如何讲好中国文物的故事——论中国文物故事传播体系建设

"让文物活起来"是新时代我国文物工作的重大历史使命。"让文物活起来"的关键是要讲好文物的故事。要讲好文物的故事,必须构建完整、有效的文物故事传播体系:第一要挖掘文物背后的历史文化,做到见物、见人、见精神,这是基础和前提;第二要做好文物历史文化故事的策划编剧,"内容为王";第三要开拓平台,不断创新文物故事传播的方式。只有这样,文物才能真正"活起来"。     

From Boatyard to Museum: 3D laser scanning and digital modelling of the Qatar Museums watercraft collection,Doha, Qatar

This article presents the results of a project to 3D laser scan and digitally model 14 watercraft from the Qatar Museums collection, comprising a range of regional vessels: most had not been surveyed previously. The project used the resulting point clouds generated 2D naval lines and orthographic records of the vessels in their current condition, and photorealistic 3D digital models for gallery display. This case study provides illustrative examples of the intermediate stages and final outputs. It assesses the pros and cons of 3D laser scanning as a survey technology for nautical scholars in terms of the time, cost, and skillset, as well as logistical considerations. It also compares the accuracy of traditional hand survey methods.     

The politics of donating technological artifacts: techno-nationalism and the donations of the world’s first jet engines

The Smithsonian Institution’s aviation collection includes two early jet engines, both of which were given to the museum by foreign donors. The first, a prototype of Britain’s first jet engine, which flew during World War II, was donated by the British state in 1949. The second, a replica of Germany’s first jet engine, which flew in late August 1939, was donated by Germany’s leading museum, the Deutsches Museum, in 1980. The two are today presented as equivalent artifacts, yet the paths followed by the two objects to the American museum were anything but equivalent. Recovering the political and historical contexts that informed each of these two donations shows how what was apparently the same action fulfilled two very different agendas. Unlike the British donation, which was calculated to support Britain’s (at that time solitary) claim to having invented the jet engine, the German donation supported a narrative of dual invention, which had become the internationally agreed standard story between 1949 and 1980. This dual-inventor narrative allowed the German museum to forward a more subtle goal than promoting a national inventor; that of depoliticizing and normalizing Germany’s aerospace tradition internationally despite the fact that German aviation had been a locus for German nationalism and National Socialist largess. Reflecting on these two donations raises questions about how technology – particular historical claims about technology made in museums – have contributed to the construction of national identities.     

Contested heritages and cultural tourism

The fascination with death and disaster has encouraged the development of distinctive tourism markets, the rediscovery of sites and places of past conflict and all accompanied with uneasy narratives about what they mean and how they should be consumed. The increasingly stratified tourist economy and the interplay between demand and supply has also stimulated a complex set of ontological, socio-political and indifferent responses as places and interests compete to project often selective or stylised claims for recognition. This paper reviews the experiences of tourists visiting Derry/Londonderry, the UK’s first City of Culture and how they make sense of the competing interpretations of the past in museums, rituals and artefacts. The 17thC walled city, the city of violence and the post-conflict renaissance city are spatially and socially reproduced but rarely connect with each other to help make sense of the past for the present and critically, for the future. The paper concludes that the discursive content promised by the City of Culture was a missed opportunity to debate these places and events and critically, the problematized and reified narratives they each project.     

A quantitative assessment of intraspecific morphological variation in Gahagan bifaces from the southern Caddo area and central Texas

ABSTRACT

This investigation aggregates intact or reconstructed Gahagan bifaces from the southern Caddo area and central Texas to test the hypothesis that Gahagan biface morphology differs between the regions. The Gahagan bifaces (n=102) were scanned, then analyzed using a novel landmarking protocol and the tools of geometric morphometrics. Results provide a preview of the significant differences in Gahagan biface morphology expressed between the southern Caddo area and central Texas regions. The size discrepancy represents an inversion of current theoretical constructs that posit a decrease in tool size thought to articulate with an increase in distance from the raw material source. It is posited that the contrasting morphologies represent two discrete communities of practice; one (emergent Caddo horticulturalists) where Gahagan bifaces were enlisted primarily for burial and ritualistic activities, and the other (central Texas hunter-gatherers) where Gahagan bifaces were utilized over a longer time span in more practical and utilitarian contexts.     

关于发展行业博物馆必要性及意义的思考

行业博物馆怍为一种新兴的博物馆类型正逐渐引起越来越多的关注，本试从行业化、博物馆自身及都市化产业运作三个角度，对发展行业博物馆的意义和现实必要性做一剖析。     

The educational work of a National Museum: creating knowledgeable young citizens in Ottawa,Canada

ABSTRACT

This article explores the geographies of education at the National Museum of Canada in the first half of the twentieth century. Through an analysis of the spatialization of children’s museum education, we highlight how the museum sought to inculcate in young Canadians knowledges about their country, its people, and natural resources. We situate children’s museum education within the broader context of Canadian nationalism, other museum activities, and public education in the capital. Focusing on the design and material organization of the museum, we highlight how the space of the museum, from the objects on display to the imposing grandeur of the building, sought to impress upon students the importance of the knowledge it conveyed. Finally, we illustrate how the museum’s programming aimed to provide children with knowledge of their national heritage, building citizenship through claims of development as destiny.     

Cultivating digital mediation: The implementation of publicly funded digital museum initiatives in Denmark

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to review and re?ect on the factors defining the expected benefits that have influenced the implementation of digital mediation initiatives in publicly funded museums over the course of the last 20 years. The expectations directed towards digital museum mediation are established by taking a closer look at Danish cultural policy implementation and socio-technological development. Examples from a review of cultural policy documents, funding applications and reports, supplemented by articles from a museum practice journal illustrate trends and developments in digital museum mediation. This article identifies a development of digital museum mediation in three phases, from providing access to digitized cultural heritage to more user-oriented communication strategies such as personalization and participation. The analysis shows that, in a cultural political context, the adoption of digital mediation in institutions is part of a higher strategy where technological development acts as a catalyst for innovation in the cultural sector.     

Museum Collections and Archaic Era Vertebrate Faunal Remains from Cuba

ABSTRACT

Museum collections are an underutilised source of environmental archaeological data. Curated collections often contain faunal and floral remains that can be analysed using new methods and to address various research questions. For example, the broad patterns of Archaic or preceramic subsistence adaptations are not well known for the Caribbean region, and for Cuba in particular, due to the ecological variability among the islands and limited, quantified faunal data from radiocarbon-dated sites. To address these issues, we present quantified vertebrate faunal data and new radiocarbon dates from museum-curated collections from three Cuban sites. Las Obas, La Vega del Palmar, and Los Caracoles are Archaic, dating between roughly 350 BC to AD 630, although Vega del Palmar contains Pre-Arawak Pottery Horizon ceramics. The three assemblages include a diversity of taxa from several habitats, including various species of hutia (Capromyidae). The taxonomy of these rodents varies among the sites as do the proportions of other taxa. In addition to abundant hutia, the sites' occupants exploited an array of fish, birds, reptiles and other mammals, including manatee. We compare the sites faunal assemblages and discuss their ecological significance as well as their place in Cuban prehistory.     

Matter over mind? The rise and fall of phrenology in nineteenth-century France

ABSTRACT

The history of phrenology in France has a number of unique features. It was in that country that F. J. Gall sought refuge; and it was, above all, in France that phrenology would subsequently attempt to establish its credentials as a new physiological science of the mind. Up until the 1840s, phrenology expanded rapidly in the country, a growth that coincided with attempts to provide this new field with the trappings of respectable scientific endeavor—courses of lectures, learned societies, journals, and so on. This ambitious intellectual project, despite its controversial nature, made a major cultural impact in the nineteenth century, both through its influence on the written word—from learned journals to the novel—and via its striking visual imagery (sculpture, anatomical diagrams and models, engravings, caricatures, and so on). However, as the scientific impact of phrenology declined, allusions to it lost much of their cultural force. On the borderline between respectable science and mere quackery, phrenology in France represented an attempt to construct a whole new intellectual universe based on scientific principles, and as such had a profound impact on its period.