#idk I just thought this was rlly interesting & it sort of articulated some thoughts I'd been having about how we choose what to preserve

[fluentisonus]

"Monuments and heritage sites are too frequently viewed as time capsules for which perceived significance derives from their original function and period of construction and primary use: the glory days effectively define the monument and set the parameters of present day management, public presentation, and research agendas. Sites and monuments are often pigeon-holed, branded, and carefully circumscribed by chronological and thematic parameters that allow for simple and digestable messaging, but this practice establishes and reinforces a reductionist perspective in which only certain periods and functions are seen to really matter. This perspective also artificially elides time, creating the false impression that archaeological research is able to compress centuries or millennia of chronological overburden in order to bring today’s experts and interested public into contact with the (supposedly) most significant period(s) in a site’s past. ... As a result, we become blind to the long and interesting lives and afterlives of these sites and monuments that, sadly, become bereft of biography in terms of research and public presentation."

Darrell J. Rohl, "Place Theory, Genealogy, and the Cultural Biography of Roman Monuments", Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference