Posted on 01/10/2006 4:59:41 AM PST by Republicanprofessor
Your analogy between looters and archeologists reflects the level of thought in your tag line, "outside a good dog, a book is your best friend. inside a dog it's too dark to read".
Have you thought about selling your pit bull to the Golden Dragon Chinese restaurant and training your next dog differently than your present one?
That way, you won't have to worry about winding up inside your dog. And then you also won't have to try to remember a small LED to read by.
;-)
Sometimes looting is justified simply because its better than destruction but most of the time its just an exercise of power.
"As an aside, the British Museums treatment of its Egyptian artifacts is abominable. Priceless artifacts are left out for countless museum goers to rub their grubby fingers over them. I say send them back."
Remember the care given to a truely irreplacable statue by the ultimate in Turd World curators, the Taliban?
Huh?
To equate the British Museum with most any Turd World facility is hoefully a typo on your part. If not, you should consider having your meds adjusted at once.
"Grubby" fingers are a far cry from the Taliban's C-4 preservation ideology and methodology.
I don't care where they're displayed, or even if.
If you can find narratives of the Elgin Marbles, for instance, written before PC revisionism became endemic, you will find, in plain language, that they were purchased in a quarry (!) where they were scheduled to be ground for the lime and plaster.
In the context of the time, they were sold by the then owners the Turks *.
Judging events of 200 years ago by comtemporary Political Correctness is the triumph of ignorance, and a waste of time.
* In 1801 Elgin obtained a firman , or authority, from the Sultan which gave him permission to take away any sculptures or inscriptions which did not interfere with the works or walls of the citadel.
"The Egyptians, Greeks and Peruvians are capable of acting as curator as well as we are."
"Capable", conceivable but not demonstrated.
And what of the sheer national instabilities in those places? At any time, in any Islamic nation, some whacko may destroy any statue or any artifact with an image on it.
Peru has always been a land of theft where the strongest took what they wanted. Far more artifacts have been "looted" by locals needing a bit of money, and far more sites ruined by said locals, than by archeologists from the First World.
Might I ask why you seem to insist that backward places are equally safe repositories as major Western facilities?
You bagged 'em right between the eyes.
But, then again, perhaps the cranium was uninhabited at the time?
Out fellow FReeper must have sent his brain out for coffee.
;-)
Go Incas! Boola Boola, give them the Moola!
Don't give the Peruvians jack. They didn't invest in sweat toil effort and smarts to recover these treasures. Yale should keep them where they'll be safe and exhibited. I reject this anti-colonialism narrative. The Spanish controllers of Peru should have done the hard work but they didn't, Yale did
My reasoning is that those are Inca treasures and part of the heritage of the Peruvian descendants of those Incas. I don't believe wanting treasures that belonged to your ancestors is whining. I don't know the circumstances under which these treasures were given away or sold, but given the history of most of latin america there was probably a lot of corruption involved and I suspect whoever bought them for Yale was aware of it. I don't doubt that legally they belong to Yale, but I think Yale would be well served by giving them back. Further, would no the treasures have a lot more value in a museum at Machu Pichu where they could be viewed in the context of the ruins?
Given the history of South America, how long would those artifacts remain on display? We are talking about a culture steeped in corruption, after all.
As far as ". I don't doubt that legally they belong to Yale, but I think Yale would be well served by giving them back." I can only to Liberals would there be any "social justice value" in such a give away.
Giving artifacts to the non-Western is like giving Kennowick Man back to the American Indians. Except that the Indians are of a gene pool that arrived only some 6,000 years ago, whereas Kennowick Man was almost 10,000 years old.
Come to think of it, the Goron tried to force giving Kennowick Man back and the scientific world sued and won.
Let 'em find their own artifacts. Meanwhile, let 'em whine to the Goron.
Agreed.
Yale is awful, but isn't "a totalitarian society of unimaginable brutality and cruelty" going a bit too far ...
Not so sure, about the "good stonemasonry" either. Could Yale really have built this themselves? If it's not a natural rock formation, perhaps it dates from an earlier culture.
My tag line quote from Mark Twain is a play on words. My post about looting archeologists was spoken forthrightly. :-)
Archeologists show up, document and then steal everything they can, publish papers for personal career advancements and as fodder for selling books and for prestige. They often, but not always, turn over their artifacts to private or public collections.
Looters show up and steal and then sell to private or public collectors.
Other than the public information that is made available, there is little difference between looters and archeologists other than the letters after their names. The artifacts are preserved and end up in collections - some private and some public. Even private collections are willed to public institutions quite frequently.
Oh, there is one more difference that comes to mind. Looters know what their motives are.
BTW, my dog is a bulldog...
ampu
"Yale is awful, but isn't "a totalitarian society of unimaginable brutality and cruelty" going a bit too far ... "
Depends on whether you are a Princeton or Harvard man.
;-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.