Good Example Of Essay On Altering Artifacts

The Minoan culture and archaeology is incomplete without the discussion and active interference of Sir Arthur Evans in altering the artifacts of this historical site. Arthur Evans is guilty of altering the artifacts of Minoan culture. He excavated the Palace of Minor - considered to be the best of the places in Cretan civilization and also discovered the Cretan civilization. In the first season of his excavation activity, he discovered what was named as the “throne room” but in the second stage of excavation he realized that this room has been affected due to winter floods and that the walls of the throne room were completely exposed and needed to be protected. When he returned after World War, he started the process of alteration of this artifact. The technique used was the latest one used for the reinforcement of techniques and the palace is now considered to be popular for its dubious identity of being the first one to be altered among the concrete buildings on the island (MacGillivray, 2000).
Heinrich Schliemann was not a trained archaeologist, but in fact was a treasure hunter and was unaware of the archaeological techniques. He discovered the Mycenaean sites of Tiryns, Mycenae and Troy. He started excavation of this site in 1876 and discovered the Shaft Graves with regal gold and skeletons. The Mask of Agamemnon was discovered in this excavation. Even though, Heinrich had permission to excavate this site, he did not reopen the digging process at Troy for the next two to three years. In 1879, two more people joined him in second excavation, and then the third excavation was done in 1882 and fourth was done in 1888. The site was lost and completely altered due to inexpert and unscientific digging, but Heinrich was able to learn a lot from it (Heinrich, 2010).

References

Heinrich Schliemann (2010) Mycenae: A Narrative of Researches and Discoveries at Mycenae and Tiryn, Cambridge Library Collection – Archaeology.
MacGillivray, J.A.(2000) Minotaur: Sir Arthur Evans and the Archaeology of the Minoan Myth. New York: Hill and Wang.Malinowski.