State Department, Spain, Navy (and Archaeologists?) Torpeodo Effort to Change Law to Allow Commercial Salvage of More Warships

The State Department, joined by the US Navy, Spain and presumably archaeologists, have torpedoed an effort to to change the law to allow more commerical exploitation of old warships. See http://www.chron.com/news/politics/article/Treasure-hunters-battle-for-500-million-bounty-2406490.php

The State Department and US Navy claimed their opposition was meant to protect against commercial exploitation of US warships, but the reality is that the change in the law would likely have only impacted exploitation of Spanish warships that were also used to transport treasure from the New World.

More evidence that the State Department will always take the side of foreign governments over US commercial interests, particularly where those interests are also opposed by the US archaeological lobby. (This gives the bureaucrats at least some cover in that they can say there are US academic interests on their side.)

One wonders whether the next move of Spain and their archaeological allies will be to claim that Spanish treasure already in the hands of US collectors and museums should be repatriated to Spain (or should that be Mexico, Bolivia or Peru)?

None of their Business II

The AIA has issued a manifesto condemning the Smtihsonian for planning to exhibit artifacts from the Belitung shipwreck. See http://www.archaeological.org/news/advocacy/5260

As stated previously on this blog, the archaeological community has been fond of saying at CPAC meetings and elsewhere that it is no business of others to lecture source countries on how to manage their cultural resources.

But, apparently, all that goes out the window when the AIA hierarchy issues pronouncements about public-private partneships to salvage wrecks.

For more, see http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/search/label/Indonesia and
http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2011/04/none-of-their-business.html

For the Smithsonian's view of the controversy, see
http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/SW-CulturalHeritage.asp

Odyssey Marine Exploration Financial Results

Odyssey Marine has announced its financial results for 2010. See
http://www.tradershuddle.com/20110228175267/globenewswire/Odyssey-Marine-Exploration-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-2010-Financial-Results.html

Anyone who thinks deep sea treasure hunting makes for easy money should note that Odyssey's operating expenses exceeded its revenues by millions of dollars. I'm sure the costs of the Black Swan litigation has not helped Odyssey's bottom line, either.

The archaeological community has been very hostile to Odyssey's business model. On the other hand, should wrecks really be left to rot while we wait for cash-strapped governments to fund multi-million dollar deep sea archaeological explorations?

It seems to me that the private-public partnerships that Odyssey has entered into with the United Kingdom are better suited to achieving the proper balance between commercial exploitation and archaeological study. Say what you will, but there is real exploration going on now, rather than some day that will likely never come.

Spain 1, Treasure Salvors 0, Peru 0

A federal magistrate judge has concluded that Spain is the rightful owner of treasure removed from a shipwreck because the available evidence suggests that the lost vessel was a 19 th c. Spanish warship.

What archaeological blogs I have read on the subject seem to relish the decision as a victory against private treasure salvors, but, in so doing, they gloss over the rather narrow statutory basis for the ruling as well as the Court's outright rejection of Peru's claim to the treasure based upon "cultural nationalist principles," i.e., that the treasure belongs to Peru because the "property physically, culturally and historically originat[ed] in Peru." See Slip op. at 29.

Derek Fincham has kindly placed a link to the Court's decision on his own blog. See: http://illicit-cultural-property.blogspot.com/2009/06/spain-prevails-for-now.html

As he notes, there will surely be an appeal.