Antiquities: Whose Are They?

Antiquities, what values do they own? How are they taken away from their original locations? How do their original owners and current keepers debate on ownerships? To whom, on the earth, should they belong, their original owners, or their current keepers?

Antiquities may be admired for their beauty and for the craftsmanship of their creators, but their more important value lies on their academic worth. Once a scholar knows the provenance of an antiquity—the site where the antiquity is evacuated and the original owner of the antiquity, the scholar can place the antiquity in relation to the archaeological site and build up an image of the life to which the property was a part. So the values of an antiquity not only lie on its beauty and craftsmanship, but also its important role in representing history.

Artifact looting and war have historically gone hand-in-hand. In the 1700s, with the founding of national museums such as the British Museum in London and the Louvre in Paris, artifacts became big business. As colonial armies swept across the world, antiquities were unearthed, removed and sent back to capital cities for triumphant display. In the 29th and 20th centuries, with the rise of the middle class, individuals joined the nobility in the quest for ancient treasures. The competition among persons and museums sent prices of antiquities soaring, which prompted even more opportunists to go on the hunt.

At present, in the places where wars are going on, artifact looting are going on; in the places that everything seems peaceful, the antiquities black markets are surreptitiously thriving. Observers commonly rank illicit antiquities as the third-largest type of global black-market trafficking behind drugs and weapons. Illegal tomb-raids and smuggling are accompanied by bribes and corruptions in the antiquities black-market. Some international agreements have been forged to control imports, exports, and ownership transfers, but they are not backed by force of law.

Antiquities are taken away from their original locations due to the illegal trade, or are distributed into other countries during wars. Some appeal that the transferred antiquities should be returned to their original owners. Some believe that they should be conserved by their current keepers. The original owners say that they are saddened to go to museums abroad to see the antiquities of their cultures, while the current keepers believe that they can give the antiquities the best protection and conservation, do research, and dig out the values of the antiquities.

Antiquities, to whom do they belong, their original owners, their current keepers, both of them, or neither of them? As treasures of beauty, knowledge, and techniques, and as testimonies of cultures, customs, and histories, antiquities belong to ones who can best understand, cherish, and protect them, no matter the ones are original owners, current keepers, or any others.

Source URL
The Price of Age
http://www.museum-security.org/cranwell/index.html
Antiquities Black Market
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2004-12/2004-12-22-voa28.cfm?CFID=282773863&CFTOKEN=29511986
Machu Picchu
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.sacredtrips.com/images/MPface.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.sacredtrips.com/machu_picchu.htm&h=424&w=300&sz=32&hl=zh-CN&start=5&tbnid=rjXngfH4XBflWM:&tbnh=126&tbnw=89&prev=/images%3Fq%3DMachu%2BPicchu%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Dzh-CN
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.andreweland.org/2004/6/5/photos/machu-picchu&imgrefurl=http://www.andreweland.org/galleries/peru/machu-picchu/machu-picchu&h=768&w=1024&sz=140&hl=zh-CN&start=1&tbnid=KwZNdipbNFl5cM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3DMachu%2BPicchu%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Dzh-CN
Parthenon Marbles
http://www.parthenonuk.com/http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://lh3.google.com/_1NuOfU1Az64/Ry7am4ZqPRI/AAAAAAAAAy8/PxPBHv3rwqU/s800/IMG_1569.JPG&imgrefurl=http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/vZ8JYGZ9iwKWbpzkp-KLmw&h=600&w=800&sz=77&hl=zh-CN&start=3&tbnid=1IrwEEcozBmuuM:&tbnh=107&tbnw=143&prev=/images%3Fq%3DElgin%2BMarble%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Dzh-CN