There's A Lot of Ruins In Mesopotamia
New at Reason: If the archeological establishment would use markets instead of fighting them, that might alleviate the problem of Iraq's looted treasures. So why, Jeremy Lott wants to know, do the muckety-mucks of old rocks insist on fighting trade?
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
One possible solution might be to "privatize" them by transforming them from state property into a commons owned by some private group (like an archaeologists association, for instance). They would internalize all the costs of maintaining the sites, as well as the revenue stream from public access.
Lott needs to clarify his terms and differentiate between the looting of an archaeological site (esp. when the site is on the "looter's" own property) and the looting of, say, a museum. The former refers to the desecration of a site/dig, the latter is outright theft, no matter what one thinks of the state's inherent right to own all of a given area's cultural treasures. The market incentives that he reiterates will certainly help to more sensibly allocate cultural artifacts, and they will help in the former situation to more sensibly manage archaeological sites. The market incentives will probably not help in the latter instance of museum looting. Markets don't make criminal theft go away.
"Potential looters should be hired and supervised by archaeologists (a perfectly common arrangement in archaeology?s past), who could pay for the digs by getting collectors to sponsor them or by selling many of the items afterwards, after they?ve been studied and cataloged."
"Potential looters" is not exactly a bounded quantity.
Is Lott suggesting that people register as potential looters? How, exactly, would these people be identified?
It sounds like a good idea, but, like many libertarian market-oriented ideas, doesn't hold up under the least scrutiny.
Banning all international trade in Iraqi antiquities will guarantee that all such trade will be on the black market, making the stuff even harder to recover.
After reading the article I'd like to contribute a tale from my own experience illustrating another problem concerning the handling of antiquities.
My long deceased godfather worked as a foreign school teacher for a school in Guatamala in the 1980s. After his death we visited his wife (who had returned to live in Europe). We visited here in the early 1990s and saw her large collection of pre mayan pottery. We talked to her at length about this - and the rights and wrongs of removing a countries antiquities and cultural herritige.
Her defence was the following: She said that whenenver a local farmer found antiquities on his local plantation he immediatly used a bulldozer to destroy the site. The were justifiably afraid that if the authorities discovered ancient artefacts on their land their land would be expropriated (without compensation) by the government. This usually ment that their land would be declared a historic site, unavailable to farming till the archeologists had surveyed and excavated the site - which could take forever in an impovorished country such as Guatemala.
The local farmers therefore had a big incentive to make sure that ancient artificats were not found (or could not be traced) to their plantation.
The collection came from pottery saved prior to bulldozing the site.
I'm not sure what the solution to this problem should be - however I'm presenting this story as an illustration of the unintended consequences of legislation drafted on the basis of (well meaning) pressure from the western world.
""Potential looters" is not exactly a bounded quantity."
A "potential looter" is a person living where antiquities are discovered who can physically dig and has insufficient income.
Substitute "hackers" for "looters." Leave folks with programming knowledge sitting around with time and no way to earn money and they may well start playing with the system, destructively. Hire them to do what they like to do anyway and they help instead of hinder.
"It sounds like a good idea, but, like many libertarian market-oriented ideas, doesn't hold up under the least scrutiny."
Absolutely right. (Pun intended.) When intellectuals scrutinize any system which doesn't place them in charge of the peasants it "doesn't hold up." But in the real world systems based on markets and individual incentive work nonetheless.
AIA doesn't like market solutions because the intelligentsia in charge see "cash" as a four-letter word. They are kin to an art professor I had who sniffed that Norman Rockwell was only an illustrator, not an artist.
"The market incentives will probably not help in the latter instance of museum looting. Markets don't make criminal theft go away."
Given a choice private collectors will be far more willing to support an open market where they can legally trade artifacts, therefore insure them, display them openly, and count them as easily saleable assets. Moving private collectors from the black market to the white won't eliminate thefts from museums, but there's a lot less incentive to steal, smuggle, and try to fence stuff if similar items are available on E-Bay.
This Immobilienangebote makes a webcheck for "Immobilienangebote", and this Immobiliensuche makes a webcheck for "Immobiliensuche".
Thank you and have a nice day, Jos
Striptease having sex anna kournikova blow job. Nude pics JENNA JAMESON BEAUTIFUL. Tape undressed aria giovanni boob. Dirty home videos CRISSY MORAN PICTURES. Pictures pussy mila kunis fakes. Fakes playboy sofia vergara clips. Clip breast KATe Bosworth MOvIE. Striptease sexy MaRg hElGeNBErGER NipPleS. Nipples naked SHANNEN DOHERTY HOT. Clip softcore Sandra BulLoCk TIT. Naked galleries CINDY CRAWFORD NAKED. Galleries tape alicia silverstone pic. Clips blowjobs miA HaMM tOpLEss. Nude nude BrItTAnY MuRPhy pICs. Clip video lacey chabert hardcore. Softcore sex tifFANi amBER THiesSEn hOMe VIDEo. Galleries blowjobs paulina rubio blow job. Poster sexy AIsHWarYa RaI. Poster blowjob VictoRiA beCkhaM. Nipples wallpapers kate hudson topless. Strip tease fakes blu cantrell uncensored. Gallery softcore VIDA GUERRA SEXY. Hardcore home video dolly parton. Tape nude sarah michelle gellar sex. Fake gallery cynthia nixon movies. Beautiful blowjobs LAETITIA CASTA DIRTY. Nude pic GLORiA TREVi PictURe. Home video movies GaBrIelLE union bikinI. Gallery nipples eva mendes. Topless wallpaper FAITH HILL. Gallery video OPRah wINfrEY gAlLErIeS. Having sex photo nicole richie dirty. Wallpaper fakes TracI lORD topLEsS. Fake wallpaper carrie fisher xxx. Movies photo JENNIFER GARNER. Blowjobs hardcore ALICIA KEY NUDE. Breast strip tease RosE mCgOWaN boOBs. Photo fake PENeLopE cRuz STRippED. Softcore tits deniSE rICHaRDS VIDEOS. Porn bikini KATE BECKINSALE BIKINI. Hardcore boobs christina ricci galleries. Bikini topless kaTie holmEs CliPs. Undressed videos KYLIE MINOGUE BOOBS. Uncensored fake HILARY DUFF. Nude posters ERIKA ELENIAK. Nipples strip tease mIsCha bARtON toPless. Picture ass NIKkI NoVA. Breast pictures JENNY MCCARTHY SEX. Nude hot elizABEth HurLeY mOvIE. Tape ass christina milian topless. Naked naked BRIANA BANKS. Videos having sex SILVIA SAINT CLIPS. Boob boob reesE wiTHERspoOn. Poster desnuda FARRAH FAWCETT CLIPS. Photos sex RAQUEL WELCH SEXY. Striptease beautiful lisa dergan photo. Nude hardcore kari wuhrer topless. Xxx posters TARA REID HARDCORE. Videos playboy TRACI BINGHAM. Poster nipple TOrrIe wilsoN clipS. Movie uncensored AManDA bEArD nippLE. Ass home videos ALYSSA MILANO. Photos home video SHAnNOn TweeD TItS. Pictures wallpapers StePhANIe mcMAhon topLeSS. Poster nipples AMY LEE BOOBS. Softcore picture mArILyn monrOE tOpLEss. Topless sexy LUCY LIU BIKINI. Tit photo danielle fishel bikini. Fake playboy mariah carey strip tease. Pic dirty uma thurman sexy. Bikini undressed GWEN STEFANI BLOW JOB. Sex naked RACheL hunTeR SEx. Tit uncensored TAWNEE STONE SEX. Tits hot HEART EVANGELISTA. Naked playboy PATRICIA HEATON. Boob tit KARIN TAYLOR XXX. Nude galleries JOANIE LAURER NUDE. Striptease pussy ELISHA CUTHBERT PICS. Bikini stripped solange knowles sex. Undressed naked lisa raye playboy.