Deep and crisp and even.

[davywavy]

But that's enough about my lovemaking technique.

There was a programme on the telly the other night about past lives - it was Tony Robinson and the Medieval Reincarnation if you're interested, and it was all about people who had been hypnotised to believe they were Cathars in a previous life. David's first rule of past lives is that the importance and interest of person you were in a previous life is inversely proportional to how interesting you are in this one, and the programme came to much the same conclusion - these former Cathars tended to be lonely fruitcakes who'd clutch at any straw to seem interesting.
There are other forms of belief in past lives, like Otherkin (who I've mocked mercilessly in these pages before now), and Otakukin, who apparently reckon, with a perfectly straight face, that they're reincarnations of video game characters. Apart from obvious candidates like my brother being E. Honda from Street Fighter 2, I never really understood where that particular piece of lunacy came from.

Anyway, digression apart, the point which really stood out in the Tony Robinson programme was a fantastic book repository in Toulouse where they keep the original records of the Inquisition into the Cathar heresy.
I don't know what it is about huge old books that I like so much. The weight of history, the connection to other places, people and times and just the smell make me a bit giddy when I get my hands on one. However, when asked to see one particular 12th century record, the curator explained that for preservation reasons it was no longer possible to open that particular tome.
At that point I have to question the point of preservation; it's preservation of something just so it continues to exist and nobody can interact with it in any way - they can't even take it out of the box so people can look at the cover. For an object to have a point I think it has to, at least theoretically, be possible for people to interact with it in some way beyond just knowing that it is there in potentia. Beyond that, preservation for the sake of preservation just seems...pointless. What do you think?

Comments

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

Did they have the content duplicated in more robust media, or was this the only copy?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It'd been duplicated as they got to look at photocopies, or equivalent.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

In that case, it's not really preserved, is it? It's been given to future generations to look after, so they'll get the blame when it crumbles to dust.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

The only thing I could think of is that they're hoping that future generations can invent super new preservation techniques or something, but that seems a bit wishful.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

If it's a historically significant tome then it's worth preserving as much as anything in a (private or public) museum, you can't touch or use most of that stuff, so...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I sortof agree, but stuff in museusm you can at least usually look at even though not touch. This you couldn't ever see.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

But if you can't even look at it, it may as well not exist.

In fact, why don't you come to my Museum of Things In Opaque Boxes Which Can't Be Removed? In this shoebox, for example, is the mummified right hand of Cleopatra. Unfortunately, we can't take it out for fear of damaging it.

That'll be a fiver, thanks.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

A bargain! I'll take two.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Point but in my storage room of valuable things that really must only be looked at on very rare occasions for scientific or historical reasons and not just throwaway TV shows I at least have the things there should we need.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

It depends. I suspect that the book may have worth in and of itself as an object. It probably is a good example of the book binding techniques of its time, it may well be a beautiful artistic object. I also wonder if it totally can't be opened, or if the conservator just didn't want it opened beneath the lights camera crews require, or didn't think a random TV presented leafing through it was ideal.

There are books in the National Archives of Scotland which they don't let members of the public open for conservation reasons, but can be opened under more controlled circustances.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

That's possible - she just said they couldn't see it, but maybe they save it for the delectation of proper professors.

[(Anonymous)]

They've probably shoved it in a room full of inert gas, in which case it's a shame they didn't let Baldrick in there. Oooh look, he's turning puce.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'd pay good money to see that.

"I have a cunning plan my Lord!"
"You imbecile Baldrick! You've trigged the Halon fire system!"
"Now they won't pursue us in here - urk!"

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

Assuming this is perfectly reasonable behaviour, what are the foibles of your discipline? What conservation activities do you, as an insider, find a bit silly?

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

It has value as an artefact, outside of the information contained in it as a document. If you are interested in seeing what they *wrote* then photographic copies are fine.

Additionally, future generations may have better techniques for preserving documents, and you have to consider it as your hard-copy back up for the information too.

Lets say it can be opened 5 more times before it disintegrates into illegible dust. In the event of those nice photocopies being destroyed, you will need to make new ones from the original. Its best then not to use up those opportunities to view the original by letting TV shows poke their noses in.

Dan Brown wouldn't have stood for that nonsense

[(Anonymous)]

I bet Robert Langdon would just have grabbed the tome and legged it, like he does with the Galileo manuscript in Angels and Demons. And he's a proper professor.

H

Re: Dan Brown wouldn't have stood for that nonsense

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You're right - Time Team should be more like The Da Vinci Code.

Re: Dan Brown wouldn't have stood for that nonsense

[(Anonymous)]

Gosh, yes, that would be quality entertainment

H

Re: Dan Brown wouldn't have stood for that nonsense

[lapinenoireuk.livejournal.com]

Does that mean I can work or the Vatican hunting down shite authors and butchering them ??

If so .... Jeffrey Archer is SOOOOOOOO dead

[(Anonymous)]

I tend to disagree that there is no worth in the continued existence of something ancient if it cannot be used in some way. Assuming that it is not contravening whatever the fad of the moment is (perhaps the book is leaving a carbon footprint?), is there not some measurable worth in our knowlege that we continue to hold something tangible created by humans in our distant past?
Also I have a vague memory that there are some sites that Historians do not want excavated yet (in the Middle East I think) because once uncovered they could not yet be preserved.

D

[lapinenoireuk.livejournal.com]

"David's first rule of past lives is that the importance and interest of person you were in a previous life is inversely proportional to how interesting you are in this one"

Totally agree - As I understand it back when they dug up Tutankhamen's tomb - every fruit loop was suddenly the reincarnation of an Egyptian prince or princess. Dan Brown (plus other loonies) writes shite re the flaming Cathars and ... BINGO - upgrade from King Tut to Cathar Lord.

Still I suppose it's better that hundreds of incarnations of Napoleon Bonaparte wandering the streets.

And, by the way, where do all the peasants / PBI / joe proles go when they pop their clogs or is it just that only the useless sods get reincarnated till they "finally" do something bloody useful ?