Go, Do Good! Responsibility and the Future of Cultural Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 21st Century

Civil unrest, conflict, development, iconoclasm, looting, nationalism, publication, and storage are just a few of the more obvious cultural factors at play in our interpretation, interrogation, and protection of the past in the present. In recent years, and at this moment, cultural heritage has taken center stage in the global arena, as the destruction or safeguarding of sites, monuments, and artifacts in places like Cambodia, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Syria, and Yemen are front page news. What can we do, what should we do, what are we obligated to do? Employing case studies from across the eastern Mediterranean, this paper, which stems from The Future of the Past: From Amphipolis to Mosul, New Approaches to Cultural Heritage Preservation in the Eastern Mediterranean conference keynote address, explores the impact of humans on the archaeological landscape, while urging cultural heritage practitioners to go do good, to be brave, to take chances, and to speak up on behalf of threatened landscapes, sites, and objects