Chapter 13
Museums
The period of prehistoric society is ill-served by our museums which often present to us a range of artifacts culled from excavations, chance-finds and fieldwalking that are so divorced from their contexts as to be almost meaningless. If there is an attempt to put them into context then it is in the fields of their class or function. ‘How was this object used?’, ‘Where did the materials for making this object come from’, etc.
What is not attempted often enough is a picture of the society in which this artefact had a place that would allow the visitor to get a feeling for the preoccupations that must have concerned the makers and the users of the object. These preoccupations are what the artifacts in the cases represent: the fascination that fighting had for the aristocracy, the religion that obsessed everybody at the time, the fertility of crops and animals that the farmers were desperately trying to improve, the health of their wives and childen, the tribal and national traditions nurtured by the Druids and so on.
The challenge that museums must face is how to get these kinds of ideas over. There certainly is an effort being made today by some, mainly in the periods of the recent past where, of course, it is an easier job. They use video presentations, sound effects, hands-on displays and no doubt very soon will be employing virtual reality. The same effort will soon have to be put into putting people in touch with the archaeological past.
Perhaps the best effort made so far in this direction is at York where the Coppergate time capsule whisks you back into a Viking village with all its associated sounds and smells. It is authentic since the display is built on the site of the excavation of some years ago and uses the information and artifacts obtained from it. To some people this may seem to be a rather dramatic method of presenting the past but it is one that is successful in making an impact and if done sensitively and with academic care, as at York, it should not be open to the charge of vulgarisation.
Also at York is ARC, the Archaeological Research Centre that sets out to explain archaeology to the general public and to children in particular. In its displays there is plenty of opportunity for visitors and their children to get their hands on objects and to practice some of the techniques that archaeologists use. Part of the duty of the archaeologist is to do this and this means that he or she needs to have the knack of making comprehensible many of the conventional terms and ideas that archaeologist use. To people outside the discipline they do not make much sense. One example, at its simplest level, is using the term ‘axe’ when what is meant is ‘axehead.’
More trouble should be taken in presenting ancient monuments to the public. Here there is sometimes a difficulty that is exemplified by Stonehenge where the numbers of visitors are so enormous. We can demonstrate this problem vividly by remarking about another monument, the Roman baths at Bath, that more people pass through them in a year than used them thoughout the almost 400 year period of Roman Britain and their feet are literally wearing the monument away.
How do you protect a standing monument and at the same time provide free access to it? Some people would answer that you don’t encourage it. They say you that you should take a leaf out of Pitt-Rivers’ book and create a simulation of the monument, full size which, in the case of Stonehenge would be more instructive than the original, because you build it as we think it was intended to be when complete and people could wander round that to their hearts’ content aided by simulations of ceremonies, by videos, by virtual reality and so on. Those few who were not content with this could leave the warmth of a Heritage Centre and tramp across the wet Plain to the ruin and look at that.
That may be too cynical a suggestion but it is one that could work even though the simulation may not be exactly what the original builders visualized (Stonehenge was never finished). However, it might be a rather expensive option but in the case of some famous sites could be a ‘marketing opportunity’. Jorvik, as the Coppergate site is known, earns £1m every year and supports the York Archaeological Trust almost singlehanded.
That tourism is gradually destroying the goose the lays the golden eggs is not yet fully understood, it seems, even by those who are entrusted with the safekeeping of the monuments of the past, and hard decisions still have to be made about national investment in our heritage, about access and about display.
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