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Some years ago I bought a copy of Peter Buck's printed Cawthron Lecture - The Coming of the Maori.Tucked inside it was a printed postcard of two Maori men. It was not the usual subject for a Maori postcard - usually they were tourist scenes. The two intrigued me - the sitting one clearly of higher status and unusually well dressed for the period. It seemed an unlikely subject. The card was tucked onto a bookcase shelf and has sat their occasionally attracting my attention ever since, until I recently watched a Shipwreck TV programme about the 1863 wreck of the Delaware near Nelson. It was the well known story of the rescue of most of the crew by the "New Zealand Grace Darling" Huria Matenga. You can read her story and more on the wreck here:    http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nzbound/delaware.htm    http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/matenga-huria-te-amoho-wikitoria      http://www.theprow.org.nz/maori/maori-rescues/ ...
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  This quote struck me in a compendium of quotes about archaeology: “Archaeology is the peeping Tom of the sciences. It is the sandbox of men who care not where they are going; they merely want to know where everyone else has been.” Jim Bishop, American, Journalist, 1907–1987. Excuse the sexism – of its time I guess – when the stereotypical archaeologist was male. Ther rest connected with me because I had just been reading   How Archaeologists Can Solve The Earth’s ‘Wicked Problems’   Scoop News – attributed to “Human Bridges” The guts of the thesis is: “…. archaeology is essential to the future of humanity and planetary health. This is for three main reasons. First, archaeologists have the capacity to think about and to understand humanity of the past, and to project that insight into the future. Second, archaeologists are uniquely placed to comprehend the many and complex ways in which humans, over time, have related to their environment and environ...
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  For Museums. I love museums – there that is out. I have been associated with them all my life – as a donor to at least five, associated with their research with three, published in their Records and as a Board Member for one. I love that they use physical objects to tell a story. They can have art galleries and libraries and archives attached – they are often a good fit - but none are necessary. It is physical objects that are their heart. Their essential nature lies around those objects. They need a building to protect them – from decay, theft – and that building itself has to be protected, from fire, decay, earthquake – a suitable place for guarding taonga – treasures. The collections need to be catalogued, by someone who knows enough to adequately describe them and they need to be available for experts to study and, within reason, to anyone else who develops an interest in them. A Museum needs its public interface, through displays that engage its public. It does not...
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