Saturday, April 28, 2012

Latest Pompeii Collapse: Will State Control Model Collapse Next?

There has been another collapse at Pompeii despite recent EU funding efforts.  See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9219470/Pompeii-wall-collapses-despite-new-conservation-initiative.html

Yet, the US State Department, the Italian cultural bureaucracy, and the archaeological lobby still maintain that the Italian State should control anything old as it is the best steward to conserve, study and protect it.

No state has enough resources to protect everything, particularly one teetering on the edge of bankruptcy like Italy.  The sooner this basic fact is recognized, the sooner more rational approaches to cultural heritage preservation-- including ones that embrace the value of private collecting-- will be tried, rather than the current approach that assumes a nation state should control everything and anything old.

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