Punk icons’ London flat grafitti is important as Neanderthal cave drawings and should be preserved for posterity, says respected archeologist
Making history: the Sex Pistols
A doctor of archaeology wants Sex Pistols grafitti on the wall of a London flat to be preserved for posterity.
And Dr John Schofield of York University says the “offensive and rude” scrawlings are more important than lost Beatles recordings and equally valuable as Neanderthal cave paintings.
The punk icons’ graffiti was found behind cupboards in a 19th-century building on Denmark Street, in the Tin Pan Alley music industry area of London.
It consists of scribbles, slogans and eight sketches made by Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten while the band lived together in the flat, which Dr Schofield calls “a direct and powerful representation of a radical and dramatic movement of rebellion.”
He tells the Telegraph: “The tabloid press once claimed that early Beatles recordings discovered at the BBC were the most important archaeological find since Tutankhamen’s tomb.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/archaeology/8904562/Anarchy-in-archaeology-as-Sex-Pistols-graffiti-is-rated-alongside-cave-art.html
“The Sex Pistols’ grafitti in Denmark Street surely ranks alongside this and, to our minds, usurps it.
“We feel justified in sticking our tongues out at the heritage establishment and suggesting that punk’s iconoclasm provides the context for conservation decision-making.”
Schofield compares the grafitti to cave paintings found in the caves of Lascaux in France and believes there’s a strong case for having the building listed as historically important.
He says: “This is an important site, historically and archaeologically, for the material and evidence it contains.”
CONNECT…