First, to warm up on doing the opposite of archaeology, I saw the latest Indian Jones movie. But instead of becoming a looter or addressing the issue of whether art museums encourage looting by providing a market for artifacts removed without archaeological documentation, I decided to concentrate on the other opposite of archaeology.

Tourism. Tourism is the opposite side of the coin for archaeology. When something catches the popular imagination, like Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki, it helps draw funding for scientific archaeology (even when it is scientifically and archaeologically unsound). However, once a site become popular, there is more pressure to "restore" it in order to give the tourists something more dramatic to look at. Restoration, historically, has often been plagued by mistakes and caused damage to irreplaceable antiquities. Tourism also causes a lot of wear and tear---witness the degradation of the cave art at Lascaux, graffiti on the pyramids, and problems at Angkor Wat.

So, in preparation for a trip to Easter Island (where I will see some moai which were toppled by the indigenous culture and then re-raised mainly by foreigners), I engaged in some T-shirt making. T-shirts are one of the essential tourist trappings. The saying "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt" captures the strength of this association.

The designs below are based primarily on drawings by Georgia Lee of petroglyphs found on Easter Island. I noticed something cool when drawing the manupiri design. Back when I reproduced some rongo rongo glyphs for the waiting game, I had no idea what glyph 543 might represent. Now, I think the glyph might be a representation of the negative space within a manupiri design. The shape is remarkably similar, and this particular glyph is done with a double outline instead of the typical single outline, which implies that it's a different kind of representation. Coincidentally, one of the guesses during the waiting game for this glyph was clans in conflict. The manupiri is a symbol of extended clan and relations, so maybe the negative space would correspond to clan conflict! My own theory, based on nothing other than personal speculation and minimal observation---hey, it's the opposite of archaeology! Now I'm really ready to go to Easter Island.

(I will probably not be able to read SF0 much for the next three weeks. So have a good time, I'll be thinking of you folks and everyday life, and I'll be back around SF0 again after this trip.)