Posted on 02/12/2011 8:41:59 AM PST by eleni121
One hundred years after American explorer Hiram Bingham took tens of thousands of artefacts from the Incan city of Machu Picchu back to his alma mater, Yale University is sending them home.
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
Where do you live so I can come by and steal some of your great stuff.
I’d like to honor it by displaying it and charging people to study it.
Idjut!
Ah. That’s what happens when you speak from memory. I was confusing it with the later struggle that Byron got involved in. My bad.
Mostly right is too kind. See 67 and 82. I spoke too quickly.
Yes.
Interpol.
Let’s gop back to the scene. seeding that he was doing business there— he should have had the decency to inquire as to the laws in a sovereign nation (we have those nay more?) and done the right thing which would be to donate it to a local museum in country (they have them in Guatemala).
He did not and so in my book he is a self serving SOB.
Anything further?
I spoke too quickly
We all do that sometimes.
And the artifacts will be sold, looted or destroyed in the next 50 years and just a memory except for photos. What idiots!
Sad to see how political correctness has invaded even “so-called” conservatives. I have been noticing this more and more lately and realize the country truly is lost.
How do you determine ownership? Just because it was buried in a country and lost for thousands of years shouldn’t prevent somebody who had nothing to do with these artifacts or the country wasn’t even a thought during their time to claim ownership. What imbecilic drivel!
In Peru, by law, the government owns all of the Inca, Moche, Chavin etc. artifacts discovered after, I think 1987 (but I could be off a couple of years.) Every shard. Unfortunately, the government does not have the resources to properly conserve and/or display the wealth of artifacts that it has claimed. Much of it goes into inadequate storage facilities, never to be seen again. Excellent point about adverse possession.
Maybe you SHOULD look it up cause the actual owners are the ones in possession of the artifacts. No ancient Peruivians or Greeks have showed up to claim them. When the time machine brings them here, maybe then we can think about it.
Your logic makes as much sense as those who think any old bone dug up belongs to the Indians. Assumptions!
Stealing stuff from somebody's house is a very poor analogy in this case. A better comparison would be finding something of value in somebody's trash once they discarded it. The person that finds it, rescues it from the elements, preserves it, documents it, even profits from its display is under no obligation to return it to the person, people, nation or culture that discarded it and was willing to let it fall into disrepair or decay.
By your logic, we should return the US to the Indians, since we looted the country from them. And your analogy to Marxism is specious, at best, but more probable sock puppet material.
I take from your screen name, you are Greek or relatives originally from there.
Stolen from WHOM? Please give me the email of the Incan Ambassador to the U.S. --- oh wait, there are NO Incas anymore. We all watch as your argument spirals down the drain.
P.S. You are also wrong to challenge the FACT that had most of these items been left, they would have been looted or destroyed. Because that is ALWAYS what happens.
London? Athens? What difference does it make? Given the current birth, death, and immigration rates, soon the only question will be where Europe’s Moslem overlords want the artifacts to be. A museum in Teheran or Cairo? A lime kiln? A shooting range?
As much as i would like I cannot possibly respond to your ravings and ignorance.
Have a nice one packrat...
Spoken like someone who knows their argument is pure balderdash!
Then again Muslims have been in charge in the past and not all the devastation was caused by them...some esp. pagan art was caused by the Catholic invaders and looters too - think 4th crusade.
The Muslims specialize to this day in destroying Christian churches. Think Kosovo/Cyprus/Egypt/etc.
No cultural treasures I am aware are discarded by those people whose ancestors created them. If any were discarded damaged and destroyed they were done so by the outside perps - like Elgin and Bingham.
Why are King Tut’s artifacts so valuable? Because they were part of one the few caches that wasn’t dug up and sold off by native grave robbers. Locals who knew nothing of what they plundered.
Go ahead and pooh-pooh them, but the Westerners are the only ones who coveted artifacts for their scientific and artistic merits, and shared their discoveries with the world.
Easy to judge the methods of early archaeologists by today’s stands, but without their efforts the world’s cultural heritage would be much poorer.
I'll up the ante - morality - is not based on one’s nationality. There are universal principles (mainly Christian ones) that apply to all God's creatures not just to those who hold power. In fact, your position identifies you as a Leninist-—take from those who have (by force too) and give to those who have not.
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