Technologies and Narratives of Urban Archaeology at the Kelsey Museum

Abstract

Urban Biographies, Ancient and Modern: Italy, Greece, Turkey, and the USA. Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 24 August 2018–6 January 2019, curated by Christopher Ratté with co-curators Lisa Nevett, Nicola Terrenato, Zoe Ortiz, and Kathy Velikov.The study of the city often feels as old as the city itself, and the historiography of urbanism, not only urban space, displays its own characteristic density and weight. It was thus welcome to find this small show at the Kelsey Museum, Urban Biographies, Ancient and Modern, trying something new. Rather than make yet another attempt to define the city, or to delineate urban commonalities over time, the main aim here was to present state-of-the-art technologies and methods used in the archaeological recovery of city life. The show further argued that similar methods can inform our understanding of modern urbanism. The exhibition started with three ancient sites: Gabii in central Italy, Notion on the coast of Turkey, and Olynthus in northern Greece. All three are locations of ongoing fieldwork sponsored by the University of Michigan and the Kelsey Museum, which was thus able to showcase its position as a leading academic institution for archaeological research in North America. The three sites were juxtaposed with contemporary Detroit, the large modern city near the museum and the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus. Both this comparison and the show's foregrounding of archaeological practices led to some interesting connections between past and present cities, while it also raised questions about how museums involved in cutting-edge archaeological research can best display their results in a gallery setting.