Greek helmets galore

[Paullus Scipio]

I take your point and your analogy with ancient painting, and agree with you up to a point - however you seem to be defining 'archaeology' in a narrow sense, restricting it to the study of 'provenance' and 'context'.

Yet the Oxford Dictionary defines archaeology as:
1. Ancient History generally; the systematic description or study of antiquities.
2.The scientific study of the remains and monuments of the pre-historic period

No mention there of 'provenance' or 'context' ! Indeed, Jorg's study would fall slap-bang into both those definitions as an 'archaeological study', would it not ? For that matter, so would studies of ancient painting.

That's fine, but that's not an archaeological thesis, that's an art historical or some other thesis. It's hardly censorship that an entire work on unprovenanced items is rejected for archaeological study because by their very nature unprovenanced items cannot contribute in any significant way to the furthering of our knowledge of archaeology, because in archaeology context is everything. It's an inappropriate subject for archaeology - so it can be published somewhere else.

I thought we were in agreement that Jorg's work/thesis would be of great use to field archaeologists (i.e. those who do the actual digging), indeed "invaluable".( see previous posts). You seem here to be saying it is 'inappropriate' simply because the study lacks provenance/context. You also suggest that "unprovenanced items cannot contribute...because...context is everything". Yet earlier you gave an example of how study of unprovenanced items proved useful ! Surely the example I gave in my last post of how a study such as Jorg's would benefit archaeology/archaeologists demonstrates how it would 'further our knowledge of archaeology'. If "Archaeology" refuses to publish a 'scientific study of remains', a 'systematic description' of the Greek helmets in the Guttman collection ( or any other 'unprovenanced' study for that matter), then "Archaeologists" will become increasingly ignorant of their own subject.It is 'censorship' of valid archaeological material, which ought to be published in an "official archaeological publication" in order that it may most easily be brought to the attention of archaeologists, to whom it will be of most use. (and who presumably haven't much time for Art catalogues or publications of other disciplines). It is "Archaeology" that is in danger of 'throwing out the baby with the bathwater' !

Well, why does it have to be officially published by archaeologists? If it can be published elsewhere, it will be just as freely available as if it were published in an official journal or by an archaeological press.

Because:
1. It IS archaeology by definition, not art history or something else!
2. "freely available" doesn't necessarily mean it will come to the attention of those who will make most use of the material - archaeologists, who would certainly benefit from being able to, for example, recognise the shape of one of the seven pieces making up a Hellenistic Attic helmet....

The reason why it shouldn't be published is because of what I said above - such artefacts are "parasitic," and do not contribute to furthering our knowledge.

This is demonstrably incorrect, as the example you gave earlier proves. There is far more to "the study of remains" than mere provenance/context. As I said earlier, you don't need 'provenance' to produce a thesis on the metallurgy of Greek Helmets, or a systematic study of construction methods of Greek Helmets and both of these are by definition archaeology. Neither hypothetical study could reasonably be done without recourse to unprovenanced artifacts, and both would add to the corpus of archaeological knowledge, and be of inestimable value in future excavations/discoveries, thereby furthering our archaeological knowledge.
You are right that a thesis on ancient painting as art for art's sake, or as part of the History of Art, would be of limited value to archaeologists and hence not be appropriate to publish in an archaeological journal, but in the case of Jorg's study we are talking about something of direct relevance to archaeology/archaeologists, and to distinguish it on grounds of an artificial distinction of 'provenance' when provenance is not directly relevant to his study IS censorship.
Taking the view that only 'provenanced' items/studies are worthy of publication in archaeological journals is to take a narrow, blinkered view and draw an artificial distinction/line, as Kineas said....and one which will certainly not "contribute to furthering our knowledge".