Tourists \'stripping ancient Rome bare\'

[caiusbeerquitius]

I think vandalism is even worse than looting because its so pointless. At least the looters get something for their criminal troubles. But its a very old problem: Greek mercenaries scratched things like "Dion son of Archilocus was here" on ancient Egyptian monuments in the sixth century BCE!

But looting IS vandalism. The looters destroy unknown archaeological context. In a sense, it is worse than vandalism, since the monuments with the Greek scratchings, or the wall paintings in Pompeji with tourist´s inscriptions have at least been documented before or after they were damaged. If context is destroyed, nothing is gained at all.

Some argue that objects are saved from destruction by modern fertilizers, some say that otherwise unkonwn objects wouldn´t be known (like a unknown helmet type, e.g.), and other apologies can be found. In fact, none of these are really valid, since for archaeologists the gathering of informations and context is important, not individual findings. For archaeology it is worse to loose context of a site than to loose an individual helmet. There is a huge conflict of interest here, and as usual the side where more money is wins. In this case a criminal market getting items from criminal looters (thieves) which are destroying all we claim to like.
And finally, where´s the point in personally owning a Roman artefact? Isn´t a copy good enough?

One should always think of this, when one sees something nice on ebay or similar places. And one should not buy it, at least not if one claims to love history. For buying in the market and claiming an interest in the subject does not work. At least it does not work in an honourable way, i.e. if you do, you are not telling the truth. And don´t tell yourself: Ah, it´s only one little item, how bad can that be? there´s so much more out there. In fact, EACH item is destroyed context, and EACH item is at least a hole in the ground of an archaeological site.