firstlight | The things you come across while revising.

"Whom do you trust for advice? Archaeologists (I am one, but not a collector) are on the whole rather jealous and greedy creatures. They are quick to cry out against illicit trade, and against those other scholars who may make academic use of objects from what are taken to be illicit sources (but now in museums or collections), in which case some try to impose a despicable form of censorship (USA). There can be a measure of hypocrisy or even guilt here. All excavation, licit and illicit, is destructive. We dig for information, not objects. No little cultural property is lost through the very common failure of archaeologists to publish what they have found (which is more than objects). And their jealous "squirreling away" of what they have found, so that it can serve neither other scholars nor the education of the public who have paid them, has been described recently by a senior archaeologist/art-historian as a form of necrophilia." - John Boardman, in a memo submitted to parliament

Yeah, of interest to no-one but myself. Again. *coughs* I have a definite urge to cite that comment about necrophilia in an exam now. ^^"