"FOUND OBJECTS: What archaeologists can gain from markets, or lose by ignoring them" is an article by Jeremy Lott in Reason online. Lott begins by going over what happened last year to the Baghdad Museum during the war and what has happened to antiquities in Iraq since. His account looks to me to be substantially accurate, although I'm not sure of every detail. (You can see my understanding the situation from this post and this one in June, both of which I still stand by.) More important, he outlines the current situation regarding Iraqi (and other) antiquities and archaeological sites and proposes some solutions:

Yet looted material from museums was only a small part of the overall trade. One of the few forms of ready cash during the years of the debilitating, decade-long sanctions regime against Iraq came from artifact sales. In defiance of the Ba�athist government, which occasionally executed looters, and of U.N. Security Council resolutions, an extensive black market in Iraqi antiquities was in place before the recent scandal. The Iraqi antiquities that ended up for sale on eBay were likely from this earlier period. By 1997, enough antiquities had been seized at the Iraq-Jordan border to have their own exhibit at the National.

Nor are Iraq�s looting problems unique. In the last dozen or so years, museums in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Kuwait have been sacked. Site looting is the order of the day anywhere poor people find themselves sitting on land that is less valuable than what is underneath the soil. In an interview, Hershel Shanks described a conversation with an Italian museum curator to illustrate the point: "I said to him, in certain places in Italy they�ve been looting tombs for three generations. He said, �No. Four.�" For Shanks, the exchange embodies a certain bitter truth: To archaeologists, site looting is more damaging than sacking museums. At least in the case of the latter, the items have been excavated using methods that allow scholars to compare notes. The information can survive the loss or the destruction of the object, but haphazard, undocumented looting deprives future generations of important tools for reconstructing the past.

The modern archaeological establishment has responded to the threat of markets by lobbying governments to disrupt the flow of antiquities across borders, and to crack down on collectors and dealers. They may have occasional legislative successes -- Switzerland recently tightened its notoriously loose antiquities laws, for example -- but the most likely result will be a slight reduction in trade volume, and even that much is uncertain. Historically, governments have not proven to be very good at preservation.

Reducing the flow of illicit goods would do precious little to fix some of the other problems that plague professional archaeology, including a chronic lack of funding for digs, and of the time and money needed to service large collections of artifacts. One of the reasons the details from the National Museum are still so sketchy is that thousands of items were still awaiting documentation. As with many museums, the National had (and continues to have) thousands of items deteriorating in storage in the hope that someone might someday pull them out and catalog them before sticking them back on the shelf. At any given time, Iraq�s premier cultural institution could showcase perhaps 8,000 items from its 170,000-piece collection. Practically, this means that most items will never see the light of archivists� flashbulbs.

Shanks argues that from the point of view of archaeology, collectors can be either "good" or "bad," and that a lot of the collectors� actions depend on what archaeologists choose to do as a profession. That means that both law and the field of archaeology should carve out a place where collectors and potential looters can funnel their energies. There are many possible ways to structure such an arrangement. Shanks, for example, has suggested giving responsibility for major sites to private companies that would ensure the sites� security in exchange for an opportunity to trade in duplicate finds.

Potential looters should be hired and supervised by archaeologists (a perfectly common arrangement in archaeology�s past), who could pay for the digs by getting collectors to sponsor them or by selling many of the items afterwards, after they�ve been studied and cataloged. Emmerich argues, and Shanks concurs, that many duplicate pots and artifacts currently sitting in museum storage should be sold to private collectors, who would be more likely to properly maintain and display them, and who might keep their own property safe in a time of looting.

A less antagonistic arrangement would be ideal for archaeologists, for collectors, and for the nations that are so rich with physical evidence of ancient cultures. Archaeology is more interested in the information that the artifacts provide than in the artifacts themselves. By controlling the excavations and thoroughly documenting finds, archaeologists could get all the necessary information. Collectors could get access to artifacts that interest them, especially duplicate objects that are otherwise sent into eternal storage, without risking forgeries, lawsuits, or public denunciation. Countries of origin could require that a minimum percentage of the antiquities found (including all unique objects) be donated to their museums, which would both enrich their collections and boost their reputations. The possibility of continuous employment -- along with the occasional payout for important finds and no risk of being shot or hanged -- might persuade the locals to go along with an ordered excavation instead of looting.

These proposals are neither new nor untested. Shanks likes to point out that the Dead Sea Scrolls were found and dug out by people we�d now consider looters. Archaeologists responded by buying the scrolls from antiquities dealers, then hiring the Bedouins to help them further excavate the fragments of this ancient library. Many museums in the U.S. and other countries have Iraqi antiquities today because they agreed to finance digs with the understanding that they could keep half the artifacts.

Much of what happens in the next few years will depend on the actions of the archaeological establishment. Right now, an anti-collector, anti-market bias remains pervasive. That may be a majority position, or it could be that, as pro-market archaeology types would have it, a loud minority only makes it sound that way. In either event, the utility of this attitude is far from clear. If used properly, markets could help preserve artifacts, reduce looting, and expand the number of digs. It�s a virtuous circle waiting to happen.

So his solution is to privatize excavations, exchanging the right to profit from the sale of duplicates for privately arranged security of the site. He also wants to hire potential looters to help with excavating. The latter is certainly a good idea, when there happens to be a well funded excavation handy, which is almost universally not the case in Iraq or in many other parts of the world where archaeological looting is rampant. (See now the article "London and Paris markets flooded with looted Iranian antiquities" from the Art Newspaper via Archaeologica News.) The privatization idea is more problematic, and I myself go back and forth about it. The positive side is that it would provide short-term security and funding to a grossly underfunded and unprotected field. The negative side is that these would be bought at the price of losing the future information that could come from the "duplicates" through improved technology and the asking of questions that haven't occured to us yet. (I put "duplicates" in scare quotes because in reality there is no such thing: each piece is unique in some way and as we learn more, we will be better able to extract that precious unique information.) On the one hand, I'm generally wary of sacrificing a long-term future gain for a short-term present one. But on the other, I'm also wary of being high minded to the point of rejecting a lesser evil on principle when the result is to let a far greater evil happen by inaction. We have desperate problems in the present that are doing dreadful damage to future excavations and future study, arguably far more damage than the potential loss of information from selling "duplicates."

I have discussed this problem in earlier posts here and here.

No easy answers on this one.