Asklemmy

Anyone who doesn't like what someone does can call it robbery. Like charging a price that is too high in someone's opinion.

But robbery in a legal sense is about property. If you dig up body in a legal cemetary, which generally means owned by some organization that runs the cemetery, that is probably real persecutable grave robbery. Elsewhere, not so much.

~~Because we have a flag~~ because everyone benefits from the effort to learn about and educate about ancient cultures. We presume that even those cultures benefit, because the memory of them is preserved instead of being forgotten.

Digging up artefacts for private collections, though - that's just grave robbery with a shine on it.

There is the legal concept of Mens Rea which has to do with the mental state of the person committing the act. And I think that applies in this case. Archeology has generally been about learning and providing knowledge of previous cultures. While the methods, mindset and actions of 18th and early 19th century treasure hunters left a lot to be desired, some of them did make some reasonable attempt at documenting their finds and preserving the context to provide that knowledge. Modern archeologists go to painstaking lengths to properly document finds and preserve as much knowledge as possible from finds. Grave robbers do none of this. Their motivations generally revolve around personal gain and they will destroy any context and knowledge in their attempt to make money.

Consider your own reading on the Valley of the Kings. Where did all of the information we have on the Pharaohs in those tombs come from? It's from the work of the archeologists documenting everything found in those tombs. While there is certainly an argument for leaving things in the same state they were found in, that also means that the artifacts will continue to deteriorate and any further knowledge which might be gleaned from them will be lost. Sending artifacts to a museum isn't all about putting them in cases for people to gawk at. It also means that actions are taken to preserve those artifacts and maintain them for observation and study in the future. Sometimes this does cause damage. Again, 18th and early 19th century preservation was often just as, if not more damaging than leaving those artifacts in-sutu. But again, the intention was to preserve, not enrich.

So, that's how I would draw the line, based on the reason and methods used for the removal of grave goods. Is it done with the intention for the furtherance of knoweldge of previous cultures? Or, is it just done to enrich someone? And is the work being done using the current understanding and methods to best capture and preserve that knowledge for future generations?

It's only archaeology when it's then taken to the British museum. Otherwise it's just sparkling grave robbery.

It still is, but as always, sometimes we pretend it isn't or just tolerate or accept it. Same goes for plenty other activities.

A scientist might think that the historical/scientific value is more important than the personal rights of people who died millenia ago.

The people who dug up graves in the early 20th century just didn't see the locals as people, though, which is also why most of those museums were in Europe, not anywhere near where the artifacts were found (if the artifacts were given to museums at all, instead of being sold to private collectors).

If you ask me personally: A pharaoh is a king, and fuck the king.

It is, they don't care.

"You can't rob the dead, it's called archeology" - Trazyn the Infinite

And it's always just about who have the power and who won. British Empire ruled over Egypt so Brits could steal whatever they wanted and they were never properly dismantled so they didn't given almost anything back. Other examples include emperor Constantine looting most of empire to build and decorate city he modestly called after himself, but again byzaboo brain disorder is so common people are still defending this. Nazi Germany also robbed entire Europe but they lost hard so it's properly called "robbing" nowadays.

If it's a grave of someone in living memory, then sure, it's grave robbing, but even if someone knows it's their 224x great grandparent then if there's no memory either directly or even via oral history then it's definitely archaeology

There's a very blury line somewhere between the two, but it's up to whoever shouts loudest or digs quietest to define that

You're not the only one asking this. Lots of museums are putting in place policies against exhibiting human remains and working on repatriating remains they do have.

Things to websearch if interested, UK Human Tissue Act of 2004, and keywords along the lines of "museum policies human remains".

If you ask native Americans, it is. Source: listened to stories from one

Might makes right, at least in many cases. Lots of stolen artifacts, and bones, stored away from the public, or the descendants

The curse redresses it

Because English archaeologists would have been upset by semantics.

Shrug dead is dead. Short or long it doesn't affect anything. People are just sentimentalists.

Because grave robbing is financially motivated for the sake of the individual robbing the grave. They are out to enrich themselves, not others.

Museums obviously do have some financial incentive, but they aren't just turning around and selling these relics to the highest bidder. They trade with other museums, they share artifacts, for the enrichment of humankind, rather than their own personal enrichment.