The idea of selling artefacts raises interesting issues re: the
relationship between material culture heritage and present day people. Are
the proceeds of "dig sales" shared with modern day indigenous groups or any
other descendants who claim a historical connection with the site?
Possible administrative/legal nightmares looming?

At 01:49 PM 28/11/00 -0500, you wrote:
>I symaphize somewhat with the concept of selling relatively recent duplicate
>items like bottles and nails to help finance museums or research projects.
Many
>years ago when I was in England, I was  told of the finding of a huge
hoard of
>bronze nails at a Roman site. The nails were studied and a large
representative
>sample was kept. The rest of the nails were put in individual plastic bags
with
>an informative card explaining the site and the artifact and these were
sold to
>visitors to help finance the dig. I personally find nothing wrong with
this. It
>solves various problems like satiating people's hunger for old stuff, helps
>finance a worthwhile project and reduces storage requirements. Unfortunately,
>this sets a dangerous precedent. If you can sell a 1940s Coke bottle from an
>archaeological site, why not a 19th-century slave ID tag or an 18th-century
>crock or a Inuit harpoon head or Mayan figurine, all stuff we were recently
>horrified to see evaluated on several Antiques Roadshows. Where does it stop?
>Karlis
>
>