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Hi guys,

I was curious if any of you would like to discuss looting. I'm currently taking a course to learn more about the problem, and I have to say that before I enrolled, I had no idea of the damage looting causes to places other than sites, or the prevalence of the problem.

For example, did you know that looting archaeological sites is the fourth most profitable illegal activity in the world, after drug trafficking and arms dealing?

I'm also disgusted that museums don't seem to care about the problem at all. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Boston Institute of the Arts are two museums with very dubious records. A former director of the Met had a "three foot rule" to avoid legal problems with the museum's purchase of unprovenanced antiquities. He said, "it is best to avoid buying antiquities larger than three feet tall, for that may enrage certain countries." Can you believe a director of a major museum said such a thing?

Anyway, I was curious to know your thoughts about the problem, and to hear of any examples you might know about.

It actually sucks because the people who are hired to go do the looting are really poor, and pick looting as the best economic option out of a lot of really bad choices.

Looters receive only 1 percent of the selling price of the artifacts they find. Dealers and middlemen take the other 99%!

Actually, it's usually their own ancestors whose tombs they rob. Some even believe that the artifacts are sacred seeds given to them by the ancestors to help finance the future, and they perform ceremonies before looting.

It's complicated...