Have you ever walked into a museum and truly sat down for a second, not to admire the art, but to admire the museum itself? How much went into it? Oh, how long must it have taken? Well, neither had I before this summer abroad.

From an archaeological stand point, just getting a find to a museum is a lengthy process involving different governmental offices and cooperation from a museum. There are four different (basic) ways for a museum to acquire an object. These are purchase, gift, exchange, and field collection. The first three are legal transactions.

There are many things that can stop this from being just a simple transaction though. One of which being: is it an object that requires a special permit? If you don’t have the correct permit you could get in serious trouble before one could even dream of transferring an artifact to a museum.

Another road block is museum capacity and curation. Where would this find fit into the museum? Is it important enough? Is it unique enough? Is it intact? These are all things considered by the museum curator.

Next time you’re in a museum think about how long it took for that huge statue to be a) dug up, b) cleaned, c) catalogued, d) processed, e) curated for viewing. And don’t forget to check the aesthetic and fluidity of the museum walk. Viewing it like this will give you a new sort of respect of archaeology and museum curators.

Hunter Powell