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Is it okay to buy looted artifacts if it saves the site from bulldozers?
Last month I was talking to a collector at a small museum fundraiser in Tucson who told me he bought a pre-Columbian clay figurine from a digger in Peru for $400... said if he didn't take it, the farmer would just crush it for pottery shards. He argued private buyers actually preserve pieces that cash-strapped local agencies ignore, but that feels like a slippery slope to me. Do you think funding looters ever works out for the bigger archaeological picture, or does it just fuel more digging?
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piper77915d ago
You ever notice how these collectors always have a story about saving something from destruction? I heard almost the same thing from a guy in Santa Fe who swore he was protecting Navajo rugs from being used as horse blankets. Funny how the rescue story always ends with the piece sitting in some rich guy's living room. My uncle bought "rescued" pots in the 90s and all it did was keep the diggers digging for the next buyer. If the market dries up, the bulldozer story dries up with it.
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