eBay driving world's tomb raiders out of business, says prof
Online fools' lust for forged tat stymies looters
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An American archaeology prof says that a long-feared outbreak of eBay-driven tomb raiding has failed to occur. Rather, it seems that the online dross emporium - by creating a huge and profitable new market for forged antiquities - has drawn criminals and charlatans out of looting and into making crappy imitations for eBay.
"For most of us, the Web has forever distorted the antiquities trafficking market in a positive way," says Professor Charles Stanish of UCLA.
Writing in the current issue of Archaeology magazine, the prof explains that this is unexpected. When eBay first started to gain traction, he and his colleagues feared that the world's tombs, hidden temples, lost cities etc. would swiftly be stripped bare by would-be online auctioneer robbers.
Our greatest fear was that the Internet would democratize antiquities trafficking and lead to widespread looting. This seemed a logical outcome of a system in which anyone could open up an eBay site and sell artifacts dug up by locals anywhere in the world. We feared that an unorganized but massive looting campaign was about to begin, with everything from potsherds to pieces of the Great Wall on the auction block for a few dollars. But a very curious thing has happened. It appears that electronic buying and selling has actually hurt the antiquities trade.
In the old days, according to Stanish, your primary buyer of dodgy antique artifacts was wealthy and sophisticated. They knew they were buying priceless cultural treasures that strictly speaking should have been in museums - eg. they were buying illegally-handled goods - but they knew enough that they were hard to fool, and they paid top dollar.
Thus, the business of looting/tomb-raiding was worthwhile, although expensive. It was worth dodging the huge rumbling stone balls and poisoned darts, then shipping the artifacts out and getting them across the border and passing them through the hands of many crooked dealers and middlemen. You'd wind up getting a substantial sum in the end from a suspect American millionaire or jaded European aristocrat.
Not so nowadays, apparently. The arrival of millions of eBay-trawling, tat-hungry buffoons on the antiquities scene has meant that local villagers near an old temple or wherever can make far more money cranking out fake vases, sacrificial knives or whatever, than they could by going and stealing real ones out of the catacombs.
Next page: 'As long as fools will buy crap on eBay, the world's treasures will be safe for posterity'
COMMENTS
Fakes? Or reproductions?
Are these items actually fakes - ie. the seller claims they are genuine when they are not - or are they reproductions - ie. the seller notes their similarity to the original but is clear that they are not the original?
I'm not a billionaire and I don't know any antiques thieves. I wanted a good copy of the Mappa Mundi on my study wall. So I went to Hereford Cathedral and paid thirty odd quid for a nice reproduction (and given plenty of choice, I deliberately chose English labeling over the original Latin).
Was I swindled? No.
Did I get what I wanted? Yes.
What the professor seems to not understand is that there is a massive market for reproductions, especially if they can claim some local link with the original. A reproduction Mappa Mundi purchased from Hereford Cathedral is worth more than a reproduction Mappa Mundi purchased from a history museum in London. Equally, a reproduction Egyptian artifact produced by Egyptian craftsmen is worth more than the same artifact produced in a factory in Spain.
These people haven't gone more illegal (thieves moving info forgery), they've gone more legit (theives moving into craftsmanship).
Wellllllll...........
I knew eBay was good for something,and I agree with all the commentards that are saying define the differance between fake and forgery in this case.
Definition of fake:-Having a false or misleading appearance.
I don't see...
...why forging antiquities should be considered a crime at all really. So what if you nd up with a fake so good it takes sophisticated analysis to tell it apart from the real thing? Is it going to look any worse in a display case? Really the only problem I can see is that some people might 'invest' in something believing it's 'real' and then if it turns out not to be they have lost some of that value - well boo hoo - let the buyer beware I say.
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