I am just catching up with this thread now--pardon the delay.
Excuse the attention to a non-Virginia topic, but the news about
defacement of petroglyphs is appalling--truly upsetting.
I spent a fair amount of time in New Mexico when I had two sisters
living there, and I remember the fight over preserving a petroglyph
area that was threatened by the insatiable sprawl of Albuquerque
westward about 10 years ago. Never heard the outcome of that one.
For petroglyphs, the answer would seem to be some kind of federal law,
with teeth. And enforcement--armed, if necessary. The loss of
petroglyphs is a national tragedy.
For CW stuff here in VA, it would be great to think we could get a law
obliging developers to allow time for recovery of artifacts before the
bulldozers move in, but of course that's an absurd wish, given the part
of the legislature's figurative anatomy that developers have firmly in
their grasp.
Maybe the best we can hope for is better education and a greater sense
of responsibility to historical knowledge among "relic hunters," so
that they document their findings appropriately, as some on this list
have suggested? After all, the HABS/HAER project that has so
wonderfully documented American architecture and engineering
(http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/habs_haer/) doesn't save the
places it documents; it merely records them, which becomes all the more
precious if they are subsequently destroyed.
--Jurretta
On Apr 16, 2006, at 9:13 PM, qvarizona wrote:
> You made a good argument, Barrett. And you are correct, there is no
> comparing ancient petroglyphs to a Civil War belt-buckle.
> --Joanne
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Love cheap thrills? Enjoy PC-to-Phone calls to 30+ countries for just
> 2¢/min with Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the
> instructions
> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>
>
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
|
