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VIRTUAL - Preserving the Past: Archaeological Heritage, the Art Market and Conflict in the Middle East
November 12, 2020 @ 6:00 pm EST Eastern Time
This is an online event.
Sponsored by: Archaeological Institute of America
AIA Society: Richmond
Lecturer: Patty Gerstenblith
Archaeological sites are looted for the value of artifacts that are sold onto the international art market. The acceptance of undocumented, possibly looted, artifacts by the market and, in particular, by museums, means that we lose the contextual evidence needed to understand and reconstruct the past and knowledge of whether an object is authentic or a forgery. As we now know, the looting of archaeological sites in the Middle East and elsewhere may also help to fund armed conflict and terrorism. This lecture will explore the intersection of these issues and the legal and ethical responses that are intended to reduce the incentives to traffic in looted archaeological materials and thereby promote preservation of the archaeological heritage.
Wilkie Lecture
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