World Cultural Preservation

My former professor, Richard Kurin, has been the Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture" at the Smithsonian Institution for over 25 years now. An interview with Dr. Kurin posted on the U.S. State Department's propaganda organ America.gov has been making the round among progressive news outlets like Scoop and cultural resources blogs like Saving Antiquities.

I am amazed that Kurin has not only survived but flourished as organizer and recruiter of international acts for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival as well as many of the Silk Road Project events and exhibits at museums in our nation's capitol. The profile advertising his appearance at the Canadian Museum Association conference in St. Johns, Newfoundland, Kurin describes many of his most recent accomplishments:

(Kurin)... has worked with cultural figures ranging from Pete Seeger, Yo-Yo Ma, Mickey Hart, and Bernice Johnson Reagon to the Aga Khan and the Dalai Lama. He helped draft an international treaty on safeguarding the world’s living cultural heritage. He has produced major events for the Smithsonian’s 150th anniversary, the opening of the World War II Memorial, the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian, and programs for numerous presidential inaugurals, including that of President Obama.

I highly recommend the interview with Kurin posted at America.gov.

A Tour of Governor's Island

EPA damages Fort Edward

This story is over a week old, but it is only just now beginning to show up on listservers and blogs about archaeology and historic preservation.

Fort Edward is located on the east bank of the Hudson River 45 miles north of Albany, New York. It strategic importance lay in serving as a point of portage between the Hudson River and Lake George. Fort Edward figured prominently in the history of the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. The fort's location is also within the area initially impacted by PCB wastes which were left behind by General Electric and were eventually washed downstream to contaminate the entire Hudson River valley and its estuary, where New York City is located.

The current chapter in Fort Edward's long and colorful history began when the Environmental Protection Agency restarted its project to dredge the entire Hudson River downstream of the spill. The dredging project had been strongly debated both pro and con for many years, and the environmentalist forces marshalled by the likes of Pete Seeger and Robert Kennedy, Jr. finally achieved their goal. Now some clumsy equipment operators appear to have ripped out timbers from an historic fort, triggering severe bank erosion. Conservative news outlest such as CNS News and Rupert Murdock's New York Post have jumped on the story, presumably because it casts the EPA in a bad light. Historic preservationists must regrettably admit that the fort site itself had been poorly maintained. Archaeological consultants working for EPA may have given inadequate guidance regarding the fort's extent, condition, and appropriate measures for dredging in the immediate vicinity.

Hat tip to New York History blogger John Warren, whose excellent writing just came to my attention while researching this story.

Restoring the Arch of Ctesiphon?

The U.S. military plans to assist regional Iraqi autorities in the "restoration" of a ruined brick arch. According to the story written by Pvt. Jared Gehmann of the 82nd Airborne, the Arch of Ctesiphon was built nearly 16 centuries ago and was formerly a popular tourist attraction in this part of Iraq.

Save the Hill of Tara!

There is a petition online that anyone who values archaeological sites should sign.

http://www.petitiononline.com/hilltara/petition.html

This is a world heritage site. It is part of the heritage of everyone with celtic ancestry, and all people stand to gain through preservation of such monuments because of their educational value and their potential contribution to our knowledge about the evolution of complex societies.

Lismullen site at Hill of Tara halts M3 motorway construction

I posted Paul Muldoon's poem about the destruction of the Hill of Tara on my Yahoo! 360° blog last June. Now there is a new twist on this mismanaged cultural resource. Salvage excavation on one of the many archaeological sites within the right-of-way for the M3 motorway, Lismullen, has exposed an "enclosure" that would take years to completely excavate and may force a reroute after all.

The official announcement by the Irish Department of the Environment, Heritage & Local Government appeared this Tuesday, and a preliminary archaeological report on the site can be downloaded at saveTara.com. There have been some lively debates among Irish bloggers about the merits of postponing motorway construction on the Irish Indymedia message board as well as that of the TaraWatch Yahoo group. Blogs for The Hill of Tara and TaraWatch, on the other hand, do not appear to have many readers. An NPR story on this evening's All Things Considered that grabbed my attention featured some of the new details on the structure first reported yesterday in the Irish press.

The above aerial photograph of the Lismullen site by Paula Geraghty is part of an album posted to Photobucket by the Campaign to Save Tara.