Archaeologists against Northern League amendment: protection, safety and research submerged by amateurish idea of archaeology

The Archaeologists’ Collective of the Public Employment of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage sent a statement about theamendment to the budget law, advanced by the Northern League with first signatory Congressman Lorenzo Viviani, containing the proposal to grant the possibility of promoting excavations to owners of agritourisms and having tourists participate in research and excavation activities. Below we publish the full text of the note.

"The proposed amendment to the Stability Law beaten out by agencies today sounds bizarre. According to the document presented in Parliament by members of the League, it would be appropriate to grant farmers who own agritourism the possibility of ’promoting archaeological research and excavation activities’ on their land, allowing them access to the tool of the concession for excavations and research, regulated by Articles 88 and 89 of the Cultural Heritage Code. As if that were not enough, the law should also provide that guests of the agritourism facility can participate in excavation activities.

And here it is that in a few lines of an Ansa release, decades of strenuous exercise of protection, of protection of cultural heritage from the appetites of private individuals and art dealers, of theoretical evolution and methodological refinement of the discipline, of struggles, still ongoing, for the recognition of the figure of the archaeologist, disappear submerged by an amateurish idea of archaeology.

It only takes a handful of characters to take us back more than a century, to the days when anyone with land and money to pay a few workers was allowed to excavate to augment personal collections or to make a profit by selling objects extracted from the ground.

It pains us to have to reiterate what we thought was now the shared heritage of the national community: That archaeology is not a hobby for bored vacationers, but a scientific discipline for which long and hard training is necessary; that the state maintains direct or indirect control over excavation activities, as the protection of cultural heritage is such an important matter that it is defended by the Constitutional Charter; that volunteers are indeed a resource, but only within the limits within which they can make a useful contribution, without their substituting for qualified personnel in the exercise of activities of excavation, protection, and valorization; that only qualified entities, such as Universities or Territorial Public Bodies, can apply for concessions, as they offer certain guarantees that the standards of scientificity required by the Ministry will be met; that private individuals can support research activities through sponsorships and Art Bonus, but avoiding taking misguided initiatives themselves.

We truly hope that this news, however unpleasant, will remain in the realm of proposals without consequences. However, we would like to point out that it is nevertheless a very bad sign for the consideration of the archaeological profession in Italy today."

Image: archaeological excavations at Harzhorn in Germany (ph. Credit Axel Hindemith)

Archaeologists against Northern League amendment: protection, safety and research submerged by amateurish idea of archaeology

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