Spirit
Today I heard a First Nations elder speak. This was particularly convenient as I spent most of yesterday discussing the concept of being indigenous with undergraduate students. The subject is so very...
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What to do when the President's grandpa robbed your grandpa's grave and maybe...
Oh interesting! It seems as though Goyaale/Geronimo's descendants are suing for the return of his bones which are supposedly held by the Skull and Bones secret society at Yale. Apparently a Bush was...
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Living in the Iceage (twice removed)(poor Ian Curtis half-pun)
It has been a bit since I posted something here. I am still feeling it out I suppose. I've been having amazing conversations with students but where is the line? What can appear here?On my mind over...
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The right to isolation (and other empty promises)
Last night I was thinking about uncontacted peoples which, for some reason, I devote a surprising amount of time to...from time to time. Like many others I have a dark fascination with isolation. The...
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Invention and Reinvention: Perceptions and Archaeological Practice
Hot off the presses...several months ago, and otherwise respectable. This volume that I co-edited is a collection of papers focusing on personal perception and the practice of archaeology; how we...
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Everest: Good for the Sherpa? Good for my PhD?
It seems I am party to swirling momentary obsessions that cripple any attempt to do anything else. The internet is my enabler: I sit all day following the tendrils of information, staying up to all...
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Bones II
So a few blogs back I wrote a bit about the whole Geronimo/Skull and Bones deal. Little has happened since in that particular case and, frankly, I am not sure if anything interesting will happen....
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"The State of Recorded Sound Preservation in the United States: A National...
Way back in 2008 it was announced that squiggles (pictured left) from an obscure experimental transcription device from the mid 19th century were potentially playable. These preserved 'phonautograms',...
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As a side note
I have *just* submitted my PhD dissertation which means I am unemployed.Inspired job ideas/opportunities are always welcome. Near or far from archaeology, heritage, anthropology, museums, publishing,...
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Marie Antoinette Markers and Costume Continuity
I've always found 'dressing up' to be a remarkably complex activity. It is also weirdly divisive: love or hate, you are a dresser-upper or you are not. I don't really want to delve too far into the...
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Color Shock: Reality and Black and White Photos
As I fall into a swirl of sensory stimulation, I give more thanks to the Library of Congress for once again providing me imagination fuel.There is an inherent distance in early photography. Not to...
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Legends of Lost Cities: A Quest for Authenticity or Justification?
Lately I have been thinking a lot about lost cities. To be more specific, the popular fantasy that an 'intact', 'authentic' functioning 'ancient' city could exist just beyond the scope of modern sight...
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Also...
References as endnotes? No ma'am. I'm just not into that scene.I seem to depend more on the information conveyed through parenthetical referencing than I thought.'A crutch' you say? Two little curvy...
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Uncontacted Conquests
As I have discussed before, I spend either a surprising or unsurprising amount of time thinking about uncontacted people. Any time new aerial photographs of a group are released by the Brazilian...
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Libya: as the front advances
Perhaps this is a symtom of my distorted mental map of the Greek world, but until earlier this week I did not know that Cyrene was in Libya. Indeed, as I comb my drowsy (but now coffee-fed) brain, I...
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Point of discussion or point of concern?
Having just figured out how to access my visitor statistics, I found that the majority of visitors to this blog apparently come seeking photos of dead bodies on Mount Everest. Multiple thousands of...
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Pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin! Come, the croaking raven doth...
This week a few media outlets reported on a story that I had never thought about. Long story short: there are two known remaining samples of the smallpox virus (in Russia and the US) and they have been...
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Ode to Andean Leaders in Indigenous Garb
Over the weekend I got myself characteristically worked up about Perú's impending run-off election between "Cancer and AIDS" to quote Mario Vargas Llosa. To prevent myself from launching into a...
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Wild Wild Westism and War on Terror Rhetoric
The moment that the news broke (quietly) that Osama Bin Laden had been codenamed "Geronimo" during the operation that shuffled him off this mortal coil, I said "you've got to be kidding me". I actually...
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Changes in Altitude
Lately I have been working several days a week at a small museum that was once the home of a well-known 18th century individual who need not be named. A component of this work involves interacting with...
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The Glory of Bolivian Silent Film: Time Traveling Twice Over
Today is another day for silent film lust and desperation.Arthur Posnansky, everyone's favorite fantastic and fantastical Bolivian archaeologist, produced a silent film in 1926. Called La Gloria de la...
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Singing Inka Princesses of the 1950s
Incidentally, there appears to be a whole mysterious world out there filled with dynamic Indigenous-chic Peruvian singers from the 1950s which I did not know about.Part of the "exotica music" scene,...
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The Poe I didn't Know
This week I read The House of the Seven Gables for the first time and have been googling daguerrotypes like mad. As the first truly popular form of photography, these dark, stiff, and oddly emotive...
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Jonestown Vacation: Guyanese heritage?
The fella and I were talking about what we don't know this morning. Specifically, which countries in the world that we knew the least about. I decided that I probably knew the least about Uzbekistan...
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Image Organization: Getting Better
For quite some time I have let the image situation on my computer get out of hand. Most of what I do is visual and I tend to have glorious and useful photos pile up all over the place. I think this is...
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A Sister Blog: Dividing and Conquering
I have started a new blog!Property of an Anonymous Swiss Collector: Moderately learned commentary on looting, antiquities trafficking, and art crimeGrotesque Stone Idols is not going anywhere (and I...
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US/Bolivia MOU Extended!
I'm as happy as this adorable Bolivian child!The US/Bolivia MOU has been extended!I and many other people have been on the edge of our seats over this one since June. This was the first time that I...
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Puritan Dilemma: A 17th Century Salem settler and a 1991 murder
"History is the story of events, with praise or blame." - Cotton MatherI've never fully understood the general obsession we have with familial genealogy. Intellectually, I accept that it is part of...
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UNESCO Status: Is Delisting an Effective Deterrent? Also, Herbie Hancock.
The UNESCO World Heritage List. It has existed for decades. It contains nearly 1000 sites and areas. It has a pretty snazzy (and useful) iphone ap. I've worked full-time at a World Heritage Site and...
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The Cerebroteca: Brains in jars for learning? For fun?
I've been to Lima four times, but only twice did I leave the airport and only once was I there for more than 12 hours. Under those circumstances it shouldn't be a surprise that I have only visited two...
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Screaming Mummies and Stolen Paintings: Is this why people collect human...
(cross posted on Property of an Anonymous Swiss Collector)Lately I have been on a art-crime reading kick. Nothing fancy, just popular non-fiction about art theft in my lighter or lazy moments. Such...
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The Lady Eve: 1940s Amazoniana
The Lost World (1925): Silent Film, South America, and Dinos. YES Please!It should come as no surprise that I thrive on historic western impressions of the Amazon. I don't think I have much scholarly...
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Update: Location, Research and Ideas
Although I don't particularly like this blog to swing into the personal, I have been told by a person wiser than myself that I should be a bit more forthcoming about where I am at and why. He is right....
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Cultural Continuity
Now for a dose of heritage and modernity:Feast Day at Tiahuanaco, Bolivia (postcard from 1910) Feast Day at Tiwanaku, Bolivia (photograph from 2005)The first is on sale on ebay and I long to buy it. I...
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Introducing the Trafficking Culture Website
Finally, finally I get to show you folks the website for the University of Glasgow's Trafficking Culture project! Direct your browsers to:http://traffickingculture.orgI think the real gem of the whole...
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Baktuns, The End of the World, Conceptions of the Future, and Being a...
At the moment I am so deep into vacation that I can't bear to look at anything but non-challenging novels and crosswords in the local paper, but I am sure you mighty heritage bloggers out there have...
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Lord of the Rings remains and A Very Hobbit Christmas in Middle Earth
I am often in New Zealand...at least more often than I am in various other places. While here I tend to think about three things: the global and local Indigenous movement(s), the maintenance of a...
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Excavating digitally with images. Also a bit of time travel.
These are fast times, amigos, fast times. Fast times for a (archaeol)(crimn)(soci)(whatever)-ologist who spends much of her day looking up photos of old stuff and people messing around with old stuff...
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Walmart and the destruction of Mexican Heritage
I have just written a guest post for Union Solidarity International about the construction of a Walmart at the World Heritage Site of Teotihuacán near Mexico City in 2004. The New York Times has...
View ArticleTwo Flip Board Magazines
I am experimenting with Flip Board Magazines. If you are a Flip Board user and want some slightly curated content on cultural property issues, art crime, and antiquities trafficking check out:Anonymous...
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"Plunder to Preservation" from the Oxford University Press (with chapter by me!)
A chapter by me appears in a new book released this month by the Oxford University Press.From Plunder to Preservation Britain and the Heritage of Empire, c.1800-1940, Edited by Astrid Swenson and Peter...
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Ancient Andean fruit review 1: The tastiest heritage
I love Bolivia. This country is the most intricate, fascinating, and surprising place. I am delighted to be back in La Paz for the next five weeks. My broader plans are unclear beyond "writing"....
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Ancient Andean fruit review 2: La fruta se disfruta
As stated in my last entry, I am in the passionate throes of a love affair with Andean fruit that is depicted in ancient art. I spend my mornings roaming the markets of La Paz looking for my beloved...
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High Crimes: Studying the Illicit Antiquities Trade in the Bolivian Andes...
Yesterday I participated in the Day of Archaeology. I and several hundred others like me wrote about what our life and job are like on one day. Here is an excerpt:Although I am a trained field...
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Don't try crowd-funding a PhD; OR Your colleagues don't like it when you ask...
I don't usually deviate far from my normal heritage/archaeology/illicit antiquities topics but I am fresh from an interesting twitter conversation and I think it might be good to get some thoughts out...
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Public shaming of unpaid internships in archaeology, heritage, and museums
This post has been a long time coming but I will try to make it as brief and as personal as possible.Like a lot of archaeology and heritage folks in my general age group I have become quite...
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Blessings of the "dark" Virgin of the lake OR Copacabana, where the cars wear...
Copacabana from Calvary Hill. Recent posts were grumbly and dissatisfied so I thought I would get back to (questionable) reality and focus on some heritage. I've spent the past two months in Bolivia...
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Einstein and the Hopi
Mr. and Mrs. Einstein at Hopi House, 1931Earlier today I posted a photo on twitter that I came across. It shows Albert Einstein with a group of Hopi at Hopi House near the Grand Canyon in 1931. I’ve...
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Save Wellington's Cone: An appeal for the preservation of living tradition...
I am sure that I will write a longer entry on the topic soon. For now, sign our petition to Save Wellington’s Cone!We are appalled to read...
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Preserving a traffic cone: Glasgow's statue topping tradition is under threat.
What is heritage? Is it the physical remains of the past? The literal, tangible objects of art? The physical bits of culture? Or is it how we experience them, interact with them…how we incorporate...
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