Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership: The Ethical Crisis in Archaeology / Edition 1

by Colin Renfrew, Richard Hodges

Overview

Colin Renfrew argues that what is most precious in archaeology is the information that excavations can shed on our human past. Yet the clandestine and unpublished digging of archaeological sites for gain - looting - is destroying the context in which archaeological findings can be understood, as well as sabotaging the most valuable information. It is the source of most of the antiquities that appear on the art market today - unprovenanced antiquities, the product of illicit traffic financed, knowingly or not by the collectors and museums that buy them on a no-questions-asked basis. This trade has turbaned London as well as other international centres into a 'thieves kitchen' where greed triumphs over serious appreciation of the past. Unless a solution is found to this ethical crisis in archaeology, Renfrew argues that our record of the past will be vastly diminished, and his book lays bare the misunderstanding and hypocrisy that underlies that crisis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780715630341
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/20/2000
Series:	Debates in Archaeology
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Colin Renfrew was formerly Disney Professor of Archaeology and Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeology, University of cambridge, UK, where he is now Senior Fellow. His publications include Figuring It Out: Parallel Visions of Artists and Archaeologists (2003); Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos, 1974-77, and Prehistory: the Making of the Human Mind (both 2007).

Table of Contents

List of illustrations
Introduction
1. The destruction of the past
2. Unprovenanced antiquities: the role of the private collector and dealer
3. Causes for concern: illegitimate acquisition and reluctant restitution
4. A universal problem: Asia, Africa, America
5. Ineffective safeguards and evolving moralities
6. Antiquities in England: the local view
7. Envoi: the past has an uncertain future
Appendices: Conventions, Resolutions, Documents i. The UNESCO Convention (1970)
ii. The Unidroit Convention (1995)
iii. The Philadelphia Declaration (1970)
iv. International Council of Museums, Code of Professional Ethics v. Policy Statement by the Trustees of the British Museum (1998)
vi. Resolution of the Council of the British Academy (1998)
vii. Writ of Summons in the Sevso Case, London (1991)
viii. The Treasure Act for England and Wales (1996)
ix. The European Council on the export of cultural goods (1992)
x. The Cambridge Resolution (1999)
Bibliography
Index