Bergen University and NTNU extends an invitation to a round-table seminar and invites archaeologists, students and scholars to participate.
Cultural Heritage in conflicts and Politics with professor Yiannis Hamilakis from Southampton university.
21.11.2015 11.00/16.00, Øysteingate 3, seminarom 1.
Cultural heritage sites and Museums especially in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, are threatened by war, terrorism, climate change, earthquakes, floods, and other threats. Gunnerus Library in Trondheim organized an exhibition on the subject in October in collaboration with Professor Emeritus, Lise Bender Jørgensen on Niniveh. Read more on that here .
Unesco (see the list of monuments in danger) has been working on the documentation and protection of these sites and has supported many regional initiatives and international teams to create awareness. Various initiatives around the world are now trying to work together in order to prevent illegal trafficking of antiquities from monuments and archaeological sites threatened by war, climate and looting. ICOMOS and CYARK500 have established lately such an initiative, to launch a program for the emergency documentation of high risk cultural Heritage. The European Community supports many initiatives of such character, see Europeana, 3D icons, Lo-cloud, that is infrastructure projects of documentation and active participation of researchers, scholars and the general public in the protection of such sites. Interdisciplinary teams working on preservation of culture, ask society to participate actively in preserving cultural heritage creating a digital public space and allow political and social diversity to manifest itself. Such initiatives as for example Heritage for Peace, or Medieval Sai Project or Project Mosul, try to create engagement around these monuments using emerging technology.
We as professionals need to participate in such actions and debates to create a public understanding of these threads and evocate action by the international citizen communities. We also need to inform and keep the memory of the monuments and sites lost to war alive.
Join us then in Bergen and discuss issues as the ethical dilemmas archaeologists face.
- How can we safeguard and promote Cultural Heritage as professionals caring more about dead heritage and forgotten ruins in the face of the human tragedies that are unfolding in these places?
- Can archaeology and archaeologists be a positive force of change?
Further Reading: Heritage Convention of Unseco
books: James Cuno, Who owns antiquity.
Yiannis Hamilakis, The Nation and its Ruins Antiquity, Archaeology, and National Imagination in Greece.
