Don’t underestimate the power of time to erase, he said. Much of life, and what matters most to a culture, consists of what a visual artist would deem “fragile materials”: Wood, say, and wax. Feathers, flowers, fish bones. Plants and unstable pigments. Ice. Emotions, and their transmission from one person to another. Blood, tears, tenderness, joy. Very little of what comprises culture can be found at a dig site.
