Heritage: Poetry and Archeology as the Common Language of the Past, the Present, and the Future

Suheil Bushrui – Baha’i Chair of World Peace 

 

 

It is indeed a great honor to have been invited by both the Center for Heritage Resource Studies at the University of Maryland and the National Park Service to address this distinguished gathering.  For having received this honor, I am deeply grateful to my noble friends Paul Shackel and Barbara Little, both of whom are eminent scholars in their respective fields of specialization.  Paul Shackel, a respected anthropologist, believes that archeology plays a significant role in clarifying controversial issues such as labor rights, racism, and the legacy of slavery.  Barbara Little, herself a distinguished archeologist, is also a poet in her own right.  Dr. Little combines the art of the archeologist with that of the poet, bringing to her discovery of the world of matter the living breath of the Imagination.  In this way, she gives life, name, and meaning to her work as an archeologist and reminds us of the words of Shakespeare:

 

The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.[1]

 

            Throughout the ages the poets, more than anyone else, have understood the past and how profoundly it affects life in the present and the future alike.  The poet’s insight applies equally no matter the particular subject at hand: to a sacred site where the world of nature and the world of the spirit meet; to an ancient city where architecture, culture and wealth create a fascinating society to be emulated or rejected; to a forgotten realm vanished beyond trace, but still of enough significance in the Imagination to be read in the lineaments of civilization; and finally, to those symbolic landscapes where the surface of the earth displays prints of unknown hands.[2]  Archaeology, like poetry, represents not only a journey of discovery, but also a pilgrimage from that discovery towards a higher realm where mind and spirit collaborate to create a consciousness of that unknowable essence, that celestial city beyond the tangible world.  The Poet John Keats provides us with that vision which one simple archaeological find can evoke.  The last stanza of Keats’ well-known poem entitled “Ode on a Grecian Urn” says it all:

 

                        O Attic shape! Fair attitude! With brede

                                    Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’[3]

 

In pre-Islamic Arabia, the poet enjoyed a supreme status as the voice of his people; the poet was oracle, guide, orator, as well as historian and scientist (a scientist in the strict sense that the historical context allowed).  But above all, the voice of the poet guaranteed immortality to person and place. 

 

Majnūn, a famous archetypical character of Arabic poetry whose name means “The One Maddened by Love,” speaks the following words when describing his affection for Layla, his beloved:

 

Passing by Layla’s domain, I paused on my way,

Pressing my lips first to one, then another wall,

Drawn not by love of those walls, but of one who had dwelt

In that domain, which was holding my heart in thrall.[4]

 

These lines succinctly and movingly convey the essence of a mystery that archeologist, as students of the human mind and human emotions, constantly confront. 

 

II

 

Throughout history, we repeatedly encounter the deep-seated need in mankind to build monuments. Their purposes can be many and varied, as are the motives, conscious or unconscious, which lead to their creation. Simplest, perhaps, is the need to commemorate the dead, from heroes and rulers to those known only to their immediate families. From the Pyramids and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, to humble tombs marked with a simple stone or a wooden cross, these memorials bear witness not only to those whom they honor but also to humanity’s efforts to give their memory a lasting and tangible form. These forms differ from one civilization to another, but share, for the archeologist or historian, the value of helping us to understand, or at least to speculate upon, the values of earlier peoples and their concepts of the significance of death, the afterlife and the importance which they attached to the rituals surrounding them.  From the tholos tombs of Mycenae, the Pyramids of Egypt, and the barrows and grave-mounds of the Celts and Norsemen, we gather information about the way in which these peoples honored their dead and sought to ease their journey into the next world.  Often the deceased were equipped with suitable provision: the hosts of ushabti (any number of small statuettes made of wood, stone, or faience that are blue or green in color) accompanied the Egyptian dead to serve them in their new abode; jewels, weapons, horses and hounds; and even the slave-girl who, in the Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan’s (Ambassador of the Caliph Al Muqtader, ruled 908-932 AD, to the Volga region) account of a Viking funeral in Russia, chose of her own free will to accompany her master on his last journey.  We may regard these practices with fascination or abhorrence, but whatever our reaction we cannot overlook the common preoccupations which they indicate and which, to a greater or lesser extent, we share with our brothers and sisters of the past.

 

            However, it is not only to glorify the dead that monuments are erected.  Landmarks such as Trajan’s Column in Rome (erected in 114 AD by the Roman Senate and people in honor of Emperor Trajan, ruled 98-117 AD) or the Arc de Triomphe in Paris testify to the achievements of a living emperor and his generals.  They may actually incorporate trophies brought back from foreign conquests, as in the case of Cleopatra’s Needle on the Thames Embankment in London or the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde.  As such monuments become absorbed into the fabric of a city, they gain a new function as markers of identity easily recognized even by foreigners who know them only from pictures, as meeting-places, and as a focus for patriotic sentiment or affection.  They may play an important role in shaping national identity, even when (and perhaps especially when) they appeal to the imagination when direct historical evidence is lacking to supply the authentic features of characters from ancient times, whether real or mythical.  This is true, for example, of the equestrian statue of St. Wenceslas in the square in Prague which bears his name; the question of whether its face is that of the historical prince is immaterial in relation to the rallying-point which it provides as a local landmark and a symbol of the emerging consciousness of a rising nation in the nineteenth century.

 

            Thirdly, while a grateful people may raise monuments to celebrate the feats of a king, emperor or general, they can also arise from such an individual’s need to enhance his prestige and glorify his achievements; in other words, as a form of visual propaganda.  One notable example of this is the Ara Pacis Augustae, the marble altar of peace constructed by the Emperor Augustus (Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian).  This does not detract from the genuine religious sentiment which the altar embodied, but demonstrates Augustus’s shrewd ability to recognize the need of the Roman people, after two decades of civil strife following the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., for a sense of stability and solidarity, and for security and pride in their shared identity as Romans.  He met this by a renewed emphasis on religious ceremonial in which the entire citizen body could share, whose visible sign was an altar depicting a rite celebrating the return of peace featuring the recognizable figures of the emperor and his family.

 

This expression of common religious and spiritual values is also evident in monuments raised to offer thanksgiving not only for victories but for deliverance from dangers of other kinds, such as the Pestsäule (plague column) erected in Vienna to commemorate the city’s safe emergence from a period of pestilence.  A similar monument in the City of London memorializes the Great Plague of 1665.  Whether as tokens of gratitude or of appeasement, these columns bear tangible witness to the communal impulse not only to honor the innumerable dead, whose resting-places were unmarked, but also to celebrate and give thanks for the survival of those who remained alive.

 

Finally, in direct connection with the dual theme of death and survival we should mention the cenotaphs, war memorials, and tombs of unknown warriors which date from World War I, previously called the Great War.  These stand as lasting memorials not only to the heroism of the fallen and the sacrifice which they made in defense of their country, but to that country’s gratitude; to this day, they serve as venues for the ceremonies held at a national and local level on the anniversary of the 1918 Armistice.  It might also be suggested that the elaborate rituals surrounding these monuments, and their design and construction in the first place, represented, beside the need to give war deaths a fitting significance, a kind of displacement activity which to some degree assuaged a type of “survivors’ guilt” experienced by those who had come through a war which had killed so many of their comrades and fellow-countrymen.

 

The need to create such monuments, as we have seen, is a very ancient and deeply-rooted one—so deep, in fact, that it could not be eradicated even in societies which consciously attempted to abolish conventional religion and found themselves faced with the necessity of replacing the rituals associated with it.  The French Revolution, an era of flux and change which shattered the centuries-old power of the Roman Catholic church in France, brought about festivities worshipping Reason and a calendar in which saints were replaced by heroes from classical history.  In a still more extreme instance, Catherine Merridale describes in her book Night of Stone how, in Stalinist Russia, a stubborn need to mark rites of passage with suitable rituals persisted even in the face of the official abolition of religion, the closure of churches, and efforts to promote cremation in hygienic and soulless buildings.

 

A grave, or at least a memorial, provides a focus for mourning and remembrance, whether expressed by pilgrimages to national institutions such as Les Invalides in Paris or the Slavin pantheon in Prague’s Vyšehrad cemetery, or in primitive but well-established rituals such as the leaving of sweets on graves in Russian cemeteries.  It also provides profound moments for thought and reflection and generates a true sense of humility evoked by the realization of the transience and mortal existence of all humanity.  This sentiment is captured in Thomas Gray’s famous elegy written in a country churchyard.  Gray’s poem expresses a common humanity that transcends the barriers of language, race, and culture:

 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,

Awaits alike the inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.[5]

 

III

           

We have seen that the urge to commemorate spans and unites all cultures and civilizations from ancient times to the present day.  The visual expression of commemoration transcends boundaries of language, creed, and nationality.  We have surveyed the meaning of memory in relation to the past, and have sampled some concrete physical monuments.  But how can we interpret memorials in terms of the present and the future, and of our own responsibility to our forebears and our descendants for many generations to come?

 

This question naturally raises the issue of conservation, and of keeping monuments in a suitable state of preservation not only out of respect for those commemorated, but also for those who in future years will look at them and form judgments not only about the importance of those whom they honored but about our attitudes to them and our evaluation of what they mean.  Although the restoration and maintenance of monuments may be costly, these are necessary expenses to demonstrate a continuing appreciation for those whose memory they protect.

 

Monuments, though, do not always have to be of metal or stone, or indeed to have a physical form, as Horace famously reminds us in his ode “Exegi monumentum” (Odes, III, xxx):

 

More durable than bronze, higher than Pharaoh’s

Pyramids is the monument I have made,

A shape that angry wind or hungry rain

Cannot demolish, nor the innumerable

Ranks of the years that march in centuries.

I shall not wholly die: some part of me

Will cheat the goddess of death, for while High Priest

And Vestal climb our Capitol in a hush,

My reputation shall keep green and growing.

Where Aufidus growls torrentially, where once

Lord of a dry kingdom, Daunus ruled

His rustic people, I shall be renowned

As one who, poor-born, rose and pioneered

A way to fit Greek rhythms to our tongue.[6]    

 

This poem, enshrining the concept of a monument all the more enduring because it was not built of perishable materials, inspired many sequels and imitations, such as that by Russia’s greatest poet, Pushkin.  In a poem whose title is a direct quotation of the first two words of Horace’s, written in 1836, the year before Pushkin’s untimely death in a duel, he wrote:

 

I have erected a monument to myself

Not built by hands; the track of it, though trodden

By the people, shall not become overgrown,

And it stands higher than Alexander’s column.

 

I shall not wholly die. In my sacred lyre

My soul shall outlive my dust and escape corruption—

And I shall be famed so long as underneath

The moon a single poet remains alive.

 

I shall be noised abroad through all great Russia,

Her innumerable tongues shall speak my name:

The tongue of the Slavs’ proud grandson, the Finn, and now

The wild Tungus and Kalmyk, the steppes’ friend.

 

In centuries to come I shall be loved by the people

For having awakened noble thoughts with my lyre,

For having glorified freedom in my harsh age

And called for mercy towards the fallen.

 

Be attentive, Muse, to the commandments of God;

Fearing no insult, asking for no crown,

Receive with indifference both flattery and slander,

And do not argue with a fool.[7] 

 

Here the poet subtly subverts aspects of the traditional monument.  Like Horace, Pushkin has the audacity to raise one to himself, which he proudly proclaims will surpass those not only of the past but also of the present.  This bold statement gains added meaning when we recall that Pushkin’s forthright outspokenness, his refusal to compromise and moderate his words, had earned him banishment imposed by the court of the autocratic Tsar Nicholas I—a clear parallel with Ovid, cast out from the Rome of Augustus and exiled to Tomis on the shores of the Black Sea.  Yet despite his hardships, Pushkin confidently declares that his monument will be justified by the benefits which he has conferred on the peoples of Russia by speaking up for truth and freedom in the face of tyranny and oppression.  There are clear Biblical references in Pushkin’s description of his monument “not built with hands” like the new Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation, and in his prediction that he will not “see corruption,” like Christ himself and saints such as St. John Nepomuk, whose tongue was preserved from decay because it had refused to utter falsehood or betray the sacred confidence of the confessional.

 

            The everlasting glory conferred by such incorporeal monuments contrasts strongly with the memento mori offered by the spectacle of the overthrown splendors of earlier civilizations.  In Shelley’s Ozymandias (Ramses II of Egypt, thirteenth century B.C.), for example, we read:

 

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.[8]

 

These words by a direct contemporary of Pushkin aptly convey the vanity of man’s attempt to preserve and commemorate his earthly achievements in even the most lasting materials, which are nevertheless doomed to destruction by the hostile forces of nature and time.  Lasting glory is bestowed only through God-given genius.  While Horace and Pushkin justify their boast by the well-founded claim that they will reap the gratitude of future generations for the gifts that they have conferred, Shelley’s tyrant is reduced to a deserted heap of fragments in the midst of a trackless wilderness.

 

            Shelley’s words raise another point associated with the study of ancient monuments by scholars and antiquarians: we frequently have to admit that we know little if anything of the purpose for which they were erected.  While Shelley’s traveler was at least able to decipher the inscription on the fallen statue’s pedestal and ascertain who had raised it to proclaim his vainglorious but ultimately futile message, the modern archeologist can often interpret the meaning of such remains only by patient research and cautious speculation, if at all, and must be wary of over-hasty assumptions about their nature and function.  Indeed, R.J.C. Atkinson states in his well-known book on Stonehenge that we are tantalizingly ignorant about the origins and purpose of this, one of the greatest relics of a vanished culture.  Atkinson observers that we can only surmise how Stonehenge came into being and for what rituals it was intended.[9]  The more information we ascertain about the manner in which the gigantic blocks of stone were shaped and transported, and placed in a formation which corresponds in astonishingly accurate detail to the movements of the heavenly bodies and the changing seasons, the more perplexing remains the mystery of their origin, and the greater our eagerness to penetrate that mystery.  On the other hand, we may be satisfied with W. H. Auden’s explanation:

 

To you, to me, Stonehenge and Chartres Cathedral…are works by the same Old Man under different names: we know what He did, what, even, He thought He thought, but we don’t see why.[10]

     

            Yet the one thing of which we can be sure when contemplating the massive stones of that great circle, the dolmens of Brittany, the columns of the Parthenon or the pyramids of the Pharaohs, is that their creators were building not only for themselves but also for a posterity which they could scarcely imagine.  The architects of the Forum and the Acropolis could not have envisaged a world in which visitors would come from regions still undiscovered to marvel at their work and the civilization which it represented.  The original builders could not conceive how those structures, built for the busy everyday life of their cities, would be under threat from the sheer numbers of those who come to admire them and from the pollution caused by the traffic which brings them to Athens and Rome.  We can never be entirely sure what kind of posterity the ancients pictured, but we may guess with some certainty that they would have been appalled by the threat to those proud buildings, and would have been anxious for their fate, and concerned that they should receive the best possible protection.

 

IV

 

Poised between past and future, we are aware of the responsibility that we owe not only to our forerunners but also to those who come after us.  We must maintain the trust implicit in our ancestors’ belief that their monuments would endure to convey their message, whatever it might be, to the future; we should endeavor to preserve monuments for the benefit of generations yet to be born.

 

            This, however, is a responsibility which extends far beyond the simple material conservation of physical structures, no matter how ancient, dignified or beautiful.  In its widest sense, preservation implies the duty to extend awareness of other cultures and respect and understanding of their values through the development of the knowledge that all the world religions and spiritual traditions “…are historically interconnected; that they have interacted with the same things or with each other, or that one has ‘grown out of’ or ‘been influenced by’ the other; more exactly, that one can be understood only in terms of a context of which the other forms a part.”[11] 

 

In this sense there can be only one history of religion, a spiritual heritage shared by all humanity.  When one moves to that which is most universal, viewing the issue from the perspective of the species rather than of a certain ideology, race or religion, it becomes clear that each world religion offers its own unique gift of insight to mankind.  ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the son and appointed successor of Bahá’ulláh, the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, suggested the following analogy:

 

Consider the flowers of a garden: though differing in kind, colour, form and shape, yet, inasmuch as they are refreshed by the waters of one spring, revived by the breath of one wind, invigorated by the rays of one sun, this diversity increaseth their charm, and addeth unto their beauty….How unpleasing to the eye if all the flowers and plants, the leaves and blossoms, the fruits, the branches and the trees of that garden were all of the same shape and colour! Diversity of hues, form and shape, enricheth and adorneth the garden, and heighteneth the effect thereof.[12]

 

This richness and diversity is reflected in the manifold forms of the sacred monuments erected by different religions and cultures, and should be respected in our response to them.

 

This is particularly important in the field of international perspectives on archaeological interpretation.  We cannot overlook the possibility of conflict between the needs and assumptions of the heritages of diverse cultures, or of misunderstandings of the significance of practices, symbols and customs which, highly regarded in one culture, may seem alien or even distasteful to another, such as the methods by which members of different religions dispose of their dead, be it cremation, burial or the ‘”sky burial” by which Parsees and the inhabitants of Tibet consign the bodies of their loved ones to the birds of the air.  “Heritage tourism,” though fundamentally a useful way of enhancing knowledge and appreciation of the ways and history of other peoples, can actually, if developed without proper caution, hasten the deterioration of the very heritage it seeks to promote and protect.  Such tourism may cause increasing numbers of visitors to flock to sites and museums and not only damage the buildings and the environment but destroy the atmosphere and numinous quality of places steeped in tradition and the spirit of holiness.  Even in museums especially established to preserve the heritage of specific cultures, it is essential to guard against the possibility of giving offence by displaying artifacts or cult objects in an insensitive way which reduces them to mere curiosities with little awareness of their true significance. 

 

The risk of trivializing a culture’s heritage is substantially reduced by the understanding that it is not only a material but also a spiritual heritage which is at issue, and that the traditions of all religions can claim equal respect and reverence.  This perspective is well expressed by Havelock Ellis in the following passage from his book The New Spirit:

 

The present is in every age merely the shifting point at which past and future meet, and we can have no quarrel with either. There can be no world without traditions; neither can there be any life without movement. As Heracleitus knew at the outset of modern philosophy, we cannot bathe twice in the same stream, though, as we know to-day, the stream still flows in an unending circle. There is never a moment when the new dawn is not breaking over the earth, and never a moment when the sunset ceases to die. It is well to greet serenely even the first glimmer of the dawn when we see it, not hastening towards it with undue speed, nor leaving the sunset without gratitude for the dying light that once was dawn.

 

In the moral world we are ourselves the light-bearers, and the cosmic process is in us made flesh. For a brief space it is granted to us, if we will, to enlighten the darkness that surrounds our path. As in the ancient torch-race, which seemed to Lucretius to be the symbol of all life, we press forward torch in hand along the course. Soon from behind comes the runner who will outpace us. All our skill lies in giving into his hand the living torch, bright and unflickering, as we ourselves disappear in the darkness.[13]

 

These words demonstrate Ellis’s wise and balanced outlook on the course of civilization, and especially the relation of one culture to another in the stream of time.  With the emergence of Marshall McLuhan's concept of the “global village,” and as ever more sophisticated means of transport and communication evolve, it is tempting to assume that increasingly efficient means of exchanging information will automatically bring about greater understanding between different cultures.  In fact, the reverse can be only too true: improved technology can actually frustrate appreciation of diverse cultural traditions.  And this observation is equally applicable to the modern age’s perspective on the past, as is apparent from the following exchange between McLuhan and W. H. Auden made during a panel discussion held in February 1971:

 

Auden: It’s not how I feel about things. I know I’m rooted in the nineteenth century and—

McLuhan: …I am not prepared as a private individual to make value judgements about anything that is so massive. I really do think it takes a certain amount of nineteenth-century egotism to confront this with a private point of view.

Auden: Well, I quite agree. I do it. I mean, it is arrogant, but I am arrogant.

McLuhan: Good. Would you inculcate this as an attitude in others?
Auden: Yes, I would…

McLuhan: I don’t think your value judgements amount to a hoot, Mr. Auden, because you are a nineteenth-century man.

Auden: And I think probably so are you.

McLuhan: I am aware of twentieth-century actualities.

Auden: So am I but I don’t approve.

McLuhan: I don’t venture to approve or disapprove.

Auden: …Tradition means giving votes to that obscurist class, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses surrender to the small arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around.[14]

   

Here McLuhan’s rejects the validity of attitudes and judgments rooted in tradition and based on values derived from the wisdom of earlier generations. Yet Auden defends the worth of those generations’ contribution to the present and their right to be heard instead of being dismissed as outdated and irrelevant.  Both for the archeologist and the ordinary human being, this is a lesson which we cannot afford to ignore.  In George Santayana’s famous maxim, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.  We must not romanticize the past with little regard for the harsh facts of existence in earlier times, but nor should we belittle less “advanced” civilizations and make the mistake of claiming that they have nothing to teach us, dismissing their traditions and standards as outmoded and inapplicable to the modern world which, merely on the basis of technological advances, we consider superior.  To do so is to deny our forerunners their rightful place in the history of mankind and the development of our civilization.  This is not only erroneous, it is discourteous and positively dangerous.

 

At the same time, it does our antecedents no favors to reduce their worlds to sanitized theme parks as part of a leisure industry which caters to a taste for novel experiences with little or no attempt to foster any real understanding of the cultures served up to the public.  To counter such trivializing tendencies, we may argue that the task of the archeologist is not only to discover and preserve the heritage of the past, but also to transmit it to the present in such a way as to ensure its continued passage into the future.  We force an artificial separation between the past, the present, and the future at our own peril, and by doing so we deprive our successors of their rightful legacy.  This occurs not only when we willfully or thoughtlessly destroy the records of the past or discard its wisdom, but when we focus solely on its outward material attributes and fail to consider the values which they embody and the spiritual as well as the practical functions which they fulfilled.  Doing so is, in the words of the Arab love poem that I have already quoted, to kiss the walls of a building while forgetting the love for its previous inhabitant which inspired those kisses. 

 

If we are to understand other cultures and achieve closeness to those who represent a living heritage, we must find a common language which transcends differences of creed and custom.  In our search for common language, we cannot afford to leave anything to chance or to proceed on unexamined assumptions, even in trying to establish what we mean by seemingly straightforward concepts such as “culture” or “the past.” 

 

V

 

At this point I would like to consider the definition of culture proposed by L.F. Brosnahan in his “Language and Society,” a series of four talks given in collaboration with J.W. Spencer for the Nigerian Broadcasting Company in February 1962. Brosnahan begins by rejecting the specific application of the word culture to a particular quality or type of education, such as knowledge of painting or literature.  He prefers instead to use the meaning given to it by social anthropologists.  For him, therefore:

 

[culture] refers to the total complex of modes of acting, of ways of thinking and of habits of speaking which are characteristic of a community; and to the products or the results of those ways of thinking and acting, namely, the ideas, the beliefs, the conceptions of that community, and what the anthropologists call the institutions that they have built up—that is, the religions, the forms of government and administration, the agricultural system, the language and so on. In short, by the culture of a community we mean all the learned and shared activities of that community and the results of such activities.[15]        

 

Brosnahan goes on to examine the relationship between language and culture, noting the importance of a shared language as a cultural institution which develops gradually from one generation to the next through its use to transmit the rituals, ceremonies, and values of a particular society.  He also notes its significance as the means by which a community’s activities are learned and shared, linking its institutions and enabling its members to discuss their culture in terms appropriate to it but excluding concepts for which it has no need. Brosnahan cites the Eskimo or Inuit language’s six words for different types of snow but lack of words for alien fruits such as pineapples or activities such as yam planting which have no place in their scheme of things.  Language also represents a medium of “acculturation,” to use an anthropological term, by which the individual learns what is acceptable in his or her community and becomes a fully integrated member of it.  Thirdly, and most importantly, language, whether written or oral, is a repository of the stored wisdom of previous generations, accumulated through years and centuries of experience to provide guidance on how to proceed in particular circumstances, to deal with dangers and challenges, and to avoid mistakes which could imperil the whole community.  Language makes it possible for the community to learn indirectly, benefiting from the lessons of those long gone, whether those lessons were handed down in written form or by word of mouth.

 

This, then, provides us with a possible definition of culture and an understanding of the vital role of language within it.  It is possible, as Brosnahan readily admits, that misunderstandings will arise between members of different cultures, even when they use an apparently identical language, as any traveler from one South American country to another or from Britain to the United States will attest.  But at least, by establishing this definition, we may limit the parameters within which misunderstandings may occur.

 

VI

 

Turning to that other problematic concept, “the past,” we may find it useful to consider the definition provided by Arnold Toynbee in his book Change and Habit: The Challenge of our Time.  In his first chapter, entitled “Light from the Past: Its Values and Limits,” Toynbee states:

 

Since the future is hidden from us till it arrives, we have to look to the past for light on it. Our experience in the past gives us the only light on the future that is accessible to us. Experience is another name for history.[16]

 

For Toynbee, the tendency to plan for the future is a “distinctively human activity,” which cannot be practiced without looking ahead in the light of past experience.  Even in this respect the uses of experience are limited, as it cannot predict with certainty the ways in which other human beings may choose to act in any given situation.  Whatever our knowledge of past human history, we cannot foresee the future course of human affairs.  Yet this does not render the study of human history unprofitable, or suggest that we should confine ourselves to the study of areas which can be understood in scientific terms.  Even guesswork, if informed by a sound knowledge of past events, can be of value in enabling us to understand our present situation and to find parallels from the past.

 

Within this process, the monuments and tangible relics of past civilizations assume a new meaning.  They not only bear witness to the daily lives of the people who created and lived among them, but lead us to reflect once again on the true purpose of a monument   and its contribution to our understanding of the culture which produced it, not only in physical but in spiritual terms.  Through monuments, we glimpse the eternal spirit which inspires all attempts to leave a lasting memorial to human greatness, “that light whose smile kindles the Universe” as Shelley calls it in his poem “Adonais:”

 

…that Beauty in which all things work and move,

That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse

Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love

Which through the web of being blindly wove

By man and beast and earth and air and sea,

Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of

The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,

Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.[17] 

 

  Shelley, in his Address to the Irish People, also declared:

 

What can be more vain, presumptuous in any man or any set of men…as to say—“What we think is right, no other people throughout the world have opinions anything like equal to ours.” Anything short of unlimited toleration, and complete charity with all men, on which you will recollect that Jesus Christ principally insisted, is wrong, and for this reason. What makes a man a good man? Not his religion, or else there could be no good men in any religion but one, when yet we find that all ages, countries, and opinions have produced them.[18]

 

In its wealth of temples and shrines, cult statues and votive offerings, archeology helps us to appreciate that every religious tradition and field of knowledge holds within itself, in some way or other, some expression of truth, but no one finite view can exhaust truth in its totality.

 

By drawing on this bank of past experience, we can proceed to a greater understanding of our current position.  Through archeology—the careful study of the civilizations which have preceded our own—we may begin to arrive at some conception of the features which unite us and them, and, at a higher level, of the shared values which link not only the past and the present but the great religions of the world.  We may grow not only in understanding but also in respect for these civilizations and their heritage, and by doing so attain to a deeper knowledge of our place in the world, our debt to the past, and its role in shaping our future.  We may, in the fullness of time, discover, through contemplation of these aspects which unite us in all our diversity, a new capacity for co-operation and shared endeavor, based on an awareness of a heritage which transcends the differences between civilizations—the shared heritage of humanity.

 

I would like to conclude with a quotation from T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” which sums up the inextricable relationship between past, present and future, which binds us simultaneously to the past and the future, and through which we are reminded of our responsibility—both to those who have gone before us and those yet to come—to guard and interpret the heritage of the past, to nurture and conserve it in the present, and to hand it on and transmit its incalculable value to the future:

 

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.[19]       

 

 

 

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