On the meaning of archaeology

As a museum professional, I have never had any doubt that museums are collective memories - that they have a public role, a responsibility to their community, and a duty to exist and communicate for future generations. As well as that, they represent some of our most precious treasures. They collect and present objects and stories that provide fuel for our wildest imagination and our most vivid scientific analysis. 

Nor have I ever had second thoughts about the public domain of archaeology - and the fact that finders are not keepers.

Last week I was chatting - as one does - with a bagnino (lifeguard) on the beach in Campania, southern Italy. And in speaking about ways of life we came onto the subject of underwater finds - archaeological remains that he has dug up over the last few years while fishing. He has held onto these, which are displayed in his home, and he told me of others who sell them on to interested foreigners for a small profit. 

I was shocked and appalled. Trafficking is of course illegal! Immoral, even! By holding on to something like a Roman amphora you are depriving somebody else from enjoying it, you are keeping part of our joint heritage to yourself! Surely surely he could see that! And selling it on... well, Italy along with Greece and Bulgaria are at the head of the illegal trafficking trade of archaeological heritage. 

But he spoke to me of his wonder in holding a terracotta fragment, in tracing the writing on it, in handling the jug as his ancestor would have done - and something was niggling at me.

Paolo - we shall call him Paolo - has probably never set foot inside his local museum. Nor has his local museum ever made any attempt to lure him in. Ne'er the twain shall meet - unfortunate, but true. And if he had never gone fishing, he wouldn't really care about his past, the archaeological heritage of Campania. He wouldn't - in the sense that he would probably be ignoring museums entirely. 

Even in a region so rich in heritage that it includes the stunningly well preserved remains of Poseidonia - today called Paestum - a city founded in the 7th century BC by colonists from Sybaris in mainland Greece. 

He would never know the touchingly beautiful tomb paintings found here - one of a diver in the act of flying through the air from a man made scaffold structure, into the deep blue sea of a summer's day in Campania. A sea that our bagnino knows so well. These most lovely pieces are presented in the most uninspiring way imaginable, behind a rope. It's as if the heritage that Italian museums protect for all to enjoy is all too much for those noble institutions to actually care for - care for in the way that Paolo cares for his amphora fragment.