I. Foreclosure Alley and the trash stream

Familiar are the images of the victims from hurricanes, earthquakes, fires and other natural and man-made disasters salvaging what they can from the ruins of their houses. Those items, whether sentimental mementos or the practical things of every day use, constitute the starting point, resources from which to build again and reverse the processes of destruction that have unwittingly taken hold. What happens when the decision is not to resist ruin whether by conscious decision or the force of circumstances? Is this the point where the archaeological record takes hold; is this the moment of its beginning?

Late this September as the current financial crisis was beginning to fully unravel correspondent Lisa Ling of SoCal Connected aired a story entitled “Foreclosure Alley” which describes some of the messy details of the collapsing housing bubble gripping much of California’s “inland empire” along interstate 15. The report documented the work of a crew hired by the bank to prepare a recently foreclosed property for a short sale in an effort to staunch the bleeding that these profligate lenders have come to experience. We watch as four men engage in what they call a “trash out” in which all manner of material culture is removed from the abandoned property for disposal in the nearest landfill. Such a clean-up would seem hardly the stuff of investigative journalism and attention grabbing web-TV were it not for the fact that the particular house being “trashed-out” is hardly filled with garbage; instead it still houses all manner of good quality consumer goods that appear well maintained. Big-screen tvs, computers, furniture, family photos, personal documents, cabinets filled-with food not yet starting to molder, are all part of a well decorated vision of suburban middle-class America frozen in its Pompeiian moment. The crew chief speculates that whoever owned these items probably could not find the money for a truck and storage unit. Our correspondent opines about the many families facing foreclosure who find themselves in spirals of depression that may cloud their judgment and ability to rationally handle the situation. This is echoed in the reflections of Paul Reyes, who comments in a recent article for Harper’s about his experience working the crew of his father’s junk removal business. He writes: “each excavation [is] a peek into a state of mind, like dismantling some diorama of dejection” (Reyes 2008).

Yet, I would suggest that it is neither the size of the piles that are destined for the local incinerator, and here I am reminded of that final scene at the end of Citizen Cane where we finally learn what is rosebud as the sled is engulfed in the flames, or the emotional wreckage that attaches to these perfectly good things which is most shocking. Rather, in this climate of fear, it is the thought of dispossession, that middle-class America might be forced to severe its ties to the very material culture that so defines this particular identification. When the dumpsters of colleges and universities fill-up in the seasonal ritual of dorm-room clearance, we hardly bat an eye. This particular “trashing out” can be dismissed and even condoned as part of the ritual preparations for a new life-stage. Similarly, when such foreclosures happen to the storage units and their contents become auctioned off to the highest bidder, the emotional outpourings are minimal. Here, the site of destruction is not the home, but a liminal space, a staging ground where material culture becomes dislocated from its domestic context to fulfill new chapters in the biographical social life of things – be it trash, thrift shop, recycling or, for the lucky, art.

II. Trashing in: Archaeological opportunity or heritage responsibility

Is there a role for archaeology in what is happening? Reyes has referred above to the process of trashing out as an excavation. The process itself is far from an effort at salvage, although it is ripe for metaphorical play with mortgage holders and even whole communities as “underwater.” One possibility is to suggest that garbage archaeology no longer needs to happen exclusively at the landfill, and some have already begun to take steps in that direction with an archaeology of the contemporary past. There is now an opportunity to bring those skills to the suburbs where the trash stream intersects in catastrophic ways with a domestic sphere that has ceased to function. This might take the form of an ethno-archaeological project that examines the very process of abandonment and the site formation principles that would be applicable in the past. Such research might have potential applicability to the world’s largest archaeological site, the ruin field of early Islamic period Samarra, capital of the Abbasid caliphate during much of the 9th century CE and perhaps one of the medieval world’s biggest speculative real-estate bubbles. More recently it has been doubly abandoned given the present inability of the state or the occupation forces to protect the site from deliberate destruction by looters and the construction of military bases.

This raises an issue different from whether these foreclosed homes are an archaeological opportunity, but whether archaeologists have assumed the responsibility to preserve something of what is happening here, as sites in the making. The opportunities and responsibilities may not be mutually exclusive of course as the archaeological recording may serve as the form by which we document the material transformation of an American landscape and the consumer culture that has driven it, particularly in the post-war period. But should we go beyond the recording and actually preserve these sites intact, in their entirety, the way we might other historic buildings? Or is preservation more exclusively the domain of our achievements as a nation and not our failures? A related question is to consider what we might do to preserve such a moment as the foreclosed home in its state of readiness for the “trash out.” At a certain level such ruination defies the attempt to freeze the very taphonomic processes that, in this case, might most interest the archaeologists. Is that moment of abandonment just too fleeting to capture in the ways that allow us to archive it in perpetuity? Archaeologist Shannon Dawdy in her recent keynote address at TAG-NYC (May 2008) raised a similar concern about the ruins of New Orleans post-Katrina.

III. Left behind: Archaeology and abandonment

In choosing to follow the trail of the material culture left behind, archaeology runs the risk of forgetting the continuity of the lives that have severed their connections with things that have now become relegated to a past, perhaps the past. These acts of abandonment may signify a certain kind of social death, but they may too readily be confused with death itself. My point is not to argue that we must simultaneously chase after those who have chosen or who have been forced to move on. In fact there might be something redemptive in not pursuing that path. It opens the space for a hopeful commentary in which to imagine that we can cultivate new sets of relations with the material worlds that we inhabit, relationships that might not end in such destructive outcomes. Not knowing where those agents of abandonment go next allows for readings of this new American (U.S.) potlatch as a liberating gesture, one that might cause us to pause about our own dismay at perfectly good things instantaneously reclassified as trash. Accumulation and abandonment are at the core of the archaeological record, yet our ability to reflect on the ways in which we value these two modes of engagement with our things is severely compromised. Perhaps it is time to get over our horror over what is left behind and rethink our, often implicit, some times explicit, valorization of that which is acquired.

References

Reyes, P. 2008: “Bleak Houses: Digging through the ruins of the mortgage crisis.” Harper’s October 2008 (31-45)

Dr. Patrick Hunt, Stanford University

One of the most impressive yet enigmatic surviving capitals from Persepolis is an Achaemenid masterpiece: the double griffin protome capital. On the one hand, there ought to be more than one of these griffin capitals from before the 330 BCE destruction, although it seems that only this extant one is intact. On the other hand, it is possible that only one was sculpted, since no other griffin protome fragments exist from Persepolis. A few archaeological accounts suggest its emplaced context at Persepolis was from the Apadana, although this cannot be proven since only 13 of the 36 (arranged 6 x 6) columns have survived, given the “conflagration…and catastrophic end” recorded under Alexander. More than a few scholars, including Wiesehöfer, maintain that numerous structures at Persepolis were not destroyed in 330 but only parts thereof and that some use continued thereafter.

Persepolis was first begun by Darius around 518 BCE, the Apadana around 515 and structures like the Treasury may have been begun around 510; some structures like the Unfinished Gate and others may have been incomplete or possibly still underway in the fourth century. The original excavation reports have not connected this griffin protome capital with the Apadana of Darius and its correlation with any other structure is equally ambiguous because this capital seems to have been found only after the initial excavations between 1931-34 and up to 1939. (1) Furthermore, the majority of credible reconstructions suggest all the Apadana column capitals were double bull protomes. Contextualizing this griffin protome capital to other buildings is equally or even more difficult, although it is generally accepted that it must be from Persepolis.

The somewhat darkened visual appearance of this griffin protome might suggest its surface was burned like many of the other protomes - although limestone also often naturally weathers darker - and it was certainly chipped and broken in places, as can be easily seen from comparanda of nearly all photos. Furthermore, the edge of the saddle between the two griffin torsoes where it would have been expected to hold a massive cedar beam shows some expected wear, also easily seen from photos. Some credible accounts, including that of Porada, suggest this griffin capital was never actually used but merely experimental and abandoned before any emplacement. (2)

The brilliant 2005 London exhibition, Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia: at the British Museum, in part the vision of Dr. John Curtis, Keeper of the Middle Eastern Department and primary author of the companion exhibition volume, showcased some of the glories of Achaemenid art. There this Persepolis "griffin" (as John Curtis identifies it) protome capital is described as a “homa bird” and one of the “four different types of column capital at Persepolis…arranged back to back to carry the gigantic cedar beams that supported the roof“ as mentioned. Both Stronach and Curtis have suggested the intended location of this griffin capital as the Unfinished Gate at Persepolis (6)

My first immersion in Achaemenid sculpture came as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow under Prof. David Stronach in 1992-1995 at University of California, Berkeley, Achaemenid scholar-archaeologist par excellence and excavator of Cyrus' Royal Palace at Pasagardae. (7) Following Ph.D. research in stone technology, provenance and weathering at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, University of London, 1991, my stone research was continued at Berkeley under David Stronach where I applied this research to Achaemenid materials.

Geological material and provenance of the surviving griffin capital protome is still not fully resolved. Most accounts identify the griffin sculpture as “hard limestone” or "gray limestone" and "marble" and it might even be partly metamorphosized limestone although not necessarily marble as fully metamorphosized calcite mineral. (8) Schmidt’s studies describe many sculptures and statuary of the Apadana and others including the bull statue from Xerxes’ stairway as “made of the same kind of gray limestone that was used for the structures of Persepolis.” (9) According to Iranian geologist Azam Zare’ as noted in recent publications, (10) the primary quarries for Persepolis were at the adjacent Rahmat Mountain to the immediate east but several kilometers distant and also the Majdabad quarries where the stone was better suited than at the nearby Sivand quarries, which were closer than the Majdabad sources. In some of these up to eleven individual regional quarries used for Persepolis stone, the unusual depth of single bedding planes is often considerable, in some case at least several meters thick. It would need to be for this particular griffin protome capital, allowing the masons to extract massive and near-perfect homogenous stone from a single fine-grained stone stratum. Hard limestone has several near-perfect parameters for stone working: it is right in the middle of the spectrum for both workability and durability. As I have published elsewhere, an inverse relationship is at stake. The more workable a stone like soft limestone, the less durable and vice versa, the more durable, the less workable. This Persepolis stone is ideal for both desired characteristics. Whether it is geologically hard limestone as seems most likely or marble, the hard calcite mineral is clearly dense. The weight of the massive stone griffin capital may exceed 20 tons, as the typical Persepolis relief blocks are usually smaller and weigh in around 15 tons. (11)

Reconstructing the technology of working the stone at Persepolis includes understanding the tools that Schmidt and others found, including iron points as well as iron chisels and iron spikes recorded. (12) Toothed hammers and flat chisels were commonly used for such stonework and sometimes even curved chisels were employed for small areas. According to Roaf, “the stone used at Persepolis is too hard to use a saw successfully.” (13) Thus iron at a relative hardness of around 5-6 Mohs would be much more suitable than softer bronze at a relative 4-5 Mohs, too near the Persepolis stone hardness to be adequate. Polishing stones or “rubbing stones” have been found on the Persepolis terrace (14) – some with adhering pulverized material or powder – but whose stone materials have not been geologically proven. Some of these dark polishing stones may even be emery. (15) It would seem logical that the extremely hard Armenian emery – the closest source to Persia and under its hegemony - would naturally be used for polishing given the hardness of these stone sculptures. Pliny noted the hardness and ideal polishing agency of emery in Armenian “sand” for finishing carbonate sculpture, especially marble (loosely marmor although this Roman term encompasses many geological stone types not necessarily metamorphosized calcite). (16)

To obtain a better idea of the stone griffin capital’s appearance before the burning of Persepolis - if this capital was indeed ever in place or even burned, both of which are still arguable - Farzin Rezaeian’s virtual reality images from Persepolis Recreated suggest a compelling programmatic approach to how many capitals were painted and likely gilded as well, which is tenable given that Herzfeld’s original excavations found traces of paint and Roaf also records pigments including red paint “in the mouths and nostrils of capitals” (17), also building on Lerner's prior studies (18). Farzin Rezaeian’s computer graphics team has realistically depicted many such gilded and painted column capitals. (19) Roaf has also explained holes, channels and extrapolated features on some capitals: “Some of the reliefs and capitals were inlaid with colored stones or metal or were decorated with gold leaf or gold sheet…small holes drilled in some capitals may have been for the attachment of precious ornaments.” (20) Several such holes can be seen on the griffin protome capital on the torso just above the legs that underscore Roaf's decorative ideas. Perhaps one evidence for this griffin capital never having been in place at Persepolis in normal use is its visual appearance: its sides are flat relative to the curves of the fully rounded Apadana capital sculptures, which might suggest that it was never finished.

Griffins are certainly part of Achaemenid visual motif, although what they mean is less easily sorted. In addition to the magnificent gold double griffin bracelet - beyond its obvious priceless beauty, could it also have some royal amuletic function? - from the Oxus Treasure and the griffin base of the superb silver gilt rhyton (BM# 124081), both in the British Museum, the Persepolis Apadana reliefs of at least eight griffin protomes on vases in various delegations including Armenians and Lydians, (21) various bronze fragments from the Persepolis Treasury, there is also the eagle-headed griffin image from Susa noted in Jantzen (see below in note 35) as catalog number no. 142, and the horned griffin glazed bricks at Susa (see E. Schmidt, Persepolis I, 1953, 32) but also the gold eagle-headed griffin from Kurdistan of the so-called "Ziwiye Treasure" (22), and the griffin-headed gold bracteate jewelry from the Achaemenid "Chicago Treasure" at the Oriental Institute (23) among others. Some of the origins of Achaemenid pieces could also be Scythian. For griffin motifs at Persepolis, see Schmidt, Persepolis I (1953) 72, 85, 174, 189 and 257. That griffin motifs also appear at least as early as the Iron Age in Iran is evidenced by Luristan bronze finds at the Oriental Institute, Chicago, including griffin-decorated pin heads. (24) Margaret Root is the best authority on animals in Persian art, and her decades of magisterial Persepolis scholarship worthy of perusal although she does not discuss mythical griffins in her seminal 2002 chapter. (25)

Fig. 2 Gold Griffin Bracelet, 5th-4th. c BCE, Oxus Treasure, British Museum

Fig. 3 Armenian Tribute Bearer, Apadana, Persepolis, with griffin protome vase

As Schmidt noted early in the Oriental Institute’s excavation and Cahill echoed a half century later, the Treasury (134 x 78 meters) was one of the structures at Persepolis most thoroughly destroyed, as would be expected given its function and the Greek looting thereof in 330 BCE, although Cahill also notes its lack of structural stone in the architectural remains. Thus it was either mostly mud-brick and impermanent material or thoroughly destroyed or both. Perhaps more important, no capitals were found in the structure’s remains. (26)

Since the best opinions to date are that the griffin capital may have been intended for the Unfinished Gate at Persepolis (see footnote 6), it would be important to find out the context. Although this is an argument from silence, is it possible the possibly provisional griffin capital could have been intended for the Treasury? Comparison with the size of the griffin capital base may not match or correspond with the smaller size of the column bases on their shorter, tapered columns – for example, relative to the column bases of the likely much taller 20 meter high Apadana columns - except for the expected 18 columns in the perimeter of the Treasury’s larger interior courtyard complex (Room 29), where the column bases appear to be slightly larger than those of the other rooms. Even if for the Unfinished Gate and not the Treasury, might it still have had apotropaic function? According to Herodotus and others, one of the mythic protective functions of griffins in earlier Mesopotamian cultures (27) and more specifically Scythian lands was to guard treasure and montane gold. (28) Boardman has substantive material on the griffin motif shared between Persia and Greece as well as on this capital form. (29) Griffins also guarded Apollo’s gold and gold in general, and the one-eyed Arismaspians perpetually tried to steal the griffins’ gold, as so many Classical authors recorded, including Herodotus III.116, IV.13 & 27; Ctesias’ Persica; Pausanias I.24.6. & VII.2.3; Aelian IV.27; and Pliny Historia Naturalis VII.2 & X.70. Even Aeschylus in Prometheus Bound 802 & ff. warns against approaching griffins:

"Beware the razor-beaked hounds of Zeus that do not bark,
the Gryphons that live around the flood of Hades’ river
that flows with gold. Do not approach them."

Although on the one hand, these Greek griffin traditions do not in any way precondition what the griffin motif meant to the Persians, on the other hand a considerable weight of Greek myth tradition and motif in this case derives from orientalized Mesopotamian antecedents (30) and Persian influence, (31) regardless of the questionable identification of the homa-griffin with the simurgh, which is interesting but not convincing, although more indigenous than exogenous. (32) Furthermore, at Mycenaean Pylos wall-painted "griffin" motif in "Nestor's Palace" from the Late Bronze Age (LH IIIB) even predates possible Persian influence (33) but not necessarily Mesopotamian influence. It is even likely that both Persians and Greeks (as well as Proto-Greeks) derived the griffin motif from Central Asia, Anatolia (since Late Bronze Age griffin motifs can also be attested there) or pre-Scythian (or other Iranian peoples), but the motif may have also been later mediated by Scythians, whom the Persians called Sakas. The famous attacking griffins on gold scabbard reliefs are just a few of many Scythian griffin imagery. (34) Archaic orientalized Greek bronze griffin protomes have been extensively studied by Ulf Jantzen, as bronze griffin tripod protomes are not uncommon in Greek culture in the Orientalized 7th c. BCE from Olympia, Delphi, Athens and Samos (35) and also, for example, in multiple finds at Isthmia as well as 7th c. BCE repoussée electrum griffin head jewelry motif in the Louvre from the Camiros necropolis, Rhodes (36). A more ample discussion of the "Graeco-Persian phenomenon" is much needed. (37) The apotropaic function of monsters is already well-established in Greek contexts, but might be applicable at Persepolis, where several griffin motifs have been identified from the Treasury, including bronzes and small reliefs, possibly more than in any other Persepolis context. (38) It is an intriguing idea if the Greeks might thus have had even more reason to ransack a structure recognizably decorated with griffin capitals, although its Persian function would have been already known to them. As Margaret Cool Root states, "The concept of the animal protome finds culminating expression in ancient Iran in the colossal double animal capitals of Achaemenid palaces." (39) In recent personal communication, David Stronach shared with me that "the topic calls for an examination of the date that the lion-griffin was first introduced, and where. This fundamental issue can then be related to the Achaemenid fascination with the lion-griffin (which also stands confirmed by the partly gilded silver rhyton in the British Museum". Griffins will be the subject of a pending journal article I have been encouraged to pursue.

How then can we best understand this singular griffin capital at Persepolis? If this surviving griffin protome comes from the Treasury context or was provisionally intended for it at one stage or for the Unfinished Gate, (40) it would be ironic that, given the Greek destruction and looting, not only was a possible apotropaic intent ultimately futile, but also still enigmatic that only one griffin protome Persepolis capital has been found to date.

Notes

(This is a work in progress; helpful response is sought for any needed corrections).

(1) Erich Schmidt. Persepolis Vol. XVIII. Chicago: Oriental Institute Publications, University of Chicago, 1953, 3-5, 47 &ff for overall context on the Kuh-i-Rahmat (Mount of Mercy); Erich F. Schmidt. Persepolis II. Vol. LXIX. Chicago: Oriental Institute Publications, University of Chicago, 1957, 3; on the beginnings at Persepolis, see Pierre Briant. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Winona Lake. IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002, 86 & 169; on the incomplete Persepolis destruction and continuity of use after 330 BCE, see Josef Wiesehöfer. Ancient Persia. London: I.B. Tauris, 1996, 25. David Stronach in personal correspondence points out the griffin capital was found after the initial excavations.

(2) Edith Porada. The Art of the Achaemenids. With collaboration by R.H. Dyson and C. K. Wilkinson. 145. In Porada's account, "The griffin protome was published by [André] Godard in ILN (Jan. 2, 1954), p. 18, Figs. 5-8." See Iran Chamber Society website: (http://www.iranchamber.com/art/articles/art_of_achaemenids.php)

Also see Wolfram Kleiss. "Capitals" in Encyclopædia Iranica, on the double protome capitals at Persepolis: "The Achaemenid double-protome capital can be viewed as an Iranian invention, though Mesopotamian influences in the representation of composite creatures are also recognizable." (http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v4f7/v4f7a032.html)

(3) Ursula Schneider. Persepolis and Ancient Iran. The Oriental Institute. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1976, 1.

(4) Michael Roaf. “Sculptures and Sculptors at Persepolis”. Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies XXI (1983) 1-164 & ff.

(5) Ann Britt Tilia. “A Study of the methods of working and restoring stone and on the parts left unfinished in Achaemenian architecture and sculpture. East and West (New Series) 18 (1968) 67-95. A. E. Farkas. Achaemenid Sculpture. Leiden: Netherlands Institute for the Near East PIHANS vol. 33, 1974, esp, 127-34 (Tilia appendix).

(6) John Curtis et al. Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia. London: British Museum, 2005, 51. This exemplary volume represents not only the highest scholarship but the highest order of what I have elsewhere titled "cultural diplomacy." David Stronach has echoed this possible Unfinished Gate intended Persepolis context in correspondence with me and mentioned John Curtis's prior idea on this possible intended placement.

(7) David Stronach, Pasargadae: A Report on the Excavations Conducted by the British Institute of Persian Studies from 1961 to 1963. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. David Stronach was also a speaker at the "Ancient Greece and Ancient Iran Cross-Cultural Encounters" 2006 International Conference in Athens in November, 2006, where his topic was "Patterns of conquest and patterns of construction: a new look at the birth of Achaemenid art and architecture". Note that a fragmentary horse protome capital was excavated by David Stronach at Pasargadae, described in his 1978 Pasargadae, 73-4; Plate 55, also referenced by Root, 206 (see below, note 25).

(8) Parisa Mohammadi and Wolfgang Krumbein. "Biodeterioration of ancient stone materials from the Persepolis monuments (Iran)" Aerobiologia 24 (2008), 27–33. On p. 29, Persepolis stone is identified here by petrographic thin section as "marble and limestone (partially carbonate cemented sandstone)", so the ambiguities still exist. Robert McColl’s 1975 image for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries Digital Collection archive (UWM American Geographical Society Library mc000201) show it as fine gray stone; other photographic images, including later, show it as more beige. Ursula Schneider’s image, 15, 1F1 “A Double-Headed Griffin Capital, Sm7213 is also gray colored. Also note "marbres in Paul Bernand. "Les mortiers et pilons inscrits de Persepolis." Studia Iranica I (1972) fascicle 2, 174.

(9) Schmidt, 1953, 171, 189 "common gray Persepolis limestone"; Schmidt, 1957, 69. Although from a different Achaemenid context, note the identification of "gray marble" found at Susa's Apadana in M. Wijnen. "Excavations on Iran". Persica: Jaarboek van het Genootschap Nederland-Iran Stichting voor Culterele Betrekkingen 6 (1972-1974) 83, with two Darius foundation tablets of gray marble. The Persepolis stone relief in the British Museum (# ME 118868) is not publicly identified as to geological type.

(10) also see Iran Daily, Dec 24, 2005, 12.

(11) Nicholas Cahill. “The Treasury of Persepolis: Gift-Giving at the City of the Persians.” American Journal of Archaeology 89.3 (1985) 386.

(12) Schmidt, Persepolis II, 1957, Plate 81. Nos. 19, & 24-26, from the Treasury, Gate of Xerxes, Apadana and Garrison Quarters respectively.

(13) Roaf. 1983, 3.

(14) ibid. (Roaf).

(15) Schmidt, 1957, Plate 80, 11-14, where three of the “polishers” have question marks about geological identity (“gray limestone?, black slate?, black and grayish-green steatite?”).

(16) Pliny, Historia Naturalis XXXVI.9-10.

(17) Roaf, 1983, 8.

(18) J. A. Lerner. "The Achaemenid relief of Ahura Mazda in the Fogg Art Museum. Bulletin of the Asia Institute 2 (Shiraz, 1971) 19-35; also see J. A. Lerner. "A painted relief from Persepolis." Archaeology 26 (1973) 116-23.

(19) Farzin Rezaeian et al. Persepolis Recreated. Toronto, Canada: Sunrise Visual Innovations, 2004, e.g. 30-32, 39, 46-47. The griffin capital under discussion is not depicted in his book.

(20) Roaf, 1983, 8.

(21) John Curtis. Ancient Persia. London: British Museum, 2000 2nd ed., 52-3, 62, figs. 54, 56, 60, 69; John Curtis, ed. Mesopotamia and Iran in the Persian Period: Conquest and Imperialism 539-331 BC. London: British Museum, 1997, Plate 1. ([Griffin] Gold Bracelet from Oxus Treasure). According to Stronach, pers. comm., the silver gilt rhyton is "said to have been found 'near Erzincan'. " An early study of Achaemenid metalworking in the Oxus Treasure is in O. M. Dalton. The Treasure of the Oxus: with Other Examples of Early Oriental Metal-Work. Franks' Bequest. London, 1926, 2nd ed.

(22) The so-called "Ziwiye Treasure". André Godard. Le trésor de Ziwiyè. Haarlem, 1950. Note that according to Goldman (see note 31 below) p 319, Ghirshman identified this as a Scythian burial, and it has long been clear that griffins are also famously Scythian. But while it may be Scythian, the provenance and certainly the collection is highly disputed, see Oscar White Muscarella. "Ziwiye" and Ziwiye: The Forgery of a Provenience". Journal of Field Archaeology 4.2 (Summer, 1977), 197-219.

(23) Helene J. Kantor. "Achaemenid Jewelry in the Oriental Institute." Journal of Near Eastern Studies 16.1 (1957) 1-23, esp. 8 ff, Inventory A28588, "ten gold bracteates, griffin heads facing left", Plate VIc.

(24) In the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago collection: OIM A24183, Bronze pin head (Luristan), length 85 mm, griffin-shaped; OIM A7292, Cast Bronze pin Head (Luristan), winged griffin; OIM A24184, Bronze pin head (Luristan) length 73 mm, winged griffin?

(25) Margaret Cool Root. “Animals in the Art of Ancient Iran” in B. J. Collins, ed. A History of the Animal World in the Ancient Near East. Leiden: E.J. Brill 2002, 169-209; also Margaret Cool Root. “The Lioness of Elam. Politics and Dynastic Fecundity at Persepolis.” Achaemenid History XIII (2003) 9-32. Also note Root's research on artistic transmission in Achaemenid Persia and co-editorship, mentioned below, in Achaemenid History VIII in footnote 37. Although Root's quote below from her text in Collins, Brill, 2002, 176, refers to the snake, which is usually not a mythical but instead an oft-observed living creature, it might apply to the ambiguity of griffins as well: "the paradoxical pairing of sinister with beneficent associations of a natural phenomenon is common in nature itself and in the belief systems humans develop about such a duality." On the other hand, she writes about "heroes stabbing fantastic creatures" as a possible "protection against invasion" function or association in Persepolis interior monumental sculpture relief, 183, also earlier suggested in her monograph The King and Kingship in Achaemenid Art: Essays on the Creation of an Iconography of Empire. Leiden: E.J. Brill 1979, 300-308. Root also quotes, 188, A. U. Pope's 1954 idea on ancient Iranian zoomorphic rhytons conveying the vitality of that animal, which should be applicable here to the Oxus griffin rhyton.

(26) Cahill, 376.

(27) Jeremy Black and Anthony Green. Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia. London: British Museum, 2003 repr., 101. According to Annie Caubet, "Animals in Syro-Palestinian Art" in B. J. Collins, ed. A. History of the Animal World in the Ancient Near East, Brill, 2002, 229, regarding myth animal interactions and diffusion, "Although certain mythological creatures, such as the bull-man, are clearly of Mesopotamian origin, we know neither where nor how other composite monsters, such as the lion griffin or the winged griffin, evolved."

(28) Adrienne Mayor. The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology on Greek and Roman Times. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001, 32 ff.; Pierre Grimal (Stephen Kershaw, ed.) Dictionary of Classical Mythology. New York: Penguin, 1990 ed., Γρυπες (plural) 166: "sacred to Apollo whose treasures they guarded in the lands of the Hyperboreans...later fables relate that the griffins resisted any search for gold in the deserts in the north of India" partly as guardians of the precious metal.

(29) John Boardman. Persia and the West: An Archaeological Investigation of the Genesis of Achaemenid Persian Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 2000, esp. 74-75, 249-250.

(30) Charles Penglase. Greek Myths and Mesopotamia. London: Routledge, 1994, 51, cf. the bird-lion monster Anzu; Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, see Anzu. On p. 89 Dalley's translation describes Enkidu's dream with a monstrous encounter in the Epic of Gilgamesh VII: "His face was like that of an Anzu bird. He had the paws of a lion, he had the claws of an eagle." Also note Henrietta McCall. Mesopotamian Myths. London: British Museum, 1990, 66-9, where she relates the tale of Anzu, including that the monster was first appointed to guard divine chambers. But Anzu, while a bird-lion hybrid, is visually opposite of a Homa-griffin with lion head and forepaws, but with wings, covered in feathers and bird back legs and talons. On the other hand, griffins are emblematic of artistic change in Mesopotamia. See Catherine Breniquet, "Animals in Mespotamian Art" in Billie J. Collins, ed. A History of the Animal World in the Ancient Near East. Leiden: Brill, 2002, 153-54 "...new elements are apparent, however, in a clear use of animal depictions in close relationship with the divinities. The second millennium B.C. is also known for contacts between cultural and political powers in the Near East, involving artistic exchanges and the diffusion, combined with distortion, of many animal motifs. Such monsters as griffins...are the clearest examples of this phenomenon." Elsewhere, in Oded Borowski's article "Animals in the Religions of Syria-Palestine" in Collins, 2002, griffins are associated with deity in the religions of ancient Palestine and kingship in Ramesside Egypt, 407.

(31) Bernard Goldman. "The Development of the Lion-Griffin". American Journal of Archaeology 64.4 (1960), 319-28, plates 88-91; John Boardman. Greek Early Vase Painting. London: Thames and Hudson, 1998, 151. For a reassessment of Greek Orientalizing and the "Persian Paradigm", see Ann C. Gunter, "Models of the Orient" in H. Sancisi-Werdenburg and J. W. Drijvers, eds. Achaemenid History V: The Roots of the European Tradition. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 1990, 131-148, esp. 145 ff. and Pericles George. Barbarian Asia and the Greek Experience. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994, esp. 1-12.

(32) The simurgh and senmurv motifs seem not to have eagle heads in surviving representations, but rather canine or other animal faces. See Vesta Curtis. Persian Myths. London: British Museum, 1993, esp. 21-22, where she discusses and compares traditions of senmurv and simurgh without comparing to the earlier homa lion-bird. The homa has been recently popularly connected again to the simurgh, e.g. Iqbal Latif. "Is 'discovery' about alighting of Simorgh?' Persian Journal (July 29, 2008): "in 'Persian mythology,' a very famous bird, Simorgh, a large beautiful and powerful bird, Homa, royal bird of victory whose plume adorned the crowns."

(33) Carl Blegen and M. Rawson. The Palace of Nestor at Pylos in Western Messenia. Vols.1-4. Princeton: Princeton University Press (for University of Cincinnati) 1966-1973; Carl Blegen, Marion Rawson and Jack Davis. A Guide to the Palace of Nestor. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies, Athens, 2001.

(34) The migrations of the Scythians-Sakas into Iran most likely followed the ancestors of the Iranians-Persians themselves from the north. W. J. Vogelsang. The Rise and Organization of the Achaeminid Empire: The Eastern Iranian Evidence. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992, 15 ff.; Esther Jacobson. The Art of the Scythians: The Interpenetration of Cultures at the Edge of the Hellenic World. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995, note Scythian griffins: 12, 243-246 (including famous scabbard-casings with griffins and lions attacking horses, etc.), 250, 252, 271. Also see J. B. Bury et al., Cambridge Ancient History Vol VI, The Fourth Century, 1928, 499, where "the lion-headed griffin was a noted mythical enemy of the Persians..." although this is an eagle-headed griffin at Persepolis. On the other hand, if griffins were perceived as inimical, it might also help explain why only one griffin Persepolis capital existed or vacillating Achaemenid programmes regarding griffins as guardians of treasure or possible apotropaic function.

(35) Ulf Jantzen. Griechische Greifenkessel. Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1955; Carol Mattusch. Greek Bronze Statuary: From the Beginnings Through the Fifth Century B.C.. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989, 27.

(36) Isabelle K. Raubitschek. Isthmia, vol. VII (1952-1989). The Metal Objects. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies, 1998, 87-88, objects #310-312; also Musée du Louvre, Department of Greek, Roman and Etruscan Antiquities, Bj 39. From Camiros Necropolis, Rhodes, c. 625-600 BCE.

(37) M. C. Root. "Lifting the Veil: Artistic Transmission Beyond the Boundaries of Historic Periodisation." in Heleen Sansini-Weerdenburg, Amelie Kuhrt and Margaret Cool Root, eds., Achaemenid History VIII: Continuity and Change. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 1994, 9-37, esp. 15 ff. noting negative bias against Achaemenid Persia from a Greek perspective and also her points on cultural reciprocity between Persia and the West on p. 17.

(38) Schmidt, 1957, 8, 15, 18, 39.

(39) Margaret Cool Root, History of Animal World..., in Collins, Brill, 2002, 195.

(40) Apparently, Ann Ashmead had also earlier posed this question about griffins and treasuries in another, different (East Greek or Phrygian) context. Adrienne Mayor pointed me to Ashmead's research after reading a draft of this article and put me in contact with Ashmead, whose email response to me (10/25/08) verified her idea that griffins might be connected with gold and treasuries in a guardian role. See Ann Harnwell Ashmead. "Terracotta reliefs: Phrygian or East Greek" in Haverford College Collection of Classical Antiquities. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1999, figs 54 & 55.

Acknowledgements are given to David Stronach, Adrienne Mayor and H. Anne Weis for reading drafts of this work-in-progress article and providing valuable feedback.

Image credits: Fig. 1, courtesy of Sebastia Giralt. http://farm1.static.flickr.com/211/443877491_8c3d450ccc.jpg; Fig. 2, Wikimedia Commons 2007; Fig. 3, courtesy of www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-art/452680/111709/Armenian-tribute-bearer

copyright © 2008 Dr. Patrick Hunt
Stanford University

http://www.patrickhunt.net
phunt@stanford.edu

I had a bad time in the first half of WAC in Dublin. A combination of bad organisation, questionable quality control in the presentation department and my own unrealistic expectations had led to a quasi-depression. Lacking the funds to abscond to Bruges, I had, by the Wednesday evening of a week long conference, been holed up at home exclaiming disbelief and weeping over the huge hole where my bank account used to be for nearly 36 hours.

This, I thought, had to change. I decided to approach the second half of the week differently. To not expect much of any consequence to occur in the sessions but instead to enjoy the experience, meet new people and try to get into some good discussions. In short, I cheered up. And, luckily it worked. The second half of WAC was great.

Beaghmore Complex (K. Williams)

My own involvement in WAC happened after the tea break. Brent Fortenberry and I co-organised a session called ‘Method and The Machine: theorising an archaeological approach to technical processes’ that opened the Critical Technologies theme convened by Beth O’Leary, Alice Gorman and Wayne Cocroft. In a session both Brent and I were pleased with, we covered such diverse topics as sustainability, radar, actor-network theory, iPods and economics and managed to leave time for both questions for individual speakers and general discussion that focussed on narrative, trauma and the incompatibility of various current approaches to contemporary material culture. I was certainly happy with it and I hope audience members were at least impressed by the interesting mix of different contemporary archaeological topics.

The day continued with a lunchtime plenary session on how increased immigration might call for a re-formulation of what ‘heritage’ is. The highlight of the session was Tadhg O’Keeffe’s polemic against the idolisation of Tara as central to an imagined Celtic-based ‘Irishness’.

This was followed by the second session of the Critical Technologies’ theme, ‘Archaeologies of internment: method and theory for an emerging field’ run by Adrian Myers and Gabriel Moshenska. This certainly is an emerging field that has received much attention recently. For me, the real benefit of this session was that the focus on POW camps and sites of ‘alien internment’ makes an important contribution to understanding the ‘home front’ side of conflict archaeology, whatever the country. Many of these internment sites are well documented from opposing and very emotive positions and this made for an interesting session. I would have liked to hear more about the wider politics and practical problems of studying such potentially controversial sites and Laura McAtackney’s recent work on the Long Kesh/Maze site in Northern Ireland was conspicuously absent from what was an otherwise worthy session.

I know of tutors from a variety of subjects who use the question, “Should Auschwitz have a gift shop?”, as a seminar topic. The difficulty of how to present such an horrific thing as the Holocaust was raised by one speaker. The paper itself was interesting and I look forward to seeing the work develop but (understandably proud of his work) his beaming grin juxtaposed with images of Jewish inmates stacked in concentration camp bunks made members of the audience visibly uncomfortable. How to do ‘the archaeology of Auschwitz’ is a tough one. There is a clear ethical dimension to the discussion but the archaeologists’ tendency to bypass ethics by professionally distancing themselves from their subjects is perhaps not the way forward in this case. Perhaps the ethical dimensions of archaeological work on the African diaspora might help in developing ways of talking about the subject that seem less problematic.

If memory serves, we went straight from this session to the student bar on the campus and stayed there waiting for the Congress party to begin which it duly did. This was a jolly affair involving multiple pints of Guinness and an increasing lack of concern for the high prices of same as the evening went on. We passed the evening outdoors standing by the lake with its nicely lit fountains and after such a successful and thought-provoking day everything seemed alright again.

My Friday began with a session, ‘Beyond Identity’, organised by Barb Voss and El Casella that looked into alternative approaches to sexuality. It was an interesting session but there were a large number of papers leaving no time for discussion, a shame as I would have liked to hear more about many of the papers. After coffee I went along to the final Critical Technologies session, ‘Nostalgia for infinity: exploring the archaeology of the final frontier’. Space archaeology has been around for a while but I’ve never made it along to any of the previous conference sessions on it so was particularly interested in what this session had to say and I wasn’t disappointed. The highlight for me was Mark Edmonds’ paper on different aspects of Jodrell Bank in Cheshire. Alongside Ironbridge and Quarry Bank Mill, Jodrell Bank is a place I associate with school trips when I was young and I greatly enjoyed hearing more about it. The rest of the session was interesting and informative. I have a long postponed plan to write about JG Ballard and archaeology and this session reminded me of his 1959 short story ‘The Waiting Grounds’, a futuristic tale in which an astronomer based on another planet finds a series of megaliths commemorating all the beings from other planets who have been on the planet over time. If we were to discover physical remains of another species or civilisation on another planet, at what stage would archaeologists become involved? And would the work be best suited to contemporary archaeologists or prehistorians? Maybe we’ll find out one day.

In all, the Critical Technologies theme was interesting, coherent and worthy of future expansion. My personal interest is in seeing how some of these very contemporary approaches to technology can be integrated with more traditional industrial archaeology.

Tara (K. Williams)

After lunch, the unfortunate WAC business plenary. This is an odd event at which people put forward motions for consideration by the WAC Council. From what I could see, it largely consists of groups passing motions to guarantee their work being published. The session was thankfully interrupted by the arrival of President of Ireland Mary McAleese who made a closing speech for the Congress. Reconvening after her departure there were a few motions calling for WAC to officially protest the road-work near the Tara site. I stayed long enough to vote against the first of these before slipping out to the bar where I found all the other people who had thought better of getting involved in this cod-democratic worthiness contest.

The second half of WAC was a really great experience and I learned new things from every session I attended, as well as having a pretty good time socially. It was a real shame that conference sessions were so over-filled with papers and although I’m sure the organisers had the best of intentions in not allowing session organisers to cut any papers, it made for a high proportion of confused, rushed and ultimately disappointing sessions. Everything about WAC contributes to it both positively and negatively. How you approach that is key to having a good time. When I expected stimulating, cutting-edge archaeological debate I was largely let down. When I changed tack and approached the rest of the week by trying to meet people and experience a broad range of subjects, it was fine.

In all honesty, if I had the choice again, I wouldn’t have gone to Dublin for WAC 6. It simply wasn’t worth the financial outlay this time (I thought that WAC 5 was well worth it). That’s not to say that parts of it weren’t fun though and I met some nice people. However, the biggest effect that WAC had on me is that I’m really looking forward to TAG and getting the disappointment out of my system.

If there were a conference star-rating system, two out of five would be fair.

Our current understanding of human migration derives from advances in four more or less integrated disciplines: archeology, physical anthropology, DNA analysis and linguistics. In recent years progress has slowed as researchers enroll familiar tools to validate or reject what have become more or less entrenched theories. For archaeologists, it almost goes without saying that advances in seemingly unrelated disciplines have great potential for breaking “logjams” and producing new ideas. Such was the case in 2003 when population based data in microbiology demonstrated that an ancient human pathogen, Helicobacter pylori, carried a key to the timing and pathway of early human migration out of Africa.

A landmark article in Science by Falush and associates (2003) reported on strain variation in Helicobacter pylori, a chronic gastric pathogen. Using known mutation frequency as a “biological clock” they were able to match known patterns of human migration with the molecular clock approach. Spread of this chronic human pathogen accompanied the migration of their human host and not surprisingly, the oldest strains with the most mutations were in Africa (Linz et al 2007). Prior to this validation by pathogen genetic analysis, the “out of Africa” theory rested primarily on conventional archeological and anthropological evidence.

The “Ah Ha!” moment of insight occurred when rapid advances in microbial genetic analysis were used to validate existing theories. Our microbial “hitchhikers” carry with them the secrets of their past and by inference our past. Such leaps forward in science often occur when the insights from apparently disparate disciplines merge and provide validation for or discredit earlier theories.

Another rapidly developing body of knowledge is challenging rather than validating the orthodox understandings of human migration. Human T cell Lymphotrophic Virus 1 (HTLV-1) has been part of the human condition for thousands of years and has an epidemiology and migration suggesting that the populating of the North and South American continents began long before the trans-Siberian migrations.

Archaeologists are perhaps all too familiar with the long debate over the pathways and timing of human migration into the Americas. Based on oxygen isotope records from deep-sea cores, during the last major stage of the Pleistocene epoch (10,000-50,000 years ago), a land bridge formed across what now is the Bering Strait. With Siberia and the Americas connected, conventional accounts suggest nomadic peoples tracked the big game herds that migrated to modern-day Alaska. From here, this group (or groups) subsequently traveled south and east across America through an ice-free corridor. For better and worse these findings have been substantiated by the discovery of several ancient American archaeological sites, including those at Clovis, New Mexico in 1932. Dating these findings between 12,800 and 13,300 years BP the artifacts were deemed the remnants of the so-called “Clovis culture.” The land bridge theory has gained further credence with recent scholarship into the human genome. A 2007 study examining the genome of indigenous people from North and South America and two Siberian groups found one unique genetic variant across all populations, suggesting Native Americans descended from a common ancestor (Hellenthal et al 2008; also see “First Americans arrived from Siberia”). Furthermore, this study found increasing genetic variation radiating from the Bering Strait, correlating to a more recent migration.

While it is perhaps all but indisputable that land migration occurred over the Bering Strait, it is not conclusive that this path was the first or the only means of migration to the Americas. There are incongruities in the archaeological record when North and South America are compared. There are South American sites, including Monte Verde, which predate the North American Clovis remains by at least 1,000 years (Dillehay 1999 http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/clovis/). These findings lend support to what has been argued to be an earlier and faster maritime migration. Furthermore, excavations across the Americas, the most recent of which unearthed coprolites in the Paisley Caves of Oregon’s Cascade Range, suggest the first Americans were a maritime culture (Thomas et al 2008). Beyond the earlier absence of the ice-free corridor — an absence which makes an earlier land-based migration virtually impossible — one of the primary clues is diet.

The diet of these early Americans consisted of turtles, shellfish, and tubers, a stark contrast to the big game the group(s) associated with the Clovis culture tracked across the Bering Strait. Finally, while the genetic research presents interesting conclusions, it does not take into account the assimilation or destruction of people who may have pre-dated the genome of modern Native Americans. New observations in the field of retrovirology allow a different marker to weigh in on the possible existence of extinct proto-American cultures.

Human T-lymphotropic virus 1 (HTLV-1) was the first retrovirus (HIV-like) to be isolated and has infected human beings for thousands of years (Ishida et al 1995). Recent research has identified important elements of HTLV-1 molecular biology, epidemiology and pathogenesis. The Southern Japanese island of Kyushu has a surprisingly high prevalence as does certain areas of sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, and South America. In some communities of Japan, clusters with prevalence in the 30% range have been reported. The Ainu of the Japanese island of Hokaido currently have a high prevalence and historically they were the ancient indigenous peoples of the Japanese archipelago. Most HTLV-1 carriers remain asymptomatic, but infection can be associated with severe diseases of immunodeficiency (Verdonck 2007). Recent characterization of mutations in the viral genome has allowed viral pedigrees to be traced back thousands of years using a mutational biological clock. The more highly mutated viruses are presumed to be the older because of a relative constancy of mutation over time (Switzer et al 2006).

Four major strains of HTLV exist worldwide and are currently endemic in Sub-Saharan Africa, Japan, and the Americas. All four strains, including their primate precursors, are present in Africa, suggesting HTLV originated there in its primate form, PTLV (Vandamme et al 1998; Van Dooren et al 2005). In southern Japan more than 10% of the general population is infected with HTLV-1a (Gessain et al 1992; Morofuji-Hirata et al 1993). This endemicity extends to antiquity, as HTLV-1a has been detected in the Japanese subpopulations of Ainu and Ryukyuans, the putative descendants of Japan’s original inhabitants. This strain is also present in the Caribbean and South America, providing hints of an ancient migration into the Americas.

Throughout the Americas, HTLV-1a is found predominantly among African descendants and indigenous populations. It is endemic in the Caribbean, Colombia, and northern Brazil and, to a lesser extent, found in Peru, Argentina but is rare in Central and North America. Some researchers have interpreted this data as consistent with the dissemination of HTLV-1a to the New World through the African slave trade. Contrasting this theory, HTLV-1 exists in aboriginal populations on both sides of the Bering Strait, suggesting an ancient introduction of the virus into the New World prior to the slave trade (Miura et al 1997; Picard et al 1995). Furthermore, in 2000, Sonoda and colleagues described an Andean mummy with ancient HTLV-1a, suggesting a prehistoric introduction of the virus similar to that prevalent in the Ainu population (Li et al 1999; Sonoda et al 2000). Their conclusions remain controversial and can be resolved only with additional fieldwork on new specimens (Vandamme et al 2000).

HTLV-1 is often transmitted from mother to child through breastfeeding. The infected infant caries the virus for their lifetime and passes the virion to their progeny through sexual intercourse (Roucoux et al 2005) or breastfeeding. Contemporary epidemiology now also includes transfusions of blood products, contaminated needles (including acupuncture) and IV drug abuse. The duration of breastfeeding (Li et al 2004) can be a major factor in transmission rates that range between 15% and 25%. Vertical transmission from mother to child is a prominent and efficient mode of transmission and likely occurred in ancient human populations even when there was little risk of blood borne transmission. The HTLV-1 is thus an ideal migration marker, serving as a kind of historical “GPS” that tags an individual and subsequent generations.

HTLV-1 high prevalence in the Caribbean and South America has been presumed to be due to the post-Columbian slave trade into the Americas from regions of high HTLV-1 prevalence in Africa. New technology however, allows identification of strains with greater precision. The strains found in South America and the Caribbean are more similar to the strains prevalent in ancient Japan. The Peruvian mummy (Sonoda et al 2000) further confirms that HTLV-1 was present in the Americas thousands of years prior to the slave trade. Similarly, a cluster of Japanese type HTLV-1 has been detected in a Coastal population of Amerindian natives in British Columbia (Picard et al 1995), although the significance of this may not have been appreciated in 1995 when first reported.

These new findings may help explain the relative paucity of HTLV-1 in the African American populations of Northern latitudes in the Americas and the concentration of ancient Japanese strains in the Caribbean and South America. Coastal migration of ancient Ainu into the Americas did not require the Bering land bridge and the “ice-free corridor.” Archeological evidence may be submerged off the coasts of Canada and Western America. If this migration occurred 20-40,000 years earlier than the Siberian migration, the human migrants would have found an impenetrable ice sheet that extended deep into the Americas to at least as far as Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania. Lower sea levels would have allowed easier movement to the Caribbean islands which may have been connected. South America would have been predominately free of glacial ice and the flow of migrants over thousands of years would have gravitated in that direction.

When the Bering land bridge opened and the ice free corridor formed (circa 12,500 BC), Siberian Asian populations flowed along with the mega fauna into the northern USA latitudes which by then were more habitable.

Certain findings from the more classic disciplines, which deal with human migration, begin to make more sense as we build a better picture of an earlier wave of coastal migrants to the Americas. These include the discovery of Kennewick man (potentially an ancient Ainu skeleton found on the banks of the Columbia River). Retrovirology adds to this big picture.

Conclusions

A rapidly accreting body of evidence suggests that human migration into the Americas occurred much earlier than previously thought. Two distinct waves of migration have been documented with the characteristics of each dictated by the timing of the last ice age. Coastal migration was favored at the peak of the ice age when sea levels were lower and abundant seafood was available. The ancient people of Japan were known to be excellent coastal seafarers but reluctant visitors to the open sea. Sea craft during that phase of human migration were more primitive and did not support open sea migration. Siberian migration became dominant after the receding of the ice sheet and these later migrants may have replaced or assimilated the earlier migrants.

Awareness of the broad spectrum of science advancement creates the possibility that new insights will occur when overlapping discoveries validate new theories. Overspecialization within a scientific discipline may be a handicap when it comes to the big questions of humanity. Whether as scientists, scholars, or professional field archaeologists, we are all well served by maintaining a broader view of advances in many fields. Such key advances which allow a great leap forward in our own fields of expertise might occur in an isolated and seemingly unrelated discipline, such as retrovirology.

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I was lucky enough to read this book for the first time sitting on the beach outside Rethymnon on Crete. At first, I felt as though I were cheating – “working” while enjoying myself at the seaside on a beautiful Greek summer day. On the contrary, only a few pages into the book, I realized that my venue – my workspace – could not have been more appropriate, given the proposed main argument of Duke’s recent book. This is “that public archaeology on Crete, manifested in sites and museums and the vast array of tourist information media, produces a virtually monolithic message about a particular past and thereby a particular present; namely, that social inequality is the essential metanarrative of the Minoan past and thus abets the legitimization and naturalization of this same social inequality as the primary organizational structure of the modern West” (14). Of course, reading that, it’s difficult to see how sitting on a beach relates to the primary organizational structure of the modern West, but Duke’s ambitious enterprise (especially for such a slim volume) is to explore the nexus of relations between the past, the present, tourism, class, and archaeology. All of these were embodied for me at the moment, myself a tourist at the beach in between visits to archaeological fieldwork projects.

The first half of the apt title of the book, explained in the Introduction, is drawn from the phrase of Nikos Kazantsakis “Cretan Glance”, which he used to describe “the Cretans’ ability to deal with the present and look to the future – to death even – with acceptance, fortitude, a near insouciance” (19). The second half is from the title of John Urry’s 1990 book Tourists Gaze, in which Urry explores the way in which tourists gaze – often open-mouthed – at the culture of the Other to which they are briefly exposed. “Gaze” in particular, a word that has had an important role in postmodern art history, feminism, social theory, and critical theory, implies the idea that there are asymmetric power (class?) relations between the gazer and the gazed-at subject. As such, the gazer is superior to the object of the gaze, thus tourists in Crete are superior to the pasts created by modern Cretans’ ancestors. This sets the stage for the discussion that follows.

The Tourists Gaze, as mentioned above, is as ambitious as it is concise; running to just 154 pages, this comprises six main chapters, along with references cited, an appendix containing a site gazetteer and the index. The chapters themselves too attempt multum in parvo: for example, chapter three “Tourists and the Constructed Past”, which includes discussions of the history of tourism, the “dissolution of authenticity,” and the “commodified past,” is a mere ten pages long. The other chapters cover “Touring the Past” (Chapter One), “The Minoan Past” (Chapter Two), “Modern Crete, Ancient Minoans, and the Tourist Experience” (Chapter Four), “Constructing a Prehistory” (Chapter Five), and “The Nexus of the Past” (Chapter Six). Duke’s assertion that the Minoan past and Cretan present afford a richly rewarding place to examine these issues is especially resonant. Indeed, this status has resulted in a number of discussions in recent years, most notably in the recent scholarship of Yannis Hamilakis (2002; 2006; 2007). Duke draws fruitfully on his work throughout The Tourists Gaze.

The first chapter provides a brief general introduction to the idea of “touring the past”, in which Duke presents the past as destination, and presents some of the main juxtapositions he will explore in this book: present and past, academic elitism and public tourism, the modern Cretan and the foreign tourist, etc. The second chapter presents an overview of the current state of Minoan archaeology for the non-specialist reader that is effectively organized with an overview of Minoan cultural history, types of sites, the economy, social and political structure, art and technology, writing systems, and religion. While none of these sections go into great detail, the chapter does succeed in providing an appropriate background for the archaeological situation that Duke will be discussing in the following chapters. His focus on certain aspects of Minoan archaeology that have received more emphasis reflect both the history of the field, but to a certain extent are also chosen to support his argument about the issues of class as normativized by archaeological practice. For example, his presentation of the role of the “palace” sites (41-3) seems to favor their economic, perhaps redistributive economic role, which nevertheless may again be a function of limited space in a short chapter.

“Tourists and the Constructed Past”, Chapter Three, offers a somewhat cursory discussion of the issues that revolve around the relationship between tourism and archaeology, about which quite a lot has been written (e.g. Meskell 1998; Meskell and Pels 2005). Duke touches briefly on some of these problems, such as questions of authenticity and inauthenticity, and the commodification of the past. However, given that this chapter presents the main theoretical frameworks of the discussion that follows, I would have liked Duke to delve more deeply into both the issues he does raise, and others raised by the ethics of archaeology and tourism (e.g., cultural patrimony, colonialism and post-colonialism, stewardship, etc.).

Chapter Four “Modern Crete, Ancient Minoans, and the Tourist Experience” presents the strongest and most in-depth discussion of the work. It is here that Duke’s viewpoint and main argument come together most powerfully. The chapter is divided into sections on archaeological sites as a “theater” of the past, in which two major palatial sites – Knossos and Mallia – are discussed; the accessibility of, and information available for, 18 individual sites across Crete; the main museum on Crete at Heraklion and the smaller regional archaeological museums; and other sources of information about Minoan archaeology, including brochures and guidebooks. The concept of archaeology as a “theater of the past”, first introduced by Tilley (1989), is used here to frame a contrast between the sites of Knossos and Gournia; the first is the most frequently visited Minoan site, whereas the second is barely accessible to all but the most diligent archaeological tourist. For Duke, this represents one of the fundamental problems in the presentation of the Minoan past – the big, exciting, “elite” sites are given all of the attention. This chapter offers the real strength of Duke’s work, as a more-than-above-average informed visitor assessing the experience of tourists and tourism at different points of contact on Crete. He concludes that issues of social organization, links between economic and social practices, gender relationships, power dynamics, and the routines of everyday life are absent in public discourses on Minoan culture. For Duke, this absence is the result of the academic reticence to allow the public into considerations of alternative arrangements of the Cretan past (89).

In light of Duke’s main argument about Minoan archaeology and issues of class, it would seem as though he is subtly accusing Minoan archaeologists of consciously or unconsciously (89) preventing the public from a view of lower classes, or more “unsavory” aspects of the Minoan past, such as the alleged evidence for human sacrifice at sites like Anemospilia. As someone who has worked as an archaeologist on Crete for many years, it is my experience that the public is much more attracted by the cleaned-up, metabolized view of the Minoan past that they have encountered from tour guides, brochures, and even the somewhat sensationalized television shows. Few want to hear “Well, we don’t actually know what that is… archaeologists have been debating that issue for almost 100 years.” This may even support Duke’s argument. More important, I think, is the environment on Crete that frames the tourist experience. Cretan holidays are often advertised as sun-drenched, party getaways, with a little bit of culture thrown to alleviate the guilt. Most visitors to Crete only stop by Knossos if their pre-packaged tour includes it. Otherwise, most never leave their beach resorts. A telling recent article in the New York Times illustrates that although thousands of tourists every summer stay only a few kilometers from one of the most exciting palatial sites on the island, Mallia, few ever leave the pub long enough to notice that there is archaeology to be seen nearby (Lyall 2008).

In his fifth chapter, “Constructing a Prehistory”, Duke presents the five main factors, or hegemonies in his words, that “together have created the past that is on show to the public: colonialism and the rise of modernity; academic elitism; archaeological paradigms; state politics; economics” (94). His conclusion at the end of this chapter is that these “hegemonies” are still so strong that they prevent any attempt at meaningful local control of the past. Again, while each of these sections is relatively brief, their main strength is to alert readers to the major issues that have influenced archaeology on Crete over the past hundred years, up to the present. His sixth and final chapter offers a succinct solution to the problems he has outlined in the previous chapters: present tourists with a fuller range of Minoan archaeological remains, with respect to both sites and objects on display in museums. For example, make the “working class” town of Gournia as important a site as Knossos, and display in museums more than just the “pretty” objects. On this point, I don’t think that anyone would disagree with Duke.

More than exhaustively proving that modern class issues have been, and still are being, normativized by the discourse of Minoan archaeology, Duke’s concise work effectively situates the construction of the Minoan past within wider debates of archaeological practice. For me, this is the real strength of his book. One is the explicit connection in this book of Minoan archaeology and Crete to wider discussions of European modernity, in which the making of nationalist narratives about the past for tourist consumption plays an important role (Thomas 2004). Duke’s angle of class issues is only one small part of the recent discussions of the role of Minoan archaeology in the creation of modern European identities (Papadopoulos 2005; Hamilakis and Momigliano 2006). Finally, perhaps this work will draw readers into such debates and this will provide more reflexive and thoughtful discourses about archaeology, tourism, and the archaeological past.

References

Deahnke, J.D. 2007. “A ‘strange multiplicity’ of voices: heritage stewardship, contested sites and colonial legacies on the Columbia River.” Journal of Social Archaeology 7(2): 250-75.

Hamilakis, Y. 2002. “What Future for the ‘Minoan’ Past? Rethinking Minoan Archaeology”. In Labyrinth Revisited: Rethinking Minoan Archaeology, pp. 2-28. Oxbow Books, Oxford.

Hamilakis, Y. 2006. “The Colonial, the National and the Local: Legacies of the ‘Minoan’ Past”. In Archaeology and European Modernity: Producing and Consuming the ‘Minoans’, pp. 145-162. Edited by Y. Hamilakis and N. Momigliano. Creta Antica 7. Bottega d’Erasmo, Aldo Ausilio, Padua.

Hamilakis, Y. 2007. The Nation and its Ruins: Antiquity, Archaeology, and National Imagination in Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lyall, S. 2008. “Some Britons Too Unruly for Resorts in Europe.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/world/europe/24crete.html?ref=travel

Meskell, L. ed. 1998. Archaeology Under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. New York: Routledge.

Meskell, L. and P. Pels. eds. 2005. Embedding Ethics: Shifting Boundaries of the Anthropological Profession. Wenner-Gren International Symposium Series. Oxford: Berg.

Papadopoulos, J. 2005. "Inventing the Minoans: Archaeology, Modernity and the Quest for European Identity," Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 18: 87-149.

Thomas, J. 2004. Archaeology and Modernity. London: Routledge.

Tilley, C. 1989. “Archaeology as theatre.” Antiquity 63: 275-80.

Urry, J. 1990. The Tourists Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies. London: Sage Publications.