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I would like to propose
four ideas:
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1. Treasure hunting has nothing to do with
archaeology
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Archaeologists and treasure hunters cannot work together. Just as astronomers and astrologists cannot
work together, or evolutionary biologists and creationists cannot work together.
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We do different things, we have different objectives, we use different methods, and we
work under different ethical standards.
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2. More often than not, the "treasure"
is in the investor's pockets
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Everybody
knows the story of the South African citizen that bathed in champaign and washed his socks with beer while "raising
money" in Europe to salvage the "treasure of the Grosvenor. And although the information is not easily
available, it is frequent to read about investors that lost their money in treasure hunting ventures.
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In
fact, most treasure hunters live of the money of their investors, sometimes lavishly, sometimes miserably.
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As
Peter Throckmorton said, treasure hunting is "The World's worse
investment".
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3. Treasure hunters destroy the world's cultural
heritage forever
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If the objective of an underwater excavation is profit, it is impossible to do good archaeology.
This is just a matter of logics: investors want a good return on their investments; a for-profit company that would
loose time or incur extra costs to excavate carefully a particular site, or to preserve an artifact without market
value, would not last long in the market. Common sense dictates that such company would be naturally replaced by
a company that would be more efficient at extracting and selling the treasure.
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That
is why treasure hunters must lie about what they do.
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That
threasure hunters lie is not always obvious. Treasure hunters are often soft spoken persons, aristocrats with political
connections and rich friends, and it is difficult to imagine what they actually do. But let us not fool ourselves.
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As
J. Richard Steffy has put it, ships carried merchandises and ideas. If carefully studied ship hull remains can
yield precious clues to our understanding of shipbuilding techniques of societies that no longer exist. That is
what we do in the SHIPLAB.
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Shipwrecks
are precious archaeological resources. They are a fragile, non-renewable resource, under the constant threat of
treasure hunters.
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Ships
were among the most complex machines built by men through time, and their archaeological remains constitute an
important part of the world's cultural heritage. Shipwrecks should belong to all of us and deserve to be protected
from destruction by short-term profiteers such as treasure hunters.
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However,
too many ships have been destroyed by salvage companies looking for valuable artifacts, fuelled by an avid antiquities
market that does not ask questions about the provenience of artifacts.
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Fake expectations:
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...lousy results:
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Auction
catalogs are often the only information remaining after a ship has been torn apart by treasure hunters in search
for artifacts with market value.
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Keep
in mind: most shipwrecks destroyed by treasure hunters never yield enough artifacts to justify even a catalog.
After being destroyed they are simply forgotten.
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4. Hiring archaeologists is just a marketing
strategy
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Shame
and political pressure are changing the way treasure hunters operate. Traditionally assuming their activity as
purely profit seeking, treasure hunting companies are now trying to separate themselves from their land counterparts
- pot hunters and grave robbers - and advertise themselves under euphemistic designations such as "commercial
archaeologists".
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Without
changing the way they operate, they are changing their image, stating their mission differently, hiring public
relations specialists and archaeologists that do not mind lending their names to such ventures.
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Working
for treasure hunters is against most professional ethical codes.
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But
that is not all. Archaeologists working for treasure hunters cannot publicly assume their participation in the
destructions they witness and must involve themselves in webs of lies, half-truths, and intentionally complicated
situations, in which nobody ever understands who is in charge or when, in order to dilute their responsibility
and move on, doing waht they do: renting their names to make possible the destruction of the Humanity's underwater
cultural heritage.
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