I guess that as long as nobody complains, it isn’t grave robbing.
well, i hereby complain
What if she was the one stealing your grave?
i would awake from the dead to hand over my treasures
Ok but what if instead… it was her?
I don’t follow archeology directly, but every couple months I listen to the Unearthed! episodes of Stuff You Missed in History class, which goes over the prior quarter’s archeological news. A whole section is dedicated to reciprocations, because there are tons of complaints. UK museums still refusing to send back stuff stolen from other lands, items found to have been illegally taken, etc.
So it’s more if nobody the people who run the place cares about complains.
Oh yeah, everybody knows about the British Museum.
AKA Return the Moai 🗿🇨🇱
From my time majoring in Arch, I’d say the rule of thumb is:
“Is the culture the body came from vanished or changed to the point where no one has a personal stake in it.”
So for example, vikings are long since gone. Modern northern europeans are generally a completely different culture, therefore not grave robbing. Same with Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, etc…
Indigenous tribes in North America and Australia for example, still very much around and still very much grave robbing (though that opinion is controversial)
Basically, if the existing culture still shows reverence to those ancestors…leave them alone. If the existing culture no longer honours them as ancestors, dig baby dig.
Is your intent to learn from and preserve a lost culture, or profit off of stolen goods?
I feel like it’s pretty simple.
Even if there was something to learn I don’t want anyone digging up my grandma. If someone’s descendants are saying “Don’t do that to our ancestor’s grave, it’s disrespectful in our culture” then you’re defiling a grave.
“I swear, the feet from this ceramic were missing when I found it.”
It’s a government permit thing, not a time thing. If you go an dig up an Etruscan grave on your own it is absolutely grave robbing.
Yeah but that’s just putting the problem of defining it onto governments.
If a court orders the exhumation of a murder victim, is that technically archeology?
I think it’s more about intent and what you do with the findings and who gains from it. If you and your team announce your plans ahead of time, document everything meticulously, deliver the pieces to a museum or archive, publish papers and deliver seminars and attend conferences on it… it’s probably archaeology. The public then has at least some access to the value of your work.
If you and your associates do it all in secret, sell the artifacts to some rich asshole (esp. via a fence), and cover your tracks, that seems a lot more like grave robbing. You’ve stolen all the value in that case.
