Musive Art: feast of symbols & colors #PiazzaArmerina

Musive Art: feast of symbols & colors

 #VillaPiazzaArmerina #Sicily

#PublicArchaeology and #awareness: the Roman villa in Ponticelli, Naples.

This article was originally published on VesuvioLive by Marta Laureanti

Can an archaeological site inspire awareness and respect for the landscape in the community? 

In the  district of  Ponticelli   located in the eastern suburbs of Naples,   a Roman villa , dating from  I century B.C. was discovered in the 80s .

I interviewed dr Anna Ambrosino , in charge of the activities organized  in the villa by volunteers of the Gruppo Archeologico Napoletano  (G.A.N.) to  discover  what impact has the site in the local community, in one of the difficult part of Naples.
read more here

The  Roman villa in Ponticelli, copyright G.A.N.

International cooperation and cultural heritage management: in the name of which heritage?

(This article was published on ReSeT, a think-tank that does research on security and transnational governance )

By Marta Laureanti

International cooperation  in the cultural heritage sector is strongly  dependent on  investments with a top-down approach which does not substantially consider local communities in decision making. On the other side  of the  system, NGOs should fill the gap,  but when working  as a medium for  governmental funding,  no space is left  to plan actions based on the real needs of local communities. The Mutual Cultural Heritage (MCH)  program  in Galle, Sri Lanka, is just an example of this kind of attitude, and despite claims of sustainable cooperation, there is a clear discrepancy between  financial support and local needs. This raises concerns about ownership and heritage management.

The Mutual Cultural Heritage Program in Galle: in the name of which heritage?

The Netherlands launched  the first phase of the Mutual Cultural Heritage (MCH) Programme between  2009 -2012. According to the Cultural Heritage  Policy Framework, ”common cultural heritage” meant relics of a past that the Netherlands has shared with others: buildings and engineering constructions, archives, underwater wrecks and museum exhibits, as well as intangible heritage. The aim of the Common Cultural Heritage policy was to “collaborate on the sustainable maintenance and management of the common cultural heritage”.

After settling on the policy, the Dutch government identified eight priority countries: Brazil, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Russian Federation, Suriname, South Africa and Sri Lanka. In order to implement the plan, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science allocated funding and  contributed €2 million a year for the MCH program making cooperation agreements with the above countries.  One million was assigned to the relevant Dutch embassies. The other million was added to the budgets of the Netherlands’ three cultural heritage agencies: the National Archives (NA), the National Service for Archaeology, Cultural Landscapes and Built Heritage (RACM) and the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN).

All the MCH projects in Sri Lanka started  just after the end of the civil conflict, in 2009, and were  focused on project proposals and restoration plans   concerning Dutch remains such as forts and  Dutch archival sources. The shared heritage identified for the projects was related only to Dutch colonial heritage. Particular attention within the Mutual Cultural Heritage  was given to  Galle, a town located 120 km  south of Colombo, declared World Heritage Site in 1988. Within the MCH programme, the ancient Dutch  rampart and the drainage system in Galle Fort were  restored as well as the Dutch Warehouse in which the National  Maritime Museum was later established.

Furthermore, as part of the cooperation with the Netherlands, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and National Heritage of Sri Lanka issued a  tourism development programme in Galle, which comprised the establishment of a boating service for local and foreign tourists.  In relation to this latter specific aspect,  UNESCO  has expressed,  since 2010, serious concerns about the management plan. The plan was criticised for lacking clarity and threatening the cultural heritage of Galle, particularly through the establishment of a new international harbor.

On the Dutch side a Dutch NGO was involved in the MCH program- the Centre for International Heritage Activities (CIE)- but its role was confined to organising informative meetings and workshops, inviting stakeholders such as UNESCO, the Sri Lanka Central Cultural Fund, ICOMOS and Dutch specialists. CIE managed funding provided by the Dutch Government to organize the above activities, but no locally based activities were arranged to monitor the MCH programme.

On the Sri Lankan side, apart from ICOMOS, which works for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage sites, no local Sri Lankan NGOs were engaged, nor were any community based activities organised to evaluate the management of the MCH program or to raise awareness about the program itself. This is significant because heritage legislation and the concept of heritage itself are not the same in Western countries compared to many other parts of the world. Therefore, the meaning and nature of procedures is not always obvious. A constructive attitude toward monument preservation and management depends on the position that a local community takes in these processes in order to relate with, and create, a sense of ownership of the heritage in question. If local involvement is not planned, one consequence could be the alienation of heritage, thereby losing its links to the local, living community.

What is happening in Galle is that the local owners cannot afford the costs of maintenance for the old historical buildings because of the absence of legislation on heritage and the lack of funding from Sri Lanka authorities. Instead, many locals preferred selling their properties to foreigners. Furthermore, rather than to encourage local investments or raise local awareness, the Urban Development Authority (UDA) of Sri Lanka is trying to attract even more foreign investors, and uses therestored Dutch Hospital, in Galle Fort, as an example. It is planned to be leased as a mall with spas, restaurants and shops. On the UDA website it is not specified which kind of companies are going to manage those shops and restaurants, but if they will be led by foreign franchises and companies, the whole heritage management programme will be unlikely to offer the supposedly full benefits to local populations.

A realistic sustainable future for international cooperation and heritage management?

The main question here is how management is planned, in the name of which heritage, and how and in which ways local communities will eventually benefit from the outcomes if they are not substantially involved in the process. These issues are particularly sensitive because they touch and shape a local sense of ownership, legacy and the perception of heritage itself.

Galle showed that the MCH program did not actively involve local communities despite its goals to collaborate on sustainable maintenance and management of the common cultural heritage. A more vital and tangible heritage policy, heritage law and heritage management needs to be developed in sustainable international cooperation and heritage management. This will only be possible if governments, considering their own shortcomings, will accept the responsibility of equal cooperation, which should start with solutions, perspectives and approaches driven by the most important stakeholders: local communities. 

Marta Laureanti

Further reading:

Lowenthal, D. (1985). The past is a foreign country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Van Maanen E., Ashworth G. (2013). Colonial Heritage in Paramaribo, Suriname: Legislation and Senses of Ownership, a Dilemma in Preservation? International Journal of Cultural Property (2013) 20:289–310.

A shipwreck and other histories about maritime cultural landscapes: The Eduard Bohlen II

By Marta Laureanti

Archaeological sites are not isolated spots in the landscape.

They  can enhance perspectives on  past and  forgotten, sometimes contested, histories.

This is the case of shipwrecks.They  are part of memories, and layers of significance  embedded in their  cultural landscape. Never one unique meaning can represent a site.

As archaeologists our professional role is, through our research,  opening  the dialogue and the reflection upon  the past into the present  stimulating  different prospectives into context and societies.

The Eduard Bohlen II, a maritime cultural landscape

Eduard Bohlen II, wrecked in 1909 on the coast of Namibia in Africa. Launched at the Blohm and Voss shipyard in Hamburg on 23 October, 1891, the vessel was purchased by the Maritime Society of Congo and later joined the African Steamship AG Woermann-Line..

Served first as a mail, cargo, and passenger steam ship.

During the German colonial war  was a prison  for  the  Herero  living in Swakopmund, and those captured by troops along the railway line towards Kanbib. After use as a prison ship, Edward Bohlen II returned to passenger service combined with delivery missions of diamond mining supplies to the encampments.

The ship ran aground near Conception Bay in 1909. Not long after this

event, a diamond company set up mining operations at Conception Bay and historical documentation shows that some of the miners actually lived in the wreck remains duringthis time.

 In Lords of the Lost Frontier, Lawrence Green (1952:305) writes, ‘‘At one period natives working on the diamond fields lived in the Eduard Bohlen’s fo’c’stle, while the manager occupied the Captain’s quarters. At night it was strange to see lights gleaming from the port-holes of the ship in the desert.’’

Colonial past, labour fource, slavery, these are some of the histories that a shipwreck can remember us.

Interpreting and analyzing the historical messages of archaeological

sites are a challenge for reflect on the shared and contested heritage and on its issue of management.

Read more about the Bohlen II:

Harris L. • Jones J • Schnitzer K. (2007) Monuments in the Desert: A Maritime Landscape in Namibia. J Mari Arch (2012) 7:111–140

Green L (1952) Lords of the last frontier: the story of South West Africa and its people of all races. H. B.Timmins, Cape Town

STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST INFORMATION! The role of archaeologists in post conflict countries and multi ethnic modern societies, my point of view.

by M. Laureanti

In Sri Lanka, the situation is pretty bad. Just another attack  early this morning against one journalist.

.. Is a bit scary  even for  archaeologists this, and we want to stay together and defend the information.

Why Archaeology, archaeologists and heritage professional are  so important in doing and spread information?

Sri Lanka is a country  that has passed a brutal civil conflict that just ended i n 2009. The woods are still open, as in every post conflict situation. The role of culture and information is fundamental to  enhance dialogue, to stimulate  reflection and to allow ethnic  integration within the society.

Archaeological sites often were used as  stendard for nationalisms and means to justify a sort of cultural property about the past.

Archaology  is not a tool for politics but often is used i n this way, as  toy for  official interpreter of the History they want to write.

Archaeology is instead not a toy.

Archaeology tell us that .. "  the past  is a foreign country".

And so, at one more careful analysis the past that archaeology reveals is made by layers of interaction and different social actors. So must be no claim of property for just one interpretation of the past!!

So this is just one reason for what our  work is fundamental.

Be aware of this my dear archaeologist friends!

see also:

http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2013/08/25/leader-journalist-attacked/

Trees and ladders: A critique of the theory of human cognitive and behavioural evolution in Palaeolithic archaeology

• Marco Langbroek^a, b, , , 

• ^a Institute for Geo- and Bioarchaeology (IGBA), Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1085, NL-1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• ^b Research Institute CLUE (Heritage and History of the Cultural Landscape and Urban Environment), VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618211001418
"The challenge that adoption of a branching tree model creates is that ways have to be devised to account for unique cognitive expressions that are not covered by the existing framework of ethnography and primatology. In addition, notions about the “superiority” of “modern behaviour” over other forms of cognitive expression have to be abandoned. The advantage is that the model is structured to pertinent archaeological data and actually testable with archaeological data. Two case studies from the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic of Europe probe the construction of unique models for mobility strategies “bottom up” from archaeological data, providing a unique alternative to mobility models and their cognitive implications as derived from “bottom down” application of an ethno-primatological framework."

#SustanaibleArchaeology and research? It is possible. Some examples...for our reflection

by Marta Laureanti

In an article appeared on IJHS (Holtorf & Ortman, 2008) the authors quoted the destiny  of  the Hoghem rock carving moved at Vitlycke Museum  “and thus saved (my italics) from imminent destruction when a new road bypass was constructed” near the site in 1991 (Holtorf & Ortman, 2008:79).
This article prompts to reflect upon the significance of setting and conservation of sites and monuments.

I wish just quickly  mention other examples of conservation like The Bronze age site of Burnt Mound of Cruester, on the northwest coast of the island of Bressay, that was dismantled in 2008 and moved to another location, or the Temple of Abu Simbel in Egypt, that during the construction of Aswan High Dam was moved to higher ground in 1964-6 (UNESCO 2011).

These examples involves heritage professional, archaeologists and institutions to ask themselves what are their responsibilities towards the preservation of sites and monuments, and in which way
we have to lead research projects.


Two  examples of archaeological strategies of research and dialogues engaged with local communities and their needs are the   Cahawba  archaeological project (Derry, 2002) and The Pilar Program (Ford 2000-2005).

Cahawba was the first capital of Alabama state in 1819. The site is nearly surrounded by the last bend in the   Cahawba  river. After a flood in 1865 the town was abandoned. The site that encompasses nearly 1,000 acres, not all acquisited by the State, was interested by studies of pre-emancipation archeology from the American archaeologists Linda Derry in 1997 (Derry, 2002:19-29). The Cahawba`s population during the historic period was at least 65 per cent African American. Derry began a new type of approach to the site starting from the local community. She involved teachers and students of a middle school in the near city of Selma, to record and transcribe horal histories about a segregated school built by black farmers on the top of the archaeological site that had closed in 1953. A lot of people discussed their memories with these children. After this project Derry registered a rise of interest among the local community about the archaeological research project in which she worked, and she said ”descendants began to share these older stories and even began to provide old portraits” (2002:21). Beside the archaeological research provided some accounts of the various historic floods occurred in the old town and registered in some historic documents, that could be used by  Cahawba river Management Plan Steering Committee during the environmental research on the pollution of the  Cahawba river. Besides the site of  Cahawba as interested in holding meetings during the “year of the Indian” in 1998, in which it was providing a new interpretation of Alabama`s first capital, involved the story of slaves and representing black people.


The other archaeological project based upon cooperation and dialogue with local communities is the BRASS/El Pilar Program, leads by archaeologist Annabel Ford (Ford 2005-2000). El Pilar is a Maya site situated on the border between Guatemala and Belize.
The research investigates the patterns of land use during the Maya period. The project has incorporated archaeological survey and mapping, excavations and analyses and studies on the local communities.
From the discover of the forest gardening used by Maya, was developed a network of forest gardening between Belize and Guatemala to promote sustainable agricultural practices in the Forest. The project involves the conservation of cultural heritage and encourages practical conservation measures based on forest gardening.

The website of El Pilar project 

"Relocating heritage in archaeology"

Cahawba and El Pilar show some ways in which archaeologists can relocate the object of their researches in the present day contest.
 Relocating the heritage in an archaeological perspective it means also thinking about presentation and educational aspects  inside archaeological sites and museums.
As Parker Pearson said “instead of welcoming visitors we should encouraging participants”(2001:225) as it happens at the House of Culture at the National Museum of Tanzania that gives spaces to art galleries, perfomances, children library and many other events.



Suggested readings:
Holtorf & Ortman, (2008) Endangerment and Conservation ethos in Natural and Cultural Heritage: The Case of Zoos and Archaeological Sites in International Journal of Heritage Studies [online]Vol. 14, No. 1, January 2008, pp. 74–90
Mapunda & Lane, (2004) Archaeology for whose interests-archaeologist or the locals? in Merriman,2004,211-223, London and New York:Routledge.