The world's heritage?

A few weeks ago, I ranted a bit about the building collapse at Pompeii, asking "who is to blame?" and "what is to be done?" While I advocated local grassroots movements for site upkeep and maintenance, Mary Beard at The Telegraph thinks the world is responsible:

"The only possible long-term solution for major world heritage sites such as this (or Stonehenge or Machu Picchu) must be some kind of international administration and finance. If the world wants Pompeii to survive into the next century, then the world will have to pay – rather than leave it to the modern country in whose territory it happens to have ended up."

This article, and Ms. Beard's statement in particular, really got me thinking about the complexities behind archaeology and the place of ancient sites in our modern world. To begin with, it was a reminder that not all historic sites are valued by everyone. That's not to say that the Italians don't value Pompeii. That ancient and (in)famous city is something I would guess most Italians point to as a source of pride, a materialization of their history, and in many ways a cash cow for their economy.

What I mean is material culture and sites that we value in the West may not be valued equally or at all in other places across the world. Take, for example, objects from Native American graves that we painstakingly preserve for future generations but that most Native Americans see as an interruption of the life cycle of those objects: they are created, used, and then eventually must "die" (i.e., deteriorate). Or take the Taliban destruction of the Buddha statues at Bamiyan - what most valued as a historic monument to early religion in Afghanistan, the Taliban saw as pre-Islamic idolatry and not worth preserving.

Ultimately I think these questions of value feed into larger issues underlying The Telegraph article: At what point does a site and the objects that derive from them become part of the larger heritage of the world and not just the current, local inhabitants? Who determines this elevation and what is the motivation behind it? When archaeological sites stop being the heritage of Iraq, for example, but of the world (and in the case of Iraq, one could argue heritage of human history), I think it is the world's responsibility to aid in its preservation.

Now how does this elevation to world heritage status undermine modern governments who appropriate ancient history into their nation-building strategies? I think that is best saved for another post.