The Economics of Archaeology: turning $1,000 of marble into $1B in international aid

Tue, March 14th, 2023
4:15 pm - 5:30 pm

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Through a series of high-profile public engagement projects, Oxford’s Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) has time and again shifted public opinion and government policy on key issues relating to heritage preservation.  More broadly, by altering perceptions about the importance of protecting and promoting heritage, the IDA has created a new paradigm for leveraging history as a tool for achieving positive social change — including both legal reforms and recalibrated national financial priorities.
In the process, the IDA has provoked broad debate around the issue of  humanity’s connection to culturally significant objects, especially our emphasis on physical possession.  Is possession, in this context, an inherently colonial concept that necessarily implicates issues of erasure and misappropriation?  Or is the assimilation of cultural artifacts an inevitable and salutary part of defining national identity?
All of these issues and more will be examined through the lens of some of the IDA’s most recent projects, including its highly successful Elgin Marbles repatriation campaign.
Roger Michel ’84 is the founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA).  He served as a government lawyer for nearly three decades and was an adjunct Lecturer in Law at Boston University Law School for 25 years. Mr Michel is a graduate of Williams College, Harvard Law School, and the University of Oxford.  He is the author or co-author of dozens of articles snd books on a wide range of legal and historical topics.
The IDA is a UK-based NGO that operates globally, undertaking a broad range of heritage projects, many of which employ novel imaging and 3D fabrication technologies. Its principal partners are the UN, UNESCO, major research universities, museums, and local and national governments.
The IDA’s heritage preservation efforts have received numerous accolades and significant media attention.  In 2016, the New York Times named the IDA’s Palmyra Arch “Public Art Installation of the Year” alongside Christo’s Floating Islands.  Other IDA reconstructions have been displayed at the Venice Biennale and are part of the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Featured in scores of public exhibitions including at the Bodleian Library, New York Public Library, Oxford’s History of Science Museum and Italy’s Archeo Museo, the IDA’s work has been documented in virtually every major media source in the world.

This event is sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa and will be especially geared toward anyone interested in art history, English, anthropology, history, political science and economics.

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