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
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.
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