As I was reading about the Valley of the Kings again, I wonder why that was actually legal.
A scientist might think that the historical/scientific value is more important than the personal rights of people who died millenia ago.
The people who dug up graves in the early 20th century just didn’t see the locals as people, though, which is also why most of those museums were in Europe, not anywhere near where the artifacts were found (if the artifacts were given to museums at all, instead of being sold to private collectors).
If you ask me personally: A pharaoh is a king, and fuck the king.
Yeah, there’s a weird implied statute of limitations type of thing with remains. Like thousands of years ago, we can learn so much and uncover history by looking at remains. But you don’t learn much and it’s weird and presumably illegal to dig up recent remains.
I dunno what that time limit is, but to me at least it feels like it exists and intuitively makes enough sense
In the National Museum of Scotland there’s a bronze-age skeleton curled up in a recreation of the person’s grave, surrounded by their grave goods. While I was stood looking at it, a woman was explaining to her granddaughter that the skeleton had been found in Shetland, where she herself was from. The girl turned to her and said, “Was he a friend of yours, granny?” We all laughed, but I think we all had the same uncomfortable thought - this wasn’t just dry bones, it was a person. What if it was a friend of granny’s? What amount of time makes it ok?
Looking at this body in the British Museum was even worse: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-28589151
Being born in the same town means there is a high chance of it being a relative of the girl and her grandmother.
Shetland is an archipelago, but ok. Historically populations in the Scottish islands moved around a lot more than you would think. Sick of the tiny village you grew up in? Hop in a boat and go to Orkney, or Skye, or Lewis. Travel by land was difficult, by sea was comparatively easier. There was also a lot of incomer traffic, from Ireland, Scandinavia, even the Baltic. So yes, there might have been a tiny fraction of genetic connection, but unlikely to be significant.
There is the legal concept of Mens Rea which has to do with the mental state of the person committing the act. And I think that applies in this case. Archeology has generally been about learning and providing knowledge of previous cultures. While the methods, mindset and actions of 18th and early 19th century treasure hunters left a lot to be desired, some of them did make some reasonable attempt at documenting their finds and preserving the context to provide that knowledge. Modern archeologists go to painstaking lengths to properly document finds and preserve as much knowledge as possible from finds. Grave robbers do none of this. Their motivations generally revolve around personal gain and they will destroy any context and knowledge in their attempt to make money.
Consider your own reading on the Valley of the Kings. Where did all of the information we have on the Pharaohs in those tombs come from? It’s from the work of the archeologists documenting everything found in those tombs. While there is certainly an argument for leaving things in the same state they were found in, that also means that the artifacts will continue to deteriorate and any further knowledge which might be gleaned from them will be lost. Sending artifacts to a museum isn’t all about putting them in cases for people to gawk at. It also means that actions are taken to preserve those artifacts and maintain them for observation and study in the future. Sometimes this does cause damage. Again, 18th and early 19th century preservation was often just as, if not more damaging than leaving those artifacts in-sutu. But again, the intention was to preserve, not enrich.
So, that’s how I would draw the line, based on the reason and methods used for the removal of grave goods. Is it done with the intention for the furtherance of knoweldge of previous cultures? Or, is it just done to enrich someone? And is the work being done using the current understanding and methods to best capture and preserve that knowledge for future generations?
If you ask native Americans, it is. Source: listened to stories from one
in the U.S we have the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), passed in 1990, requires museums and federal agencies to return Native American human remains and cultural items to their tribes. It’s all about respecting Indigenous heritage by ensuring that these items are returned to their rightful communities.
passed in 1990
Yeah it’s all about respecting indigenous heritage, sure. Remind me again, in which year they dismantled the genocider statues at Rushmore?
If you had actually ASKED the Sioux of the Black Hills about this, you’d know they’ve told pretty much everyone “yeah we don’t like Mt Rushmore, we don’t like Crazy Horse’s relief carving either, but we think destroying them is more disrespectful than just leaving them to fall apart on their own.” Like, this isn’t an uncommon thought. It’s just more complex than “blow them up”.
