Archaeology is about the past and concerns material from the past; but it is embedded within contemporary society and its practices. This course aims to present and discuss a wide range of ethical dilemmas presented by the practice of archaeology in the 21st century. It will require the development of an acquaintance with legal statutes, ethical codes, and disciplinary practices that have a bearing on decision-making about a wide range of issues concerning cultural property and cultural heritage, in both the Old and New Worlds. I see this class as providing students with a forum in which to think through some very problematic issues concerning ownership and the interests of very varied stakeholders where the material of the past is concerned.

The course’s educational objectives are best illustrated by citing a number of the case-studies, issues, and questions that will be considered by the class. These include:

• What ethical, legal, and political considerations affect decisions about the return of cultural property (such as the ‘proper’ home for the Parthenon marbles)?
• How effective have been responses to looting, illicit excavation, and antiquities thefts in the classical lands?
• What has been the impact on the discipline of connoisseurship, collecting, and the international art market?
• How successful have museums been, in this country and abroad, in displaying classical culture to the interested public?
• What has been the fate of cultural property in times of war and political unrest, and should local populations have ultimate control over ‘their’ cultural patrimony?
• What conflicts arise from the need to preserve key sites (e.g., Knossos, the Athenian Acropolis, the Roman Forum) intact for future generations, while facilitating visits by ever-growing numbers of tourists today?
• Who controls (or should control) access to materials and documents from the ancient world (e.g., the Dead Sea Scrolls, unpublished excavations)?
• To what extent have nationalist, ethnic, or other political agendas dictated the way museum exhibitions have been organized, or classical sites presented (Mussolini’s Rome, for example)?
• How have images and monuments from classical antiquity been appropriated by modern advertising and by movie-makers, and to what extent have popular conceptions of antiquity been molded as a consequence?

This class should be of benefit to any student with interests in archaeology, history, classics, art history, anthropology, or even law and public policy. More generally, it might have more general appeal to those with interests in the humanities and the social sciences, and some curiosity about cultural property and cultural heritage. Even more broadly, I hope to engage students who may have no prior knowledge of archaeology and the ancient world, but who have a concern for thinking through the ethical and moral dilemmas posed by “ownership” of the past.