Ancient Zapotec Material Culture and the Antiquities Market

Summary

While the growth of the Internet market in pre-Columbian antiquities is of great concern to the countries of origin and law enforcement, we should also recognize that the Internet is a crucial tool in the fight to protect cultural materials. In particular, online databases that were once created for purely scholarly purposes, can be effectively used to track stolen, lost or exchanged artefacts. This talk will focus on my own experience, for over a decade now, of managing a database that catalogues Zapotec urns, a coveted ceramic object among museums and collectors. From this vantage point I hope to expose the double-edged sword located between the scholarly pursuit of knowledge and the requirements of the art market.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Precolumbian Antiquities Market: Reflections, Critiques, and Effecting Change   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15598