James Cuno. Who owns Antiquity? Museums and the battle over our ancient heritage.

James Cuno. Who owns Antiquity? Museums and the battle over our ancient heritage. JAMES CUNO. Who owns Antiquity? Museums and the battle over ourancient heritage, x1+228 pages, 6 illustrations. 2008. Princeton (NJ)& Oxford: Princeton University Princeton University,at Princeton, N.J.; coeducational; chartered 1746, opened 1747, rechartered 1748, called the College of New Jersey until 1896.Schools and Research Facilities Press; 978-0-691-13712-4 hardback$24.95. Cuno's book is easy to construe construev. to determine the meaning of the words of a written document, statute or legal decision, based upon rules of legal interpretation as well as normal meanings. as a recalcitrant or evenmischievous defence against restitution of antiquities from Westernmuseums. Since the argument--distended and flimsy in thisreviewer's opinion--conceals a worthy but more modest proposal, thefair approach is to pare it down to its main principles. Some of themost expressive artefacts ever made come from ancient China, Greece,Italy, Turkey, and the like. Commonly, they exhibit influences from manydifferent traditions. Some such pieces were intended to be admired andexchanged. Indeed, many are now in 'encyclopaedic museums',where anyone 'capable of being moved by beautiful works ofart' can gain 'global understanding' (pp. 157, xxxv).Assembled in the Louvre Louvre(l`vrə), foremost French museum of art, located in Paris. The building was a royal fortress and palace built by Philip II in the late 12th cent. , for example, are 'metalworks ... fromEgypt; Cycladic heads ... Roman silver ... Islamic ceramics ... and ofcourse the paintings of Renaissance Italy and ... modern monuments byDavid, Delacroix, Ingres ... (p. 156); or, likewise, the British Museum British Museum,the national repository in London for treasures in science and art. Located in the Bloomsbury section of the city, it has departments of antiquities, prints and drawings, coins and medals, and ethnography. ,or the Peabody Museums at Harvard and Yale Universities. Nationalistclaims jeopardise this type of collection; and, even though few aresupported by ancient history--how Turkish is 'Priam'sTreasure', for example, filched from Troy bySchliemann?--archaeologists collude col��lude?intr.v. col��lud��ed, col��lud��ing, col��ludesTo act together secretly to achieve a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose; conspire. with them in order to secureexcavation permits. Preserve this type of museum, then, from politicalexploitation; 'allow ... reasonable acquisition of unprovenancedantiquities' (p. xxxiv); and revive the kind of agreement forsharing finds between 'host' countries and foreign expeditionsthat once contributed to encyclopaedic Adj. 1. encyclopaedic - broad in scope or content; "encyclopedic knowledge"encyclopediccomprehensive - including all or everything; "comprehensive coverage"; "a comprehensive history of the revolution"; "a comprehensive survey"; "a comprehensive education" museums, to providing the veryexhibits most cherished in those countries, and to training localarchaeologists. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The book is centred on the USA bur Cuno styles himself an'internationalist' (p. 65). A diffusionist too, he likes thattopical word, 'hybridity'. He is right to detect nationalism;but, although it may be a mere 'accident of geography' (p.146) that finds are made in particular jurisdictions, he is largelymistaken to argue that jurisdiction is what preoccupies archaeologistsand to imply that 'host nations' still depend heavily onforeign expeditions. Much worse, he barely allows that, for mostfinds--including the Elgin Marbles, his opening example--it is noaccident that they come from particular sites. To overlook context iseither disingenuous or ignorant. Charity prefers to plead ignorance; but Cuno draws on extensive andvery diverse reading. Of course nationalism is regrettable and clearlypolitics have, indeed, muddied the issue. This should be reason enoughto avoid overwhelmingly antagonistic or simplistic sim��plism?n.The tendency to oversimplify an issue or a problem by ignoring complexities or complications.[French simplisme, from simple, simple, from Old French; see simple treatment,unfortunately evident here. UNESCO's conventions are criticisedlengthily as ineffective and counter-productive; trade restrictions donot prevent 'looting'; the USAs recent deliberations overconcessions to China are dismissed as commercial, as too the Chinesethemselves; Turkish policy on restitution is exhaustively rejected. Theprinciples of the International Council on Museums are ignored. Theauthor slips up on some details of recent scholarship and politics;--andhe certainly is ignorant about how archaeology is published. As for hiseditors, they missed repetitions, faulty prepositions and conjunctions,and produced an incomplete index, and misprints galore. Cuno claims that his case is about 'art'; but, even ifthere is art--let alone archaeology--that expresses itself adequatelywithout context, that is a false step. His advocacy is less aboutparticular exhibits than about the 'encyclopaeclic' typeofmuseums: 'Although' they 'are primarily in the West,does that discredit the principle ...?' (p. 144). Certainly not: weshould encourage them, as he declares (p. xxxiv), "everywhere, inboth the developed and the developing world'. So now let museums cooperate more in exchanges; and especially inshowing the most famous finds where they make best historical sense.Here are three suggestions. First, encourage recent experiments incultivating relations between museums and claimants to their holdings(Eaton & Gaskell 2009; Smith & Waterton 2009: 103-18). Second,undertake more agreements such as the British Museum's with China(2006-2009)--Assyrian 'treasures' from London to Shanghai for'terracotta warriors' and bronzes to London (the Chineseexhibitions were shown on the Continent too). Cuno does briefly expound ex��pound?v. ex��pound��ed, ex��pound��ing, ex��poundsv.tr.1. To give a detailed statement of; set forth: expounded the intricacies of the new tax law.2. this principle. To reduce the cost of insurance, travelling exhibitionsshould be indemnified by governments (such schemes exist in Canada andNew Zealand New Zealand(zē`lənd), island country (2005 est. pop. 4,035,000), 104,454 sq mi (270,534 sq km), in the S Pacific Ocean, over 1,000 mi (1,600 km) SE of Australia. The capital is Wellington; the largest city and leading port is Auckland. or within the USA). Third, keep the 'best' piecesas near as possible to where they were found. Conditions permitting(and, as Cuno makes sure to point out about Iraq, that can be difficultto assess), the scope for long-term loans should be investigated as amatter of principle--even if politicians, as in Egypt, threaten then tokeep them. Mexico, for one, does not demand the return of all'its' antiquities. For, displayed abroad, they arouse the kindof curiosity that Cuno rightly extols. N. JAMES Cambridge, UK References EATON, A.W. & I. GASKELL. 2009. Do subaltern artifacts belongin art museums? in J.O. Young & C. Brunk (ed.) The ethics ofcultural appropriation: 235-67. Oxford: Blackwell. SMITH, L. & E. WATERTON. 2009. Heritage, communities andarchaeology. London: Duckworth.