2nd November 2008, 06:44 PM
Hi to everyone and many thanks for your kind welcomes! Having spent the first six months living in an abandoned mountain village with a plentiful supply of snakes but no electricity, and the last six months in Civilisation, we finally have the internet and a plentiful supply of kebab shops. This does mean that I hope to contribute here often and of course, nurture the pot-belly that I have always coveted.
Thankyou for your views on this thread so far, allow me to flesh it out a bit...
I think an appropriate parallel would be the "credit crunch"- a rather oversimplified catchphrase that camolflages grand-scale abuse and greed. Recent mitigation to this global disaster has included some control imposed by governments. It remains to be seen as to whether this approach will bear fruit. In our little world, the PPG 16 threshold was and indeed still is, seen as a great step forwards but, and here is the but... an almost complete lack of control on the part of central government has in my view, resulted in a heritage free for all where "profit at any cost" (pardon the pun) has muddied the waters of the professionalism envisioned by the authors of PPG 16. It is at this point that I have to say that I agree absolutely and fundamentally with the closing points of 1man1desk (hi sir and greetings from Cyprus!) and feel that his points should be heralded as a concise -if not- the model argument for a campaign for change in British archaeology. Again, I would add my usual caveat that standards require policing. Here in Cyprus for example, archaeology is exclusively carried out by the State with the exception of visiting universities undertaking "training/research" excavations. With Cyprus now a full and embedded member of the EU, it may be the case that Cyprus may be required by the EU to implement an appropriate system akin to competitive tendering. So, I find myself in an interesting place at an interesting time-one of potential transition from a state controlled archaeology to one of a commercialised nature. Laying my cards on the table, I would recommend a continuation of State control where professional standards could be established, monitored and policed. In this way, the State would, at the outset, be making it clear that a nations heritage is of enough national importance that a national resolution is the appropriate path to tread. As an aside, this would also infer that heritage matters would be embraced by difinitive national law and not, thrown to the ambiguous and consistantly abusable circus of commercial "law". It is sad to say but, the British archaeology system can be seen as a "law" unto itself...unregulated and not policed. The potential for profit-driven abuse in an environment such as this became all too apparent for me after nearly ten years in the trenches. For me, the next few years in Cyprus will be crucial. There really are only two ways to go here, the retention of State control and the establishment of a truly professional system or, the throwing of the nations heritage to the wolves of rampant commercialism. The former could launch Cyprus as a world leader in the treatment of its heritage but the former I fear, could condemn it to the quagmire of the UK system-a disaster of catastrophic proportion when one takes into consideration the sheer abundance, preservation and beauty of Cypriot archaeology. I may be homing in on Cyprus here and in a way, this can be seen as both myopic and unfair. There are a multitude of new members of the EU facing similar transitions so, is it time that we had a good long look at the Valetta Convention and associated doctrines? Don`t get me wrong guys, I`m not saying that the UK system has failed and shouldn`t be recommended as a viable model to new EU members....simply that if I was selling a second-hand car to an unwitting but interested punter, I would feel compelled to outline the flat tyres, the fraudulent M.O.T and the stolen CD player first....
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
Thankyou for your views on this thread so far, allow me to flesh it out a bit...
I think an appropriate parallel would be the "credit crunch"- a rather oversimplified catchphrase that camolflages grand-scale abuse and greed. Recent mitigation to this global disaster has included some control imposed by governments. It remains to be seen as to whether this approach will bear fruit. In our little world, the PPG 16 threshold was and indeed still is, seen as a great step forwards but, and here is the but... an almost complete lack of control on the part of central government has in my view, resulted in a heritage free for all where "profit at any cost" (pardon the pun) has muddied the waters of the professionalism envisioned by the authors of PPG 16. It is at this point that I have to say that I agree absolutely and fundamentally with the closing points of 1man1desk (hi sir and greetings from Cyprus!) and feel that his points should be heralded as a concise -if not- the model argument for a campaign for change in British archaeology. Again, I would add my usual caveat that standards require policing. Here in Cyprus for example, archaeology is exclusively carried out by the State with the exception of visiting universities undertaking "training/research" excavations. With Cyprus now a full and embedded member of the EU, it may be the case that Cyprus may be required by the EU to implement an appropriate system akin to competitive tendering. So, I find myself in an interesting place at an interesting time-one of potential transition from a state controlled archaeology to one of a commercialised nature. Laying my cards on the table, I would recommend a continuation of State control where professional standards could be established, monitored and policed. In this way, the State would, at the outset, be making it clear that a nations heritage is of enough national importance that a national resolution is the appropriate path to tread. As an aside, this would also infer that heritage matters would be embraced by difinitive national law and not, thrown to the ambiguous and consistantly abusable circus of commercial "law". It is sad to say but, the British archaeology system can be seen as a "law" unto itself...unregulated and not policed. The potential for profit-driven abuse in an environment such as this became all too apparent for me after nearly ten years in the trenches. For me, the next few years in Cyprus will be crucial. There really are only two ways to go here, the retention of State control and the establishment of a truly professional system or, the throwing of the nations heritage to the wolves of rampant commercialism. The former could launch Cyprus as a world leader in the treatment of its heritage but the former I fear, could condemn it to the quagmire of the UK system-a disaster of catastrophic proportion when one takes into consideration the sheer abundance, preservation and beauty of Cypriot archaeology. I may be homing in on Cyprus here and in a way, this can be seen as both myopic and unfair. There are a multitude of new members of the EU facing similar transitions so, is it time that we had a good long look at the Valetta Convention and associated doctrines? Don`t get me wrong guys, I`m not saying that the UK system has failed and shouldn`t be recommended as a viable model to new EU members....simply that if I was selling a second-hand car to an unwitting but interested punter, I would feel compelled to outline the flat tyres, the fraudulent M.O.T and the stolen CD player first....
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)