Well, the talk on Thursday was spectacular. Dr. Delgado is as eloquent as he is entertaining, and he sure had us (at least me!) in a rapture pretty much the entire time he was speaking.
That being said, attending the lecture with Dr. Greene, Justin, and Dave kept me grounded to pay close attention to what he was saying, instead of just losing myself in his eloquent thoughts and well spun stories about Titanic. I give him credit for frequently hinting that he did not want to get into the ethics of certain things, as if anticipating the problems that people would have with what he was describing.
But I don't agree on several points. First, he stated that the RMS Titanic did not plunder the wreck, as the removal of artifacts was completely legal under the law. He followed this statement by announcing that "the law is the law," and to that, I just can't agree. Yes, legally, obviously, the law is the law, yet I believe that for an archaeologist, ethics should play some part in this. The law is not perfect or free from ambiguity, and we, as individuals, should not live life because someone tells us that we can or can't do something. We should do it because it's what we think is right. I realize that I make this point fairly often, but it's because I truly believe that at least in an ideal society, laws are there as guidelines, but if we do our jobs right as human beings, than we should know what is right or not without being forced to do so by some written statement, and we should teach those around us by setting a good example.
Just because some law states that the RMS Titanic team can go about collecting artifacts from the wreck, doesn't mean that it's right to do so, and in the case of setting a precedent, it is most definitely wrong. Why is it legal with the Titanic but not other sites? Is it because the wreck just had its centennial? Because we have so much proof and so many first-hand accounts of what happened?
The fact of the matter is that the RMST team removed artifacts from the wreck in order to SELL them, not in order to study them and learn more about the passengers or that fateful night. That, my friends, should be illegal and forbidden by every moral conscience of every archaeologist.
We are fighting to keep looters out of archaeological sites, to keep the antiquities off the market, and by announcing to the world that not only is it ok to sell these artifacts, but that they're in fact worth millions upon millions of dollars, we are encouraging looters.
In the end, the lecture was fantastic, I really enjoyed meeting Dr. Delgado, and I feel that this experience has contributed to my understanding, or at least contributed a new round of questions to be answered about cultural heritage and archaeological ethics.
That being said, attending the lecture with Dr. Greene, Justin, and Dave kept me grounded to pay close attention to what he was saying, instead of just losing myself in his eloquent thoughts and well spun stories about Titanic. I give him credit for frequently hinting that he did not want to get into the ethics of certain things, as if anticipating the problems that people would have with what he was describing.
But I don't agree on several points. First, he stated that the RMS Titanic did not plunder the wreck, as the removal of artifacts was completely legal under the law. He followed this statement by announcing that "the law is the law," and to that, I just can't agree. Yes, legally, obviously, the law is the law, yet I believe that for an archaeologist, ethics should play some part in this. The law is not perfect or free from ambiguity, and we, as individuals, should not live life because someone tells us that we can or can't do something. We should do it because it's what we think is right. I realize that I make this point fairly often, but it's because I truly believe that at least in an ideal society, laws are there as guidelines, but if we do our jobs right as human beings, than we should know what is right or not without being forced to do so by some written statement, and we should teach those around us by setting a good example.
Just because some law states that the RMS Titanic team can go about collecting artifacts from the wreck, doesn't mean that it's right to do so, and in the case of setting a precedent, it is most definitely wrong. Why is it legal with the Titanic but not other sites? Is it because the wreck just had its centennial? Because we have so much proof and so many first-hand accounts of what happened?
The fact of the matter is that the RMST team removed artifacts from the wreck in order to SELL them, not in order to study them and learn more about the passengers or that fateful night. That, my friends, should be illegal and forbidden by every moral conscience of every archaeologist.
We are fighting to keep looters out of archaeological sites, to keep the antiquities off the market, and by announcing to the world that not only is it ok to sell these artifacts, but that they're in fact worth millions upon millions of dollars, we are encouraging looters.
In the end, the lecture was fantastic, I really enjoyed meeting Dr. Delgado, and I feel that this experience has contributed to my understanding, or at least contributed a new round of questions to be answered about cultural heritage and archaeological ethics.
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