Petra M. Creamer Receives Gene S. Stuart Award from the Society for American Archaeology

We are thrilled to share the news that Petra M. Creamer has been awarded a Gene S. Stuart Award from the Society for American Archaeology for her SAPIENS article, “When Wartime Plunder Comes to Campus.”

The Society for American Archaeology states, “Creamer, an archaeologist who works in Iraq, considers the thorny question of whether professors should teach with possibly looted artifacts from the Middle East that have entered museum collections since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. As Creamer explains, war and social breakdown led to the looting and export of thousands of artifacts. Many museums are doing the hard work of investigating provenance, but meanwhile, should they be used for teaching students? Creamer highlights the value of these objects in materializing an abstract problem and helping students to see themselves as part of a global ethical debate. For the general public, Creamer’s article not only highlights the costs
of war for cultural heritage but also introduces the ethical questions that educators grapple with in archaeology.”