MInerva March/April 2008

Minerva Magazine

The current edition of Minerva includes an article by Peter Lacovara entitled Nubian Kingdoms of the Nile from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. For the complete list of contents see the above page.

There is also a book review available on the site free of charge. The book is Cornelius Holtorf’s Archaeology is a Brand. The Meaning of Archaeology in Contemporary Popular Culture (Archaeopress, Oxford, 2007) .

Archaeologists tend not to be especially gifted at soul searching why the past matters to entertainment and education, but this squirmish topic is tackled head on in the most revealing piece of literary dirty linen of recent years. Cornelius Holtorf’s Archaeology is a Brand. The Meaning of Archaeology in Contemporary Popular Culture (Archaeopress, Oxford, 2007) presents the results of the author’s two-year investigation into the meaning and portrayal of archaeology in contemporary culture, sponsored by the Swedish National Heritage Board.

Love it or loath it, archaeology is a global business today, from university courses to museums, publishing houses, films, and television shows launching the next real-life Indiana Jones or Lara Croft. Dr Holtorf’s microscopic view of the industry, though, is not what it externally seems. Smartly published using a comic font and cartoons produced by the hilarious hand of Quentin Drew of Lampeter University, Wales, Archaeology Is A Brand superficially resembles a light-hearted romp through the past in the present. But do not be hoodwinked by the author’s cunning intelligence: this is a very serious reflection that ‘typologises’ archaeologists – turning the tables on our artefact-cataloguing obsession – to predict future trends.

See the above page for the complete review.