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