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February 10, 2010

Taking Turkey’s past

Posted at 1:54 pm in British Museum, Similar cases

Robbing the contents of tombs has been going on for as long as items of value have been enclosed in the tombs. Robbing the actual tombs themselves was not something that happened until the arrival of the English aristocracy in the nineteenth century.

From:
Today’s Zaman

[Digging up Turkey’s past] Tomb Raider: Charles Fellows in Lycia
27 January 2010, Wednesday
TERRY RICHARDSON ANTALYA

Robbing graves is a crime almost as old as the practice that unwittingly encouraged it — the burial of the dead with valuable objects. Gold death masks and other precious items proved too much of a temptation for unscrupulous “get rich quick” thieves in ancient Egypt, who tunneled their way into pyramid tombs in search of forbidden treasures.

Roman and Byzantine tombs were pillaged for their grave goods, and the “art” of grave robbing goes back over 2,000 years in China. Today, professional “tomb raiders” around the globe loot the burial places of past civilizations, from the graves of North American Indians to the tombs of ancient Chinese notables, and the international art market appears ever hungry for such antiquities, no matter how ill-gotten.
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