Slashdot Mirror
Jewels From an Ethiopian Grave Reveal 2,000-Year-Old Link To Rome
An anonymous reader writes: Archaeologists have discovered jewels from an Ethiopian grave that revealed a 2,000-year-old link to Rome. Louise Schofield, a former British Museum curator, and her team of 11 excavated the ancient city of Aksum for six weeks where the artifacts were found. The treasures offer evidence that the Romans were trading in Aksum hundreds of years earlier than previously thought. Schofield said: “Every day we had shed-loads of treasure coming out of all the graves. I was blown away: I’d been confident we’d find something, but not on this scale."
All these treasures, are they worth anything? Will the Ethiopian people see a penny from all these treasures? Will they even see the treasures? Does anyone even care about Ethiopians?
I guess my last post was a but abrupt but it does summarise my view of the modern world pretty well. We've, in my opinion, moved into an era where knowledge and research that has no practical application equates to something that's not worth all that much. Capitalism seems to be the dominant (economic) system that drives modern research and I hate it. If there is no concrete monetary profit from a venture then good luck pursuing an avenue of research that does not yield a "return on investment".
As an example, at the job before my last job my role was to study plants, the environment and ecology, and write plans that would direct on-ground works to achieve restoration of degraded ecosystems. At first it seemed like a dream role. After a while I discovered that the accountants classified me as a "non-earner"; i.e. my work did not directly earn income for the company (for the most part -- I did consultancy work that did, but that was pretty minor compared to my overall workload). Therefore every time pay grades and, hey I would have appreciated this even more, thanks and acknowledgement I was always at the bottom rung of the ladder despite my work guiding the on-ground teams who implemented the works, corrective interventions, etc. that I developed. They were classified by the accounting department as "money earners" whilst I remained a "non earner" and therefore of less value to the company. In the end I acknowledged that they were stupid and resigned.
Guess what. The next company, which I only left a month or so ago, had a similar system! I was told that as a researcher I did not directly earn money for the company and therefore I could not expect to get paid as much. I was also told that because I didn't directly control a team of people (only indirectly through my plans and development of project goals) that I was worth less. They didn't use those words but that's what it boiled down to. So I left that train wreck of a company as well. But, to my dismay, every single job I've applied or interviewed for since then has the same attitude! "How can you directly earn us money". They (the managers or whoever) cannot see indirect value.
I guess what I am trying to say is that science or research without direct fiscal benefits is not, in my experience, that the modern world wants to pay for (well, maybe in academia but they don't pay that well either and you'd be constantly seeking grants that nobody wants to provide or sponsor).
Archaeology must be even worse... in their case there is probably not even a hope of gaining a return on investment (fiscally). It's a shame that knowledge for knowledge's sake apparently means so little to so many these days. But, that's the society we've chosen I guess.