The Destructiveness of Archaeology

After last weekend's trip to Pompeii (an ancient town that was covered in ash during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. which kept it well preserved until its excavation starting in 1748), Herculaneum (another ancient town preserved in a mudslide that resulted from the same eruption of Mt. Vesuvius), the National Archaeological Museum in Naples (where much of the orginial artefacts from the 2 previous sites can be seen), and Mt. Vesuvius itself, I finally feel like I have enough to say about archaeology to make a post out of it. For my non-anglophone readers, I've decided to make this a multilingual post; for my uni-lingual readers, you can always add a bit of humour to your day with an online translator.

Alors, pour commencer, depuis que j'ai commencé mes fouilles ici en Italie, j'ai entendu dire a maintes reprises que l'archéologie est destructive. La première fois, j'étais un peu surpris, mais j'ai vite compris ce qu'on voulait dire: en faisant nos fouilles, on enlève les trouvailles de leurs contextes originaux faisant en sorte que l'information que quelqu'un d'autre peut tirer des trouvailles est minime. Si, par exemple, en faisant nos fouilles on enlève un morceau de céramique d'une chambre sans s'en rendre compte, dès qu'elle se trouve dans notre tas de refus, on ne peut m^eme plus savoir si la jarre vien de l'édifice dans laquelle on faisait nos fouilles. Elle pourrait provenir de n'importe où dans le champs dans lequel on travaille et avoir été déplacée par une charrue.

At the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, I saw another way in which archaeology can be destructive: once an archaeological site has be excavated, it is prone to decay (buildings falling over, frescoes losing their colour because of UV damage, etc.) and, I am disgusted to say, grafitti. Unfortunately, there seem to have been economic reasons, such as tourism, that have driven the excavation of a larger area that could preserved and protected at both sites and so every day, the less and less of the original ruins are available for viewing, and more importantly, for study.

Por esta destructividad, dicen que en la arqueologIa del futuro no van a excavar nada. En vez, estAn desarollando tecnologIas que permiten sacar la misma informaciOn sobre ruinas y artefactos a travEs la radiolocalizaciOn, etc. PuEs mientras que la tecnologIa se mejora, la misma informaciOn serA siempre disponible.

Well, that was only the first of a few archaeological topics I hope to touch on, but I have to run so the rest will have to wait until another time.