Religious Understanding for Cultural Property

There are a lot of hard questions that we need to ask in the wake of this tragedy:

http://newsfeed.gawker.com/isis-smashes-3-000-years-of-history-in-iraqi-museum-att-1688184667

The Islamic religion teaches that making statues of religious figures or famous people is a form of idolatry.  Therefore, all such artistic mediums must be destroyed.  There are other current examples of believers scratching out the face of the prophet Muhammed from illustrations in the Qu'ran and other examples.

But is it logical to destroy works of art that existed thousands of years before the religious beliefs in question existed?  These are works of art that existed back during the Assyrian empire and various other times; they have nothing to do with Islam or the beliefs of that religion.

In many cases, when works of art are in dispute, every reasonable effort will be made to find the decendents of the original owners, or failing that, attempt to return the work of art in question to the country of origin.  In cases like this, the artifacts are so old that their empires technically do not exist anymore; or are buried under tons of sand.  The inhabitants of these civilizations are likewise dispersed among multiple different cultures and countries.  Obviously, nothing is wrong with any of this.  But is does make the original owners nearly impossible to track down.

In such cases, the artifact is understood to be property of the country in which they were found.  It is then that country's responsibility and perogative to preserve the artifact and share its knowledge, as that knowledge is the cultural property of the world's population.

These men have stolen from the world.  They have acted against the strictures of their own religion.  They have deprived future generations of irreplaceable knowledge of a lost culture.

How will the world respond?

They are historical treasures that belong to the entire world.

Lesson Plans for Mali - Post #2

As promised, here are the lesson plans for the 2nd Grade unit on Mali.

The objective of this lesson is to introduce students to different forms of bullying that they otherwise might not be aware of.  This lesson can be applied to nearly any period of history at any grade level.  For the purposes of my project with the Teach-It-Forward Program at the Smithsonian, I chose to focus it around the American public school system's 2nd Grade Social Studies unit on Mali.

Feedback and questions are more than welcome!

Lesson Plan - Bullying in Ancient Empires

Subject: Mali

Sub-Topic: Village Council Meeting - Effects of bullying on community decisions

1. Introduction: Where is Mali?
1. What is the country of Mali like? (temperature, landscape, etc.)
2. Why is Mali important?
1. Ancient trades routes
2. ancient empires
3. important sources of salt, gold, economic effects
2. Empire Characteristics
1. Mali lay between trade routes focused on the movement of salt and gold.  Why are these important?  What can you do with them?
1. Why is salt important?  Isn’t it common?
3. Village Decisions
1. What is a village?  Is it like a town or a city?  
2. Who makes up the government of a village?
3. How do they make decisions?
4. ** See handout on Members of a Malian Community
4. Activity
1. Assign the roles of the Members of a Malian Community to the boys.  Explain why the girls are left out.
2. Introduce topic for discussion - Should laundry day be moved from Wednesday to Thursday to make accommodations for the herdsman at the watering hole?  Or should the herdsman wait an extra day for water?
3. Let the students discuss and come to their own conclusion.
5. Wrap-up
1. Students return to their spots on the carpet.  
2. The class works together to make a Fair/ Unfair list of the consequences of the Village Chief’s decision.

Lesson Plan Elaboration

The focus of this exercise of a Village town meeting is to introduce students to the way that decisions made by a few people can have far-reaching effects.  Another focus is to emphasize why every member’s opinion should be taken into account, since they have an angle that others may not have thought of.

The problem to be presented is the moving of the village Laundry Day from Wednesday to Thursday.  This situation is under discussion because this particular village is one of the stops situated along a trade route, and travelers will pay money to be able to water their camels at the town’s well. 

Pros:  

This could bring some much-needed income into the town.  News of this would also serve to increase the town’s reputation, thereby hopefully leading to more travelers stopping on their way through, more money and a better profile.

Cons: 

The women of the village wash the laundry on Wednesday.  Moving their day would delay clean laundry, leading to a dirty appearance and smell in front of visitors.  Depending on how quickly the well refills, there might not be enough water left for all the laundry to be done.  Also, this community is Muslim, which means that Friday is a holy day.  Therefore, all other chores would also have to get done by Thursday evening.  Would the women have time to get everything done and take care of the children?

Organization of the Village Council - Roles and Responsibilities

Members of a Malian Community

1. Village Chief:  Similar to the role of the king.  Responsibilities include decision making and the final word on topics of discussion.

2.  Drummer:  Calls people to the meeting.  If the villagers fail to show up on first drum call, they must pay the village chief cola nuts (show pictures of cola nuts).  If villagers fail to show up on second drum call, they must pay money to the village chief. If the villagers fail to show up by the third and final call, they must suffer a punishment.

3.  Treasurer:  Collects dues at the meetings if the village is in need of something. Collects penalty fees and cola nuts for village chief.

4.  Griot:  Records information from the meeting in his head, and repeats it to the group sometimes in the form of a poem, song, or theatrical production.

5.  Elderly Men:  Sit with the village chief and act as his advisors.  The village chief shares his cola nuts with these men.

6.  Young Men:  Sit around the outskirts of the meeting to listen only.  They have not yet earned the right to speak.

7.  Group of people with problems or concerns

who seek advice and counsel from the village chief.

8.  Women:  Stay at home and do not attend village meetings unless they are involved with a group of people with problems or concerns who seek advice and counsel from the village chief.

Discussion:

The students portraying the village council members allowed everyone to speak.  In the end, they decided to move wash day to Thursday to allow the travelers to use their well on Wednesday.

Girls’ Opinion:

When we came back together as a group, the girls were upset that their feelings weren’t included in the decision-making process.  They understood that exclusion did not give them a fair result.  They also voted to make all the boys sleep outside the ‘huts’ that night.

Wrap-Up: 

The students held a good discussion, allowing all village members that were able to speak to have a say.  They seemed to have a good grasp of the fact that the decision of a few would affect many, and that exclusion was unfair.  Overall, they seemed to have a good time with this lesson while efficiently learning the objectives.

Done Differently?

I would have taken a quick brain-break about half-way through this hour long lesson.  The second graders did very well but one hour is too long for them to be sitting without taking a break to move their bodies.

Teach-It-Forward at the Smithsonian!

Greetings, Fellow Wayfarers!

Welcome back and Happy New Year!

Some exciting things have been happening in the Living Museum and I'm excited to share them with you.

This past semester, I was fortunate enough to be chosen to participate in the Smithsonian's Teach-It-Forward Program, out of the National Museum of American History.  The program is offered to area teachers based on resume and experience and introduces new and innovative ways to incorporate the resources of the Smithsonian Institution into an existing classroom lesson plan.

After 2 days of intensive training at multiple Smithsonian museums, each teacher was sent back to their schools to formulate a detailed lesson plan incorporating our new tools.  Along the way we submitted the plans for feedback and collaboration with Smithsonian personnel.  At the end of the process, we submitted a video recording of our class session!

I'm pleased and proud to present my lesson plans here!  As a Special Education professional, I chose to focus my lesson on bullying.  Learning about Great Empires is part of the 2nd Grade Social Studies curriculum.  With this in mind, my 2nd grade class explored the ways that a local village government functions in the country of Mali.  They learned about the differences in our two governments, the economic differences, and varying perceptions in social status.  At the end of the lesson, I chose students to act as various members of the tribal council and then had them decide the answer to a basic social question.

In the following blog posts, I'll be talking more about the process I used to build this lesson, how I introduced it to the class and what their feedback was.  I welcome your comments and questions and I'm excited to share this new Living Museum experience with you!

The Windy City and the 1893 World's Fair

Hello from the Windy City!

Two weeks on the job and I'm loving what I do.  I'm working in the Anthropology Conservation Lab at The Field Museum and I'm helping to enter artifacts into their new online database system.  The Museum has been collecting since 1893 and has over 26 million artifacts; at any given time, only about 1% of them are on display.  What this project will do is make the collections available so that they can be searched and studied by any researcher or museum who has access, thereby giving a new life to these priceless pieces.

I've also had a chance to tour the 1893 World's Fair exhibit currently at the Museum.  After the 1871 Chicago Fire, the city cleaned itself up, applied for and was granted the space to host the World's Fair.  It was originally supposed to open in 1892 to commemorate Columbus' arrival in the New World, but due to the size and budget it opened in May of 1893.  After the Fair was over, various leading businessmen floated the idea that there should be a museum built to house the artifacts that had been on display.  Marshall Field (the department store tycoon) donated the largest amount of money and The Field Museum was born.

Among the artifacts were a 600 gallon ceramic tea vessel from Japan, troglodite fossils, some of the first taxidermed animals to be put on display, and Inuit and South Seas natives who had been "relocated" to give visitors a look into how they lived.  This was also the first large-scale use of electricity.  The entire Fair was lit by it using Nicola Tesla's lightbulb designs.

It is fascinating to look back at these artifacts.  Not only do they give us a glimpse of what the mindset was like in the late 19th century but many of them are still today providing us with scientific information to help scientists do things like rebuild species' populations.  However, it does make me glad that we live in a scientific world that recognizes the importance of studying an animal in its native environment, whether beast or human.  The advance of the study of Anthropology has a good deal to do with this fact.  As the discipline was progressing in the 1920's and 1930's, the realization that knowledge and learning came easier when the subject was relaxed promoted the idea of studying different cultures in situ, or as they lay.  I.e., the less disturbance you make, the more accurrate an idea you can glean of how the civilization in question actually functions.   Anthropology has taken this up as its guiding principle ever since.

It's a Bug's Life! Adventures with the creepy-crawlies

Greetings, fellow wayfarers,

You know, insects really get a bad rap.  They are among the most numerous species on the planet, they perform multiple useful functions, serve as inspiration for medical and military developments, and eat other things that we wouldn't want in our houses, just to name a few.  And yet, whenever we see them, we shriek and squish them.

This past week, I was fortunate enough to go on a tour of the Entomology Department at The Field Museum, led by Dr. Jim Louderman.  Not only is Dr. Louderman a distinguished scientist -- he travels through Latin America studying beetles and is working to restore the natural habitat of the Indiana sanddunes -- but he was an enthusiastic and knowledgable guide as well.  Of the many things I learned, here are a few of the highlights:

- Tarantulas are not lethal to humans.  It takes 2 days for them to store up the venom again from biting other animals they eat for food and 1 week to restore it from biting us, and a tarantula doesn’t get a meal out of us.  It therefore has no incentive to bite.  

- There is no known species of tarantula that is native to either North or South America that is poisonous to humans.

- Tarantulas smell with their feet so from you holding them on your hand they are able to get your taste and know that they are not in danger.  

- Male tarantulas only live for about 5 years, whereas the females can live for 28.  The sex organs of the male are outside his body and he needs to deliver them to the female in order to impregnate her.  Once he does, since he cannot reproduce again, his job in the biological sense is complete.  He stops eating and dies. 

- Females can store the semen from one male in their bodies for up to 7 years and have it still be viable. Many females only need to mate once or twice in their lifetimes.

- Make sure you buy any insect pets from PetSmart or another reputable source.  This ensures that the animals were bred in captivity and not sourced from native populations.  If the mom-and-pop stores can guarentee this, so much the better.  Unfortunately, many of them cannot.

- The verdict is in!  General pesticides are what is killing the bees.  Farmers and many others used to use specific pesticides but the general ones are cheaper.  Please buy insect-specific ones that target the bugs you want to destroy.  In addition, the anomaly of a drought followed by a long winter in the Midwest left the bees here with not enough food to survive the winter.  Elsewhere in the world, this was not a problem.  

 - Scorpions glow in ultraviolet light.  They can see in this light as well and the different colors they emit make it possible for them to distinguish between others of their species.  It also warns predators to stay away.

- Horned beetles in Costa Rica are higher in protein than lobster, have the same consistency when cooked plus a slightly nutty flavor, and have 0% fat.  We should all be eating these bugs.

- Another reason for the decline of the bees as well as many other insect species comes from humans introducing invasive species to the area that have no natural predators.  News flash - Just because the animal lives in water does NOT mean that you can safely release it into the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.  (Purveyors of East Asian remedies that require live animals and are not regulated - I'm looking at you.)

- Invasive species can be brought in on the wood from untreated crates.  All wooden crates should be heat-treated first to kill any invasive wildlife.  China does not do this. 

- Museums are where a large part of the most up-to-date research is currently happening.  When you see something strange, call your local museum or science center.  Leave the USDA out of it.

It continues to astound me how humans wound up being the dominant species on a planet where we have no natural defenses, no outer exo-skeleton, no venom and a very fragile reproductive system.  Biology is truly a fascinating science.

The Living Museum is waiting!  Open your eyes and dive in!

Update on Gobleki Tepe

I apologize that this post is so long in coming to you,  fellow wayfarers.  Between the end of the school year and moving to Chicago for my internship, I ran out of time.  But here is the promised post.

*These notes came from a lecture given in June of 2014 by Dr. Klaus Schmidt at the Freer|Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC.

Gobleki Tepe, for those who may be unfamiliar with it, is a stone-age site in the mountains of southeastern Anatolia (modern-day Turkey).   It has been carbon-dated to just after the end of the last major ice age, around the 10th century BC, and demonstrates the earliest known Homo sapien creation of a sacred space.

The term sacred space refers to how human beings historically have attempted to conceptualize and rationalize a world other than the physical.
- What kind of a world was/is this to them?
- How do the humans in question interact with this space?
- What do we turn the mental act of worship into the physical?
These are some of the questions that sites like Gobleki Tepe are helping social scientists to answer.

This lecture focused on recently excavated totems in enclosures A, B, C, and D.  (Archaeologists lay out their excavations on a grid system to help us keep track of the finds.)  These totems appear in several combinations: animals, animals and humans together, and humans fully dressed in animal skins.  As the figures progress in date from the earliest to the latest, they go from featuring only animals to a dominant human anthropomorphic figure.

Here's what we know:
- The carbon date of these totems coincides with the dates of animal domestication that were previously determined for this area of Asia Minor.
- These are limestone totems averaging about 5 meters in height and are of excellent preservation.
- So far only one complete totem has been fully excavated; the rest so far are mostly heads with obsedian eyes, chins, noses and ears. (No analysis has been done to date on the obsedian eyes.)
- The humanoid totems are carved in a T-shape: the head and shoulders are distinct and then the torso drops straight down.
- There are 3-D sculptures of known dangerous animals which, based on their position at the site, appear to be guarding the sacred spaces.

Here are some of the latest findings:

In terms of gender differentiation, both carved male humanoid figures and male animal figures have been found.  The one female figure discovered was found in grafetti on the site.  However, regardless of this, gender does not seem to have been an important factor at this particular site.

The combinations of human and animals are strange.  While no definite determination has been made, some of the animals appear to be lions and bears, as well as snakes, cattle, pigs, and birds.  This indicates the presence of both foreign and domestic visitors.  Further analysis of Gobleki Tepe has revealed 4 distinct centers of domesticated animals: cattle, sheep, pigs and goats.*

*Pigs were thought to have been the earliest domesticated animal.  Recent studies have shown that pigs and goats were domesticated at the same time, but in different locations.

The animals depicted at Gobleki Tepe are animals that would have inhabited both the forest and savannah regions, indicating that the human participants were traveling from farther away than originally thought to this site.  The architecture supports this theory of a limited use site; no permanent dwellings have been found and there is no cohesive form of architecture present.

No pottery has been found at this site, although there have been some some stone beads.   Evidence has also been found of farmers planting trees and many oval-shaped enclosures, possibly as pens for animals. Carbon dating has revealed that there are a myriad of dates represented, indicating that this site was used over an extended period of time.

It is Dr. Schmidt's working hypothesis that Gobleki Tepe was a cultic center.   Based on the position of this site, it would have dominated the surrounding landscape, offering views for miles around.  This site would have been a gathering place, a common center for the surrounding groups and tribes.  Current evidence suggests that this site was of sacrificial significance only.  No evidence supporting celestial significance has yet been found. The lack of pottery is another factor that lends credence to the theory of Gobleki Tepe as a limited-use site; pottery takes time and extensive work to make, which is not something usually done at a site that is not used for permanent residence.

Gobleki Tepe has been under archaeological excavation for 20 years and the latest findings indicate that the work is just getting started.  Further conservation is being financed by the Global Heritage Fund and current analysis and conservation is being handled at Munich University.

A Busy Week - Both Good and Bad

Greetings, Fellow Wayfarers,

Well, this week has been a busy one and it's only Wednesday!  The school year is wrapping up for the public education system, the temperature is rising and museums are starting in on their summer program of activities.  I attended a wonderful lecture this past Sunday and also heard some sad news from the National Zoo that I need to share.  So within the next 24 hours, watch this space for:

- Update: Archaeology at Gobleki Tepe
- The Lost Bird sculpture project on the National Mall
- The closing of the Invertebrate House at the National Zoo

Keep exploring!