Ethics In Archaeology Question: To What Extent Are Ethical Issues and Conservation Important in The Study of Archaeology?

Essay by TeaM-DarKHigh School, 11th grade March 2010

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Year 11 Ancient History: Ethics in Archaeology

To what extent are ethical issues and conservation important in the study of archaeology?

Ethics in archaeology refers to the number of moral issues that are raised regarding the moral behavior of those excavating and those dealing with historical evidence and artifacts. Each one of these issues can be debated as being positive or negative but nonetheless they are all very important issues in the study of archaeology as they can be the core reasons as to why we preserve or conserve. Conservation is also very important in terms of archaeology because if we didn't conserve, all the precious unattainable artifacts would perish and be lost forever. But as far as it's important, conservation still has its own disadvantages.

Conservation in terms of archaeology is the maintaining or preservation and the restoration of archaeological, historical, cultural sites and artifacts. Conservation is a very important issue in regards to the study of archaeology because without conservation, most of these valuable and irreplaceable artifacts will perish, important historical data would be lost- to the excavators and future archaeologists who which to re-examine the material.

And in the future, when our technology develops even further, we might find more valuable information about the past.

Conservation involves the repairing of artifacts. For example, if a coffin is found with broken parts, conservation is done on it, by remaking the damage part of the artifact by how we assume it would've been like. Like in the trip to Nicholson Museum, the tour guide showed us a coffin, the bottom of the coffin this missing and it's replaced with something of how we assumed the shape was like. This was evidence of conservation. And historical sites like Egyptian and Greek temples are constantly being conserved as well as...