Arqueología Ecuatoriana: What are we to do with objects that are so clearly made according to a heightened sense of how they should appear in the world? We believe to know what to do if they are made within our own cultural context, especially in the past three-hundred years. But what of the object that comes from a different cultural context and period? How does this object come into the present and a new cultural context? Should this matter at all in the study of the past? Is it merely “epiphenomenal”?

Tom Cummins: These questions can become contentious when such objects are claimed to be the proprietary right of only one intellectual sensibility, one interpretive model. Such contentions are groundless, I would argue, as there is no one discipline that is so intellectually capacious that it can fully address all issues. In fact, interdiscipinarity is increasingly important in all areas of intellectual inquiry. We certainly see this in the study of science today, and it is increasingly so in the social sciences and the humanities. Interdiscipinarity means the coming together of scholars from different disciplines to address related questions.

So, in light of the questions posed above, it is important to ask whether the disciplines of art history and archaeology are so antithetical in aim and method that they cannot contribute to each other and to our understanding and appreciation of the Pre-Columbian past. At an instant, the answer is no; that they are not antithetical. And yes; they do contribute to each other. After all, the two disciplines share the same intellectual origin. Many departments in the United States and Europe are called the department of art history and archaeology such as at Princeton and Columbia. The archaeological component of these departments is most often comprised by scholars working in East Asia, the Middle East and the Ancient and Classical traditions. Increasingly, scholars studying Africa and pre-Columbian America are also found in these departments. These scholars contribute to the interpretation of the past through the formal and iconographic studies and in the case of Maya studies through epigraphy.

However, unlike scholarship in the Classics where there is an ongoing relationship between those interested in the art historical study and those who concentrate on site excavations, there has arisen in some sectors of Pre-Columbian studies a marked animosity toward art history by archaeologists. In part, this animosity arises from the commoditization of the past in its various forms and the erroneous conclusion that art historians are the only ones implicated in it. Most pronounced is the looting of sites for objects that can be sold on the antiquities market. These are often the objects clearly made according to a heightened sense of how they should appear in the world. They come to form collections both private and public and are the objects that most often form the focus of art historical investigation. As such, these objects rarely have any known context and the acquisition of them often means the destruction of their original context. The desire for these objects is fueled by many avenues, not the least of which is archaeology itself.

A. E.: So, what is then to be done?

T.C.: As scholars, we could ignore the collections entirely. This would not make art historical or archaeological practice any less complicit in their formation. And the collections will continue to exist, even if collecting were to stop. So, I would first suggest that archaeology and art history begin by putting the false dichotomy pure and impure aside. By that I do not mean to ignore or offer an apologia for illegal excavations. But this fact should not stand in the way of collaboration in the interpretation of the past and its material expressions.

A. E.: What can art history offer?

T.C.: It is the precise articulation of the highest forms of a culture’s visual expression to which we still have access. It is the study of objects that in and of themselves reveal iconographic, formal and technical choices that were made hundreds and thousands of years ago. How is this done? It requires intensive study of individual works and a cataloguing of each piece so as to make comparison of others of a similar type. One can then begin to understand the expressive range of a culture and to understand what was singled out as significant within this range. Here, at this level of analysis, archaeological context has almost nothing to offer. It is the archaeological object itself that is at issue.


A. E.: In Ecuador, this type of studies is usually not done, few scholars have the proper training to carry them out.

T.C.: I have written several essays in which I have tried to present these issues as they pertain to Chorrerea and Jama-Coaque ceramic figurines. To understand them is not just about describing the iconography of the pieces, what they figuratively represent. It also requires the examination of how that representation is expressed through formal and technical choices. This represents the tradition through which an artisan works. And here one could simple stop, and give a statistical account of sorts. But that I think misses the value of the object. If we do not attend to those objects that in one fashion or another seem best to express those traditions then we stand to misunderstand them in general. I would argue that close descriptive analysis of a single object is as critical as the generalizations derived from the study of multiple objects.

A. E.: Seen in this manner it is clear that archaeological objects have a hidden wide cultural dimension that can reveal facts about the people that imagined and produced the objects.

T.C.: I would also add that there are limits to what can be said and interpreted, but it is important to push those limits.

A. E.: Why?

T.C.: We have very little else that allows us access to concepts held by the pre-Columbian peoples of Ecuador. We have no written texts, be they histories, myths or administrative records, as do Classicists, which can aid in interpretation of images and vise-versa. If we are content with only a material understanding of the past as can be gained from the exceptional work of archaeologists then we limit ourselves and our understanding of that past. It diminishes the richness of Pre-Columbian cultures and allows for a comparative superiority of Old World Ancient civilizations over those of America.

A. E.: It is obvious that in this type of studies personal subjectivity is always present and could take us through paths that we may indeed want to travel.

T.C.: Of course, the issues I have rambled on about are not so hard and fast, and I had the very good fortune to work with archaeologists in Ecuador, Peru and Mesoamerica. In such collaborations it is the free association ideas, speculations and arguments that bear the most fruit rather than the provincial righteousness of any one form of study. It is, I believe, the give and take of intellectual generosity while demanding the highest quality of work that advances our knowledge and stimulates our imaginations. It is the spirit of such generosity that I look forward to responses to my thoughts.

The pictures used in this article are the property of the University of Chicago and Harvard University.