Archaeology Odyssey, Spring 1998
Special Section
Leave the Marbles Where They Are!
The publication of “Thinking About the Elgin Marbles” (Michigan Law Review, vol. 85 [1985]) confirmed John Henry Merryman’s status as a leading authority on cultural property matters. Merryman is Sweitzer Professor of Law at Stanford University and one of the founders of the International Journal of Cultural...Read more ›
Bring the Marbles Home!
Respect, even reverence, for the past has inspired Graham Binns to take up causes involving cultural history. In the 1950’s, he chaired a committee that oversaw the restoration of a 17th-century theater in Malta. Since the early 1980’s, he has lectured widely on the repatriation of the...Read more ›
Features
Lord Elgin’s Marbles
How sculptures from the Parthenon got to the British Museum
When the Elgin Marbles appeared in London between 1802 and 1812, heady talk filled the air. They would create a revolution in the arts. They would change the tastes of the entire nation. New truths would be discovered in these old stones, carved under the direction of...Read more ›
In Pharaoh’s Footsteps
History repeats itself in General Allenby’s 1918 march on Megiddo
Horses whinny softly, stamping nervously as their riders mount up in the chilly predawn air. The day’s mission looms ahead: a dangerous trek straight up the Wadi ’Ara and through the narrow Musmus Pass, then a quick dash across the Plain of Esdraelon to...Read more ›
The Birth of Adonis?
Cyprus excavation suggests a connection between the Greek god and the Hebrew Adon
How does a site get lost? It happens. For nearly a decade—from 1867 to 1875—General Luigi Palma de Cesnola, a flamboyant Italian who served as both the American and Russian consul to Cyprus, dug at Idalion (located 12 miles south of Nicosia), where, he...Read more ›
Architecture of the Afterlife
Understanding Egypt’s pyramid tombs
Nothing brings together the scholar and the crackpot like a pyramid. Built more than 4,000 years ago, Egypt’s pyramids are among archaeology’s perennial fascinations—huge, geometric structures with mummified bodies inside. Books about the pyramids have a long history, too, going back at least as far as the...Read more ›