01-21-2008, 01:31 AM
Quote:Charles's point deserves serious examination with the help of modern digital technology, now that we have it. An item found can stay with its culture/people and digital detailed images can be distributed through the Net.
There are already projects to do that. The problem is that it is incredibly time consuming and expensive.
Quote:If you can make exact copies, then the whole idea of 'collecting artifacts' for their intrinsic value would go by the wayside in most cases. This would eventually stop looting of sites for 'priceless artifacts', and send the 'just for money collectors' back to collecting baseball cards and autographs.
Even the poorest of museums already have replicas for sale. This doesn't stop people from looting archaeological sites, nor does it stop people from dealing in antiquities. If everyone had a replica of the Mona Lisa hanging on their living room wall, would the monetary value of the original decline? If a particular museum in London had a large collection of replicas including, let's say, Michelangelo's David and Trajan's Column, would as many people go to see the replicas as the originals? Would people look on the replicas with as much awe as they would the real things? People make a distinction between them. A scientist might value the replica almost as much as the original because of it's scientific value, but the public likes to feel that they are in the presence of something ancient.
Quote:Also, there should be an international agreement that all finds must be published (online and in accessible media) within so many months of recovery, depending on conservation requirements and that all artifacts must be conserved and recorded in a timely fashion. This would slow down the legal digging about and disturbing of sites and give unemployed history graduates a job. :lol:
Who will pay for those jobs?
Ioan.
Ioan Berbescu
