Practice question · Multiple choice
A looted vase arrives intact at a museum. Archaeologists say knowledge has been destroyed. What exactly was lost?
Hints
- Ask what an archaeologist would have recorded around the vase, had they lifted it.
- The object survives. What questions can no longer be asked of it?
Show the answer
B. Its context: the layer, associations and site that dated it
Why
The vase answers questions about style and little else, while the destroyed context held its date, its associations and its use, the information density was in the ground. This is why professional codes forbid appraising unprovenienced antiquities: valuing them funds the next hole.
Practise Ethics and Heritage Management
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
More questions on Ethics and Heritage Management
- Why do professional codes forbid archaeologists from appraising unprovenienced antiquities?
- Order the milestones in the protection of cultural heritage.
- Why do archaeologists say looting destroys knowledge even when the object survives intact?
- Match each legal instrument to its core provision.
- Sort each action: ethical practice or ethical breach?
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