Counter-monumentality and the vulnerability of memory

Abstract

Monuments have been a staple of archaeology since the beginning of the discipline and have been used as case-studies for a diverse range of topics. In recent years, monuments have been considered particularly often in studies of social memory. By materializing memorial ambitions, however, the creation of monuments provides a venue for collective memories to be challenged. Despite their outward appearance of strength and permanence, monuments additionally render the memory of their creators vulnerable and open to contestation. In particular, the practice of counter-monumentality, or active and deliberate interventions in traditional monuments, illustrates how the erection of monuments exposes the inherent fragility of memory. Examples from the present and the past demonstrate these points: a statue of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson in Baltimore, Maryland, and a corpus of monumental statues from southeastern Anatolian and northern Syria during the Iron Age.