Olson’s Observations

I love when technology steps into other areas I am interested in. In this case technology is helping out in the area of archaeology. eBay UK has officially stepped in to help battle the illegal antiquity trade. I suppose I should first point out that eBay opened the doors, unknowingly of course, for people to sell their illegal antiquities online but it is good that they are now stepping in to help.

The bulk of the problem lies with people who simply do not know of the Treasure Act and are selling one-off small items that they find rather than people who are selling large hoards of artifacts and know of the legal ramifications. However, the scale of the problem is not small. Consider that, in the British system alone, 576 finds were correctly reported last year to authorities whereas 450 finds that should have been reported were not and showed up on sites like eBay.

It is important to note that this is not a problem solely concerning the illegality of something it is also a problem for history. Selling artifacts online or anywhere for that matter is not only illegal it also damages the archaeological record and could cause parts of our past to be lost forever. The more education the public receives and the more help companies like eBay lend to the cause the more history we can save.

“It belongs in a museum!” - Indiana Jones

Sources: Stone Pages, Computeract!ve (4 October 2006), 24-Hour Museum (5 October 2006)