The Death of History

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 2:05 pm

KB you didn't do anything that we all haven't done. The info I gave you was the same stuff that a person told me a long time ago. And sometimes, it's just the board going haywire.

Rokcet Scientist · Post by **Rokcet Scientist** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 5:41 am

kbs2244 wrote:This brings up the whole “moral” argument of if it is better to leave thing in place waiting for an “expert, accredited, approved,” or whatever kind of guy, with funding that never happens, get to it or to let capitalism do it’s thing and get the stuff out of the ground.
I will vote for capitalism every time. If it is valuable it will be found.
I agree we lose the “context.“ But at least we have it to look at.
Look at the history of things that we wouldn’t know about if we had to wait for some “accredited” guy to find them.
Our shipwreck industry wouldn’t exist. And the ships would never be found.
Even the Dead Sea Scrolls were found by a less then teen boy.
The simple fact is that the population density of the Earth is going up too fast for these places to be “off limits.”
If a location is a good place to farm, put a city, or otherwise develop now, odds are it was in the past also. And artifacts WILL be found.
At the best, we can have an expert on call to check things out whenever the bulldozers find something. But they have to be the kind of guys that understand that time is money. They have to do their thing and get out of the way, or “show me the money” to stop.
The current state in this market is kind of like the US experiment with alcohol probation. It just is not working.
When there is a demand someone will fill it.
If we made possession and trade in these artifacts legal, we would get more of them to study. The people that are selling them wouldn’t be afraid to say when and where they found them. The collectors would let scholars examine them. That is more information then we are getting now.

Forum Monk wrote:Some places, you can't stick a shovel in the ground without hitting artifacts and often its "oh, some of those again!"

E.g. Remember Simcha Jacobvici and the Jesus Tomb uhhh revelation. At the time the initial discovery was considered, "oh, another tomb with ossuaries. Catalog them, file them away, and get on with the project." Its all too common in some places. I have known of some cases in certain regions of Europe where the project people refused to call the authorities because they could not suffer the project delays that undoubtably would follow a call to the antiquities ministry.

Not all finds are valuable. The problem is, unless some one with an insightful eye is looking, how will we ever know what has been lost forever? (or at best filed away in some dark warehouse)

Minimalist wrote:
I agree we lose the “context.“ But at least we have it to look at.
I disagree with that. The item is nice but a real pro can tell more from a couple of broken bits of pottery if the looters will just leave them the hell alone.

Imo every archaeology nut should always carry a photo camera in his/her pocket and shoot pix like there's no tomorrow (because there often isn't one..)! Of artifacts and of the surroundings/conditions they are found in. Then distribute these pix as widely as possible thru the net.
This is the 21st century! Let's apply its possibilities to preserve what knowledge we can!

kbs2244 · Post by **kbs2244** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 2:25 pm

I would love to say that this would be a good second choice. But I doubt anyone could get close enough to take good pics under the current system.
No matter if the guys are burying the stuff or salvaging it, they are breaking the law.
Most construction labors I know would not take kindly to someone documenting their breaking the law. If I got off with a bloody nose and a cammera without a chip, I would count myself lucky.

Rokcet Scientist · Post by **Rokcet Scientist** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:18 pm

kbs2244 wrote:I would love to say that this would be a good second choice. But I doubt anyone could get close enough to take good pics under the current system.
No matter if the guys are burying the stuff or salvaging it, they are breaking the law.
Most construction labors I know would not take kindly to someone documenting their breaking the law. If I got off with a bloody nose and a cammera without a chip, I would count myself lucky.

Well, stick that camera into your pocket anyway, so that you have a choice whether or not to use it as the situation allows.
No camera means no choice.