The Growing Threat of Archaeonudists*

Machu Picchu from Wikipedia.

I spend a lot of time thinking about threats to the global archaeological record, but, until today, I was unaware that public nudity at famous sites is such a threat. Granted, naked people don’t damage the physical integrity of the sites. It just, understandably, makes other visitors uncomfortable. And, evidently, it has gotten to be a serious enough problem at Machu Picchu that an official from Peru’s Ministry of Culture publicly commented:

“There are places in the world that people can get naked, but not all places are (appropriate) for getting undressed” (Alfred Mormontoy Atayupanqui to CNN).

I think we can get considerable cross-cultural agreement with that statement. But then Atayupanqui adds, “Tourists should comply with local rules and regulations when they are traveling, otherwise there will be thousands of problems.” As if traipsing naked through archaeological monuments is accepted in Canada and Australia (where the most recent violators were visiting from)!

Worse, CNN ends their post with the prompt: “Where do you stand on ‘naked tourism’? Share your thoughts in the comments.“ Who has a formal stance on “naked archaeo-tourism”? I guess I’m against it, but laughing, and not too worried about those archaeonudists* who are for it. At least they’re excited about archaeology!

 

*If the term “archaeonudist” takes off and starts appearing on t-shirts, bumper stickers, and coffee mugs, I want credit for coining it 🙂