In the extremes of the archaeological blogosphere, the suggestion that rich American Universities that sponsor archaeological digs in source countries like Greece should pay their local workers a fair living wage has provoked some controversy. Yet, with authorities such as Donna Yates admitting that underpaid diggers loot in the long off season, doesn't it make sense that well paid workers will be less likely to use their knowledge of their sites to steal? And it's also true that after some pressure American Universities have already been paying their service workers at home better? So, why isn't this instead a common sense solution to an obvious problem that American Universities should adopt and publicize as something they are doing to give back to the localities where they sponsor digs?
Update (5/31/16)-- One of CPO's readers indicates that the issues of site security and fair wages for local archaeological workers were discussed at a recent conference sponsored by the University of Chicago. Glad to hear there are others out there who support responsible archaeology!
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A Web Log Championing the Longstanding Interests of Collectors in the Preservation, Study, Display and Enjoyment of Cultural Artifacts Against an "Archaeology Over All" Perspective
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
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About Me
- Cultural Property Observer
- Washington, DC, United States
- Peter Tompa has collected ancient coins for almost 50 years. He has written and lectured about cultural property issues for a decade. He is a contributor to a chapter on numismatics in K. Fitz Gibbon ed., "Who Owns the Past?" (Rutgers 2005). He has lobbied members of the U.S. Congress and the Executive Branch in an effort to ensure that the small businesses of the numismatic trade receive fair treatment from federal regulators. He currently serves as a board member of the Cultural Policy Research Institute and the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild. He also has been a co-chair of the American Bar Association's Art & Cultural Heritage Law Committee. His advocacy has received notice in the media, including the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Art Newspaper and the Voice of America. He hopes his views as a collector and lawyer will provide a counterpoint to the "archaeology over all" perspective found in most blogs about cultural property issues. This Web page is a public resource for general information and opinion about cultural property issues, and is not intended to be a source for legal advice. Opinions expressed here are the author's own.
6 comments:
Archaeologists (particularly those ranting about collecting in the blogosphere) tend to have a state-ownership bias regarding cultural property. It belongs to everyone, in their view, which is clearly a Socialist perspective. To be consistent, they should apply that same perspective in obtaining the artifacts they excavate.
It is inconsistent with the moral principles upon which Socialism (and its more extreme relative Communism) are based, to exploit local labor in the manner that archaeologists and their sponsoring institutions routinely do in conducting archaeological digs in Third World source countries.
It is also incitement to loot. Any common sense observer can perceive that if there had never been any archaeological digs in these countries, in which local labor participated, and in doing so learned the basics of how to locate promising sites and excavate them, there would be much less interest (maybe none at all) in illicit excavation of artifacts.
By hiring local labor at cheapskate, exploitative non-living-wage rates, then letting laborers go unemployed after each dig, making no effort to provide arrangements for site security after the excavation season is over, and making no effort to educate the local public during the excavations, archaeologists are opening Pandoras's Box. Then they have the lying effrontery to blame "greedy collectors and dealers" for what naturally follows.
One of the more irritating aspects of being a target for their incessant "collecting = looting" propaganda is the blatant hypocrisy that pervades their attitude and activities. There is one standard for archaeology, which is always right, and another standard for the rest of the world, which is always wrong, because it doesn't recognize that archaeology is more important than any other human activity.
Hello Peter:
"...doesn't it make sense that well paid workers will be less likely to use their knowledge of their sites to steal?" Perhaps. Maybe.
However, high salaries have not prevented some archaeologists stealing Native American artefacts for example. On-site theft is hard to quantify since no investigation has been undertaken, or data gathered; but taking Yates' knowledge of the subject into consideration it could be the tip of the iceberg.
I agree with Dave Welsh when he says "they have the lying effrontery to blame "greedy collectors and dealers" for what naturally follows." Well they would, wouldn't they. What's really needed is an investigation into international archaeology to answer questions such as:
1. How do underpaid diggers get the ceramics to market.
2. Who identifies the objects in the first place.
3. Who passes them on with false provenances.
Archaeology will fight tooth and claw to prevent any such investigation; you can bet the ranch on it.
Best
John Howland
UK
John Howland perceptively observed:
"What's really needed is an investigation into international archaeology to answer questions such as:
1. How do underpaid diggers get the ceramics to market.
2. Who identifies the objects in the first place.
3. Who passes them on with false provenances.
Archaeology will fight tooth and claw to prevent any such investigation; you can bet the ranch on it."
I do not believe that the archaeological community will ever willingly cooperate in any objective, scientifically conducted investigation into the actual processes, sequences of events, transactions and causative connections that prevail in real-world illicit excavations and smuggling of antiquities.
The archaeological community has already conclusively determined (by preponderance of archaeological opinion) that looting is caused by antiquities collectors and traders in antiquities. Archaeologists don't desire to have their faith in this ideological tenet disturbed by factual scientific evidence, just as Catholic clerical "philosophers" rejected Galileo's heliocentric astronomical theories because they contradicted Aristotle. More than one of those learned and saintly clerics refused to look through Galileo's telescope, on the grounds that this would be supporting a heresy.
Since governments presently defer to archaeologists as the "experts" in such matters, it is unclear what path could be followed to initiate a genuinely scientific investigation and study of "looting" and illicit trafficking in "looted" artifacts.
I do not see any likelihood that such an investigation and study could be pursued until there is realization in government that archaeology really is NOT a science, because it does not require rigorous testing and conclusive proof of hypotheses (such as "collecting = looting") before accepting them as dogma. If the arguments advanced by archaeologists in favor of the "collecting = looting" hypothesis are closely examined, they contain elementary logical fallacies such as "post hoc, ergo propter hoc," or "it is obvious, therefore it must be true," and furthermore they do not conform to rules of evidence that prevail in judicial proceedings.
Having pursued "hard sciences" such as physics and mathematics during my university studies, where I also minored in philosophy, and having practiced these sciences during my Engineering career, I am appalled by the lack of anything resembling genuine scientific rigor and logical consistency in the pseudo-science of archaeology.
Only when it is realized that responsible public policy making cannot originate in this sort of loose, largely erroneous thinking, will it become possible to accurately and responsibly determine the actual causes of looting.
Best,
Dave Welsh
I wonder why there isn't an Inspector General for Archaeology? We have them in the Military and in the State Department and in many other public agencies. Are not Archaeologists a part of the public service that government supports financially and should be monitored like all other agencies funded with tax dollars? If they want to belly up to the trough for public largesse they should expect a little daylight to shine on their activities.
Wayne Sayles perceptively observed:
"I wonder why there isn't an Inspector General for Archaeology? We have them in the Military and in the State Department and in many other public agencies. Are not Archaeologists a part of the public service that government supports financially and should be monitored like all other agencies funded with tax dollars? If they want to belly up to the trough for public largesse they should expect a little daylight to shine on their activities."
Archaeology isn't a government agency, and that may be the reason. But certainly, it would be both logical and responsible to establish some sort of oversight regarding activities of archaeologists that are supported by tax dollars.
I have in mind specifically the anti-collecting activities of the archaeology lobby, and the excessive degree of "scholarly" attention being given to "studies" and "research" on the subjects of "illicit antiquities trafficking" and the "damage" allegedly being done to the archaeological record by antiquities collecting.
Almost none of this so-called scholarship, in my opinion, would be regarded by physicists, mathematicians or logicians as conforming to the scientific method, scientific requirements for testing and proving hypotheses, and the rules of logic.
Nor do I believe that what is being advanced as evidence in these "studies" and "research" would be accepted as conforming to the rules of evidence that prevail in legal proceedings.
It would be wonderful to have genuine, closely scrutinizing oversight of such activities, which would expose the difference between what passes for "science" among archaeologists, and REAL science.
Hello Peter:
I'm sorry if I seem to be engaging in mutual admiration but again I find myself agreeing with Dave Welsh and WGS. At least there are three of us talking about it...from little acorns, eh? Perhaps the bolder members of archaeology who agree will take heart. If we can ask pertinent questions, so might they.
In many respects archaeology is much like the Postal Service (certainly, here in the UK). Both use or employ expensive hi-tech machinery, technicians, and scientists. Both are expensive to run and in the case of the Post Office, despite the tech-spec, the post finally reaches its destination by hand; delivered by a guy pushing a sack-truck, or riding a bicycle. The system works.
In archaeology, Excavation Directors pose their (usually lofty) ideas that ALWAYS amount to, "OF MAJOR SIGNIFICANCE THAT WILL CHANGE OUR PERCEPTION OF..." Iron Age/Roman/Medieval/Elizabethan history (just delete whichever is applicable). It all comes down to educated guesses, or, in the cases of the Piltdown Man, and Hitler Diaries fiascoes - hugely uneducated ones. Bovine Scatology baffles brains?
Precisely how many more of these 'schoolboy howlers' have gone undetected/covered-up to save face, is unknown.
Best
John Howland
UK
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