2014 Blogging Archaeology eBook

expected from an internationally recognised institution that should besetting the highest ethical standards for its acquisition policies.The Cleveland ApolloAnother line of research has been the authenticity of informationthat is provided by museums. This was explored through the acquisitionof a bronze Apollo by the Cleveland Museum of Art (Bennett 2013).Details of the collecting history could be analysed and questioned, notleast the reported discovery of the statue in a house in Saxony where it issaid to have once been displayed in a garden gazebo. The statue wasacquired from a Swiss-based gallery that had separately sold themummy mask to the St Louis Art Museum and where there are stronglyconflicting accounts of its collecting history from the dealer and theEgyptian authorities who had a record of the mask in an inventory at atime when it was allegedly already circulating in Europe (Gill 2009e).Comments and observations about the scientific analysis were broughttogether in an extended review article when the glossy publication ofthe Apollo was published by Cleveland (Gill 2013b).From Blog to News MediaOne interesting development was the invitation from the newsagency, PR Newswire, to write a weekly 400 word press release linked toa more detailed blog post. This gave free news exposure to storiesbreaking on “Looting Matters” and provided an opportunity for journaliststo be provided with key facts about the issues related to the looting ofarchaeological sites. The project ran some 45 releases from May 2009 toJanuary 2011 (see Appendix). Topics included discussions of theproposed Memorandum of Understanding between Italy and the USGovernment to cover the restriction of movement on antiquities (see Gill2009e) as well as the so-called Crosby Garrett helmet. “Looting Matters”continues to be cited in major international newspapers and journals. It isalso a source of information for journalists wanting to gain accurateinformation on specific topics.Blogging Archaeology Page 51