Museums and ethics

The Smithsonian Institution in Washington is facing calls to cancel a planned exhibition of Chinese artifacts salvaged from a Tang-era shipwreck as they were recovered by a commercial treasure-hunter rather than by academic, archaeological methods.
Read more in this article from the online New York Times  

From Hellenism to Islam: book review

Published by Cambridge University Press in 2009, "From Hellenism to Islam: cultural and linguistic change in the Roman Near East" (edited by Hannah Cotton)  explores the "constantly shifting blend of languages and writing systems, legal structures, religious practices and beliefs in the Near East" in the 800 years between the Roman and Islamic conquests.

Read a review by Christian Hogel (University of Southern Denmark) in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review ("an impressive and very readable publication")

Find the book in SOAS Library at NB417 / 732888

The two eyes of the Earth: book review

Matthew Canepa's 2009 book "The two eyes of the Earth: art and ritual of kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran" is reviewed in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review by Dr. Peter Edwell of Macquarie University, Sydney.

The book is based on the author's PhD thesis at the University of Chicago. Professor Canepa is currently  at the Department of Art History at the College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota
Dr. Peter Edwell is based in the Department of Ancient History at Macquarie University, Sydney

SOAS Library has a copy of this book at NT935 / 741958

Antiquities : is it possible to "collect" them with a clear conscience?

Article from the Huffington Post on the legality of collecting "antiquities" and the problems faced by museums where items in their collection, or that they wish to acquire, are of dubious provenance