Crucial
context: the Sutton Hoo burial
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Who would ever have thought that Roman silver, Swedish armour and
Celtic metalwork would have been buried together in a ship with the body of a 7th century
AD East Anglian king?
We know that they were because the famous site of Sutton Hoo
in England was excavated by archaeologists rather than looters. The antiquities
found in this burial are beautiful and valuable in their own right, but because we know
their context we can appreciate the true historical significance of the site.
Photograph (© The British Museum): The famous
Sutton Hoo helmet. Had the site been dug by looters we would almost certainly never
have known anything about the king who wore it, or that he was buried in his ship with
other riches.
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Power of provenance:
the Buenavista vase
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The inscription round the rim of this magnificent Mayan vase
tells us that it was made for Lord K'ak'-Til, ruler of the ancient city of Naranjo, in
present-day Guatemala. But it was recovered by archaeologists 15kms away in a rich
pyramid burial at Buenavista del Cayo, Belize. It was probably a gift from K'ak'-Til
to the ruler of Buenavista, and is our only evidence for diplomatic ties between the two
cities 1300 years ago. With a provenance it helps us reconstruct political history.
Without a provenance it would remain a stunning work of art, but would tell us
little of the history of the Mayan people. It is estimated that nearly 90% of
antiquities now appearing on the Western market have no published provenance.
Picture: The Buenavista vase. Because it has a
provenance it is more than a beautiful antiquity. It is an important clue to Mayan
history.
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Cycladic figurines: fake or not?
Today, we face problems studying the remarkable white marble
figurines sometimes found in Bronze Age graves in the Cycladic Islands, Greece. Some
1,600 of these figurines are known, but only about 150 were found during archaeological
excavations. The rest appeared on the market with no context or provenance. It
is impossible to date them by scientific means, so unless they have an archaeological
context we cannot tell if they are genuine or not. Experts believe that some
figurines were faked in the past 30 years to feed the booming antiquities market.Picture: The unspoken question hangs over the head
of every figurine without an archaeological context: Is it a fake?
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First posted June 2001; Page
design updated September 2006 |
