Public Archaeology is a young discipline, we all know that. It’s even younger in Italy, where public archaeology has not even reached ‘adulthood’. Cited for the first time by Armando De Guio in 2000 (De Guio and Bressan 2000), it was only a decade later that Public Archaeology has started to become ‘a thing’, thanks to some pioneering experiences at the University of Florence (Bonacchi 2009; Vannini 2011), and especially after a national conference in 2012 (in Florence: see Zuanni 2013 for a summary). Italian archaeologists’ first reaction was to overlap the new discipline with the experiences already in place, which in Italy were under the category of ‘valorizzazione’ (enhancement). They were not exactly the same: while Public Archaeology is characterised by a reflection on the objectives of the research from the very start, a focus on having a reliable methodology, and a strong element linked to evaluation, ‘enhancement’ experiences – while often valuable and successful – lacked the same structure and reliability. This is probably due to an underestimation of these practices as a scientific topic, thus deserving the same structure required for any other type of research. Often this resulted in a mere description of the activities carried out, with a generic objective like ‘increasing the knowledge of archaeology in the public sphere’ without really evaluating if the activities worked or not. Public Archaeology became a sort of a trendy subject, outdating the term ‘valorizzazione’, at least in most of the university milieu, and creating confusion on the subject and the methodology. This sometimes has led to a sort of ‘hangover’ effect, similar to what happens with summer songs: they sound fun when you first hear them, but after months you just want to move on! Few doctoral theses awarded in Archaeology have been devoted to topics related to Public Archaeology up to the present date and the risk is that after this ‘hangover’ the subject will be penalised in comparison to others.
In this work, we present the genesis, development, and results of a set of inclusive outreach activities developed through a puppet theatre play about the Neolithic. We present our methodology and techniques for outreach activities, showing the advantages of collaborative work and bottom-up approaches. The text also explains how the initiative was born and how the contacts for its realization consolidated. All the activities were carried out with the utmost care for the scientific content since it is essential that the public comes to understand all the archaeological information and differentiates it from the entertaining and dramatic elements.
Recently, Johannes Neurath’s book, titled Subdue the gods, doubt the images (2020) was published, which, among other things, warns that, in the archaeological museums of Mexico, including the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico City, there has been an “ontological mistreatment” of the sacred images of the pre-Hispanic era through their removal from their original locations and indistinct placement in large and cold rooms packed with monoliths, without any consideration for the fact that some were – and continue to be – images bestowed with power and influence by many communities today.
It must have been around ten years ago, when I was invited to present my -shaky then but promising- progress of PhD thesis at the University of Athens, on social and economic trends in heritage management, discussing island cultural resources and the role of the interested communities. I remember myself at the end of my talk, standing in front of a bewildered and intrigued (in equal doses) audience, only to experience the -somehow- apologetic comment of the organising professor to the audience: “I see that we need to look into these things now, that all became science”. I have talked about this memory elsewhere in detail (Lekakis 2015) mainly to pinpoint that even though 40 years of concrete bibliography have then lapsed -McGimsey, for example, produced his seminal volume in 1972- there was still a lack of information about the concept and practices of public archaeology, at least in the Greek academic context.
A popular proverb states ‘Don't play with your food’. This maxim that not only concerns those of us who have the immense fortune of dedicating our working hours (and more if possible) to the noble discipline of archaeology and historical research. If anything is really clear to us, it is that Heritage (from the perspective of investigation, safeguard and management) is more than the ‘food’ of a couple of professors and four tourist guides, but of many thousands whose income depends on it essentially through tourism. In fact, tourism in Spain in 2019 before the pandemic yielded 154,487 million Euros to the economy, representing 12.4% of its GDP. In fact, dear reader, please reflect on what drives you to go on vacation? And what leads you to choose one tourist destination over another? The response is simple: diversity. It represents a search for something that is unknown where you reside, something unique and unrepeatable that is only found at a particular destination, a unique setting offering an aesthetic or gastronomic experience that otherwise would not be worth the visiting. This book under review delves precisely into the question of this diversity we seek when traveling as it is Heritage (either material or intangible, artistic, monumental, archaeological or natural) that gives an identity to each city, each community. Heritage renders them different from other neighbouring cities. From a material point of view, Heritage is what attracts tourists and, even more, from a sentimental point of view, it is what offers signs of identity to locals. Thus in the end we are not only talking about ‘things to eat’.
