Jacquelyn H. Clements
photography + archaeology
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Storify: Researching Ownership Histories at the Toronto AIA, 2017

5/16/2018

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A twitter thread from #aiascs Session 7I: Researching Ownership Histories for Antiquities in Museum Collections, Sunday, January 8, 2017. I blogged about the panel last year, but with the demise of Storify, I have decided to archive the tweets here: 

I livetweeted this session in order to highlight some of the key points that were made during the workshop. Because each of the talks turned out to be quite captivating, I was rather minimalistic in my thoughts.

Interested in the long lives of antiquities? Come to Session 7I: Researching Ownership Histories at the #aiascs tomorrow, 8 am, City Hall.

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 7, 2017
The opening remarks were given by David Saunders, Associate Curator of Antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Villa:

@GettyMuseum has been fortunate to be able to invest so much in provenance research. How can museums w/ less resources follow suit? #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Focus of this panel will be on objects already in museum collections, rather than acquisition policies #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017
Next came the series of speakers, followed by an open floor discussion.
​
1) Paul Denis, Royal Ontario Museum, "Verifying a Provenance"

Paul Denis from @ROMtoronto is first on recent acquisitions and verifying provenance. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Denis states the importance of having auction catalogues in museum libraries for verifying provenance. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

If an auction piece can be viewed sufficiently ahead of time, one can research fully & properly before purchase, says Denis #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017
(a couple of interjections of my own thoughts)

Digitized online archives are a rich resource for researching provenance. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

What's the ratio of museum professionals vs archaeologists in this audience? #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017
2) Seth Pevnick, Tampa Museum of Art, "The Tampa Poseidon & The Shugborough Neptune"

2nd speaker, Seth Pevnick, on the @TampaMuseumArt and J.V. Noble collection #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Specifically, Noble's research into purchase of a statue of Neptune. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Again, provenance research is aided by online collections, now those of the @britishmuseum #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Provenance research is diligent about going back far more than the 1970 UNESCO standards. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Find as much history as possible. Close the gaps. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017
3) Ann Blair Brownlee, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, "Collectors of Greek and Etruscan Vases in 19th Century Philadelphia"

3rd speaker Ann Brownlee on @pennmuseum collections. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Brownlee taught a grad seminar on collectors and donors to explore issues of provenance in the collection. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Was Beazley the 1st provenance researcher? On a Berlin P vase @ Penn that he traced its history. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017
The answer is no - but perhaps he was the most prolific:

(Probably not, but it would be a fun historiography project!) #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017
4) Judith Barr, J. Paul Getty Museum, "The Pitfalls and Possibilities of Provenance Research: Historic Collections and the Art Market in the 20th Century"

Judith Barr from @GettyMuseum is next on possibilities for provenance research #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Challenge of researching objects sold together that do or don't belong together #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Barr illustrates the remarkable difference before and after provenance research for filling in the gaps. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Barr emphasizes the careful consideration, patience, and serendipity of provenance research #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017
5) Phoebe Segal, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, "'Said to be From': best practices for using unscientific find-spot information"

Phoebe Segal from @mfaboston on best practices for findspot terminology is next! #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

has its own Provenance Curator - are there other museums that have one? #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

What is our obligation to share info about provenance and how should it be done? In installations? In outreach? #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017
6) Amy Brauer, Harvard Art Museums, "Refining Provenance: Harvard's Road to Transparency"

Next is Amy Brauer from @harvartmuseums on responses to illicit trade and evolution of practices in transparency post-1970.

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Harvard's yearly publication, "Gifts & Bequests: A Policy Statement" led to a need for set of rigorous guidelines. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Guidelines are down to the precise date of UNESCO - November 17, 1970. Not just the year. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Brauer demonstrates how TMS is used for text strings of provenance that can be filled in fully before any acquisition #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Everyone agrees on the need for standard, consistent language of provenance and documentation in research #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

I agree, an ontology is vital for consistency. Not to mention RDF and LOD models so this info can be accessible. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017
7) Caroline Rocheleau, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The Stratigraphy of Provenance"

Penultimate speaker, Caroline Rocheleau, on Egyptian antiquities research. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017
I had to duck out of the room for a few minutes, and after I returned, I was slightly distracted in trying to find the twitter handle for the North Carolina Art Museum (my bad), so I unfortunately missed a large part of Caroline's talk:

Rocheleau is from @ncartmuseum

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Emphasis for provenance info to be available beyond scholarly catalogues #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017
8) John Hopkins, Rice University, on the Collections Analysis Collaborative (without a powerpoint to look at, I found it a bit easier to tweet this talk):

Last but not least is John Hopkins from @RiceUniversity on the Collections Analysis Collaborative (CAC) at @MenilCollection #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

Hopkins stresses the CAC's role as both research but also educational - 2 universities + 1 museum collaborative #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

All are on the same side - academics AND museums, despite what the rhetoric sometimes suggests. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

An MOU was drawn up early as part of the process of collaboration and transparency #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

The CAC as the 1st time for museum professionals and academics to speak openly, frankly, and positively about orphaned objects #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

There is a mutual understanding of the work that can and needs tone done. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017
I ended with a couple more thoughts of my own:

Curators demonstrate phenomenal care for specific objects. I love, love, love this field. #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017

I have more to write re; "Researching Ownership Histories;" I took notes by hand during the discussion. It was an enlightening panel #aiascs

— Jacquelyn Clements (@peripatesis) January 8, 2017
And this is where I stopped tweeting in order to concentrate on the open floor discussion. For more thoughts, visit my blog post about the session here. 

But, wait! Most of the papers from this panel have just been published, so you can now read them in full, in addition to two other panels from the AIA Toronto, all pertaining to the history of collecting and provenance of antiquities.


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Friday Bookshelf

4/20/2018

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The number of books on my bookshelf at work is quickly becoming unwieldy, so I've decided to endeavor to get through five books a week - if nothing else to browse through them and learn some new things. On the shelf this week:

1) Treasures Untraced: An Inventory of the Italian Art Treasures Lost During the Second World War (Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Rome, 1995)

I actually can't remember why I requested this book. I think perhaps because I've been reading Simon Goodman's The Orpheus Clock and have become really interested in the looting of art during the Nazi occupation in World War II. There's not just Classical art in this volume listing hundreds of objects stolen during the war, but art of all time periods. Since this is an inventory of objects still missing, it would be interesting to see if this list could be shorted now that it's been twenty years since its publication. 

2) Periplous: Papers on Classical Art & Archaeology Presented to Sir John Boardman (ed. G.R. Tsetskhladze et al., Thames & Hudson 2000).

I've actually been long familiar with this volume of articles compiled in honor of John Boardman. On this occasion, I picked it up for a specific article, François Lissarrague's "A Sun-Struck Satyr in Malibu" (p. 190-97). I noticed this fabulous little fragment (85.AE.188) on display in the new Athenian vases gallery at the newly remodelled Getty Villa the other week. Lissarrague gave me some good chat on the inscription uttered by the masturbating satyr, which he translates to "I see two suns," and its possible meaning of "a dazzling light, a luminous phenomenon which, for the Greeks, marks an overwhelming abundance of life" (196). Isn't it a great fragment? 
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(above) Attic red-figure kalpis fragment, attributed to the Kleophrades Painter, c. 500-480 BCE
​(JPGM 85.AE.188). Image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program.
3) The Object in Context: Crossing Conservation Boundaries (The International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works [IIC], 2006)

Despite being far more conservation-heavy than myself, I picked up this collection of articles from a 2006 conference in Munich for an article by Getty colleagues Erik Risser and Jens Dahener, "A Pouring Satyr from Castel Gandolfo: History and Conservation (190-96)." I've been looking at this sculpture as it's the centerpiece of a new gallery at the Getty Villa devoted to Collecting and Provenance, and I wanted to see the history of its conservation in relation to its provenance. I was then delighted to see an interesting article Jens' and Erik's, "LACMA's Classical Sculpture Collection Reconsidered - Again" (by Batyah Shtrum), that goes into the Hope and Lansdowne collections at LACMA - more provenance, and connections to the Getty, that I will eagerly explore. So I might be keeping this one for awhile.

4) A History of the Western Art Market: A Sourcebook of Writings on Artists, Dealers, and Markets (ed. T. Hulst, University of California Press, 2017)

Fresh in from ILL, this volume shares snippets of many historical writings pertaining to the art market, from different times and geographical regions and a variety of perspectives amongst dealers, collectors, artists, and art historians. It looks like a rich resource, especially given its contemporary discussions. I will recommend it to collections development in the GRI; it should probably be a part of the Collecting & Provenance section of the library.

5) The Frame in Classical Art: A Cultural History (ed. V. Platt and M. Squire, Cambridge, 2017)

Someone recalled this from me, so I'll need to return it before I've looked through it as in-depth as I would like. Thirteen essays - each section has its own introduction, too - explore the theme of the frame, both in two- and three-dimensional art but also in the world of texts. Not surprisingly, many of these discussions of frames are metaphorical, discussing the narrative and visual choices of ancient artists in creating their areas of focus, as well as the afterlives of display and context. It's a rich volume, no doubt, and I look forward to exploring it more (when I recall it back, ha).
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More on the Knoedler-Kann Roman Lamp

3/16/2018

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In last week's post, I looked at a Roman lamp in M. Knoedler's stock book that was sold to Alphonse Kann. I have a few more pieces to add to this puzzle. First, the sale of the lamp is recorded in a second Knoedler source, his sales book. I found this because the stock book provided the page number of the sales book. Here's a screen cap of Knoedler Sales Book 10, page 164 (I was able to infer the sales book number because of the year [1913]):
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(above) Detail of Knoedler Sales Book 10, page 164
Hurrah for more pertinent information - the "9" at the top of the page indicates the day of June that the lamp was sold. In the stock book, only the month of June had been recorded. 

Even better, this record gives more information about the material of the lamp - it was bronze, not the more common and expected terracotta. A bronze Roman lamp - great.

What are the next steps? For one, I requested a copy of the original purchase of the lamp made by Knoedler: that from Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge, earlier in 1913. Lo and behold, a couple of bronze lamps are listed for sale from the Egyptian collection of Robert de Rustafjaell, Esq., British collector and fellow of the Royal Geological Society:
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(above) Pages from the 1913 sale of Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge

(right) Bronze lamps, including one from the Hilton-Price collection

​Is it possible that no. 533 is the bronze lamp that Knoedler bought and then sold to Alphonse Kann?
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I also thought I'd check out one of the sales catalogues of Kann's collection from 1927. Alas, despite being a very attractive catalogue, I couldn't find any Roman lamps, neither listed nor photographed. Had Kann sold or given this lamp away before or after he left France for England in 1938, escaping WWII?

(left) 1927 catalogue of the auction of Alphonse Kann's antiquities

The final step - for now - in this little journey was to search the ERR Jeu de Paume database. This website documents the Cultural Plunder of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), a "Special Task Force" of Hitler that looted art objects from French and Belgian collections during WWII. Had Kann left the lamp in France when he fled his home, it may be listed in here. Indeed, there are over 1600 objects associated with Kann in the database, and well over 200 with the tag of "Antiquities." 

But no Roman lamp. Yet.
I did, however, find an incredibly cute lamp in the shape of a mouse (?? I'm not sold on that description) from the Near East, dated to the 9th-11th cent. AD that was once part of Kann's collection [Ka 131], and with that I'll end this story - for now. The database entry includes a note that it was to be auctioned in Paris in February 2017, and one can only imaging the new travels it will have embarked on since then.

​The mystery of the Roman lamp bought by Knoedler and sold to Kann remains unsolved, but the journey and the pieces I've stitched together have, I hope, been at least somewhat enlightening for seeing the challenges (and rewards!) of tracing antiquities provenance. In the meantime, I'd love to hear any thoughts and comments you might have. There are so many avenues to travel in provenance research, and so much more to explore.
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(right) Mouse-shaped (??) bronze oil lamp
from the Near East, 9th-11th cent. AD.
​Formerly Alphonse Collection, Paris.




​

​
ETA: For a great video and text outlining the importance of the ERR documents for the restitution of works stolen during WWII, read here.


​My thanks to Judith Barr and David Saunders for their
​ helpful suggestions in researching and writing these posts.
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A "Roman Lamp" sold by M. Knoedler to A. Kann

3/11/2018

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One of my major projects as a Research Assistant at the Getty Research Institute is compiling a concordance of stock numbers that the art dealer M. Knoedler used for works of art that he bought and sold. Since Knoedler would often use multiple numbers for the same object as it came into and went out of his stock (sometimes purchasing and selling it multiple times), I am building a concordance of associated numbers that will aid in the transformation of this material into Linked Open Data. 

Most of Knoedler’s transactions were in paintings and sculpture, and rarely do we see antiquities. But as a Classicist, my ears perk up every time I come across a Greek or Roman artifact. I’ve only seen a handful of them in the six out of eleven books I’ve worked on so far, perhaps fewer than a dozen in total. But I found one the other day: a Roman lamp that was sold to a well-known WWII-era art collector of Jewish descent by the name of Alphonse Kann, whose collection was looted by the Nazis after he fled from France to England in 1938. Here's the record from the Getty's Dealer Stock Books:
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This example illustrates well the problem with tracking antiquities provenance in terms of incomplete information.

The data above comes from a transcription from the stock books, and I include two screen caps below from the two sides of the page: the first shows us that Knoedler purchased a Roman lamp from Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodges (the name under which Sotheby's was known between 1864 and 1924) on January 22, 1913, for 1.8 pounds. Below that, the right side of the ledger records his sale of it to A[lphonse] Kann in June of 1913.
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(above) Transaction record of Knoedler's purchase of the lamp from Sotheby's in January 1913 for 1.8 pounds
(below) Transaction record of Knoedler's sale of the lamp to A. Kann in June 1913 for 20 pounds
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This was clearly a good sale for Knodler. The lamp was in his stock for only six months, and he sold it for 10 times the price for which he purchased it. But beyond this, the context is lost. "Roman lamp" tells us little more than what the object is. Typical of antiquities, there's no artist's name to attach to this object. Its archaeological context is not given. Its provenance prior to Sotheby's is unknown. Its decoration, shape, and style are all missing.
​
Where did the object go once Kann acquired it? Part of my interest in tracking antiquities provenance is building complete histories for an object from the time of their excavation to their current location. Seemingly, this can't be done in this case. Kann's name also stood out to me because the Getty owns a Roman sculpture object associated with his name: A portrait head of a Roman woman from the 2nd century AD.
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(above) JPGM 78.AA.332, a Roman portrait head from the 2nd century AD
The Getty's collections pages (a rich source of provenance information, which I've screencapped above) provide us with the information, via a Christie's sale catalogue, that this portrait passed from Kann to a private collection, whereby it was bought and donated to the Getty museum in 1978 by Milton and Pat Gottlieb. 

There's no reason to link these two objects together, of course. But by showing you the Knoedler stock book of his sale to Kann of a Roman lamp, and diving into the provenance data of the Getty's collections pages, we can see two ways of tracing the histories of ancient objects. Neither is as complete as I would like. The Roman lamp is missing so much pertinent information - an archaeological context, previous ownership history before Sotheby's, its whereabouts after it entered Kann's collection (including to whom he may have sold it), and even its dimensions, material, and decoration, that it might be virtually impossible to trace. The next steps for me would be to delve into the auction catalogues associated with Kann's name: the one above for the Roman portrait from 1978 might be of some use, as well as later sales of works of art associated with his collection. I may not get very far with this, given the incomplete nature of the lamp's description, but we'll see. So, stay tuned!

​ETA: See here for a second post on this topic!
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Of lemon blossoms and kaimaki, or, Springtime in Athens

5/21/2017

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It’s the small things in Athens during April: the touch of my feet on the ground upon embarking the tiny Aegean Airlines plane from Heathrow, the freshness in the air of the Attic countryside that quickly turns to choking gasoline fumes as the X95 barrels toward Syntagma. Of traipsing through the Kerameikos, losing count of the number of tortoises hidden amongst the red poppies and the slight aggravation of listening to tourists who are confused about how an archaeological site can also be a cemetery at the same time.
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Tortoise in the Kerameikos
This final trip I made sure to stop at one of the best ice cream places I know, on Nikis in Syntagma, directly across from the Jewish Museum and down the street from the excellent vegetarian restaurant Avocado. The Greek woman who runs the little παγωτό shop Cremino is a delight - she speaks just a bit of English, so trips to Cremino are always a welcome opportunity to practice my Greek. And Cremino has an ice cream type I’ve not encountered anywhere else: it’s called καϊμάκι. Similar to the Turkish dondurma, it is made from a mastic resin that makes it slightly chewy. In addition, a scoop is just a 1,90 euro. It’s small, but a perfect little post-lunch or dinner treat.

I went in for my usual καϊμάκι, but I noticed another flavour on the board: lemonanthoi. And thus proceeded a lively Greek conversation about the lemon blossoms out on the streets of Athens that percolate and permeate my senses in my wanderings during the Spring and early Summer. Turns out, the lady who runs the shop makes all of her ice cream from scratch (which I already knew), and she opened the fridge to show me a fresh handful of lemon blossoms. I felt that weakness in my knees that only Athens knows how to do so well: that everything in Greece collides in beauty, its roughness, its difficulties, its persistence. Lemon blossoms, orange blossoms: they are abundant in Athens this time of year, usually buzzing with bees and not too far from the jasmine.
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Bees in the blossoms
And in ice cream form? It’s just lovely. Coupled with the καϊμάκι, it was the very essence of Athens in Spring.
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Cats in a box
And best of all? Wandering out and back down Nikis toward Syntagma, ice cream cone in hand, I discovered a pile o’cats in a box. Well-cared-for cats are a rarity in Athens, so it warmed my heart to see these snugly boysies.
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The Oldest House In Athens

5/8/2017

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I've recently returned from a brief visit to Athens. In just a week, I saw a lot of the city that I know and love, but also some new places. One of the great delights of Athens is the ability to stumble upon things that you don't expect. My last day in town before an evening flight back to London was no exception.

I was wandering through the Plaka, on the hunt for some last-minute knickknacks and on my way from the Agora to a new/old cafe I wanted to try (Kimolia Art Cafe, in case you're wondering, and yes, it's lovely) and I saw a sign for the "Oldest House in Athens." I had to check it out - and I discovered the Benizelou Mansion, aka the House of St. Philothei. It's located at 96 Adrianou Street, and I had a dim recollection of seeing the house from the backside on a walking tour of Athens last summer. It apparently underwent years of renovation and has just this February opened to the public.

The house is the oldest surviving house of the Ottoman period in Athens, having belonged to the illustrious Benizelos family. The archontiko (wooden mansion), also referred to as a konaki (urban house) is built atop earlier structures of the 16th century that are said to have been the house of St. Philothei, a family ancestor. A spacious, airy courtyard gives way to rooms for daily life and semi-enlcosed spaces, which could be modified for various purposes.

The "museum" is impressive - open, light, and accessible. There are two floors, and interpretive screens (not all of them working yet) in several rooms provide insights into life in Ottoman Athens. I couldn't see the entire house, since it was almost closing time and they were shutting it down room by room, but what I did see was a great way of experiencing the home of a noble family of the mid-18th century. Most impactful was the inclusion of not only signage in Greek and English, but in Braille as well (see the images in the slideshow).

Best of all, entrance is free, but note the limited hours of the museum: right now, it is only open on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10 am to 1 pm and Sundays from 11 am to 4 pm. I couldn't find much info about the Benizelou Mansion online, so hopefully this will serve as a short guide for travelers in Athens wanting to learn more about this fascinating time period of the city, to which the opening of the Benizelou Mansion is a welcome addition.
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AIA/SCS Round-Up: Researching Ownership Histories

1/25/2017

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Some post-AIA thoughts on Session 7I: Researching Ownership Histories for Antiquities in Museum
Collections.

This was a different AIA/SCS for me: usually, I see as many papers as possible, delving into the two programs and tracing intricate paths between sessions and rooms. But this year, I went to just three full panels: the two I co-organized on Friday regarding objects in focus from the Royal Ontario Museum’s collections, and a third on Sunday on object provenances. I’ll need to think more about the ROM objects panels (including my own paper on Sylvia Hahn’s work over four decades as the ROM’s Staff Artist), but that is for another time. Instead, my post today will concentrate on Session 7I: Researching Ownership Histories for Antiquities in Museum Collections, which was held on Sunday, 8 January.

The panel was just one of several at the AIA that dealt with provenance, collecting histories, and issues of best practices for cultural heritage. Others included Session 2J, "Classics, Classical Archaeology, and Cultural Heritage: Toward a Common Understanding of Professional Responsibilities for the Study of 'Exceptional Objects'" on Friday, and Session 6C, "Collecting and Presenting the Etruscans in North America" on Saturday. Moderated by David Saunders of the Getty, the Sunday session’s description, taken from the AIA program, is as follows:

“Building on the success of museum-related panels at recent annual meetings, the AIA Museums and Exhibitions Committee has organized a workshop on current approaches to provenance research. In light of numerous high-profile legal cases and repatriations, together with the policies developed by the Association of Art Museum Directors and the American Alliance of Museums, there is a growing expectation that museums should make available the ownership histories of their objects in a full and clear manner. Many institutions are actively engaged in online documentation projects for their antiquities, and this workshop will explore some of the methods and results, as well as challenges and pitfalls. Researching ownership histories for ancient objects has not received the investment seen for the World War II era, and institutions often lack the resources to undertake this work in a sustained fashion. Furthermore, information in museum files is often speculative or unconfirmed, and discussions regarding the best ways of presenting such information are much needed. Through a series of case studies addressing Greek, Roman, Etruscan, Egyptian, and ancient Near Eastern artifacts, the participants will explore a broad variety of themes: objects for which ownership information has been “lost” and methods and resources for recovering it; the organization of research projects and the development of common standards; the value of terms such as “said to be”; and how the nuances and ambiguities so often inherent in this subject can be presented meaningfully to scholars, students, school groups, and the general public. More broadly, we hope that this workshop will encourage more open conversation among diverse museum professionals, academics, and field archaeologists with a view to developing guidelines and models for this work that can be shared across the community. A series of short papers will be presented from a variety of museum professionals and academics.”

(Why is this description only available in the pdf program? Why can’t abstracts be put up online in a searchable format? And why do only workshops get descriptive paragraphs in the program, whilst individual abstracts are relegated to a separate publication? - random thoughts from your local digital humanist, disgruntled with the conference app and flipping through multiple books and pages)

I decided to live-tweet the series of lightning talks, mostly in order to get word out regarding the topics at hand, which were unfortunately not published individually in the AIA program (since it was a workshop). I then compiled the series of tweets in a Storify narrative here, including the names of the speakers as well as their presentation titles. How effective is tweeting and Storify? I always feel a bit self-conscious tweeting whilst someone else is speaking (lest anyone think I’m playing on my phone), but my hope was to get the word out about the workshop in real time and with the #aiascs hashtag. With 140 characters or less, however, it was challenging to summarize the thoughts of the speakers on my phone (my laptop was being used for the presentations, so I had to resort to the Twitter app on my phone). Yet Twitter and Storify provided a concise, succinct narrative to the “order of things” and the topics most prominent in the panel. The speakers highlighted issues pertinent to their own collections in various museums throughout the country. A number of themes emerged, such as the continual investment in the improvement of provenance data, the desire to see that information made accessible, and the focus on particular objects or groups of objects within the museum context that have been and often still are in need of sustained study and analysis.

After the series of lightning talks, I stopped tweeting and took freehand notes in order to concentrate on the discussion. I was struck by how many of the people in the room were from museum contexts, and there were less from university/academic settings. How different would the course of the conversation have been if it were more balanced (of course, I could simply be wrong in my knowledge of who was in the room, and a number of attendees had one foot in each world, such as myself)? Nevertheless, it was a stimulating discussion for all present, fruitful with ideas and individual case studies with overarching themes. Here are a few additional bullet point take-aways from the open floor conversation:

  • Transparency is key to provenance research. How can object histories be not only a part of online catalogues of objects, but also be brought into the stories we tell in exhibitions and installations? That way, the public can be contributors to the discussion of cultural heritage, and learn that objects have histories beyond their excavation: collection, movement, storage, and display all become part of the object’s narrative life cycle.
  • What words do we use to describe provenance and provenience? “Said to be from” is hardly sufficient in giving a secure findspot, but often, not much more can ever be known due to uncontrolled excavation practices that were more common in the past. Along with this, the pressure to shorten labels and limit information in the museum itself makes it difficult to be transparent and all-inclusive. How can curators do a better job at creating onion-like layers of accessible information, through publication, online resources, novel technologies, and the like?
  • The legal issues surrounding antiquities collecting by museums were not discussed extensively, perhaps because this was more a panel about legally acquired objects (mostly those acquired before the 1970 UNESCO convention guidelines) that were in need of further study in order to make their ownership histories more clear - yet I was quite taken by how much audience members were interested in legal issues (like the Elgin marbles, issues of looting and illegal activity are always hot topics). There’s immense variation in individual institutional structures within the museum, as well as the laws of various countries, that makes this an even more complicated issue, and legal considerations often must be discussed on a case-by-case basis.
  • We also discussed the benefits of collaborating and communicating with World War II and Nazi-era provenance researchers, as there has been extensive work done within this particular time frame (see, for example, the Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal; a number of American museums also have their own WWII provenance research pages). The challenges of this underscore the unique tasks of studying antiquities, such as  the lack of systematic assessment in their descriptions in auction and dealer catalogues. Objects from antiquity are invariably described as “a woman’s head” or “a predynastic pot,” for example, making it particularly hard to trace their histories. Nazi-era provenance research, however, is often tied to specific artists, such as known painters or sculptors; antiquities provenance research does not share that luxury.
  • What is the role of student involvement in doing provenance research? At the Menil (from which the Collections Analysis Collaborative stems) and at Penn, for example, undergraduate and graduate students regularly undertake provenance research as part of their coursework and are active participants in shaping this line of research; the Boston MFA also has a Mellon fellow working on provenance. What are some models we can use to encourage and support research into ownership histories moving forward?

In sum, this was a rich panel with an intelligent range of speakers from a variety of museums. What was most promising to me, however, was the intense care and concern that curators exhibit for individual objects within their respective collections. This isn’t particularly surprising, but the panel really brought to light the enormous task curators face in dealing with orphaned and undocumented objects, and the exactitude with which their research into these objects is undertaken to learn their stories. With persistence, the trend of examining the life histories of objects from their creation to their acquisition will be one that only augments from here on out.
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Aristotle at Stageira

5/27/2016

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I'm already tired of hearing about Aristotle's tomb, but in skimming this article in Greek (which seems to be one of the most comprehensive), I think I'm able to decipher the following (native/more fluent Greek speakers, correct me if I'm wrong):
  • "...the teacher of Alexander the Great, Aristotle" - first paragraph, and I can already see where this is going
  • The monument was discovered over 20 years ago, but couldn't be fully excavated at the time due to lack of funding.
  • There have been no osteological finds.
  • There have been no identifying inscriptions found.
  • The monument's location in the city seems to be the primary indicator of its purpose.
  • There's criticism that the "findings" (what are they again?) were presented at a philosophical conference rather than an archaeological one.
  • Via the Guardian: "A team of independent archaeologists with no connection to a particular school or department have been working at the site." - how exactly does that work in Greece??

I'm all in favor of news about the Classical world piquing the interest of non-Classicists and the public, and for discoveries to be made open in a timely manner. But it just seems sloppy to create a maelstrom of English-language media sources that say very little, perpetuate rumor, and fuel the fires of nationalism (because really, this, like the Kasta Tomb, is part and parcel of the never-ending discussion of FYROM and what constitutes "Macedonian" and "Greek" identities).

Enough already. Show us the evidence. Publish properly and publish carefully. 

ETA: rogueclassicism has done a nice job of summing up the news sources so far, with similar skepticism. 
ETA, redux: I excavated Sismanidis' abstract from the conference website, and Kristina Killgrove has written a good Forbes article that quotes me - thanks!
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In Support of the Digital Humanities

5/3/2016

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A recent critique of the field of “Digital Humanities” ("Neoliberal Tools (and Archives): A Political History of Digital Humanities") by Daniel Allington, Sarah Brouillette, and David Golumbia in the Los Angeles Review of Books attributes the (hardly recent) phenomenon of DH scholarship as a contributing force in the "neoliberalization" of universities. As to be expected, the article has made quite the stir amongst DHers as it circulates ‘round the internet these past few days.

Even as a DH neophyte, I could find much to criticize in this article; it has the impression of being one-sided, seems to ignore much of the history of DH and the good (and often groundbreaking) work that many scholars (yes, scholars, not technocrats) have done, and it appears intent on making broad statements about a single institutional model (i.e, it uses just one example as an negative paragon for the field as a whole). I was admittedly a bit lost especially in reading this statement:

“What Digital Humanities is not about, despite its explicit claims, is the use of digital or quantitative methodologies to answer research questions in the humanities.”

I’ve only been studying Digital Humanities for about a year now, and yet I can’t think of anything that has been written about the field that is more ignorant (was this article even written by people who know anything about DH?, I wondered). In fact, the statement is an exact antithesis of what I consider DH to be: digital and quantitative methodologies can be used very effectively to both answer but also pose research questions in the humanities. Does it always work? Not necessarily - but the experimental nature of it is what makes it so appealing - and so promising and potentially effective (where would the sciences be if not for hypotheses and experiments, after all?).

I digress. Because also as a DH neophyte, I don’t feel quite confident enough in my knowledge of DH to give a full critique. Instead, I will focus on something else: I have been quite taken with the number and quality of thoughtful, eloquent responses and critiques in kind. I’ve gathered them here, as food for thought:

  • Grace Afsari-Mamagani ("In Defense of DH") makes the excellent point that DH is “a matter of combatting erasure: how might we criticize and then reappropriate the tools that have become so ubiquitous outside the academy so that they help us do the hard work of situating our texts and our research within discourses of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, and socioeconomics?” and that “project-based learning can be a powerful mechanism for allowing thinkers to engage with one another and with their communities, academic and otherwise” 
  • Schuyler Esprit (twitter: @schuyleresprit) made a number of remarks on twitter, helpfully amalgamated in Storify. Her succinct responses brought together are quite powerful in their individual narrative and the the understanding of DH as a tool for making research happen, contributing greatly to her formation as a scholar.
  • Amardeep Singh (“In Defense of Digital Tools [by a Non-Tool]") acknowledges both the background of the authors but also their tenor, questioning the exact ways the pre- and post-DH academic world (“elitist” and “utterly dependent on a capitalist economic system” even 20 years ago) has contributed to the further demarginalization of certain sectors of academia. In the interest of not “branding,” he suggests that “what we do need is to find more democratic and inclusive ways of thinking about the value of scholarship and scholarly communities.”
  • Alan Jacobs ("Critiquing the Critique of the Digital Humanities") clearly states “I am not a digital humanist” from the get-go, yet makes several excellent points, including UVa’s establishment of a widely-recognized journal of literary criticism (against the backdrop of its DH scholars contributing to the downfall of the university system, no less!). He also questions the article's claim regarding the liaison between universities and the “military-industrial complex” as a DH-induced phenomenon: “Do ABG [the authors] really mean to suggest that in all this long entanglement of universities with big business and government the humanities managed to maintain their virginity until DH came along?” And finally, in a move to see DHers as against the constraints of Big Businesses, Jacobs points out how we use our knowledge and expertise to work for our own research purposes, rather than large tech companies.
  • One last point that has been running through the back of my mind is stated by Jacobs matter-of-factly: “I am not sure to what extent I want to see neoliberalism vanquished, because I am not sure what neoliberalism is.” Bravo.
  • And finally, from my own field of Mediterranean archaeology, Bill Caraher contributes to the discussion with  “Digital Humanities and the New Liberal Arts.” Caraher notes the anticipated backlash of the LARB piece, but also recognizes some of the important points that the article makes, imagining the humanities and liberal arts in the 21st century. He rightly notes the “pressures from outside the academy to make higher education relevant to the economic (and political) needs of the community (and our stakeholders),” a trend in the news as of late. He also questions the methodologies and teaching of skill sets - broadly speaking - to university students, and what the future of this is: “If integration and dis-integration of skills represents a constant pressure on how we justify our practice in the classroom and in our disciplines, there is the equal pressure to dissipate and disintegrate disciplinary learning and research across the curriculum.” What are the functions of each course, each discipline, each skill that we teach? Caraher very persuasively uses the LARB article not as a mouthpiece for a “critique about critique,” or really even as a reflection on the Digital Humanities, but more to question the nature and direction of higher education itself. I hope he follows up on these musings, as I found them very insightful.
  • ETA: More twitter comments, brought together in Storify and this time from Alan Liu: "On Digital Humanities and 'Critique.'" Liu echoes many of the sentiments of those above, but even better, posts a link to his work-in-progress book, Against the Cultural Singularity: Digital Humanities & Critical Infrastructure Studies, which "bear[s] on the critical potential of the digital humanities and critique." One of the best lines from his text goes completely against the grain of DH's supposed neoliberalist agenda: "The critical potential of this tendency in the digital humanities to be lightly-antifoundationalist can now be stated: it is precisely the ability to treat infrastructure not as a foundation, a given, but instead as a tactical medium that opens the possibility of critical infrastructure studies as a mode of cultural studies."

Last but not least, the comments section of the LARB article has a number of thoughtful responses as well, and I would encourage you to read them, too.

I stand firm in my thoughts that this article encourages divisiveness in the humanities, the university, and the Digital Humanities, rather than bringing disciplines together (as DH frequently does so well!). But most of all, I’d hate for this article to overshadow the wonderful series of interviews organized by my fellow CLIR postdoc Melissa Dinsman,“The Digital in the Humanities” (also, coincidentally, in the LARB). There are three interviews to start, and a number more to come, all offering excellent viewpoints about the relationships between the digital and the humanities. Perhaps use that a starting point for learning about a variety of perspective of what Digital Humanities has to offer the university and researchers in the 21st century.
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Cameras & Equipment for Archaeology and Museums

2/17/2016

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Frequently I'm asked for advice on what kind of camera to buy in order to take photographs of artifacts in archaeology and in museums, and/or for use in the field.

The short answer is: it doesn't really matter.

The longer answer is: buy the best you can afford.

Within these two answers are a whole range of possibilities, but it is sufficient to say that in this day and age, most photographic equipment is pretty good, and pretty affordable.

I myself use a Nikon D5000, which I purchased before my Regular Year at the ASCSA in 2010-11. I liked it because it has a tilting screen that, as I discovered with an earlier point and shoot model, comes in handy when photographing objects in museums that are positioned overhead or at awkward angles. Of course, by now the D5000 might be considered "out of date" or an antiquity itself. But it still fulfills my purposes, and the beauty of a good DSLR body is that you can add to it over time: I now have, in addition to the standard 18-55 and 55-200 mm lenses that came with it, added a very good 18-105 mm lens to my repertoire of camera equipment.

So, here are a few short tips for choosing equipment, etc.:

1) In general, I've found that Canon is better for point and shoot cameras, whereas the colour quality of Nikon DSLRs is far superior to that of Canons (nb: I know little about other brands). If colour is important to you, keep this in mind. Ken Rockwell (whose site I highly recommend in general) provides a good comparison of the two brands.

2) I recommend a macro lens for small objects - you can buy one, or even DIY (some tips here).

3) Additionally, a fixed focal length lens is good for all-purpose photography; as opposed to a large zoom range, "prime" lenses are the best-made lenses you can buy. Check out this article for more info.

3) If photographing objects from excavations, you'll want a copy stand or a tripod with a reversible center post. You can even build your own copy stand; I also like this discussion of copy stands for more advice (a separate post is needed for archaeological photography, I think, but this is quite detailed and helpful).

4) When photographing archaeological sites, your best bet is a cloudy day. Too much sun washes out the landscape and destroys the fine features of walls and stratigraphy. Always shoot with your back toward the sun to avoid shadows, and be sure to remove extraneous "stuff" (backpacks, sweaters, etc.) from the area within your photo frame. A measuring stick is always a good idea, but be sure to choose one that's appropriate for the area you are photographing (ie, don't use a foot-long rod in a general area shot).

5) When photographing objects through glass (such as in museums), be careful of reflections! You'll often need to move to an angle in which the reflection is not visible. There's some good chat here about museum photography and here regarding photographing through/with glass.

Clearly, I could write far more on this subject, but this should provide a sufficient beginning for the documentation of sites and artifacts from antiquity. If you have further questions, feel free to drop me a line here!


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