Finders Keepers

By Craig Childs

Subjects: Archaeology -- Moral and ethical aspects, Antiquities, Corrupt practices, Pillage, Cultural property, Professional ethics, Archaeology, Psychological aspects, Archaeologists -- Professional ethics, Collection and preservation, Robbery, Moral and ethical aspects, Archaeology -- Psychological aspects, Excavations (archaeology), Archaeology -- Anecdotes, Archaeologists, Anecdotes, Protection, New York Times reviewed

Description: From Publishers Weekly Childs (The Animal Dialogues) intermingles personal experiences as a desert ecologist and adventurer with a journalistic look at scientists, collectors, museum officials, and pot hunters to explore what should happen to ancient artifacts. Questioning whether artifacts should be left in place, Childs argues that although surface surveys and electronic imaging permit study of buried objects without digging, that reliance on technology risks the loss of the "physical connection to the memory of ancient people." Yet he mourns the loss of context that comes from removing, say, the Temple of Dendur from its natural environment. On the other hand, he scrutinizes the "stewardship" of past archeologists who removed sacred objects when "o one thought indigenous cultures would survive to start demanding their things back," returns now required by U.S. law. Childs is critical of museum facilities inadequate to protect items that archeologists removed from their sites precisely to preserve them from destruction. He is also unhappy with the legal sale of relics to collectors, which he believes led to "more digging and smuggling." His own "collection" consists of finds he has left in place across the Southwest. But, he says, artifacts that cannot safely be left in place should go to museums. This is an engaging and thought-provoking look at one of the art and artifacts' world's most heated debates. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Childs treks the canyon-incised Colorado Plateau in search of pre-Columbian artifacts. Their legal regulation collides with collectors’ obsessions to possess them. Childs, though, does not remove what he finds, an ethic that vies with other precepts for the proper preservation of antiquities. For every stand he takes on archaeological morality in this narrative mix of his backcountry experiences and conversations with collectors, curators, dealers, and an occasional looter, Childs engages their justifications for taking custody of ancient objects. As if to underscore ethical fuzziness, Childs relays a personal story of when he absconded with a publicly displayed pot and secreted it in the desert––a theft in the service of righteous restoration? Or is it better to entrust cultural legacies to museums, which are overwhelmed with stuff already? Perhaps, then, private collections have a role in saving objects? Not to the professional archaeologists with whom Childs speaks; they’re horrified by amateurs’ destruction of information when they pry things from their physical context. Alternating romantic and practical moods, Childs hunts virtue as much as baskets in this engaging discourse. --Gilbert Taylor