Indonesia Partners with Treasure Hunters

The New York Times reports that the Indonesian Government is auctioning off artifacts found in a 10th c. shipwreck. See http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/business/worldbusiness/15iht-auction.3543182.html?_r=1

Indonesian museums will only retain what they can reasonably be expected to care for and the rest will be sold off to collectors who will study, preserve and perhaps ultimately donate their purchases to museums outside of Indonesia.

"If it has more economic value than historical value, there is no need to take it for our heritage museums," Sularso [a government spokesman] said. "The government's strategy is to choose the auction house that offers the highest price."

Predictably, archaeologists are angry about this turn of events. They say all the cargo should be retained for study purposes, but Indonesia has decided otherwise and has instead concluded that a representative sample of the artifacts and records of the find should suffice.