Poll of the Day > Whats the difference between grave robbing and

(+) Yeah! (+)

And archeology. I mean what is the cut off. Is it age, historical significance or some other criteria.

Also anyone got the number to an exorcist. Asking for a friend.

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Archeology is official.
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Revelation34 posted...

Archeology is official.

Who decides if its official I mean the british museum and nazis are were b oth pretty official but most countries saw it as theft

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ScritchOwl posted...

Who decides if its official I mean the british museum and nazis are were b oth pretty official but most countries saw it as theft

The government.
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Archaeology is a group of studies which only INCLUDES grave robbing

Kinda like the difference between a plumber and a pipe-fitter

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The difference is doing it strictly for personal enrichment vs. finding it for a government / historical society / etc...

Kinda like the difference between Privateers and Pirates.

Of course, Archaeology is also a profession w/ standards so they tend to excavate a site w/ care to avoid doing damage, while as grave robbers will just smash and grab.

streamofthesky posted...

The difference is doing it strictly for personal enrichment vs. finding it for a government / historical society / etc...

Kinda like the difference between Privateers and Pirates.

Of course, Archaeology is also a profession w/ standards so they tend to excavate a site w/ care to avoid doing damage, while as grave robbers will just smash and grab.

So then where do the nazis and the british museum fit in on your scale. As both cause alot of damage from funding these digs. Think of what damages and or lost info from just the mummy craze they facilitated

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Yeah, the British escapades definitely fall short of what I and many would consider actual archaelogy, which is one of many reasons they've gotten so much shit about it in the years since and had to return artifacts they stole.

As for the nazis...I've literally never even heard someone try to claim their thefts were "archaeology", and don't even take such an assertion seriously. Anyone that entertains such a notion is a fucking moron at best or a nazi himself/herself at worst.

I don't think it's a matter of time. I think it's a matter of knowledge.

Question 1
Do you know who was buried here?
If yes, grave robbing.
If no, continue to question 2.

Question 2
Is there another way to find out who was buried here?
If yes, grave robbing.
If no, continue to question 3.

Question 3
Will more people know who was buried here when you are done?
If no, grave robbing.
If yes, congratulations! You have grave robbing with extra steps. You can now call it archeology.

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streamofthesky posted...

Yeah, the British escapades definitely fall short of what I and many would consider actual archaelogy, which is one of many reasons they've gotten so much shit about it in the years since and had to return artifacts they stole.

As for the nazis...I've literally never even heard someone try to claim their thefts were "archaeology", and don't even take such an assertion seriously. Anyone that entertains such a notion is a fucking moron at best or a nazi himself/herself at worst.

They did alot of weird stuff. Hitler was crazy, and into occult crap. I included them as a prepared counter argument to those who claim government sanctions so that way it doesnt go into a might makes right arguement. Because as rev had stated the government blessing is what seperates grave robbing from archeology that means his wording give a legitimate claim to the nazi claim on so called aryan artifacts and the such,

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Archeology is legal, whereas graverobbing is not. There's no "age cutoff" because looters will graverob historical sites as well. Plus a lot of archeology doesn't even involve graves.

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Zeus posted...

Archeology is legal, whereas graverobbing is not. There's no "age cutoff" because looters will graverob historical sites as well. Plus a lot of archeology doesn't even involve graves.

That then follows back to the british museum. They plundered quite a bit just because they were the big fish in the small colonial pond. Legality was often set asid in favor of the current morality.

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graverobbing would be primarily for personal profit, whereas archeology would be primarily for knowledge

and then, the amount of knowledge extraction would really be the deciding factor, more than profit. archeology would aim for 100% knowledge extraction, whereas graverobbing would ignore it entirely. if archeology happens to make some profit (not sure how it works), that wouldn't invalidate it. sacrificing knowledge for profit would though.

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