Looting Forum

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Dear Editors,

As an excavator and a professor of ancient Middle Eastern history at Sofia University, in Bulgaria, I have spent my entire professional life thinking about how to reduce the looting of historical sites.

Have you, Dear Editors, ever seen a plundered ancient tomb, knowing very well that it was once filled with artifacts? Have you seen the remains of 1,300-year-old painting ripped from a wall? Have you seen a completely destroyed archaeological site, with the looters’ trenches tearing through strata—destroying forever all intelligible remains of the past? Have you seen a laboratory for melting down Hellenistic gold and silver objects?

There is no doubt that buying artifacts, displaying them and then bestowing them upon some national museum is very noble, but it does not help preserve our history. On the contrary, the market for such objects is the incentive for the destruction of history.

My question is, Should we encourage such pillaging, which is simply done to fuel the antiquities market?

Dear Dr. Backus,

What a welcome letter! That you feel passionately about the damage looters do is something you and we share.

Then let us together consider what we can do to eliminate—or reduce—looting. At least let us discuss it. The archaeological establishment will not even discuss it.

The problem is a complicated one with many aspects. Consider some of them: