The Forum

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Porn Again

I was shocked, shocked at the sight of full frontal male nudity in your March/April 2001 issue. No wonder your readers are deserting in droves. My children have never seen a male nude, not even my married daughters, and I have their word on that.

By the way, do you have any more pictures of that Artemis goddess?

Odyssey Tours, Inc.

I am sitting here looking at your March/April 2001 issue for probably the 20th time. Your magazine is as close as I will ever get to the places you show, and I don’t want to miss anything, especially the Pompeian nudes.

Selling Antiquities—Find a Middle Ground

As suggested by Richard L. Stroup and Matthew Brown (“How to Reduce Archaeological Looting,” AO 04:02), museums cannot possibly hope to house all the antiquities ever unearthed. Responsible private collectors might indeed help solve some of the dilemmas now faced by the professional archaeological world.

In the past hundred years, there has been an increased strictness in the regulation of antiquities sales. However, the illicit sale of antiquities has not been reduced by these measures. Indeed, it has increased. The only people who are truly restricted by these laws are the scholars and archaeologists.

I agree with the authors that people will always want to own antiquities. And what is wrong with the desire to own a piece of history?

Why not issue a public license, such as is given for certain weapons, to collectors of antiquities so that scholars might know which pieces are owned and who owns them? This might serve to prevent the sale of antiquities that are suspected of having been stolen.

Another possibility is to put unearthed antiquities—not all of them, but certainly a good many—on the private market once scholars have fully documented them. This process might also work in reverse: Once the basic facts have been ascertained, private collectors might buy the antiquities with a stipulation that scholars have the right to examine them. This would be of benefit to all sides.

Create an Antiquities Registry!

Richard Stroup and Matthew Brown are right that markets can be used to control archaeological looting. They are also right that we would want to monitor the market by creating an antiquities registry.

Perhaps we could convince museums to evaluate and identify artifacts. The information thus gained could be put into a database that would be a 007part of the museum’s records. The database could be used in several ways to facilitate marketable transactions.

For example, suppose I own a stone inscribed with hieroglyphs and an indecipherable second language. Normally I would have to find an expert to evaluate it. I probably would have to pay for the evaluation, and I might have to be sneaky about it. But the situation would be quite different if private ownership were legal and if professional organizations offered a registration and evaluation service.

This would, of course, require some kind of fee—which I would gladly pay, for we all know that the more actual history that comes with an artifact the more valuable it is. This registration would also give my artifact increased visibility in the archaeological world, again raising its value. If the process were conducted correctly, I would have both a cultural and an economic motivation to make the existence and the location of the object known (probably via museum advertising or bulletins).

Protect Cleopatra’s Needle

Your article on Cleopatra’s Needle was quite interesting (“Over the Bounding Main,” Past Perfect, AO 04:02). Unfortunately, this treasure is now being subjected to ultimately fatal weathering (New York’s weather being much more severe than Egypt’s).

Reading Artifacts

In “Ideology from Artifacts,” AO 04:02, by Bryan Burns, you show a gold cup with a scene of a bull being captured by a net. Could this be an allegory for the conquest of the Minoan civilization by Mycenaean Greeks? The bull bears a striking resemblance to the one in the famous “bull leaping” fresco from the royal palace at Knossos (see Ancient Life, AO 03:01), with its arched back, raised tail and two extended forelegs. The article calls the hunt “unsuccessful” because the other side of the cup shows the bull rampaging on the loose. Perhaps, however, the scenes are meant to be read in the opposite order, with the earlier free rein of the Minoans preceding the Mycenaean takeover. If there is any validity in this interpretation, we can even stretch it to say something about the nature of the takeover. The fact that the bull is being captured rather than slain by armed men would support the view that the Mycenaeans didn’t win Crete by military conquest, but more or less walked in and took charge after the palaces were destroyed by natural disasters (perhaps aided by local revolts).

Misreading Artifacts

Though some of Mr. Burns’s conclusions may be valid, interpreting an ancient society’s ideology by its surviving artifacts can be misleading.

Regarding the Vapheio cups, let me suggest that Mr. Burns study Plato’s Critias. The more important theme depicted on these (probably Minoan) gold cups is the dedication required to capture 008a sacred bull prior to offering it up for sacrifice to a god. Mycenaean culture was profoundly indebted to the pre-Greek societies that it absorbed. This was also true of much Greek mythology.

The second seal (above) is more than a militaristic scene. The remarkable gold artifact shows a formidable Minoan warrior (with the long sword) being subdued by a Mycenaean one (with the short sword). An injured Mycenaean sits before the struggling pair and a Mycenaean spearman with his shield serves as back-up. This ring was probably commissioned by the central figure as a reminder of a particularly heroic moment, possibly during the conquest of Crete.

Ephesus Radiant

Thank you for the delightful article on Ephesus (Peter Scherrer, “Ephesus Uncovered: From Libraries to Latrines,” AO 04:02). I first visited that site over 30 years ago as a child and have always been fascinated with the work there.

Hittite Sword-Swallowers

I am convinced the picture you ran in Ancient Life, AO 04:02, cannot be that of a sword-swallower (above). If 009he is trying to swallow a sword, the point would be sticking out of the back of his neck. Also, there is no handle on the sword. The curve of the hilt indicates another use. I suggest that this is an astronomer using a device called a “cross-bow sky ruler.”

The Hittite artifact pictures an astronomer measuring the angles between stars, the moon or planets. The other men are mounting the stairs leading up to the observatory. If this suggests an advance in knowledge too great for scholars to stomach, so be it. It suits me better than a sword-swallower and acrobats and “comic relief.”

E.C. Krupp, Director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles replies:

Although the object held by the “sword-swallower” in the Late Bronze Age Hittite relief from Alaca Hüyük, Turkey, superficially resembles a well-known astronomical instrument—the cross-staff—I think it unlikely that the sword-swallower is engaged in observation of the sky. The cross-staff is a relatively simple instrument that permits the observer to measure the angular distance of a celestial object from some other reference, such as the horizon, or another astronomical object. Such measurements are, however, only meaningful when the information they provide is relevant. The Hittite reliefs of Alaca Hüyük are assigned to the second millennium B.C. (1600–1200 B.C.), and we have no evidence of astronomical observation and calculation from the Late Bronze Age in Anatolia that would require a cross-staff. We also know that Mesopotamian astronomy in that era did not involve the accuracy and precision in angular measurement a cross-staff supplies. Historians, in fact, assign the invention of the cross-staff to Levi ben Gurson in the early 14th century A.D., when its potential was relevant to astronomical and navigational objectives that did not exist in the Late Bronze Age.

Porn Again