FROM THE SITE TO THE MUSEUM...
Museum started a long time ago in our cultural tradition. It started with man knowing his environment and the arts, when man started the invention of art works and beautifying his environments. This was the time when man started to live a sedentary life. What then can we say a museum is? Inter-national Council for Museum (ICOM) gave its definition as an organised and permanent institution in the service of the society and it’s development which is opened for the public and which acquires, conserves, and researches, communicates and exhibits for the purpose of study, education and enjoyment, materials evidence of man and his environment.
However, the main aim of archeologist is to reconstruct and explain the past development of human culture through the study of material remains, and in order to achieve this aim. The archaeologist must ensure that he obtain the maximum amount of information from available material and must therefore adopt a wide range of multi-disciplinary approaches to the study of culture.
The archaeologist’s fundamental unit of study is the site. An archaeological site can simply be defined as a spacial concentration of material evidence of human activity. These may include the remains of communities, hunting site where animals are slaughtered by driving them over a cliff, this is also known as kill site. We also have cemeteries, and quarries, where stones were removed before been fabricated into tools etc.
In the course of archaeological work, the question is often asked by laymen of how archaeologist discover a site. This is done in two ways: Firstly, the archaeologist goes about looking for places of possible archaeological significance, and secondly, through information from oral tradition, local knowledge, documents archival materials, and geo-physical prospecting. in addition to these, many archaeological sites are discovered by accidents, by laymen who have no knowledge of archaeology. This can occur when the surface of the earth is dug for farming, digging of well, mining and other construction works, example of these is the discovery of the Dufuna canoe, along a river bed in Yobe State by a farmer while digging a well. in actual fact most cases of archaeological discoveries in Nigeria had been by accident.
In the course of excavation, the archaeologists encounter variety of materials. These materials are known as archaeological materials. This is also known as material culture. This material covers a wide range of items and can be classified into 3 broad general classes namely artifacts and non-artifactual materials and features. Artifacts can be said to be any form of man made objects such as pots, axes, pipes objects of adornment, arrow heads etc. artifacts can be relics or monuments. Non-artifactual material include a great variety of things such as animal bones (fossils), seeds, charcoal, shell, ash etc while artifacts are man made objects, features are culturally produced objects which unlike artifacts cannot be taken from the field without destroying it, these may include remains of houses, storage pits, burial places, fire pit etc. but features cannot be removed but can only be recorded in the field.
After excavation, objects may be subjected to series of hazards which may affect the conditions and led to misinterpretation and this may happen there on the field before the material leave the site. Firstly, the condition of works of arts or antiquities depends on two main factors:
1) The materials of which it is composed which may vary and,
2) The condition to which to which it has been subjected to in the course of its life history. These conditions may be organic or inorganic. The organic is generally more susceptible to deterioration than other but no single type of matter is stable under all conditions. But whatever may be the mechanism of it change the environmental condition has an important influence upon the intensity or action and the common factors here is the presence air and moisture. It is not an unusual experience for archaeologist to recover an object in which the objects were in perfect condition, only to see them shrink or wary and sometimes turn to dust when it is exposed to a change of environment. Some objects can also be contaminated in salty ground which may result in corrosion after being exposed to air.
In Nigeria today many archaeological materials are been lost on daily basis to illicit trafficking since most archaeological discoveries are made by accidents, by ordinary people who do not know the benefit, the common man will prefer to sell these objects to foreigners than to hand them over to the museum.
What then can we do to prevent these? In order to prevent the destruction of this cultural heritage, what has been done in preserving these heritages need to be improved upon:
The existing law prohibiting illegal excavation, and exportation of antiquities should be made effective.
The government should be encouraged to organise outreach programs in order to enlighten the masses on the need to preserve our cultural heritage and to report any accidental discovery to appropriate quarters.
Our local government should be compelled to employ at least an archaeologist in order to oversee the existing cultural heritage in their domain. This will make it easier for people to contact their local government in case of any accidental discovery.
From what we have discusses so far, there is no gain saying that Nigeria is losing so many of our cultural heritage on a daily basis and in order to prevent or reduce this, measures will have to be taken by the federal government to preserve these materials from being destroyed.
However, from the archaeological site to the museum, our archaeological materials face serious threats of pillaging and mismanagement which public enlightenment programs, stringent legislations and adequate funding can help to reduce.
- Oyeyele is an Assistant Chief Archaeologist at the Museum of