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5:05 PM - 5:30 PM. NEW FRONTIERS - New Acquisition: Abandoned archaeological heritage. Attempts by Polish registrars to bring it back through the acquisition process

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Sala Ospiti
Thursday, November 7, 2024
17:05 - 17:30
Sala Ospiti

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Katarzyna Reszka, Museum of Warsow, Warsow, Poland Małgorzata Sulkowska, Karkonosze Museum in Jelenia Góra, Jelenia Góra, Poland Archaeological collections all over Europe, though valuable from a scientific point of view, often, by their specificity andbulk finds, pose a challenge for museum professionals, when admitting them to a museum collection. This is also the casein Poland, due to specific legal regulations regarding ownership and the process of accepting artifacts into museum.Archaeological artifacts are the property of the Polish State. Its officials decide where artifacts go after finding. Thedecisions they issue to hand over objects to the museum are in fact only a fiction, furthermore nobody does control theirimplementation. Unfortunately, it is in the interest of museums to avoid receiving artifacts, due to the lack of storage spaceand the State's poor support in caring for archaeological heritage. Moreover, archaeological artifacts must be cataloguingindividually. Exactly the same is required to record other categories of museum collections. Paradoxically, therefore, theway of recording piece of art and bulk find is equated. Neither the state nor the museums understand what is the numberof archaeological monuments in Poland. This situation has been going on for 20 years, and registrars, dealing with thereality of archaeology in Polish museums, have developed mechanisms for receiving antiquities to enter them in theinventory. Using the example of acquiring artifacts from several archaeological sites, we will present the problems of Polisharchaeological museology and active attempts to musealize this collection by designing an acquisition procedure andinvolving researchers in the process. 29

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