[Aztlan] Olmec Art portfolio

[Johanne Tournier]

Firstly, I really appreciate the effort of posting these portfolios on the
Web. I think it is wonderful to be able to see in a few minutes a wider
selection of, say, Olmec masks or large works of sculpture than I have ever
seen in books. I think that in itself can be useful, speaking perhaps more
as someone with a background in the liberal arts, including art history,
than archeology per se.

Secondly, it did occur to me as I perused the portfolio that it would be
helpful to have descriptive/identifying information accompanying the photos,
if possible. But if that is not practicable for some reason, well, I would
prefer to have the photos as they are rather than no photos at all,
especially because I live in rural Nova Scotia, far away from the sites of
any research libraries, and the Web is thus my preferred resource wherever
possible.

I would again like to express my appreciation to Mike Ruggeri and the others
that have put such beautiful portfolios online. Many thanks for all your
efforts!

Johanne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        Johanne L. Tournier 
Email – jltournier at ns.sympatico.ca
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-----Original Message-----
From: aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org [mailto:aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org]
On Behalf Of Jorge Pérez de Lara
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 4:57 PM
To: Aztlan
Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Olmec Art portfolio

Thank you, Robert and well said.

I tend to cringe a bit when confronted with overly purist positions  
regarding unprovenienced artifacts.

It is a well-known fact that many major, respectable museums have  
unprovenienced artifacts in their collections (Mexico's world-famous  
National Museum of Anthropology prominently included). While it is  
deeply regrettable not to have all the information on an object (which  
can only be obtained through controlled excavation), many things are  
also true, such as: a) there is sloppy archaeological work that  
destroys almost as much information as it saves; b) a lot of the  
information obtained by publication-challenged archaeologists never  
sees the light of day and when archaeologists die, their excavations  
are as good as large-scale looting; c) many archaeologists impose  
their personal or political agendas on their work, further adding to  
problems a) and b); d) even looted artifacts can still be loaded with  
useful, recoverable and usable information (think of how much  
epigraphy, iconography and our knowledge of ancient Mesoamerican  
mythology have benefitted from Maya vases and of how incredibly useful  
—not to mention beautiful— Justin Kerr's collection of freely  
available rollout vase photographs is, even though it fundamentally is  
composed of unprovenienced pieces).

Yes, in an ideal world, all archaeological pieces ought to be the  
product of good archaeological work. But faulting someone because they  
make available objects that are not reminds me of the Savonarolan  
position of a well-known Maya scholar that "all looted pieces should  
be ground to dust as utterly useless for research". Puhleaase...!

Jorge