ABSTRACT
Quarrels over culture, craft, context, and cash make the cult of antiquities a conflict-ridden minefield. As archeologist and art historian David Scott observes of Incan artifacts, most that are not looted are fake, most that are not faked are looted, and many are both looted and fake. Hence Euro-Mediterranean heritage “partnership” programs meant to aid the poorer south end up in Brussels-mandated northern hands. Hence consensual non-partisan histories are jettisoned for patriotic nationalist and tribalist texts. Lauding one’s own legacy and excluding or discrediting those of others foments endemic rivalry. Some assert their heritage’s moral or military, mental or material prowess; others lay claim to inherited traits and emblems. Group heritage provides insular havens of like-minded certitude in stormy seas of outlandish ways. Societies confront one another armored in separate identities whose similarities they ignore or disavow and whose differences they inflate or distort, to stress their own unique virtues.
