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ancient temples of Abu Simbel. Clearly, then, things are not necessarily that simple. The opponents of modernity The film Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin, who was both director and actor, depicts the US of the 1930s (Chaplin 1936 film). It associates the modern with industrial society, with that society’s increasing speed at factory assembly lines, and with unemployment and social unrest. The film communicated a criticism of modernity that was typical of its time, but it did so in a humorous way. For as long as modernity has been around, it has been
deindustrialisation and unemployment. The concept of postmodernism was established to characterise the new tendencies in the history of ideas. The Convention is managed pragmatically in relation to the new needs of the time, as is seen in varying editions of the Operational Guidelines (most recent from 2019). The Convention was justified by threats and needs for protection and preservation; but its management at the World Heritage Centre came to be about identity, tourism, multiplicity, sustainable development, representativeness, balance, and credibility. More than ever, the
importance. After all, the excavations and the salvage campaigns created jobs in areas of unemployment. And once they had been saved, the monuments became tourist attractions, which provided economic benefits. Finally, the antiquities and monuments that were transferred to foreign museums were described as “new ambassadors extraordinary” of Egypt and the Sudan (Säve-Söderbergh 1987 : 137ff; 1996: 114f). But in a critical reckoning with UNESCO and its World Heritage system, the archaeologist Lynn Meskell has recently designated the prioritisation of the monuments at Abu
offered lectures on appealing topics such as the Loch Ness monster.47 By the 1970s, lectures attracted peak audiences, complemented by a series of hugely popular day schools – attracting audiences of up to seven hundred – in collaboration with the University’s extramural department.48 By the 1980s, museum lectures held fresh significance, when ‘High levels of unemployment, early retirement and the increase of available leisure-time create[d] exciting opportunities for museum education departments to capture the enthusiasm, and develop the individual interest, of members
were done differently”. Consequently, when the UK entered a period of deindustrialisation and unemployment in the 1970s and 1980s, factories that had closed down were transformed into museums. “Real industry” was replaced by “heritage industry” (Hewison 1987 ). The unemployed were given work as uniformed guides, while others moved as time tourists through environments of Iron-Age settlements, trading places from the Viking era, medieval market towns, and Early Modern urban existence, all brought to life (Petersson 2003 : 276ff). And at home we can be both
uncertainty. The UK had, he said, been in crisis ever since the 1960s, beset by pessimism, devaluation, and oil crises. Modernisation had been replaced by deindustrialisation and unemployment. Industrial premises had become museums. Instead of goods, they produced superficial heritage. In Hewison’s view, the heritage industry was stifling contemporary culture, and its inertia was impeding necessary renewal. What he wished to see was not more heritage and bringing to life but critical history, “real” industry, and “real” jobs (Hewison 1987 ). Similarly drastic criticism