Tuesday, December 21, 2010

No Christmas Truce

Pompeii is falling down through gross mismanagement and neglect. The Greek cultural establishment is as bankrupt as the Hellenic Republic. Yet,archaeological busybodies Gill and Barford (along with a sympathetic journalist) would rather rehash an old story about a pot in the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Art. See http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2010/12/medici-dossier-and-minneapolis-krater.html
and http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2010/12/david-gill-did-not-contact-mineapolis.html

Why? Apparently, the only reason this is being brought up-- yet again-- is the fact that the MIA's Director wrote a letter to the New York Times in her capacity of President of the AAMD about repatriation issues.

Such foolishness does little but divert attention away from the poor stewardship of archaeological treasures in countries like Greece and Italy. If Gill, Barford and friends really care about protecting the archaeological record, perhaps they should devote at least some of their considerable talents to publicizing these larger issues in 2011.

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