An Interview with Beverley Butler

1. How would you describe your role at the Institute of Archaeology?

I have worked at the IoA since 1994 firstly developing the MA in Museum Studies and later establishing the MA in Cultural Heritage Studies which I co-ordinate. The links between archaeology, cultural heritage, conservation are very close and dynamic and we continue to grow as an institution by working across these and other domains. I am also fascinated by cultural memory studies and teach an option course on the subject.

My current projects focus on links between heritage and wellbeing. These include working with colleagues at UCL (Dr Anne Lanceley and Prof Mike Rowlands) on the ways in which heritage objects (including items from UCL Museums and Collections) have the potential to elicit ‘therapeutic talk’ in hospital patients. I also work with Dr Fatima Nammari of Petra University Jordan on a research project that examines how heritage, wellbeing and memory operate in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan with the emphasis on community-led initiatives to create oral history archives, museums and heritage spaces.

2. What inspired you to study and work in Cultural Heritage Studies?

I have always been utterly fascinated by the past – on a basic level the fact that people lived before us is quite incredible to think about and try to imagine! Whether it be Ancient Egypt, Stonehenge etc… acting as iconic triggers for this or even thinking about our grandparents lifetimes - to me is very exciting and intriguing. The fact that we have heritage sites, museum collections, archives and other different intangible survivals (songs, nursery rhymes, oral histories, traditions etc…) that offer us a means to gain insights into the past and to different cultures is quite incredible.

On a more personal level I like the imaginative potency of story-telling (my family are all good story-tellers too!) and when I was little I read Penelope Lively’s A Stitch in Time. This is a children’s book about a little girl who goes on holiday to Lyme Regis and stays at an old house where she discovers a sampler, stitched by a girl who lived in the house over a hundred years ago, and this leads to her meeting the ghost of a Victorian girl who asks her to help her avert danger and they have various dramatic adventures together. The themes of past meeting present, and of places and objects – i.e. the old house / the sampler – being magical objects that have the means to create encounters with others through time is very thrilling. Heritage, archaeology and museums similarly have the capacity to inspire this kind of curiosity, wonder, empathy and drama. This fascination has never left me!

3. Which is your favourite archaeology/ heritage site?

It is hard to focus on just one! I am lucky to work in and travel to iconic and utterly fascinating places such as Egypt, Jerusalem and Jordan. Visiting the pyramids at Giza and seeing huge archaeological objects – i.e. including colossal statues – excavated by underwater archaeologists in Alexandria’s Eastern harbour (the site of the ancient Pharos lighthouse and Cleopatra’s palace site) are quite affecting and emotional experiences. The cities of Jerusalem, Amman, Hebron, Nablus and Jenin are also amazing spectacles to take on. Moreover, because the IoA has historical links to such places – via the early archaeological excavations of Flinders Petrie and Kathleen Kenyon and their collections – there are forms of attachment that create not only links with the history of archaeology but are open to new projects which take more of a community-focused dynamic and are linked to capacity-building that hopefully will inspire new generations.

I also love re-visiting familiar sites as well as the new. Local places such as Primrose Hill near where I live continue to inspire and provoke thoughts about all the changes to London that the site has witnessed. As for the new, I recently visited Hermopolis in Egypt that links to the gods Hermes/ Thoth and has a great sense of having a powerful sacred cosmology and spirit of place. Given, however, that as mentioned previously I work in spaces such as refugee camps and hospitals – i.e. not your standard iconic heritage places – it is clear that cultural heritage is not only a place/ site but what you bring with you in terms of being a ‘site’ of memory-work and a resource to help place-make in situations of difficulty, displacement and extremis. The value and significance placed on ‘origins’, ‘traditions’, ‘homelands’ and in maintaining a sense of identity in difficult situations sees heritage occupy a crucially important place in maintaining a sense of dignity and resilience and also joy and pleasure.

4. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and what would you do?

This is difficult! I like the idea of Dr Who type time-travel! Because I have spent so much time thinking and writing about the places – I would choose Ptolemaic Alexandria and would have liked to have seen and walked around the ancient Library/ Mouseion; to have made an early pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to re-visit Primrose Hill around 1780 (I have a print of this on my wall in this year as a green oasis with sheep on it and a nearby tavern). Finally I would like to see Bloomsbury through the ages and maybe drop in to have tea with Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury set. I do imagine any experience of the past to be much more overwhelming and hard going than one could imagine. Perhaps gaining insights into the past from the present is the safest bet!!! I would insist on at least having a sonic screw-driver on hand if not Indiana Jones and Lara Croft to help out if things got tough!!!

5. Who would you describe as your biggest inspiration?

Alongside my family and the colleagues I work with at UCL and internationally, I’d have to say Edward Said – the author of many books, including famously, ‘Orientalism’ - who I had the great pleasure of meeting. He sums up the excitement and pleasure that academic work and intellectual thinking can bring to your life – whoever you are whether at a university or not - while also seeing this as bound up in a commitment to social justice and to what he sees as the ‘besieged subject’.

6. Which three words would you choose to describe archaeology / heritage?

Inspiring, fascinating and life-enhancing!

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