Archaeological remains - who cares?

[Berbescu]

When it comes to that preservation, countries should pool together since some have much money but little archaeological heritage, while others, such as Italy and Greece to pick but two, have an embarassingly rich archaeological heritage, without the means to support or even preserve what is there.

I would disagree that some countries have more or less heritage than others. The Americas and Africa have just as much heritage that needs preserving as does Europe. From a scientific point of view, the monumental architecture and the gold bracelets have no more value than the common broken pots or stone tools found at sites. In fact, the common tools like pots, farming tools, pieces of daub wall, etc. have more value than monumental architecture because those common items tell us more about the lives of the people who lived in ancient times.

And although many rich countries DO conduct research and conservation projects in poor countries, tax payer's money is more commonly spend in country. Rarely will one country support another country with nothing physical in return. Mostly if they are part of some common cause.

Take this case in point:-

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?

If you want to see what Trajan's column looked like, you would do better to go and look at the casts made by Napoleon III now in London ( V&A museum), or the Museo de Civilita Romana outside Rome, or the museum at St Germain-en-Laye.

In fact I was referring specifically to the Victoria and Albert collection of casts (and I know that there are others). There are many cases in which the casts are now better than the originals. Many originals are deteriorated from acid rains and other destructions. I had the good fortune to see the replica of Trajan's Column at the V&A museum but still the original is impressive for me to look at (even if has less scientific value).

My original point was that even though the replicas are more valuable from a scientific point of view, in the eyes of the public (non-historians usually) the originals have more value. It doesn't matter to them if they are conserved well or badly. This is an obvious fact. Consider that a collector will pay much money on the black market for an original artefact but he will not pay a fraction of that price to make a replica legally.

Creating replicas that the public can see in every city of the world, or online or that are for sale, will do nothing to decrease the black market trade in artefacts. Some would even argue that it would increase the demand for originals, so making more looting of archaeological sites. Nobody is stealing them for scientific research. Only for making money or for putting in their private collection.