This paper argues that conservators working on human remains preserve not only the physical remnants of a once-living body, but also the traces of the narratives of a human life and its afterlife. The author examines the conservator's ethical and moral obligations to the dead and their associated artifacts, and considers the conservator's role in both dehumanizing remains into mere "objects," and in rehumanizing such "objects." These issues are explored in relation to the conservation of the remains of three specific individuals and their possessions: an ancient Egyptian female mummy now in a museum in the United States, an ancient Egyptian child excavated on an archaeological site, and a beatified Catholic nun's relics and bone fragment. The author recounts her personal interactions with these three individuals to argue that the traditionally detached, technical role of the conservator may be inappropriate or inadequate when preserving both the tangible and intangible aspects of human remains. The paper suggests that even minimal and mundane conservation practices can take on invasive qualities or new ritual significance when performed on human remains, and that respectful conservation treatments elicit an empathy for, and emotional response to, the remains themselves.TITRE-Parmi les morts et leurs possessions: les vestiges humains et objets funéraires associés et l'impact de la restauration sur des concepts immatériels tels que la mort, la vie, et la vie après la mort. RÉSUMÉ-Cet article soutient la thèse que le restaurateur travaillant sur des vestiges humains permet non seulement la préservation physique de corps autrefois vivants, mais aussi des indicesà propos de la vie de ces personnes et de ce qui s'en est suivi après la mort. L'auteure examine les obligations morales et déontologiques du restaurateur face aux morts età leurs objets funéraires, ainsi que l'apport du restaurateur soit dans la déshumanisation des vestiges humains, réifiés en simples 'objets', soit dans la ré-humanisation de tels 'objets'. L'auteure explore ces questions dans le cadre de la conservation de trois cas spécifiques de vestiges humains et de leurs biens funéraires: une femme momifiée de l'Égypte ancienne se trouvant maintenant dans un musée aux Etats-Unis; un enfant de l'Égypte ancienne provenant d'une fouille archéologique; et les reliques et ossements d'une religieuse catholique béatifiée. L'auteure relate son expérience personnelle dans ces trois cas pour en venirà la conclusion que l'approche traditionnelle, détachée et technique, du restaurateur n'est peut-être pas appropriée ou adéquate lorsqu'on veut préserver les aspects immatériels, ainsi que matériels, des vestiges humains. Cet article fait la démonstration que, lorsqu'il s'agit de vestiges humains, même des pratiques de conservation considérées comme minimalistes ou routinières peuvent avoir des conséquences envahissantes ou prendre un aspect presque rituel. Une approche respectueuse lors de la mise en oeuvre de traitements sur des vestiges humains implique donc une se...
The preservation of cultural property is never a neutral activity; and the question of who is to possess, care for, and interpret artifacts is highly politically charged. This paper examines how preservation was used as a justification for the removal of pieces of immovable archaeological sites in the early twentieth century, and became a tool for building museum collections. This study focuses on a collection of 12 wall painting fragments from the site of Dunhuang, China, which were removed by art historian Langdon Warner in 1924 for the Fogg Art Museum. The removal process resulted in significant damage to some of the fragments as well as to the site itself, calling into question what is preserved: an intact ancient artifact or an ancient artifact scarred by and embedded with its modern collection history? Using the Harvard collection as an example,
The study of Athenian black-figure and red-figure ceramics is haunted by nearly a thousand "hands" of the artisans thought to be responsible for their painted images. But what of the bodies attached to those hands? Who were they? Given the limited archaeological and epigraphic evidence for these ancient makers, this study attempts to recover their physical bodies through the ceramics production process-specifically the firing of vessels-as a communal activity potentially including a large cast of participants including craftsmen and craftswomen, metics, freed people and slaves. Using an experimental archaeology approach, I argue that we can begin to approach the sensory experiences of ancient potters and painters as they produced all the colored surfaces (and not only images) that endure on Greek vases. I propose a four-stage sensory firing in combination with the three-stage chemical firing process known for the production of Athenian ceramics, suggesting that each stage-and the colors produced at each stage-had their own "sensory signatures." Examining extant vases with this awareness of the bodily experience of their ancient makers has the potential to bring back these ancient bodies, moving us beyond the limiting narrative of a single hand wielding a paint brush.which often assumes a single maker with a recognizable "hand." But what of the surfaces of Greek vases as a whole, the shades of red, black and purple that make the images and text legible and the whole bodies of the people who made them?This paper argues that we have not fully considered the surfaces that the ancient Greeks potters and painters made as evidence of these makers' skill and embodied experience. Moving beyond the painted line as the marker of a single craftsman at work, I look to the firing of Greek ceramics as the key moment in the communal production process, one in which all of the work involved in throwing and painting an easily mutable clay object literally crystallized into its durable and indelible final form. The firing was responsible for the production of the range of colors-the reds, oranges, shades of black and brown and also the purples-for which Greek vase painting is renowned. 1 These colors are iron compounds formed under specific temperature and environmental conditions and are chemically reproducible in an experimental archaeology approach. As will be described in this paper, such an approach to the firing of Athenian ceramics offers otherwise unknowable insights into the ancient production process. The firing is an intensely sensory experience, with specific senses heightened at different stages as different colors are being made on the vessels inside the kiln. The colored surfaces of vases therefore have not only a particular chemical, physical and artistic signature but also a "sensory signature." It is by considering these sensory cues that we may approach the bodies of ancient makers at work.As the Hellenistic poem "Kiln" 2 demonstrates, the firing was the stage most fraught with physical danger and the potential f...
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