Books in Brief

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Pilgrimages to Rome and Beyond: A Guide to the Holy Places of Southern Europe for Today’s Traveler

Paul Lambourne Higgins

(Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Spectrum/Prentice-Hall Press, 1985) 130 pp., $8.95

The purpose of this book is to introduce readers to sites that are given a distinctive quality by a blending of earth energies and spiritual influences. In quest of such holy ground the author takes us to Greece, the Aegean, southern Yugoslavia, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and invites us to encounter other-worldly beings that range from the Great Mother to Christian saints.

From the sites that the author has chosen and the way in which he presents them, it is easy to work out that his competency to write such a book derives from a number of standard package-tours, a second-class guidebook and an imagined sensitivity to spiritual vibrations.

The fact that the author took such limited tours is the only charitable explanation for his omitting many important places. The reader will find no mention of a number of sites that actually drew great crowds of pilgrims—such as Olympia in the Peloponnese, Mt. Athos in Greece, Compostella in Spain, or Pergamum in Turkey. To take the book at face value could give one the impression that nothing of spiritual significance ever took place on the eastern coast of Spain, in southern Italy, or anywhere in Greece save for within a short radius around Athens. Yet other sites (Belgrade, for example) are included, where it is clear that even the author was hard put to have a spiritual experience.

The information furnished on sites is what one would expect to find in any tourist guide, but it is always unsystematic in presentation and often inaccurate in detail. There is no “great” temple of Aphrodite at Corinth, and all the treasuries at Delphi are small. Certain facts are glossed over or ignored, presumably because of a fear that they might interfere with the spiritual vibrations. Delos has a tradition of holiness, but it could and did process and transship as many as 10,000 slaves in a single day.

The book’s claim to evoke the spiritual dimension should give it a special place among guidebooks, but it is precisely here that it fails most miserably. We are told again and again that when “sensitive” pilgrims stand on “holy ground” they should “feel” the immediate presence of immortal spirits, they should be “conscious” of benevolent and living presences, or they should be “aware” of the energy of immemorial forces. But the writing is so pedestrian that it cannot but fail to evoke the sentiments that the author wants to inspire. One has the impression that he is writing about what he should have felt, and not recounting profound personal experiences. Moreover, he is utterly subjective as to where he finds his spiritual thrills. While he is certainly right in finding the vibrations in St. Peter’s in Rome so faint as to be imperceptible, his assertion that the presence of the healing god Asklepios is more readily felt at Athens than at Epidauros can only arouse derision. To put it as mildly as possible, the author is indiscriminate in his enthusiasms, and this is nowhere more evident than in his statement, “There is no island more sacred than Patmos” (p. 30). Every “sensitive” pilgrim knows that this dignity belongs to Ireland alone.

Ethics and Values in Archaeology

Edited by Ernestine L. Green

(New York: The Free Press, 1984) 301 pp., incl. references and index, $29.95

This book is probably one of the more important tomes to appear on professional shelves in this decade. First, the book’s essays raise ethical questions that sometimes lie dormant in the backs of the minds of ancient Near Eastern and Biblical archaeologists. Second, the authors pay attention to certain value questions that are sometimes not spoken of by those in the field, but that volunteers often do not hesitate to ask.

On the other hand, Ernestine Green and her contributors address themselves to an American audience almost wholly engaged in archaeology in America, i.e., North America, Mesoamerica and South America. Those interested in Biblical archaeology or in ancient Near Eastern archaeology may assume that this book holds no interest for them. Not so. The writers simply raise too many ethical and value questions that cannot be escaped by archaeologists, whether professional or amateur, New World or Old World.

The book presents 26 essays written by academic archaeologists, contract or business archaeologists, government archaeologists and others working in the field. The three sections of the book are “Background” (seven essays), “Responsibilities to the Profession” (eleven essays), and “Responsibilities to the Public” (eight essays).

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Ernestine Green, the editor, was an academic archaeologist, formerly at the University of Pennsylvania and Western Michigan University, who is now a government archaeologist with the Forest Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. She has sampled two of the worlds represented here; therefore she is in a good position to observe that practicing field archaeologists are no longer found only in academia, but also in business and government. Therefore the values and ethics that guide field decisions are no longer those of the academic world alone, but also of the worlds of business and government.

Those of us who excavate in the Near East have many routine encounters with government archaeologists through the local departments of antiquities. On the other hand, our encounters with archaeologists acting as agents of the business world happen far less frequently. Yet we cannot escape the ethical questions raised by excavating under the aegis of an arm of the business community. As a simple example: In many Near Eastern countries archaeology is used to promote tourism. If certain foreign governments justify archaeology in this way, are we not participating in an alternative value system, and one that can be at odds with academic values and ethics?

Again, lest it be too easily inferred that this book is for someone else, I will list ten ethical questions addressed in this book. They are rewritten as though they came from a treatise written by archaeologists specializing in the Near East:

1. Should archaeologists working in the Near East subscribe to a code of ethics?

2. How might this code of ethics be enforced?

3. How do we weigh ethical responsibilities to our own government, to foreign governments, to the profession, to granting agencies and to the public?

4. What are the ethical considerations in relating to foreign governments and their departments of antiquities?

5. How do we resolve the ethical conflicts between archaeology in the service of accumulation of knowledge for its own sake and archaeology in the service of tourism or other commercial ventures?

6. Should archaeologists dabble in related business interests, including appraisal, artifact marketing and the acceptance of advertisements in their archaeological journals?

7. What considerations—political and otherwise—collide with professional ethics in site selection, research design, 018academic politics, cultural resource management and grantsmanship?

8. How should archaeologists relate to members of the news media, who seem to hunger for stories about the Bible and archaeology?

9. What ethical considerations should the archaeologist observe when writing for the lay public?

10. What are the ethical responsibilities of the archaeologist in terms of site selection, staff selection, the use of students in the field, research design and application for permits?

Obviously, this is not a lightweight book in terms of the ethical questions it raises.

The background section of the book (chapters 1–7) first gives the history of certain ethical questions in American archaeology between 1937 and the present. An essay follows describing how three archaeological organizations have approached ethical problems (the Society of Professional Archaeologists, the American Anthropological Association and the Society for American Archaeology). The ethical codes of these organizations follow this essay. The last selection in this section, and in some ways the most interesting, is a discussion of how the personal ethics of the archaeologist affect his or her performance in the field.

Section II of the book (chapters 8–18) analyzes various ethical and value conflicts within the profession. For example, how does the archaeologist deal with ethical conflicts with “clients” such as the university, donors, departments of antiquities, etc. Another question considered is how archaeologists face the specter of diminishing cultural resources, namely, fewer excavatable tells, ruins and caves. A third problem addressed is the ethical implication of a specific research design that may impose a bias on the data. Finally, ethical problems are raised concerning digging this site instead of that site, the ethics of using inadequately trained personnel, and on and on.

Section III (chapters 19–26), dealing with an archaeologist’s responsibilities to the public, contains a lively, well-conceived and well-written essay by Brian Fagan on the ethical problems raised by the public’s right—even demand—to know more, and the archaeologist’s ethical dilemma in resorting to “popularizing,” and perhaps distorting information to get it to the public. Other essays address themselves to the ethical tensions in using amateur archaeologists (delicately referred to as “avocational” archaeologists) in serious excavation and the ethical issues of unearthing the bones of living populations.

This last ethical issue has gained some popular notoriety in the United States due to protests by Native American groups. But may I remind the reader that this is a real problem in the Near East. To cite one example, in Israel it has been law for several years that archaeologists may not excavate tombs, as this disturbs the bones of the dead, something specifically forbidden in Jewish law except under very specific conditions. Field archaeologists could profitably discuss ethical conflicts and issues that arise because of this ruling, but to my knowledge no professional gathering has offered a forum to do so. There is an ethical issue here that needs exploration. After all, a related problem exists: Is it ever right to dig up the remains of a civilization that still lives? Put into Near Eastern terms: Is it right to dig up the remains of Jewish, Arab, Armenian or other living ethnic communities sheerly for scientific reasons?

Another question that has ethical dimensions is, who is an archaeologist? We hardly give this issue serious discussion either at the site or at a professional meeting, let alone while lecturing to the public. The only exception I can think of occurs when the professional archaeologist wishes to publicly repudiate some field activity of which he or she does not personally approve, such as looking for Noah’s Ark, looking for the Ark of the Covenant, or searching for the ashes of the red heifer. Then the archaeologist questions the professional credentials of the investigator in order to discredit the scientific value of the enterprise.

Even though this is not a profound book, it is an important book. It is not profound, because the authors are apparently unaware of the discussions in ethical theory and in applied ethics that go on in philosophy and theology. Nor does it break new ground or give new insights to resolve thorny ethical conundrums. But it is important simply in the sense that we, as amateur or practicing field archaeologists, can learn a great deal from it about questions to ask. It would be in our own best interests as Near Eastern archaeologists to engage in sustained ethical reflection. It may even be important to publish a book of our reflections on the ethical issues that bedevil us in the Near East.

Are there any takers out there?

Pilgrimages to Rome and Beyond: A Guide to the Holy Places of Southern Europe for Today’s Traveler

Paul Lambourne Higgins

(Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Spectrum/Prentice-Hall Press, 1985) 130 pp., $8.95