Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

Summer 2024

Abstract

In recent years, scholars have grappled with the ethical and practical issues caused by archaeological looting. Illicit archaeology destroys the physical context of stolen artifacts and feeds smuggling operations that rinse objects of their histories so they can be listed for sale. Several steps have been taken to address these issues, including the adoption of museum guidelines that discourage acquiring pieces which lack clear provenance, but these rules create another problem: objects that fit this designation (called “orphans” owing to their lack of metaphorical parentage) end up floating between private collections, unable to be returned to their source countries or displayed in museums. At Kenyon, a pair of Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets embody the contentious legal and moral debate being waged in the scholarly community. While evidence suggests that these tablets originated in Iraq, there is not enough information for the law to impel a return or to sanction their publication in mainstream academic journals, leaving the tablets in limbo. They represent the importance of informing the public about the looting problem and form a basis for the recommendation that museums and art dealers be required to disclose which objects are considered “orphans.”

Rights Statements

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/

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