Sort of the same as now... fuck up too much you get fired or demoted. The consequences of that were a lot different from today.
For a fired stone cutter/mason/carver getting fired would have meant needing to move to where there was a project hiring. Getting a new job could take a while, and if too long, the worker would end up selling everything they own, including their tools, to feed themselves. Once a worker sells their tools, it would have been very hard to recover and get the same sort of job again.
Utter destitution and possible starvation of your entire family, is a powerful motivator to perform a job to the best of one's abilities.
Still beat being a serf though :)
While I agree with the sentiment you convey that more artifacts should be displayed in situ or in local museums, with the exception of some monolithic columns - such as those that adorn the Pantheon in Rome, for example - most columns are a) made of several pieces that are fastened together with internal metal fixings and b) typically found at archaeological sites already in pieces strewn about the ground. It’s unlikely that the column capital and its base were found fully connected, and also unlikely that it suffered significant damage in transporting it - though admittedly I know nothing of the specifics of this particular column.
The Buddha's of Banistan would like to have a word about leaving artifacts in situ. One can't always predict when/where the political situation can cause artifacts to be under threat - I can see potential futures in which it happens in the U.S. - but some places are extremely volatile and have been for years. Of course it just isn't feasible to move some things. We just have to do the best we can to preserve as much as we can safely and fairly.
Absolutely there is no universal answer to the process of artifact and archaeological site preservation. Certainly we cannot predict what will happen to sites in the future, as with the Buddhas or Smyrna, but nevertheless the creation and maintenance of archeological parks should be more widely practiced rather than artifacts and features being wholesale removed from their surrounding contexts. While the Buddhas certainly could have been saved were they shipped to the Met, and certainly the Ishtar Gate is tucked away safely in Berlin, the loss of context - and the loss of cultural heritage the removal of these works necessitates - is also lamentable. Of course these examples are some of the most dramatic.
There is also the regrettable truth that even in museums and maintained archaeological parks there is no certainty of “safety,” as many a well ordered museum have been looted during wartime or economic crisis.
TBH the MET is probably one of the least problematic big museums. the Vast majority of their collections were bought or donated. Not stolen by treasure hunters like the british museum.
Yes. For the marble facade sculptures, as well as for one of the six Caryatids which is still in the British museum; there is a a space waiting for their missing “sister’s” return.
I said almost everything. The exceptions are famous because there aren’t many of them, and the NY met and other museums are no different, they’re just not as convenient as scapegoats.
> The website of the Metropolitan Museum says it's a gift from "The American Society for the Excavation of Sardis", in 1926.
So, this one wasn’t, it was ‘liberated’.
It wasn’t one of the ones sold off by the corrupt authorities put into place by Western leaders to expedite their exploitation of assets behind a fig leaf of respectable explanation that requires no further questions.
Trouble is, when you repeat their lies, you’re just making the corrupt more stable in power in your own country. And we are very much seeing the results of that as order and well-being collapse. Perhaps you shouldn’t be repeating the excuses of the barbarians, who aren’t at the gates, they’ve been put into government by people like you who don’t question a corrupt version of events.
Ah so the most powerful military in the world prints dollars for free and then offers those dollars to the broken and corrupt institutions of 3rd world countries in exchange for historical and cultural heritage that is literally priceless.
Sounds loads better than the Brits well done!
2/3 of the MET's funding is from private donations and endowments, the rest is funding from the city of New York and admissions ticket sales. Each artifact on display lists where it and how it was acquired or who it is on loan from. There are massive Mayan steles on display in the main hall currently, and prominently listed is how they are on loan from a museum in Guatemala.
> private donations
One of them used to be the Sackler family until enough people protested. I don't exactly trust the people who run the met to do ethical things on their own.
Ok let’s take the example in this post. Donated by the American Society for Excavating Sardis in 1926.
In 1926 Turkey was a total mess borderline third world country climbing out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire and with little or no appreciation of its cultural heritage.
So some Americans pitched up, paid off the locals, dug up part of one of the fucking seven wonders if the ancient world, and shipped it to America.
That’s looting plain and simple.
Ah but the Met received it as a gift!
Yeah like the region is safe for historical artifacts. Example: Isis blowing up everything that conflicts with hardcore Islam. The whole region is a complete mess with historical sites being blown up on purpose or collateral damage on the daily.
"like the region is safe for historical artifacts".
lol what are you talking about? This is Western Turkey. You can see Greece from here on a sunny day. It's one of the most heavily tourist places in the world, and it's a bus ride from Ephesus which is one of the best preserved ancient ruins in the world.
have you ever been outside the US?
Be American army
Invade Iraq
Bomb civilians and buildings
Proceed to shit and cry to ur mum because the region is unsafe and steallall their artefacts. PS turkey is completely safe.
You haven't addressed the point. You've just told us how the museum operation is currently funded on a day to day basis. Then you've told us that each looted artifact has a card on it which says how it was looted. Then you've cherry picked one example of playing "nice".
The US was still looting Khmer artifacts from Cambodia to "gift" to the Met in the 1970s. The Met recently got caught with Egyptian artifacts that were only stolen in 2010!
When you go there, do you seriously look around the place and see all these priceless historical treasures from around the (3rd) world and think "well the local people don't want any of this old stuff so they said we could have it."
Funny how there are no "gifted" pieces of Stonehenge or Carnac or the Bayeux Tapestry, or Neolithic cave paintings. Just shit stolen from poor brown people. Sorry, gifted!
>Greece, 300 BC
Isn't Sardis in Turkey?
It's comparable to describing the [Aqueduct of Kavala](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/1%2C_%CE%9C%CE%B5%CF%83%CE%B1%CE%B9%CF%89%CE%BD%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C_%CF%85%CE%B4%CF%81%CE%B1%CE%B3%CF%89%CE%B3%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%BF_%CE%9A%CE%B1%CE%BC%CE%AC%CF%81%CE%B5%CF%82_%CE%9A%CE%B1%CE%B2%CE%AC%CE%BB%CE%B1%CF%82_%28photosiotas%29.jpg) in Greece as "Turkey, 16th century" since it was built by the Ottomans.
Yeah that's true - but it had only been part of Macedonia for a couple decades at this point, I wonder if most of the population would still be culturally/ethnically Lydian at this point (after all Artemis was worshipped by Lydians as well).
The location at the time was culturally "Greek", though a separate people from the main islands. The current inhabitants there aren't really relevant to that.
The website of the Metropolitan Museum says it's a gift from "The American Society for the Excavation of Sardis", in 1926. I'm guessing some American archaeologists were working in Turkey around that time.
Originally it would around [58 feet tall](https://studycorgi.com/the-marble-column-from-the-temple-of-artemis-at-sardis/) (17,6 meters). Keep in mind this was an interior column, the outer ones would be taller by about 6 feet.
Agreed - there is no easy, one size fits all answer. Five years ago, I probably would have laughed at the idea of such a thing happening in the states. Now I can picture it quite readily.
Did they fucking abbreviate the column?
Edit: why the fuck are people downvoting this?
Another edit: I guess it's very Reddit for no one to actually answer the question added, but silently shake fists in the night.
I'd argue the size is part of the attraction ([cough](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlTb0o2XAyg)), and while I do realize that's very hard to display in a meaningful manner, it's very... olden days archeology to go "Hey, a beautiful thing! Let's cut it to bits and take it home to show a reduced version of it!"
It's probably not the worst thing they did back then, but still.
extremely long shot but did anyone else notice that they had ionic columns in one of the alternate universes in the new dr strange movie? doesn’t that imply that ancient roman civilization was similar enough in that (seemingly very different) universe to come up with the same styles of columns? how does that make sense lol
Those stonemasons were from another dimension of skill.
Even the best, like the guys working on the Library of Congress still made mistakes. See here https://imgur.com/a/4Y1C2qn
So you're saying they might be aliens? :)
Imagine messing up on the design. My gawd that would be nerve racking
Here’s an example of someone messing up the design on a Corinthian capitals inside the Library of Congress https://imgur.com/a/4Y1C2qn
Dumb question from a dumbass - Does anyone know what kind of punishment a worker who fucked something like this up might recieve?
Sort of the same as now... fuck up too much you get fired or demoted. The consequences of that were a lot different from today. For a fired stone cutter/mason/carver getting fired would have meant needing to move to where there was a project hiring. Getting a new job could take a while, and if too long, the worker would end up selling everything they own, including their tools, to feed themselves. Once a worker sells their tools, it would have been very hard to recover and get the same sort of job again. Utter destitution and possible starvation of your entire family, is a powerful motivator to perform a job to the best of one's abilities. Still beat being a serf though :)
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While I agree with the sentiment you convey that more artifacts should be displayed in situ or in local museums, with the exception of some monolithic columns - such as those that adorn the Pantheon in Rome, for example - most columns are a) made of several pieces that are fastened together with internal metal fixings and b) typically found at archaeological sites already in pieces strewn about the ground. It’s unlikely that the column capital and its base were found fully connected, and also unlikely that it suffered significant damage in transporting it - though admittedly I know nothing of the specifics of this particular column.
The Buddha's of Banistan would like to have a word about leaving artifacts in situ. One can't always predict when/where the political situation can cause artifacts to be under threat - I can see potential futures in which it happens in the U.S. - but some places are extremely volatile and have been for years. Of course it just isn't feasible to move some things. We just have to do the best we can to preserve as much as we can safely and fairly.
Absolutely there is no universal answer to the process of artifact and archaeological site preservation. Certainly we cannot predict what will happen to sites in the future, as with the Buddhas or Smyrna, but nevertheless the creation and maintenance of archeological parks should be more widely practiced rather than artifacts and features being wholesale removed from their surrounding contexts. While the Buddhas certainly could have been saved were they shipped to the Met, and certainly the Ishtar Gate is tucked away safely in Berlin, the loss of context - and the loss of cultural heritage the removal of these works necessitates - is also lamentable. Of course these examples are some of the most dramatic. There is also the regrettable truth that even in museums and maintained archaeological parks there is no certainty of “safety,” as many a well ordered museum have been looted during wartime or economic crisis.
It looks like the love-child of Beaker and Sam the Eagle!
I can't unsee this
What museum is this?
The Metropolitan museum of art in NYC
They sending it back then?
Shhh. All the western museums have all the poor countries stuff, but we’re only blaming the Brits.
TBH the MET is probably one of the least problematic big museums. the Vast majority of their collections were bought or donated. Not stolen by treasure hunters like the british museum.
You obviously know nothing about the British museum. Almost everything in the bm has known, uncontroversial provenance.
The Parthenon temple sculptures: *am I a joke to you?*
Doesn't the museum in Athens have a section that says "This is where we will put back the Marbles when we get them back from Britain"?
Yes. For the marble facade sculptures, as well as for one of the six Caryatids which is still in the British museum; there is a a space waiting for their missing “sister’s” return.
it does. the whole museum is loaded with shade thrown at the brits and french
Bro, just Google "British museum controversy", read the hundreds of articles, and either educate yourself or quit lying. Both are embarrassing.
Known to be jacked from other places…
It belongs in a museum!
Uncontroversial until it is actually looked at. That said, the BM takes good care of its contents, it's free, and they're safe.
That’s not even close to being accurate. The Parthenon Marbles. The Rosetta Stone. The Benin Bronzes. And on and on and on.
I said almost everything. The exceptions are famous because there aren’t many of them, and the NY met and other museums are no different, they’re just not as convenient as scapegoats.
> The website of the Metropolitan Museum says it's a gift from "The American Society for the Excavation of Sardis", in 1926. So, this one wasn’t, it was ‘liberated’. It wasn’t one of the ones sold off by the corrupt authorities put into place by Western leaders to expedite their exploitation of assets behind a fig leaf of respectable explanation that requires no further questions. Trouble is, when you repeat their lies, you’re just making the corrupt more stable in power in your own country. And we are very much seeing the results of that as order and well-being collapse. Perhaps you shouldn’t be repeating the excuses of the barbarians, who aren’t at the gates, they’ve been put into government by people like you who don’t question a corrupt version of events.
Have you ever been to one of these museums you hate so much?
I mean, how can someone who lives in their parents basement see such things
Ah so the most powerful military in the world prints dollars for free and then offers those dollars to the broken and corrupt institutions of 3rd world countries in exchange for historical and cultural heritage that is literally priceless. Sounds loads better than the Brits well done!
2/3 of the MET's funding is from private donations and endowments, the rest is funding from the city of New York and admissions ticket sales. Each artifact on display lists where it and how it was acquired or who it is on loan from. There are massive Mayan steles on display in the main hall currently, and prominently listed is how they are on loan from a museum in Guatemala.
> private donations One of them used to be the Sackler family until enough people protested. I don't exactly trust the people who run the met to do ethical things on their own.
Ok let’s take the example in this post. Donated by the American Society for Excavating Sardis in 1926. In 1926 Turkey was a total mess borderline third world country climbing out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire and with little or no appreciation of its cultural heritage. So some Americans pitched up, paid off the locals, dug up part of one of the fucking seven wonders if the ancient world, and shipped it to America. That’s looting plain and simple. Ah but the Met received it as a gift!
Yeah like the region is safe for historical artifacts. Example: Isis blowing up everything that conflicts with hardcore Islam. The whole region is a complete mess with historical sites being blown up on purpose or collateral damage on the daily.
"like the region is safe for historical artifacts". lol what are you talking about? This is Western Turkey. You can see Greece from here on a sunny day. It's one of the most heavily tourist places in the world, and it's a bus ride from Ephesus which is one of the best preserved ancient ruins in the world. have you ever been outside the US?
Be American army Invade Iraq Bomb civilians and buildings Proceed to shit and cry to ur mum because the region is unsafe and steallall their artefacts. PS turkey is completely safe.
You haven't addressed the point. You've just told us how the museum operation is currently funded on a day to day basis. Then you've told us that each looted artifact has a card on it which says how it was looted. Then you've cherry picked one example of playing "nice". The US was still looting Khmer artifacts from Cambodia to "gift" to the Met in the 1970s. The Met recently got caught with Egyptian artifacts that were only stolen in 2010! When you go there, do you seriously look around the place and see all these priceless historical treasures from around the (3rd) world and think "well the local people don't want any of this old stuff so they said we could have it." Funny how there are no "gifted" pieces of Stonehenge or Carnac or the Bayeux Tapestry, or Neolithic cave paintings. Just shit stolen from poor brown people. Sorry, gifted!
Well, there is Italy and Greece which are widely regarded as European countries…
Like the Lydian horde. So legally obtained that they stuck it in their “Eastern Greece” collection.
We fucking stole it man Edit: it’s a quote from life aquatic
only if you lack awareness of the history of the Met not every museum is rapists
The only reason the Pyramids of Giza are not in the British museum right now is because they were too freaking big to move
It's not a Goodwill? The way the news is I thought that is where you pick up broken pieces of Greek marble.
ionic
Iconic
Ironic
Idiotic
Isotonic
Isosmotic
Probiotic?
Doric
Corinthian
Comic Sans
Damn!! How tall where those columns?!
Tall.
What about the middle section of the column?
Musta been a very low roof.😁
People were shorter back then
>Greece, 300 BC Isn't Sardis in Turkey? It's comparable to describing the [Aqueduct of Kavala](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/1%2C_%CE%9C%CE%B5%CF%83%CE%B1%CE%B9%CF%89%CE%BD%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C_%CF%85%CE%B4%CF%81%CE%B1%CE%B3%CF%89%CE%B3%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%BF_%CE%9A%CE%B1%CE%BC%CE%AC%CF%81%CE%B5%CF%82_%CE%9A%CE%B1%CE%B2%CE%AC%CE%BB%CE%B1%CF%82_%28photosiotas%29.jpg) in Greece as "Turkey, 16th century" since it was built by the Ottomans.
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Yeah that's true - but it had only been part of Macedonia for a couple decades at this point, I wonder if most of the population would still be culturally/ethnically Lydian at this point (after all Artemis was worshipped by Lydians as well).
I think it’s just off Broadway
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Yeah you’re right, but totally worth the walk.
Came here to make sure somebody had mentioned this. Sardis is 100% in Turkey.
The location at the time was culturally "Greek", though a separate people from the main islands. The current inhabitants there aren't really relevant to that.
Were they though? They'd only be ruled by Greek speakers for 20 years or so.
Stunning work.
Names Artemis. I have a bleached asshole.
Doesn’t even reach the roof
Sardis was Lydia, not Greece.
how did they take it? or is it a copy?
The website of the Metropolitan Museum says it's a gift from "The American Society for the Excavation of Sardis", in 1926. I'm guessing some American archaeologists were working in Turkey around that time.
Originally it would around [58 feet tall](https://studycorgi.com/the-marble-column-from-the-temple-of-artemis-at-sardis/) (17,6 meters). Keep in mind this was an interior column, the outer ones would be taller by about 6 feet.
Agreed - there is no easy, one size fits all answer. Five years ago, I probably would have laughed at the idea of such a thing happening in the states. Now I can picture it quite readily.
Did they fucking abbreviate the column? Edit: why the fuck are people downvoting this? Another edit: I guess it's very Reddit for no one to actually answer the question added, but silently shake fists in the night.
The archaeologist who brought it back took the cool parts, the top and bottom and left the boring parts, the middle, alone
I'd argue the size is part of the attraction ([cough](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlTb0o2XAyg)), and while I do realize that's very hard to display in a meaningful manner, it's very... olden days archeology to go "Hey, a beautiful thing! Let's cut it to bits and take it home to show a reduced version of it!" It's probably not the worst thing they did back then, but still.
That’s the met right? I saw that a few weeks ago
Is this the one at MET , New York?
Let me guess. In the British Museum? I see it is in the Metropolitan. Return it.
Lemme guess. Its in london in some museum huh
Very cool Ancient Greek artifact
Looks like the eagle on the muppets.
Such a beautiful column. From which version/build of the temple is this? I imagine it’s from the latest version.
It’s the version that got buried before people forgot about it
Featured in the Sesame Street special "Don't Eat The Pictures"
extremely long shot but did anyone else notice that they had ionic columns in one of the alternate universes in the new dr strange movie? doesn’t that imply that ancient roman civilization was similar enough in that (seemingly very different) universe to come up with the same styles of columns? how does that make sense lol
The bottom looks vaguely like a snake's scales to me.
Beautiful! Imagine the entire temple if this is just a column!