Re: RECOGNIZING REALITY

A well reasoned approach. Who will start to implement it? UNESCO?

Tony

"Dave Welsh" <dwelsh46@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ICgHe.70476$ro.51202@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> The Massacre of Mesopotamia
>
> http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=270963
>
> Iraq is a country of firsts: the earliest villages and cities, writing,
> poetry, epic literature, temples, codified religion, armies, warfare,
> world
> economy and empire. Tragically it is also the first entire country to be
> designated an 'endangered site' by the World Monuments Fund (WMF).
> ...
> Amir Hamadani an archaeologist, working in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq. "More
> than 100 Sumerian cities have been destroyed by looters since the
> beginning
> of the war. It's a disaster that we all keep watching but about which we
> can
> do little. We are incapable of stopping the looting. We are five
> archaeologists, some hundred guards and occasionally a couple of
> policemen -
> and they are a million armed looters, backed by their tribes and the
> dealers".
> .....
> *******************
> RECOGNIZING REALITY
> *******************
> More weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, without any constructive
> ideas
> on how to stop looting. To be fair, this article does discuss the role
> played by the insurgency and by Arab tribal leaders.
>
> Diatribes by archaeologists and other preservationists rarely point out
> that
> the inhabitants of Iraq and other "source states" themselves carry on this
> plundering. Archaeology means nothing to them, and they have other
> concerns,
> such as feeding and sheltering their families. If a referendum were taken
> whether an Iraqi should be allowed to take what he likes from any
> archaeological site to sell to an antiquities dealer, there would be a
> great
> many votes for that, possibly a majority.
>
> Neither UNESCO, the United Nations, archaeologists or anyone else can
> dictate to the people of Iraq what they may or may not do about preserving
> their past. If Iraqis elect to loot and destroy relics of their past
> because
> of their present circumstances, they have the power to do so. They are in
> fact doing so, and it is simply impossible to stop them.
>
> Meanwhile UNESCO, archaeologists and others concerned about looting,
> powerless to control looting in Iraq and elsewhere, have deluded
> themselves
> into believing that looting can be ended by abolishing the market for
> antiquities. There are two fundamental flaws in their delusion. One, it
> simply would not work. Two, it requires unreasonable and unjustifiable
> oppressive measures whose impact on rights of individuals would far
> outweigh
> any imaginable benefit to society.
>
> There is an alternative, effective way to stop looting - to destroy the
> market for illicit antiquities, not by seeking futile and unenforceable
> repressive measures, but by the vastly more powerful laws of economics.
>
> A regulated licit market in provenanced antiquities, in which collectors
> could acquire antiquities with confidence in their origin and provenance,
> would leave very few collectors interested in unprovenanced antiquities.
> The
> importance of provenance to collectors has been repeatedly proven in
> auctions, where it greatly increases value and demand. A secure, licit
> market would leave very few dealers willing to handle unprovenanced
> antiquities. The market for unprovenanced antiquities would collapse
> immediately.
>
> In Iraq and other source countries, dealers in artifacts would find that
> no
> money could be made trafficking in illegal antiquities. Meanwhile, those
> cooperating with authorities would make at least as much from legal
> excavation and sale of antiquities as anyone ever did from looting. Tribal
> leaders, instead of organizing looting gangs, would post guards on sites
> to
> preserve their claims, so that after authorized excavations they could
> legally sell the artifacts. They would even provide gratis labor and
> security for the dig.
>
> This approach would require archaeologists and cultural ministries to
> recognize reality: antiquities trading is a business that will be carried
> on
> in one form or another, regardless of their beliefs about its propriety
> and
> whatever repressive laws may be enacted. If archaeologists and cultural
> ministries cooperate with the trade and help regulate it, by providing
> provenanced artifacts to the market, looting can be stopped. Proceeds from
> sale of artifacts would pay for the policing effort, with enough left over
> to fund a real Renaissance for archaeology and to greatly improve
> facilities
> and staffing of museums.
>
> There are millions of antiquities. The idea that every antiquity is a
> priceless museum piece no individual should be allowed to own is silly and
> futile. During more than four thousand years of antiquity, hundreds of
> millions of people went about their lives making and owning these
> artifacts,
> the great majority of which are extremely common. It is utterly senseless
> to
> lock them up in storage, to deteriorate without any benefit to science or
> the public interest. No one will ever pay for enough facilities and staff
> to
> put all of these artifacts on display or care for them properly. If that
> somehow could be done, no one would want to visit the museums. The
> repetition in gigantic displays of hundreds of thousands of nearly
> identical
> ushabtis, scarabs, seals, oil lamps and other minor ceramics, and coins
> would be stupefying.
>
> Meanwhile antiquities rot unconserved, uncatalogued, often not even
> properly
> inventoried - in poorly secured storage where they become a target for
> thieves. All too often, when such objects surreptitiously appear in the
> market, someone charged with their care had something to do with it. Quis
> custodiet ipsos custodes? Especially when they are poorly paid, and their
> families are going hungry?
>
> It is only the artifical scarcity created by senseless hoarding of
> artifacts
> that sustains the illicit antiquities trade. Those responsible for this
> hoarding are the true culprits. The ultimate responsibility for looting
> rests squarely upon archaeologists and cultural authorities, whose
> unreasonable ideologies about commercial profit and "who owns the past"
> prevent them from recognizing and reacting to reality.
>
> There are plenty of artifacts to satisfy everyone's needs and interests.
> Every museum could overflow with whatever objects seem important enough to
> display or maintain in its collection, every archaeologist could take all
> the time needed to extract the very last bit of scientific information
> from
> excavated artifacts, lavish funding could be provided to study, conserve,
> catalogue and publish artifacts and to support many more digs, and there
> would still be more than enough artifacts to sustain a licit regulated
> antiquities trade that would destroy all incentive for looting.
>
> Dave Welsh
> dwelsh46@xxxxxxx
> Unidroit-L Listowner
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Unidroit-L
>
>



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