The context debate contextualized.

The Punching Bag writes on the importance of context in archaeology using the example of a stele from Zincii uncovered by the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. Thanks to the context, archaeologists have been able to extract information from it that would never have been revealed, had the object been looted by grave-robbers. At the same time, Cultural Property Observes asks: Context, so what? Very often, archaeologists come up with nothing when they look for context, and if every archaeological site were as carefully examined as "some people" want it to, nothing would ever be uncovered.

The irony is that neither of the bloggers are entirely without merit. For the layperson, the museum-goer, context often means nothing. What is learned from the context of, say an Ancient Greece crater, is condensed to a three-sentence summary short enough to be included on a white label, put next to the crater, next to hundreds of other objects of cultural patrimony with similar interpretive texts and so on... in the end, how many of us gaze at an ancient sculpture and go "wow, I am so impressed by this valuable insight into the social structure of the Ancient Egyptians"? It's all the more likely that we will gaze in awe because we are near a really old statue and don't even bother reading the texts.

As Lowenthal says, the idea of relics is to tie history into memory, but even so, the relic, as a physical objects remains the centerpiece of our memory. As such, the amount of history we get out of it, the amount of context, is something we as museumgoers do not often appreciate. So in that sense, yes an object is better than no object.

However, this all changes when we enter into the world of museum professionals, whose job it is to construct that history and mold it into a presentable form for the museumgoers. Here, context is crucial. Not only could information that a visitor would consider insignificant become a piece in the puzzle for a systematic understanding of ancient cultures, but consciously or unconsciously, the history eventually does trickle down to the audiences. While we may not appreciate the immediate effects of learning about historical societies when compared to the wow-factor of seeing something really old, we do appreciate the knowledge in retrospect. There is a lot about ancient cultures that have shaped the way we think and that have become commonplace in popular knowledge. From the vicious gladiator games of the Romans to the direct democracy of ancient Athens, I would think that most people would appreciate that knowledge as valuable.

But that of course, is all context.

It seems that the question: So what? about preserving "unnecessary" context when uncovering ancient relics is an example of a pundit failing to see further than one step along the logical train of thought. Certainly, if you're looking at an ancient tablet, the emotional impact of the tablet will overwhelm the cultural knowledge you receive from the interpretive text. But you can't take the tablet with you. You can take the context.