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Conservation

Giorgio Buccellati – November 2006

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Introduction

Until very recently, the sensitivity for, not to mention the commitment to, the preservation of the excavated material has been sadly lacking in Syro-Mesopotamian archaeology. An even greater neglect has been shown at all times for the task of presenting the results of an excavation to the public, scholarly and otherwise.

Some among the movable objects have escaped this destiny because (a) they were perceived to be particularly important and (b) by virtue of being “movable” they could more easily be transferred from the jurisdiction of the excavator to somebody else’s, preferably within a museum. A museum provided as well the exclusive venue for a proper presentation of such privileged objects, as well as whatever restoration might seem desirable.

The best that could happen to the architecture was that after it had well nigh disappeared, some “restoration,” or in fact “reconstruction,” would take place. But none of this was of particular interest to the archaeologists, who would at best serve as consultants. What this amounted to, then, was a complete break between archaeology on the one hand, and conservation/presentation on the other.

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Against extrinsicism

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A place in the Urkesh Global Record

If conservation and presentation are understood as a special type of publication, how do they belong within the publication scheme of the Urkesh Global Record?

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Architecture

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Presentation

  • Duty.
  • Restoration.
  • Reconstruction.
  • Learning about data.

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