Many scholars stress that no single policy fits all unprovenanced objects. There is a huge difference between, say, looted sculptures, which may be impossible to identify with a specific historical setting, and objects bearing inscriptions or texts, which can yield much information even when their origins are unknown. And some unprovenanced works can easily be faked while others cannot.Read it all.
There is also a broad divide between archaeologists, who generally study material from documented sites and rely on the good graces of host countries with strict prohibitions against the antiquities trade, and scholars of ancient texts, who often do not work in the field and may have no qualms about drawing on unprovenanced objects in their research.
Adding complexity to the debate, Mr. Stager is a field archaeologist who directs a site in Israel that has been supported by two well-known antiquities collectors, Shelby White and her husband, Leon Levy, who died in 2003. The Shelby White-Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications at Harvard, of which Mr. Stager is a board member, finances articles and books about legitimate, scientific digs. Yet Ms. White's own collecting is the focus of an Italian investigation into the illicit antiquities trade.
Even supporters of the two associations' current rules acknowledge that new approaches are needed to address the recent plunder in Iraq and other regions. ...
Via the Iraq Crisis list. Chuck Jones adds:
I also take the liberty or reminding readers of a related statement, read by Michael Müller-Karpe at the Workshop "The Threat to Iraqâ's Cultural Heritage - Current Status and Future Prospects" (July 23, 2005), based on an earlier draft prepared for and read at the Rencontre's General Meeting on July 20, 2005. with editorial input from Clemens Reichel and Francis Deblauwe as well as others: http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/IRAQ/ws_statement.html
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