in Archeology, why do some discoveries get hidden for years before being made public?
Examples of this:
The Riace Bronzes were discovered in 1972 but wasnt released to the public until 1981, close to a decade later.
Another example, King Tut Tomb, which after its discovery, the Tutankhamun’s ‘Guardian’ Statue was pretty much hidden from public for a while before going public.
But why do this? I dont get that.
Makes me wonder what other stuff been discovered out there that simply never been published to the public yet
In: Other
When things become public, the public likes to go see it. When the public goes to see things, things tend to get ruined. Ruined things have less value.
Taking the time to properly study, archive, and protect ensures that you don’t cause cave-ins, damage to local ecosystems, and that history is preserved before it can be respected.
TLDR: People don’t deserve nice things
When a discovery is made it is usually in a location where there may be other archaeological artifacts to excavate and document. If they start announcing and publishing the very impressive finds they extract from the site then it can generate a lot of interest in that location.
So the archeologists who are carefully laying out a grid of strings and stakes, painstakingly documenting where every chip of bone and shard of pottery is found as they dig through the soil, sometimes just brushing dirt delicately from the surface of artifacts buried for thousands of years… get descended on by reporters, yokels, and looters. Some hackette stomps straight through the dig site, crushing artifacts as they go, just to set off some flash powder and take a photograph for their local rag. Clyde and Hobie heard there was some important old stuff found out there and are going to show up and stand around sniffing their own farts and drinking moonshine because they don’t have anything better going on. Also they brought their five hound dogs who will run freely through the dig site. Finally during the night looters are going to sneak in and rip anything out of the ground they can find, destroying most of it, just so they can make a quick buck.
Overall then the best course of action if you are an archaeologist who found some amazing dig site with astonishing artifacts, is *don’t tell anyone*! The public can wait until the dig is finished and you can hopefully avoid dealing with the scum of the earth if it remains secret.
You don’t write up and publish artifacts as you find them. When you’re on a dig site, you’re on a time limit. You’ve got limited funding, limited permission from the landowner, and weather and season also limit when you can dig. So you just dig, as much as you can.
So when the dig’s done, you end up with big crates of artifacts sitting in the storage room. You write up whatever paper satisfies the grant that funded your expedition, and you unbox and study the artifacts that allow you to do that.
And everything else just sits there until somebody says “Hey, I bet I could write a paper on that”. And that’s when these artifacts get actually studied and presented to the public.
It’s not efficient – tons of stuff gets lost or destroyed by improper storage, and lots never gets studied at all. But that’s how the incentives of our current system shake out.
Little known fact – The best archeologist are usually female because they excel at digging up the past.
The reports have to be published, the reports contain maps, and information on what was found in each trench, which means the publication of the document will require not only the information about the dig but about every item found and where, information on the finds would also require research and data gathering such as carbon dating, anything big and import will probably take a substantial amount of time to confirm the find as something significant
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