Looting Forum

In Editor’s Page, AO 05:04, editor Hershel Shanks wrote an open letter on archaeological looting to the distinguished British archaeologist Colin Renfrew of Cambridge University. Lord Renfrew graciously responded, saying that he would welcome such a discussion. His reply is printed below. In the next issue of Archaeology Odyssey, Shanks will reply to Renfrew.

Dear Mr. Shanks,

Thank you very much for your review, in the form of an open letter, of my book Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership: The Ethical Crisis in Archaeology (London: Duckworth, 2000).

In Loot my aim was to demonstrate two things:

(1) That the greatest threat to the world’s archaeological heritage today, and the greatest obstacle to our learning more about the early human past, is the deliberate looting of archaeological sites to produce antiquities to sell on the market;

(2) That this market is sustained and promoted by private collectors and museums who are willing to buy unprovenanced antiquities from those antiquities dealers who traffic in illicit materials, sometimes without realizing that their money is financing, directly or indirectly, the actual looting process.