I posted this at my blog and on my forum, but I figure some readers here might find it useful.
Larry Stager wrote a statement concerning unprovenanced antiquities and how we, as scholars, institutes, and governments, ought to deal with them. I’m going to reproduce it here. Jim Davila has the statement along with some thoughts of his over at
PaleoJudaica. I want to address some points here.
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1. We are strongly opposed to looting. We encourage governments to take all necessary steps to stem, if not eliminate, looting at the source by increased surveillance at archaeological sites, involvement of local communities to increase pride in their heritage, vigorous prosecution of offenders and by the use of modern scientific advances such as motion-sensing and satellite-based technologies.
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As I commented over at Jim’s blog, I don’t think “vigorous prosecution” would adequately describe the loathe for these spineless leeches. Looters, and their equally vile counterparts, forgers, need at the minimum financial ruin and decent sentencings.
In Africa, if poachers are carrying weapons, they are shot by the military protecting the wildlife. That should put things into perspective a bit.
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5. The American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) and the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) have adopted rules (without a vote of their memberships) prohibiting the initial publication in their journals of unprovenanced artifacts. Similarly, papers at their meetings are not permitted to be read if they are based on unprovenanced antiquities. We strongly oppose these restrictions. Scholars cannot close their eyes to important information.
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I actually agree with the position adopted by ASOR and AIA. Keeping illegitimate articles out of publication until lengthy analyses can be done to authenticate the articles in question is a very smart and rational position to combat those who would otherwise publish an artifact without doing the necessary verification that it would need. Before something is merely lauded as revolutionary or an important part of understanding our ancient past, we must first make sure that it was created last year by someone looking for some money.
I myself would wish that those who are doing the analyses are quiet enough to not attract media attention before making sure. The last thing we need is skewed conclusions because of media hype.
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6. The opposition to the publication of unprovenanced antiquities is supposedly based on the view that their publication encourages looting. Yet it is almost universally recognized that this prohibition on publication has had little or no effect on looting.
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Perhaps not by itself, and especially not if other publications do not require such a requisite, but overall stricter methods in how we handle unprovenanced antiquities is a must for decreasing looting, forging, etc… But of course, all of it will fail if the governments themselves do not urge for a crackdown. Until then, looting, plundering, forging, and other fraudulent activities will still occur, probably in abundance.
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8. We would encourage private collectors of important artifacts and inscriptions to make them available to scholars for study and publication. Too often collectors who do make their objects available to scholars are subject to public obloquy. As a result, collectors are disinclined to allow scholars to study their collections, and the public is the poorer.
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Here’s a sticky situation - if you condemn the collectors, then they will not be inclined to make available their collections to scholars. However, if we do not condemn them, then we are supporting their private collections and their methods for doing so. As long as they know they will make money, they will try to do so. Talk about your moral dilemma…
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10. The real objection to the antiquities market and unprovenanced material is that it somehow sullies our hands by participation in an illegal enterprise. But we believe a more refined judgment is called for. Yes, it would be nice if we always had professionally excavated materials to study and publish. But that is not the situation. Our choice is either to study unprovenanced material or ignore it. Given that choice, we prefer to study unprovenanced material. The sweeping exclusion of unprovenanced material from scholarly consideration results only in a loss to scholars, to scholarship and ultimately to the public.
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Ultimately, yes, I agree with this statement. We have to study the material, but we need to be very cautious in how we do it. Sensationalism and quick publication is not the way to do it.
Finally, Jim has posted the AIA’s response to the issue by Jane Waldbaum, the president of the institute. You can read it
here.
The Biblical Archaeological Society has also posted the
list of signatories thus signed so far.
And Chris Heard also brings the issue of forgery to the table
here.
04-24-2006, 03:47 AM
Statement on Unprovenanced Antiquities
