[Archport] Hollywood takes a dive on heritage

[Alexandre <no.arame@gmail.com>]

>From the President: Tinseltown Treasure

Archaeology, Volume 61 Number 3, May/June 2008, by C. Brian Rose

Hollywood takes a dive on heritage

I am sometimes amused, and often dumbfounded, at Hollywood's take on
the past. Films such as Troy and The Passion of the Christ are totally
divorced from archaeological and literary evidence. I realize that
such big-screen productions aren't factual documentaries about ancient
history, and the Indiana Jones movies aren't faithful depictions of
how archaeologists work, but recently, in National Treasure: Book of
Secrets and Fool's Gold, Hollywood really missed the boat on
underwater cultural heritage. The sore point here is that ancient or
historic remains found underwater are somehow thought to be fair
game--free to anybody who can bring them up. So a sweepstakes
promoting National Treasure was linked to treasure-hunting company
Odyssey Marine Exploration, which is now in a legal dispute with Spain
over several shipwrecks. The grand prize was a Mercedes and $50,000 in
"treasure," which consisted of coins Odyssey had taken from the
nineteenth-century American steamer Republic (see "Profiteers on the
High Seas," July/August 2007).

Critics panned Fool's Gold, calling it "dead-in-the-water"
(Entertainment Weekly) and "a soggy, listless affair" (Hollywood
Reporter), but audiences liked it and on its opening weekend the film
topped the box office with $21 million. The story is about a
ne'er-do-well treasure hunter and his wife who hunt down a Spanish
wreck loaded with, of course, treasure. No mention, apparently, of the
fact that the quest would likely end--as Odyssey has found out--with
the pair in court facing off against the Spanish government's
attorneys.

But it is not just Spain that is victimized by underwater treasure
hunters. We all lose when sites, on land or below water, are destroyed
for the commercial benefit of a few. A new UNESCO Convention on the
Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage will soon come into effect
(16 countries have signed it so far), and it is under consideration by
the United States. (See www.archaeological.org/archaeologywatch for
more information.) A fundamental principle of the convention is that
heritage beneath the seas deserves the same respect accorded to sites
and monuments on land. Simply put, nobody would condone the commercial
mining of a Roman or Native American site on land, so why should we
accept it underwater? Perhaps Hollywood should ponder this question.

C. Brian Rose is the president of the Archaeological Institute of America.


http://www.archaeology.org/0805/etc/president.html