wrote out
Speaker 1: for the marvel of the beholders. And Willie notes that
Speaker 1: the scribe who wrote this inscription overestimated the accuracy of
Speaker 1: the copies of these bricks, but nevertheless Willy reckon as
Speaker 1: the significance of this find quote. The room was a
Speaker 1: museum of local antiquities maintained by the Princess Bell Shalty Nannar, which, remember,
Speaker 1: is another name for Inegaldy nana Um, who took after
Speaker 1: her father, a Keen archaeologist, And in the collection was
Speaker 1: this clay drum, the earliest museum label known, drawn up
Speaker 1: a hundred years before and kept presumably together with the
Speaker 1: original bricks, as a record of the first scientific excavations
Speaker 1: at Or. That's incredible, you know, to to just you know,
Speaker 1: imagine these you know, truly ancient people. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: someone walking into this room seeing a curious old object
Speaker 1: and then potentially reading an inscription to see what it
Speaker 1: was and how it factors into their own history. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. Uh. And the fact I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: that they've got they've got copies also notes about copies
Speaker 1: of things, which would be like the way that many
Speaker 1: museums today have not in a silly or an original artifact,
Speaker 1: but a reproduction or say a cast of a fossil
Speaker 1: that might be the original thing. Uh. Of course, you know.
Speaker 1: The funny irony there is that many fossils are not
Speaker 1: even the original bones the stone, geologic castings created there by,
Speaker 1: you know, without the aid of human intervention. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And and I think that's an interesting thing, you know
Speaker 1: that we we feel like we need to make this distinction.
Speaker 1: Of course, it's like, well, you could have the real
Speaker 1: thing here, you can have a reproduction of it. And
Speaker 1: and somehow there's this sense among many people, I think,
Speaker 1: and I admit that I sometimes feel this. I probably shouldn't,
Speaker 1: but I feel like the reproduction is like not as good.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't it be better if the real original thing were there?
Speaker 1: And I want to break myself of this thinking by
Speaker 1: the end of the episode. Yeah, because I mean, because
Speaker 1: I've found myself caught myself thinking a similar thing about
Speaker 1: restored works before, you know, like if you see, um,
Speaker 1: you know, pictures of what, say, the Sistine Chapel looked
Speaker 1: like before and after restoration. One might be tempted to say,
Speaker 1: well it was it looked better before they restored it,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a silly thing to to to
Speaker 1: think or to say. Um, but we get kind of
Speaker 1: attached to, like the sort of the historical wear and
Speaker 1: tear on a thing. We get attracted to, you know,
Speaker 1: to the ruins, and then we have at least mixed
Speaker 1: feelings about restoration efforts. I mean, we've we've talked about before.
Speaker 1: I believe I'm stuff to your mind about the Parthenon UM. Like,
Speaker 1: the Parthenon is a great example of this because with
Speaker 1: the original Parthenon you have various waves of destruction um
Speaker 1: addition and then considered reconstruction and their voices on you know,
Speaker 1: different sides. You know, should we were should restore the
Speaker 1: actual Parthenon to its former glory? Uh oh? And then
Speaker 1: if we do restore to a former glory, which former
Speaker 1: glory you know? And then likewise we have the Parthenon
Speaker 1: in Nashville, Tennessee, which is a restoration and a model
Speaker 1: essentially a scale model of the Parthenon that you can
Speaker 1: walk into and and look around owned. I think that's
Speaker 1: the right model. I don't I don't think they need
Speaker 1: to go messing around with the ruins of the Parthenon.
Speaker 1: But I like the idea of just like building other
Speaker 1: Parthenons elsewhere. Right. But then also there's just simply the
Speaker 1: effort in preserving right, because also you don't want to
Speaker 1: just say, you know, if you have, say the ruined
Speaker 1: remains of some some old building that is important, you
Speaker 1: also don't want it to continue to erode, or should
Speaker 1: you be open for it to it continuing to erode?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a tough question. Yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 1: there's we were talking about this before we came in
Speaker 1: on the episode. But you know, I think in a way,
Speaker 1: there's almost kind of a a a tacit belief in
Speaker 1: sympathetic magic that makes us like the idea of the
Speaker 1: original artifact, whatever it was. We we like the idea that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the actual artist touched this, or the actual
Speaker 1: person in history wore this, and a reproduction feels less
Speaker 1: powerful to us because we buy into some strange form
Speaker 1: of some pathetic magic. Right, it just doesn't have that
Speaker 1: magic spark if it wasn't the real thing from the
Speaker 1: time that somebody actually touched. Yeah, like you want to
Speaker 1: touch it. Sometimes you want to lick it and uh,
Speaker 1: and you're not allowed to. But there's a reason that
Speaker 1: you have a lot of the suited individuals standing around
Speaker 1: ready to intervene if you start pointing a little too
Speaker 1: close to a particular work of art or posing for yourselfie,
Speaker 1: just a little bit too close to it. Um, because
Speaker 1: we we do want to interact with it, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't want to always we want to stand in
Speaker 1: its presence, but yeah, we also kind of want to
Speaker 1: actually physically make contact with it. Yeah. So concerning in
Speaker 1: a Galdi Nanas museum, of course, as we know, you
Speaker 1: know we've been talking about, this would not be the
Speaker 1: only place where powerful people in the ancient world had
Speaker 1: collected relics of days past. You know, many kings of
Speaker 1: the ancient world would have understood old relics and artifacts
Speaker 1: to be a sort of genre of treasure to collect
Speaker 1: and display your wealth and power. But what makes these
Speaker 1: artifacts in in a Galdy Nana's museum really seem like
Speaker 1: exhibits in a museum is is what Woolly notes that
Speaker 1: they were accompanied by carvings that bore interpretive data, explanations
Speaker 1: of what you were looking at, and the fact that
Speaker 1: it was associated with in a galdy Nana's school for
Speaker 1: young priestesses. That sort of cements the idea that this
Speaker 1: building was a museum that was likely created with an
Speaker 1: educational purpose. The students could go in and look at
Speaker 1: this stuff and read about what it was, yeah, and
Speaker 1: say like, this is our history, this is our heritage.
Speaker 1: Look at these objects and learn. Just another passage I
Speaker 1: came across. So there's another book where Woolly discussed in
Speaker 1: a galdy Nana's museum and commented quote that there should
Speaker 1: be a collection is altogether in accordance with the antiquarian
Speaker 1: piety of the age, and especially of the ruler Nebenidas,
Speaker 1: who with whose daughter this building is probably to be associated.
Speaker 1: So he's he's saying that in this age in ancient Mesopotamia,
Speaker 1: that in the city of Ur, and this would go
Speaker 1: along with everything we know about Nabanetas trying to restore
Speaker 1: the ziggurats and doing archaeological excavations and all this, that
Speaker 1: there was this spirit of nostalgia, you know that they
Speaker 1: were sort of unusually obsessed with the past. For for
Speaker 1: people of their time and place. And I wonder what
Speaker 1: what triggers that, you know, what causes a civilization to
Speaker 1: suddenly take intense interest in preserving and reconstructing the past
Speaker 1: like Nabannitas and in a Galdy Nana. Well, I wonder
Speaker 1: if a lot of it does come down to sort
Speaker 1: of like in a spatial understanding of things and a
Speaker 1: need to be you know, in the environment of the past,
Speaker 1: you know, to fully comprehend it on an almost animal level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so. I mean part of one thing I
Speaker 1: think that's attempting historical interpretation is that we know that
Speaker 1: the dynasty that created the museum wouldn't last Like as
Speaker 1: I mentioned, So, this museum was created around the year
Speaker 1: five thirty BC, and the city of Or went into
Speaker 1: decline after the reign of Nebanitas and was abandoned almost completely,
Speaker 1: you know, sometime in the following decades or centuries. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is probably because of local climate change where the
Speaker 1: Euphrates River the bed shifted and moved farther away from
Speaker 1: the city, and that combined with drought to basically turn
Speaker 1: this once fertile power center into this abandoned desert ghost city.
Speaker 1: And so it's tempting, I think for us to look
Speaker 1: at that and say, oh, you know, this was the
Speaker 1: end of a long civilization in this area. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: it's they sensed they were at the end, and this
Speaker 1: is what made them, you know, so nostalgic for the
Speaker 1: past and want to create this first museum like that
Speaker 1: this was their greatest hits album, right. But I you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that really makes sense, because I
Speaker 1: don't know if they thought they were living towards the
Speaker 1: end of their dynasty, you know, that's right. I mean,
Speaker 1: a museum doesn't. It's we can easily fall into the
Speaker 1: line of thinking that a museum is a is a
Speaker 1: place of dead things, things that you know, things that
Speaker 1: have that are no longer around, that are important only historically.
Speaker 1: But we have plenty of museums today that are about uh,
Speaker 1: you know, celebrating things that are alive, celebrating movements that
Speaker 1: are still happening and and and are still unfinished. We
Speaker 1: have the works of art that you know, we talked
Speaker 1: about this and such to blow blow your mind that
Speaker 1: are that are have been left unfinished, either just through
Speaker 1: the accident accidents of human life or intentionally to make
Speaker 1: some statement about about the nature of human progress. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's it's reasonable to think that
Speaker 1: some of those elements would very much have been in
Speaker 1: play in ancient times, you know, to to realize that,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, because we talked about it being used
Speaker 1: as an educational space, so it would have been you know,
Speaker 1: not even it would have a have a it would
Speaker 1: have had a spirit of of renewal to it. I
Speaker 1: would imagine an educational place and a place of religious significance.
Speaker 1: So it was part of a school. It was part
Speaker 1: of in egaldingnan as school for priestesses. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes you wonder about the interplay of the religious
Speaker 1: impulse also with the desire to preserve and display elements
Speaker 1: of history. Yeah. All right, Well, on that note, we're
Speaker 1: going to take a quick ad break, and when we
Speaker 1: come back, we will discuss the legacy of the museum
Speaker 1: and uh, and some of some current ideas about where
Speaker 1: we stand in regards to the museum. Alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: So one thing we sort of mentioned earlier is that,
Speaker 1: you know, I love museums. I'm I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of you know, natural history museums and cultural history museums
Speaker 1: and they can do a really wonderful thing um. But also,
Speaker 1: you know, there are a lot of drawbacks to museums,
Speaker 1: especially some you know, how museums used to be. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of museums are doing a lot of
Speaker 1: work in recent years to try to like disentangle the
Speaker 1: nature of their educational exhibits from say, you know, colonial
Speaker 1: legacies and stuff like that, and to you know, do
Speaker 1: do what needs to be done to honor say, you know,
Speaker 1: living thriving cultures that there are artifacts rep resent. So
Speaker 1: there are important questions to ask about what museums represent
Speaker 1: today and how, you know, what role they play for
Speaker 1: us culturally, and maybe how they could be made better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a lot of it comes down to questions of ownership,
Speaker 1: not only who owns a particular item. You know, does
Speaker 1: this does this piece of this is painting belong to
Speaker 1: a certain family or no, does it belong to this museum?
Speaker 1: Now does it belong to the nation in which the
Speaker 1: museum um his house? Like it goes beyond that, I
Speaker 1: gets into considerations of like who owns the past and
Speaker 1: who owns the story of the past. So we were
Speaker 1: looking at an excellent Dan magazine essay on the subject
Speaker 1: titled Who Really Owns the Past? By American archaeologist Michael
Speaker 1: Press and um I recommend everyone check this out, but
Speaker 1: some of the key points that Michael makes are really
Speaker 1: worth thinking about. Here. It points out that are you know,
Speaker 1: our current way of thinking about heritage began to take
Speaker 1: shape in the nineteenth century, both in the West and
Speaker 1: in the Middle East. The Westerners were pretty quick to
Speaker 1: disregard local emerging laws concerning artifacts, uh, you know, considering
Speaker 1: them an attempt by local rulers to lord over the
Speaker 1: dead and interfere with what they seemed to, you know,
Speaker 1: to see as this sort of natural migration of artifacts
Speaker 1: to Europe, this interpretation of uh you know, so on
Speaker 1: one side, you know, the locals might be saying, well,
Speaker 1: we need some laws in place to keep these artifacts
Speaker 1: from wandering outside of our borders. And then the colonial
Speaker 1: impulse was more, oh, no, these belonged to the world,
Speaker 1: where so this this is everybody's heritage. But the world
Speaker 1: happens to be in London. The world's back in London,
Speaker 1: so we're going to take right back there. And also
Speaker 1: antique clause as we know them today. It really emerged
Speaker 1: out of the post War War two periods, so international
Speaker 1: agreements such as the nineteen fifty four Hay Convention in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy nineteen seventy two UNESCO conventions. Uh, it
Speaker 1: all placed a new emphasis on national sovereignty and on
Speaker 1: national heritage. But still the question remains who owns the
Speaker 1: artifacts of the past and who owns the story of
Speaker 1: the past, Because again, you can think of the museum
Speaker 1: as as as a medium for a story. You know,
Speaker 1: there's and we we often forget this when we really
Speaker 1: place a lot of trust and say, uh, the met
Speaker 1: or the Natural History Museum. You know, I think we
Speaker 1: generally trust these institutions for good reason, you know, to
Speaker 1: present the best interpretation of the the history or the science,
Speaker 1: or the or the the the artistry that is on display.
Speaker 1: And we see again various museums make an effort to
Speaker 1: change their displays to honor an evolving understanding of the past,
Speaker 1: or to honor living cultures they depict, etcetera. But Press
Speaker 1: points out that when nations and nation when nation states
Speaker 1: themselves own the artifacts own the past, they can use
Speaker 1: these treasures to push a nationalistic agenda. So Michael Press writes,
Speaker 1: quote government's increasingly looked to remains of the distant past
Speaker 1: to bolster national identities and a sense of greatness, or
Speaker 1: to marginalize this favored groups. Suddam Hussein used the ruins
Speaker 1: of Babylon to spread ideas of Iraq's greatness as well
Speaker 1: as his own, even portraying himself as a modern Nebuchadnezzer.
Speaker 1: China's leadership has used archaeology to project national greatness onto
Speaker 1: the distant, semi legendary past. Today, India's Prime Minister Narindramodi's
Speaker 1: Hindu nationalist government has worked to use archaeology to prove
Speaker 1: that modern Hindus can trace their descent from the earliest
Speaker 1: inhabitants of India. So you put this sort of thing
Speaker 1: in place, and you know, you, he says, you actually
Speaker 1: invite looting, You actually invite that damage because history is
Speaker 1: made to serve the engines of nationalism or you know,
Speaker 1: or what have you. You know, eluding becomes a potential
Speaker 1: act of resistance, and we've actually seen this, he points
Speaker 1: out an example. You know, one example would be the
Speaker 1: destruction of monuments in Syria and Iraq by Isis. And
Speaker 1: then on the other side of the equation, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole colonial movement was steeped in arguments that these
Speaker 1: were items of global heritage, and and this is used
Speaker 1: to times to justify removing artifacts from native lands. So
Speaker 1: I mean, I like the idea that there are things
Speaker 1: that are, you know, the common heritage of humankind for history,
Speaker 1: But what does that actually mean in practice when you say, okay,
Speaker 1: in practice it's the common heritage of human kind, So
Speaker 1: that means will take it to somewhere in Europe or
Speaker 1: the United States? Right? I mean, because yes, when you
Speaker 1: when you look at the movements of culture, when you
Speaker 1: look at the even the early migrations of human beings,
Speaker 1: you can make a case to say, well, the artifacts
Speaker 1: of India are part of my culture as well. They're
Speaker 1: part of my heritage as well. But it's another thing
Speaker 1: to say that means that they need to be relocated
Speaker 1: to uh, to your city, you know, your country or
Speaker 1: that you know your nation has can lay a claim
Speaker 1: to it. But then again, as he points out in
Speaker 1: this article, you know it gets this is still a
Speaker 1: very complicated scenario you bring in, uh. You know the
Speaker 1: fact that you have, you know, in our day and age,
Speaker 1: you have people from various nations that have spread all
Speaker 1: over the world, and and so it's not always as
Speaker 1: simple as this cultural group stole this cultural group's belongings,
Speaker 1: though sometimes it is. Well, yeah, I mean it's weird
Speaker 1: because it's hard to say who owns the past. But
Speaker 1: then again, something definitely feels wrong about just say, a
Speaker 1: colonial power taking artifacts from one country and then taking
Speaker 1: them back to the home price. Absolutely. Another side of
Speaker 1: the city points out that I hadn't really thought about
Speaker 1: is that in some cases you have designated UNESCO World
Speaker 1: Heritage Sites that you know, these are sit places where
Speaker 1: the it is, you know, a place of very important
Speaker 1: historical significance that needs to be preserved, but then also
Speaker 1: ends up being a kind of thing people want to visit,
Speaker 1: and that can actually impact local communities, forcing the removal
Speaker 1: of people either to you know, to to allow the
Speaker 1: study of this location or to make a way for
Speaker 1: developments associated with the site's new historical significance. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: and then then you throw you know, various other uh,
Speaker 1: political factors into the mix, and it gets even more complicated.
Speaker 1: It's out that in the case of Syria, multiple parties
Speaker 1: have used heritage as a weapon of war. Obviously, isis,
Speaker 1: but also it brings up Russia and even the United
Speaker 1: States using uh, you know, celebrations of of archaeological materials
Speaker 1: as being sort of part of the overall messaging associated
Speaker 1: with you know, whatever side of the political scenario the
Speaker 1: player happens to be on. He does drive home that
Speaker 1: it is it's messy, you know, when you have you know,
Speaker 1: all these different factors playing into the past and these
Speaker 1: artifacts of the past. But he points out that cultural
Speaker 1: heritage experts proposed several ideas for a better future of museums.
Speaker 1: So just to to run through them really quickly, the
Speaker 1: three main points are, Number one, give more control to
Speaker 1: local communities, not national interests, those sort of on the
Speaker 1: ground with people rather than with national governments. Right. The
Speaker 1: second one is to reduce the importance of the original,
Speaker 1: which we talked about a little earlier. Yeah, this, this
Speaker 1: one is a tricky one to to think about. And well,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons is that he points out that,
Speaker 1: you know, and there's this high Western priority placed on
Speaker 1: the original item, the original work of our the original carvings, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But he since we you know, we have long seen
Speaker 1: a different approach in Eastern cultures, which were more about
Speaker 1: just you know, preserving and recreating the thing itself, the
Speaker 1: work itself, like it was more about the message in
Speaker 1: the work. Um but it but it it is. You know.
Speaker 1: It's as someone who loves museums, you know, it is
Speaker 1: hard to get past that. Like it there is something
Speaker 1: really awesome about standing in the presence of the actual
Speaker 1: work or the you know, the actual um remains that
Speaker 1: have been transported here. Uh. But then when you take
Speaker 1: into account all these other factors we've been discussing, you
Speaker 1: do have to ask yourself, well, would it really make it,
Speaker 1: you know, any less impressive if it was just a
Speaker 1: really fantastic recreation of a particular work or particular carving.
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly when you get into sculptures, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a lot easy. I can easily see that being
Speaker 1: the case, Like do I really need the actual let's
Speaker 1: say it's, uh, you know, the statue of David Uh?
Speaker 1: Do I need that transport it over here to look at?
Speaker 1: Or what if it was just a perfect copy, I
Speaker 1: think I would be happy with that. And if I'm
Speaker 1: happy with that, wouldn't that apply to various other museum
Speaker 1: artifacts as well? Especially the context is really good, if
Speaker 1: the narrative is really good. Yeah, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that is something that you know, people who are the
Speaker 1: audiences for museums should try to adapt themselves to to
Speaker 1: be more satisfied with high quality recreations and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: uh casts and you know, all kinds of things that
Speaker 1: don't necessarily involve having the physical original there. Yeah, especially
Speaker 1: now when you can have all this additional information, you
Speaker 1: can have pictures of the original, videos of the original,
Speaker 1: additional technological interactions with with media about the original piece,
Speaker 1: but then you also have this physical creation that you
Speaker 1: can enjoy as well. Yeah, exactly. The third point that
Speaker 1: he makes, though, is that that we should rethink the
Speaker 1: idea of heritage as property at all, that we should
Speaker 1: have something along the lines of open access heritage. Again
Speaker 1: in a very interesting but also potentially challenging way to
Speaker 1: think about it, Like it forces us to turn some
Speaker 1: of our experiences with museums on their head. But but
Speaker 1: I could I could see that working though, because certainly
Speaker 1: some of the trickier parts of all of this is
Speaker 1: just the treating heritage as something that is that is
Speaker 1: property and then their property rights tied up with it,
Speaker 1: and then say a museum just cannot return a particular
Speaker 1: artifact to the culture it came from because of some
Speaker 1: sort of a property issue. Oh, I hadn't even thought
Speaker 1: about that, but yes, I guess sometimes things are probably
Speaker 1: on loan to museums from people who supposedly own them,
Speaker 1: But like, why does that person own them? It might
Speaker 1: be because you know, somebody weigh down the line, stole
Speaker 1: it and then left to them or gave it to
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, or they just acquired it. If not
Speaker 1: through like like outright and obvious um military or colonial treachery,
Speaker 1: then perhaps through you know, economic pressures that would not
Speaker 1: have been there had it not been for the colonial
Speaker 1: influence to begin with. Yeah, this is a difficult issue,
Speaker 1: definitely worth giving thought to, especially if you're a person
Speaker 1: who frequents museums. Yeah, and really we only will only
Speaker 1: scratch the surface here um on this issue, because they're
Speaker 1: also additional layers to consider with with the you know,
Speaker 1: archaeological artifacts, you know, such as what Lynn Mesco calls
Speaker 1: negative heritage. What do you do about an historical artifact
Speaker 1: that's tied up with you know, a lot of negative
Speaker 1: aspects of society. You know, maybe it's tied to say,
Speaker 1: you know, racist ideologies or something. Um, what do you
Speaker 1: do with those artifacts? How do you treat them? I
Speaker 1: think one possible answer there is that you have you
Speaker 1: make sure that the context of the museum that is
Speaker 1: presenting them, you know, is taking all that into account.
Speaker 1: But anyway, as as as as Michael drives something like
Speaker 1: this is still another like complicated area when we we
Speaker 1: try to figure out exactly where the museum is headed
Speaker 1: in the future. Yeah, alright, Well, on that note, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have a go ahead and close this one out.
Speaker 1: But obviously we'd love to hear from everybody we know
Speaker 1: you all have favorite museums you would like to uh
Speaker 1: mention to us. Perhaps we've been to them as well,
Speaker 1: or maybe you'll point out some new, smaller museum that
Speaker 1: we've never even heard of, and we'll be able to
Speaker 1: put that on our radar for our future travels. As always,
Speaker 1: if you want to support the show, the best thing
Speaker 1: you can do is rate and review us wherever you
Speaker 1: have the power to do so. Make sure you have
Speaker 1: subscribed to Invention as well, and just tell your friends
Speaker 1: about it. If next time somebody is asking around, hey,
Speaker 1: what are some good podcast to listen to? Throw our
Speaker 1: name into the mix. Uh, you know, ultimately, it's that
Speaker 1: it's that word of mouth that really makes all the
Speaker 1: difference huge. Thanks as always to our excellent audio producers
Speaker 1: are here person and to our guest producer today, Maya Cole.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: topic for the future, to let us know about your
Speaker 1: favorite museum, or just to say hi, you can email
Speaker 1: us at contact at invention pot dot com. Invention is
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