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Looting In Robert Atwood's Stealing History

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Looting has been a problem that has long plagued archaeology. It is often seen as a black and white situation, with archaeology taking the good “white” side and looting taking the bad “black” side. What is often overlooked is the gray middle. When people hear the word “looting,” they never think there could be any positives. One quote that stood out to me in Robert Atwood's “Stealing History” was, “But of it had been a graveyard, a village, or something else, we would never know because this place, perhaps overlooked by archaeologists, looked like a tornado had come through,” (Atwood 24). At first, this just shows the negative of looting; the place was destroyed. However, if not for the looters, the place likely would never have been discovered. Even though the site was destroyed, the looters made a small contribution to archaeology in that they discovered the site and were able to retrieve artifacts. With this, we now know more about this site than what we would have …show more content…

In class we discussed the Elgin Marbles, or rather the Parthenon Marbles. This is a unique case because Lord Elgin had permission from the Ottoman government to “work on” the Parthenon. Lord Elgin interpreted this as an “okay” to take hundreds of marble sculptures from the Parthenon. Upon their arrival in London, Lord Elgin sold the marbles to alleviate his debt. The controversy around the Marbles revolves around the broad permission Lord Elgin was given from the Ottoman government. However, although the Ottomans were in control of Greece at the time, I believe they should not have had the authority to hand over Greek heritage, as Greek heritage belongs to the Greeks, not the Ottomans. Lord Elgin motives have also been called into question. Was he selfishly collecting the Marbles, or trying to save them from destruction? Because of his willingness to sell them to pay of his debt, it is more likely that his motives were, in fact,

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