Hi again all--
Earlier today I alerted Jon Leader to the content of the AR show in
question, and later posted on this list Jon's letter to the AR people, at
his request. Jon was a bit po'ed, and I think that was reflected in his
letter. His tone was justified, I think, but I am also in agreement with
Robert Douglas--it may be an awareness problem. While the appraisers are
probably aware of, and choose to ignore, the issues, the producers (at WGBH
Boston) probably are not. Accordingly, I sent them a more conciliatory
letter (cc'ed to PBS), which I've copied below.
As an aside, here in SC a local SC Educational Television (SCETV)
affiliate, itself a PBS affiliate, produces and airs a program called
"Treasure Hunters" in which, on occasion, bottle collectors are actually
accompanied on their rounds by a camera crew and are shown digging up
privies. Our state professional council has recently formed a committee to
try and educate the folks at SCETV and to try and get this kind of thing
off the air. I hope that other councils are doing something similar.
Best,
Chris Clement
*****************
Dear Antiques Roadshow,
As is usual on Monday nights, I was glued to my local PBS affiliate between
8 and 9pm to watch your show. To my dismay, although you almost always
mention the sentimental value of the items you appraise when appropriate,
you passed up a golden opportunity to educate your participants and
national audience about the legal and moral ramifications of looting
archaeological sites. I am speaking about the two slave identification
badges, the precolumbian effigy pot from a burial, and the stoneware vessel
that were appraised.
Each of these items was taken from an archaeological site. While you did
your usual stellar job at appraisal, what you did not do was establish the
precise location from which these artifacts were taken. In the case of the
material from North America, if they were taken from public lands then the
takers committed a felony punishable by something like up to ten years in
prison. If the artifacts were removed from private lands without landowner
permission, other laws and punishments apply. Only if the artifacts were
taken from private lands with the permission of the landowner was the act
legal. But even then, the moral question of removing archaeological
material from its archaeological context should have been addressed. While
the artifacts themselves have monetary value, what informational value they
would have had if they had been recovered by a trained archaeologist using
accepted archaeological techniques is now gone. In my opinion, this
potential informational value is priceless. This is particularly the case
with the slave identification badges. While historians can tell us a lot
about the past, they run into trouble when they are dealing with groups who
were not full participants in society. Enslaved African Americans are a
glaring example as they rarely produced the documents that historians must
rely on for their data. Further, they were largely invisible to those who
did produce the documents. In the absence of such documents, only
archaeology can shed light on how these people lived in the past. I could
make the same argument about the producer and users of the stoneware
vessel, as these people too busy making a living to produce documents for
the benefit of future historians.
As for the effigy pot, looting graves, anybody's graves, for profit is just
plain despicable. (As an aside to Histarchers: Yeah, yeah, I know,
appreciate, and understand that for many folks in the developing world
looting is the only thing that stands between them and starvation. I
didn't want to obscure the point.)
Show #407 is water over the dam. I do have two suggestions about how you
can avoid this sort of letter in the future. First, if you must appraise
archaeological objects, you could establish, beforehand and then again on
the air, that each item was acquired legally. Each such segment could then
end with the observation that archaeological materials (those excavated
from archaeological sites) are a part of our shared cultural patrimony.
They don't really belong to anybody and their informational value when
appropriately recovered is far greater than their monetary value when
literally ripped from the ground without regard for the information that is
being destroyed.
A second alternative would be to not appraise, on or off the air, materials
excavated from archaeological sites.
Very best regards, and keep up the (otherwise) good work.
Chris Clement
>Hello Histarchers:
>
>I usually enjoy Antiques Roadshow, and sometimes even learn something
>from it. I don't think they mean to promote looting, it's probably an
>awareness problem. I believe that a few courteous but informative
>emails may help the show's directors understand the site-looting issue a
>little better. Their email address is: [log in to unmask]
>
>Robert Douglass
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