The world of archaeology is full of these stories, even on smaller scales. When I worked as an intern at a famous prehistoric department in northern Italy, there were a lot of artifacts "lost" (and sometimes found).
We were moving from the old labs to a new venue, and I remember pulling a cardboard box from under a bookshelf. Inside there was a skeleton. I called my supervisor, who just commented, "Oh, there it is. I lost track of it a few years ago." It was a Bronze Age woman from a pile-dwelling site near Lake Garda. A few days later, we found another skeleton (still in its plaster cast) of a Bronze Age man affected by dwarfism, thought to be lost since 1980.
That's crazy, and it makes you wonder what else goes amiss elsewhere too. I remember meeting a fella on the island of Milos, and a guy who claimed he was an archaeologist, but as there conversation went on he sounded more like a treasure hunter – which begs the question how much history is lost to private collectors too?!
A lot. But - and I realize this may be an unpopular opinion - it's not necessarily a bad thing. Italy alone has at least 80% of the world's artistic heritage. The basements and storerooms of Italian museums are literally overflowing with artifacts, often forgotten by the curators themselves. Heritage that could be sold to improve the museum display of those pieces that are truly unique and important. As for the treasure hunters, it is necessary to consider that in the Mediterranean all you have to do is dig a hole in the ground to find something: the tomb raiders, although deplorable, are nothing more than the cultural product of a population that literally lives on an immense open-air archaeological site. The point is that often there is a lack of money, and one of the ways to preserve an archaeological site is to excavate it, study it and - where it is not possible to physically extract the remains, as in the case of a Roman domus - rebury everything.
A valid and insightful point. I've wandered sites in Greece where there are layers of fragmented pottery, heaps of the stuff! It makes sense that some of this could bring in revenue.
The world of archaeology is full of these stories, even on smaller scales. When I worked as an intern at a famous prehistoric department in northern Italy, there were a lot of artifacts "lost" (and sometimes found).
We were moving from the old labs to a new venue, and I remember pulling a cardboard box from under a bookshelf. Inside there was a skeleton. I called my supervisor, who just commented, "Oh, there it is. I lost track of it a few years ago." It was a Bronze Age woman from a pile-dwelling site near Lake Garda. A few days later, we found another skeleton (still in its plaster cast) of a Bronze Age man affected by dwarfism, thought to be lost since 1980.
That's crazy, and it makes you wonder what else goes amiss elsewhere too. I remember meeting a fella on the island of Milos, and a guy who claimed he was an archaeologist, but as there conversation went on he sounded more like a treasure hunter – which begs the question how much history is lost to private collectors too?!
A lot. But - and I realize this may be an unpopular opinion - it's not necessarily a bad thing. Italy alone has at least 80% of the world's artistic heritage. The basements and storerooms of Italian museums are literally overflowing with artifacts, often forgotten by the curators themselves. Heritage that could be sold to improve the museum display of those pieces that are truly unique and important. As for the treasure hunters, it is necessary to consider that in the Mediterranean all you have to do is dig a hole in the ground to find something: the tomb raiders, although deplorable, are nothing more than the cultural product of a population that literally lives on an immense open-air archaeological site. The point is that often there is a lack of money, and one of the ways to preserve an archaeological site is to excavate it, study it and - where it is not possible to physically extract the remains, as in the case of a Roman domus - rebury everything.
A valid and insightful point. I've wandered sites in Greece where there are layers of fragmented pottery, heaps of the stuff! It makes sense that some of this could bring in revenue.