[Northkeep] Antiquities Trade

[Marc Carlson]

>From: Alcyoneus <squire009 at baronyofvatavia.org>
>....The ethics of collecting, and the sale of antiquities gets rather 
>complicated.  What shape would the Elgin Marbles be in if they had been 
>left in situ?

Absolutely.

And then there is the inverse question of whether that's a valid position, 
when natural and human degredation of a site is to be expected (Of course 
you won't see this arguement being tossed around regarding the materials 
looted from the Iraqi National Museum...)

>Does the market promote looting?  Sometimes....

There is no absolutely acceptable answer to this, and the postitions tend to 
be fairly polarized.  Personally, I'm stuck somewhere in the middle, since 
all the materials that are "unprovenanced" are, according to the purists, 
tainted and useless for research.   To me this is flawed reasoning, and have 
on the Medieval Leather list (where I normally have this rant going on) 
tried to use the medieval shoes and shoe bits that show up on ebay for 
educational purposes - at the very least they serve as an example of how to 
analyze archeological materials, even if just in photographs.

Unfortunately, I do still have to preach the purist line as much as I can, 
lest I wind up being labeled as "questionable", and lose some of limited 
academic credibility :)

Marc/Diarmaid

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