How Should Archaeology Reach its Public?
Universities and colleges contain a multitude of experts in
filmmaking, scriptwriting, and storytelling. They inhabit departments
of Communication, Journalism, English, and Theater. Archaeologists
should bring them on board, tell them what they want to communicate,
and let them help work it into an interesting and filmable story.
Bring in colleagues from history, classics, and ancient studies to
help tackle a topic broader than the archaeological data.
Furthermore, many institutions have TV studios and cameras, as well
as editing and duplicating equipment. Rather than thinking we cannot
do anything without the National Geographic or Discovery channels, we
should realize we have access to the resources to tell our own tales.
By Paul V.M. Flesher
Director,
Religious Studies Program
University of Wyoming
April, 2009
To comment on the following essay, go to its posting on the Religion Today blog
Here.
Thanks to the efforts of Ann Killebrew, the new editor of Near
Eastern Archaeology, the Forum in NEA’s September
2008 issue makes clear what many of us have feared. When it comes to
TV documentaries, archaeology gets no respect. While shows about
archaeology may be popular with audiences, the clear point of the
three main essays featured in “Archaeologists and the Media” is
that archaeologists and their knowledge-based views are not popular
with those who make such shows. As far as the producers are
concerned, archaeologists are only important to lend tacit approval
of and authority to the point made by those in charge of the
documentary.
Eric Cline begins by castigating TV for producing sensationalized
shows supposedly based on archaeology but which use archaeological
expertise only for window dressing. According to Cline’s essay, “TV
and the Near Eastern Archaeologist,” these programs—with topics
such as Noah’s Ark, Sodom and Gomorrah, and Ark of the
Covenant—focus on mysteries rather than history, secrets rather
than archaeology, treasure hunting rather than education. Cline
argues that the problem lies with the producers of such shows, who
are woefully ignorant about proper archaeological procedure and
evidence. He calls for archaeologists to work with such producers and
educate them, using any helpful means to bring real archaeology into
the programs.
Neal Asher Silberman, who has made his career communicating
archaeology to the general public, lays the blame not on the
documentary producers, but on archaeologists themselves. In “Still
not Ready for Primetime,” he argues that archaeologists are
“entirely fixated on meaningless archaeological factoids and have
nothing very interesting or profound to say to the public at large.”
Indeed, “today’s archaeologists are grimly focused on their
potsherds and seed samples. What makes them,” Silberman
wonders, “deserving of being recognized as the most skillful and
authoritative interpreters of our collective memory?”
Silberman’s solution is nothing less than the transformation of
archaeologists and their field. “Effectively using TV…is not just
a matter of popularizing an arid, scholarly consciousness. It
requires that the scholarly consciousness itself be reformed and
academic curricula more closely reflect the kinds of skills that
archaeologists will need to engage with the public seriously, not
superficially.”
Cornelius Holtorf’s essay, “TV Archaeology is Valuable
Storytelling,” responds to Cline’s essay in a different manner.
It emphasizes that documentaries tell stories. Agreeing with
Silberman that archaeologists are little more than purveyors of
archaeological factoids, he further argues they are not good
storytellers and so need others to tell their stories. Unfortunately
this means that archaeology takes a secondary position in its own
tale. “Specifics [about sites, for instance] matter only insofar as
they become elements in larger stories….” This sounds OK if we
imagine the larger story to be one archaeologists want to tell. But
Holtorf makes its clear this is not the case: “…larger stories
…about great adventure, treasure hunting, detective work, quests
for answering big questions, or races to save some threatened
valuables.” In other words, TV archaeology is not about
archaeology, it is about goals that could be accomplished without
archaeology; adventure and detective stories can certainly be told
without archaeology. Holtorf drives the point home. “In popular
culture, any specific historical information or indeed interpretation
of the past offered by archaeologists has meaning only insofar as it
contributes to making the adventure more adventurous, the mystery
more (or less) mysterious, the revelation more pertinent, or the
rescue mission more urgent.”
Archaeology is not irrelevant for Holtorf. He just thinks that its
practitioners need to understand the characteristics of the modern
public it serves. “TV archaeology is not in the business of
understanding the past, but of enhancing people’s lives through
adventures, mysteries, discoveries, and revelations, and by offering
possibilities for people to care about valuable cultural heritage.
Through compelling storytelling, archaeology can directly improve
people’s quality of life and that is no small achievement.”
If the three essays provide a single conclusion, it is this: TV
archaeology is about “compelling storytelling.” Few of the
archaeological storytellers are archaeologists themselves, and so the
stories being told are not those the field would tell.
Archaeologists, furthermore, are lousy storytellers, so until they
change, they will remain unsuited to tell archaeology’s own
stories.
Of course, it is this last that archaeologists need to do. As Cline
makes clear in his response to the last two essays, we must “begin
telling the tales ourselves.” To make the case more forcefully,
Cline likens archaeology to franchising a brand. “Just as George
Lucas and Steven Spielberg fiercely protect their Indiana Jones
franchise and its marketing, and Microsoft™ and Coca-Cola™ protect
theirs, I believe that archaeologists must band together to protect
the franchise and marketing of archaeology with equal fervor.”
When we cut through the metaphors of “story” and “franchise,”
the question boils down to this: How do we communicate archaeology to
the interested public? Here are three suggestions.
First, Eric Cline correctly calls for archaeologists to make their
own material. To accomplish this, he echoes Silberman’s call for
curricular reform to teach budding archaeologists how to communicate.
He responds by saying, “It is high time for undergraduate and
graduate archaeology students, and their professors as well, to begin
taking courses in their school’s communications departments,” and
goes on to argue “and forging alliances with respected filmmakers
and cable television channels so that we can begin telling the tales
ourselves, rather than allowing someone else to do it for us.”
This is a good beginning, but it will not accomplish Cline’s goal.
Only undergraduates could possibly have the time to take more than
one such course, given graduate students’ already overwhelming
schedule expectations. And it will take years for such changes to
take effect.
Instead, archaeology should lead with its strength, specifically,
teambuilding. All successful excavations require the formation and
management of a team, one usually consisting of experts, mid-level
supervisors, and trainees. Few excavation leaders know how to do
every task and every form of analysis required in an excavation; they
bring in others to do them. Apply the same principle to making
documentaries: put together teams to tell archaeological stories.
Universities and colleges contain a multitude of experts in
filmmaking, scriptwriting, and storytelling. They inhabit departments
of Communication, Journalism, English, and Theater. Archaeologists
should bring them on board, tell them what they want to communicate,
and let them help work it into an interesting and filmable story.
Bring in colleagues from history, classics, and ancient studies to
help tackle a topic broader than the archaeological data.
Furthermore, many institutions have TV studios and cameras, as well
as editing and duplicating equipment. Rather than thinking we cannot
do anything without the National Geographic or Discovery channels, we
should realize we have access to the resources to tell our own tales.
Second, OK, once a team comes together, what story should
archaeologists tell? Is archaeology stuck telling tales of
“Adventure, romance, treasure hunting, solving mysteries,” as Ann
Killebrew writes in her book review? Certainly that seems to be
Holtorf’s message at first reading. But I think we can understand
his observation in a second way. He said, we recall, that archaeology
makes the “adventure more adventurous, the mystery more (or less)
mysterious, the revelation more pertinent.” In other words,
archaeology helps a story be better; an adventure story becomes more
exciting and helps explore a mystery or solve it. So if
archaeologists tell their own story, then the use of archaeology can
help that story be more interesting.
With a creative team of filmmakers, scriptwriters, and storytellers,
archaeologists can break out of the mold of mystery, secret,
discovery formulas where the entertainment comes from the
non-archaeological host rather than from the archaeological story
itself. Archaeology and its finds are exciting to the interested
public. Archaeologists are not just purveyors of factoids—even
though these shows often represent them that way—but constitute
pursuers of broader and deeper understandings of antiquity. Rather
than take these formulas as the only way an archaeological story can
be told, let’s look to other models and see what they inspire. I
suggest James Burke’s Connections or Sister Wendy’s
Story of Painting. Maybe Simon Schama’s A History of Britain
might inspire new modes of storytelling. Even Ken Burns’ The
Civil War could be suggestive; antiquity is not littered with
letters, but there are some from the cities of Canaan, Egypt, and
other urban areas.
Archaeologists also need to be thinking about the message they want
to deliver. Most archaeologists in the USA are teachers. They are not
trained in producing mere “factoids,” even if that seems to be
the way filmmakers package them, but rather approach their subjects
with much broader perspectives. Classroom topics are not narrow, but
broad. Smaller, specific examples are used to illustrate larger,
important principles or conclusions. Discussion of archaeological
sites and excavations are interpreted in the light of historical
questions and knowledge. Sy Gitin, one of the excavators of Tel
Miqne, for example, took part in a larger project trying to
understand patterns of trade and migration in the Eastern
Mediterranean. Archaeologists also address process and method, which
can be interesting in and of itself, to teach students in how we
actually draw conclusions about the past. Archaeologists have many
interesting things to convey to an interested audience; they just
need to get away from thinking that only TV or documentary producers
can produce interesting materials.
Third, where do we tell those stories? Despite the Forum’s
title of “Archaeologists and the Media,” the essays really only
focus on one medium, that of television, and ignore the
rest. And, despite this blinkered view, if there is one point that
the three essays agree on, it is that TV has not been very
cooperative in letting archaeologists tell their own story. The
fault seems to lie in the medium’s very structure. As Silberman
says, “Today’s five-hundred-channel cable TV spectrum…is a
chaotic, noisy, public marketplace that succeeds by stimulating the
viewers’ strong emotions—strong enough to keep them watching a
certain channel, and not surf away during the commercial breaks that
pay for everything.” TV is both a highly competitive and a
decidedly commercial medium. Channels display what pays, and what
pays are the shows that make a station competitive on a large scale.
Archaeology is not a commercial enterprise. Sure, excavations burn
through large amounts of money to carry out their work, but the end
product is a dig report which aims to enhance the understanding of
the site, and hopefully, a variety of contributions to a broader
understanding of the ancient world in which it participated. Most
digs produce a few interesting artifacts to be displayed in museums.
None of this is money making. So why should archaeology subject
itself to a medium in which the almighty dollar reigns supreme? TV is
a poor choice for those who want to achieve accurate representation
of archaeology.
A better match for achieving the goal of communicating archaeology to
the interested public is the Internet. Most people over 40 have yet
to realize the sea-change in communication that the Web
represents—one that has already happened among younger generations.
For example, I picked up a new habit from my students; I watch TV
with my laptop. When a show makes an interesting remark about
science, or history, or archaeology, or literature, I’ll Google it
to learn more. If it is a nature question, I’ll often wind up on an
environmentalist website, or a nature society website (think Audubon
Society). If it is a medical question, I usually come to a site
sponsored by medical society, a drug company, or a research team. If
it is literature, I may find the actual text of the literary work. If
it is Bible or Near Eastern archaeology, however, I am more likely to
wind up at Wikipedia—if I’m lucky. The academic field of Near
Eastern archaeology lags behind in taking advantage of the Internet.
This is a shame. As the Obama campaign demonstrated on a large scale,
the Internet enables the delivery of one’s own message to
interested parties without the filter of TV pundits and producers. It
was a triumph over the very problem that Eric Cline bemoaned in his
essay.
So how could Near Eastern archaeologists use the Internet to
disseminate information about archaeology?
Well, to improve my internet-assisted TV viewing, they could
contribute more frequently and extensively to sites like Bible and
Interpretation. This site has worked to bring archaeological
results to the public, to provide explanations and interpretation of
archaeological finds, and to support debate of historical and
archaeological issues that are accessible to an educated and
interested public.
Professional archaeologists and their students could create their own
wikipedia, known as a “wiki” these days. Rather than let anyone
write anything, a wiki focusing on Near Eastern archaeology could
incorporate the vetting and editing of articles.
Archaeological digs could bring a writer onto their excavation team
whose responsibility was to post a regular blog about each day’s
activities and finds, along with photographs. If such a blog included
interpretive discussions with a site’s chief archaeologists, it
could provide some of the “spade work” for the season’s
preliminary report.
If it is video imagery that we want to replace the poor TV
programming, YouTube and other video sharing sites provide
distribution locations for materials. While archaeologically oriented
postings will probably not gain the millions of viewers attracted by
some “virus videos,” YouTube is actually a good place for more
serious material. More importantly, it can host video material in
tandem with a website much more cheaply than such a site can do by
itself.
The Bamburgh Research Project at Bamburgh Castle in Northern England
has experimented with video in several ways
(http://www.bamburghresearchproject.co.uk/index.html). A few postings
appear on YouTube, but more importantly the excavation team includes
a media department that records all the site’s work. These
recordings provide the material for several media-based ventures.
Other Internet tools may prove useful. Social networking sites such
as Facebook and Twitter help attract attention and enable groups to
keep in touch. Distance education schools have been experimenting
with ways to use them in teaching. Indeed, distance education is a
good place to learn how different Internet techniques and tools can
be used.
Many organizations are already working in different ways to bring
archaeology online. Museums such as the one at the Classics and
Archaeology Virtual Museum at the University of Melbourne
(http://vm.arts.unimelb.edu.au/) and the Cobb Institute of
Archaeology (http://www.cobb.msstate.edu/) have created online
digital databases of archaeological information as well as virtual
museum tours. And many of us have seen the virtual exhibits of the
Dead Sea Scrolls.
Organizations like ABZU (http://www.etana.org/abzu/) have been
working to make out-of-copyright archaeological treatises available
online. Now with hundreds of volumes available, there is more
scholarly material online concerning Near Eastern archaeology from
the early twentieth century than from the early twenty-first century.
I could continue listing Internet tools and giving examples of how
different archaeological organizations have used them, but the
essay’s point is clear. The question of Archaeology and the Media
is not “How does archaeology relate to the media?” but “How
does archaeology communicate its message to the public and what are
the best media forms for that task?” The Internet provides a new
paradigm for accomplishing that goal, one that can potentially reach
a wider audience than the media forms of TV (and newspapers) that
dominated the latter half of the twentieth century. Given the failure
of those old media forms to serve the needs of archaeology, it is
time to move on.
To comment on the above essay, go to its posting on the Religion Today blog Here.
