Treasures from Afghanistan (British Museum)

Afghanistan (3 March-3 July 2011) at the British Museum is an exploration of a country at the heart of an ancient crossroad, a rich pocket of colonies, Greeks, Kushan Kings and as bold bead on the necklace of the Silk route.

The sensuality of the Indian Ganga Goddess figurines from 1^st century Begram seem an audacious unveiling of the Burka-clad Afghan lady that epitomises present Western imaginings. In Afghanistan, seems the assertion, lived and breathed a culture every bit as celebratory of the female form as their surrounding Greek, Indian and Mesopotamian counterparts. During the introductory film at the beginning of the exhibition we are in fact told that people today in Afghanistan have fought to protect such objects of art from raids such as those conducted by the Taliban in 2001 on the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul. It is their “very act of silence that keeps the objects safe.” These elements combine to make us aware of a subtle political agenda. Despite the constantly expressed ideal that such objects from our past should be kept out of reach from political dissidents and viewed for what they are, vital clues in deciphering a collective human endeavour we cannot render these objects apolitical in that they are also inevitably signifiers of a Nation and National identity. As such, objects from the past are inevitably employed to both destructive and constructive ends in human conflict.  The display, destruction or interpretation of objects cannot help but communicate the ideals of those who have thus arranged them. Hence, in this sense the visitor is given a sense that this is another project aimed at liberating and democratising the East, only here it is through the salvation of the female form from its consignments in the people’s imaginings and the rescuing of Taliban slashed Greek images. This is a celebration and iconographic cementing of East West relations in union against the fundamentalist Islamic other.      

Riches of the Nomadic tribes. The folding golden crown, formed of beautifully crafted, individual leaves and flowers in worked (hammered) gold sheet, quivers upon its plinth as if an autumn bough in the breeze, touched by sunlight. It is left to the modern viewer to trace backwards in their mind and adorn an ancient wearer with such item and imagine the effect this may have created in a contemporary onlooker.

Looting is an issue that breaks all archaeologists’ hearts and poses a serious threat to historical heritage across the world. However, it is in itself a much more complex issue that would be suggested on the surface. After all, one cannot blame the war-devastated individuals who sell off their antiquities to a gluttonous Western Antiquities market to feed themselves or gain after so many losses. Morally we cannot condemn a situation we have partially created in countries like Iraq. Another perspective is that a heritage crises is preferable, however terrible, to the worse spectre of a humanitarian crises.  As an inspiring archaeologist I would still rather the loss of an ancient site if it would in any way alleviate the suffering of living people than loss of human life or wellbeing, though rarely does such a hypothetical situation arise and if so is more conceivable in the face of natural disaster.  The primary argument against looting I feel remains that the intrinsic value of an object is dwarfed by its importance as a piece in the jigsaw of our past and its context. Even so, paradoxically there is a danger that in condemning looting we are in some way still subjecting the use of a material past culture to our own fetishes and stunting the progression of human expression. Archaeology is a vehicle at the end of the day and not a destination. We do not arrive at the gateway of Meneas of stand on the steps of Ephesus and feel we have concluded our journey. The object is merely the beginning of an inner understanding of a past world we long for and can never fully conceive of. We attempt it mainly to facilitate our progression into the future and should it become a retrogression I would start to question the good of my discipline. Medieval people used Roman brick to reconstruct new buildings and we do not lament the removal of this brick from its original context, in fact it is a novel and interesting part of the archaeology, a riddle that delights us. I would condemn looting as much as the next person, but I have begun to question whether we are in danger of a beginning to treat a real threat as an ideological fad.

(to be completed...)