- This video was sponsored by Squarespace. So let me tell you how
my last month has gone. I finished some important deadlines, yada, yada, promptly
fell aggressively ill, got some help, did more work, still
haven't fully recovered. Okay, Kaz, I said to myself,
we might have a problem. So this month's video
should probably be something that's not gonna aggravate your stress. Y'all wanna see something that's probably gonna really piss you off. Yeah. So I saw that and I feel
like this is a prime time to get this topic out of my system, because honestly it's
been stewing for a while. The destruction of antiquities
for profit is nothing new. And we're gonna get into that. What this company called
Engineered Labs is doing is what they call personal museums. These little clear
acrylic slabs that contain teeny tiny fragments of various significant historical artifacts. Ancient pottery, like
we saw in that TikTok, a piece of a roof tile from Hiroshima, a piece of a shovel from
the Great Depression, a bit of mummy wraps, ink
and textile fragments, a wooly mammoth tusk, metal
from a Lockheed spy plane, et cetera, et cetera. For obvious reasons, people did not respond well to the TikTok of someone from Engineered Labs
breaking that ceramic bowl. The backlash was so swift, they now have a one star Google rating from hundreds of angry onlookers. The company panicked and
took the TikTok down, along with other videos they had showing them destroying other artifacts for these heritage museums. But it was too late by that point. They released a statement saying that obviously the ceramic bowl was fake and obviously they would never shatter an ancient artifact, that all the fragments in their products are already shattered when
it comes into their hands. Forgive me for not buying
that because come on. How on earth do you just happen to acquire these very specific artifacts that just happen to be
in a ton of fragments, all exactly the right size that you need to shove into these acrylic slab and sell for 200 bucks a pop. Why then would you have full size versions of these artifacts in stock? If they're just replicas
for you to destroy, what's the point? Are you putting fragments of the replicas into these slabs and falsely advertising, fake certificates of authenticity and all, or are you really destroying
historical artifacts for your products? Because either option is a bad look. Let's just give Engineered
Labs the benefit of the doubt for a second here. Let's say that they do
acquire these artifacts in exactly the right
size teeny tiny fragments that they'd need by pure luck. Who then is destroying them
to make them that size? Who destroyed those fossils, who cut up the mummy wrappings, who shattered the real ceramic bowl? Why then would you joke about it on TikTok with no disclaimer that
you're not actually breaking a real artifact? And where are you sourcing
these artifacts from that they'd end up
destroyed for your benefit? These are the questions that make their "it was a joke claim" so
hard for me to believe. But Engineered Labs, isn't the beginning, nor the end, of this conundrum. They are very blatantly one
branch of a massive tree with deep, deep roots, a
tree of lies, greed, theft, and destruction that
goes back for centuries. If you go on Etsy or eBay right now, it takes two seconds to find
dozens upon dozens of sellers who make a living
selling moderately priced ancient artifacts, most
often pre-Colombian stonework or things like that. They're intentionally vague
about where it comes from. I got it from a professor
who found it there in the 80s. I found it from a reliable vendor who sources the best
antique shops in Asia. I got it from a private collector. And if you think about it harder, it becomes more and more
frustrating to wonder how far back that chain goes. At what point and through
what means did these artifacts leave their country of
origin to be sold to you for $50 on eBay and why? I think to fully understand this problem, we need to take a trip back in time, but first let's take a
minute for today's sponsor, Squarespace. At this point, you've heard me talk many times about how I've been using Squarespace to host my portfolio site. Well, here I am again, to really drive the point home because Squarespace has
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for sponsoring this video. And now let's get back to
learning about the theft and destruction of ancient artifacts. The history of plundering
and looting is, well, a tale as old as time. Just 15 years after King
Tut died in 1327 BC, his tomb was already
looted of the valuable gems and metals inside. About two millennia later, a number of bronze horses were pillaged from the San Marco Basilica in Venice and paraded through Paris by Napoleon. The conquering and destruction
of various civilizations over time has led to innumerable cases of the remnants of those civilizations being repurposed to build the
cities of their conquerors. Sometimes, though this is
definitely not an example of plundering, the great
structures of the world were made from the ruined remains of their own ancient history. Look no further, for example,
than the Vatican in Rome. The Vatican's floors and walls are made of ancient Roman stone and much, much more. Dr. Christopher Longhurst says, "That's something the
versatile popes did a lot of: "scavenging and repurposing of material. "Why pay for new works
when you can pilfer it? "It's been recycled from the
Roman forum, from the Coliseum. "The reason why the
Coliseum is in the state "it's in today is not because
of the passing of time, no. "It's because the popes use
those places as quarries." The marble facades and
guts of the Coliseum didn't just end up in the Vatican. They can be found spread
across the city in churches, as Pope Gregory the Great
set about his mission to transform the ancient temples of Rome into Christian churches. The Coliseum was being used
as, effectively, a quarry as recently as 1703. I give the Coliseum example not to imply that the Romans
repurposing their own history is equal to the antiquity
theft from other cultures. Rather, I want this
example to give you an idea of how deeply ingrained
it is in human history for people to not see
history, even their own, as something sacred to be preserved. A lot of people don't
want to keep history alive because they see it as long dead. They want to touch it, consume it, be a part of it, possess
it, make it their own. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, the way that this goes is that the history of non-white cultures
is what gets pillaged. Of course, I need to
acknowledge the active role in looting that millionaires
in China and Japan have played, especially in recent years, too, as well as the cultural
theft that happened during the era of Japanese imperialism. Because at the end of the day, the core of this issue is about
money, power, and control, but there's a deeply historical reason why in the US, Canada, and
many European countries, our museums are filled
with the physical history of Asian, African, Middle Eastern, and South American cultures. In 2004, UNESCO reported that
more than 50,000 art objects have been smuggled out of India
in the last 10 years alone. And who knows how many
more have been taken since. Other than the obvious racism behind this, there's another reason
why less wealthy countries are targeted by looting operations. Alia Szopa writes, "General poverty is another situation "where the value of
antiquities is exploited. "Antiquities are heavily looted "in these developing
countries, which are often poor "and in the process of developing. "These countries are also
known as artifact-rich "or source nations. "When a country is barely
holding itself together "socially, politically, and economically, "two main conditions
systematically follow. "First, citizens are destitute
and will do desperate acts "to supplement meager income or, "in some cases, to create
incomes where none exist. "Second, with few resources,
successful law enforcement "against looters and thieves
is difficult to achieve. "It is unlikely that
resources will be allocated "to the patrolling of archeological sites "when killing and other
more dangerous felonies "are taking place within
a country's borders." Outside of museums, no one has any idea how many of these stolen
artifacts are floating around the black market, sitting
in storage warehouses, or are in private collections. The disappearance of priceless
artifacts is a problem many centuries long. Of course, World War
II saw the Nazis commit the greatest mass theft in history where organized teams of Nazi soldiers spent the war stealing
hundreds of thousands of sculptures, paintings, and antiquities in an attempt to make Germany
the world's cultural hub. Many of the things that the Nazi stole have never been seen again. And to this day, even when
some things are relocated by the families they were stolen from, it's a near impossible
task to get them back. These stolen artifacts
had to end up somewhere. And even if their new owners
got them through legal means and are unaware of their dubious history, the fact is, the collectors
simply don't want to have to give anything up. Outside of our
hyperconsumerist society today, I'd say one of the eras in
which this is the most poignant is the Victorian era. I think many of us in the
history world agree that we have kind of an intense
love-hate relationship with the Victorians. Not only were the
Victorians responsible for some of the most intense
and deeply ingrained historical misinformation that
we're still unlearning today, but the Victorian aristocracy
frequently engaged in what I would call hobbies
that surpassed questionable and go straight into welcome
to my twisted mind territory. And I do need to emphasize
here before we get into this, this stuff, as usual, can
usually be traced back to rich people getting into weird shit because they're rich and seemingly have nothing better to do While I may use the Victorians
as a general term here, I'm usually not referring
to the working poor and sometimes not even middle classes, because usually they didn't
have the time or the money to be pulling this crap. Time is a flat circle. Anyway, you may have seen
an uptick in the last year of people online leaving
comments on anything involving the Victorian history, saying something like, yeah, well, the Victorians ate mummies, so. Unfortunately, yes, a number of rich Victorians
were eating mummies. To understand why, we need
to talk about Egyptomania. J. Greenfield writes in The
Return of Cultural Treasures, "The 17th and 18th
centuries bore witness to "the zenith of European passion
for collecting antiquities. "The extension of colonial empires, "the activities of travelers and traders, "and the growth of a class
of wealthy private collectors "made it possible to amass
an astonishing quantity "of objects from all over the world." Wealthy Victorians
increasingly got extremely into collecting stuff and things. And of course the most valuable things came from other cultures, which they could easily take advantage of as war and imperialism
ravaged countries overseas in South and Middle America, North Africa, West Asia, et cetera, making it incredibly easy
to smuggle things out. The issue is, even many
museums in the Victorian era and earlier were often
not great at keeping a good clear record on their acquisitions. So at this point, it's nearly impossible
to look at long-held antiquities and collections,
both private and institutional, and be able to figure out
if they were looted or not. This became an increasingly
difficult problem in the late Victorian years
when Egypt and its history captured the Western world's imagination. Egyptian mummies were
being imported to Europe to be used as medicine as
early as the medieval era. In 1586, a merchant named John Sanderson smuggled over 600 pounds of
mummies into the continent. The early 19th century saw the
Napoleonic invasion of Egypt, which set the groundwork for
the many, many excavations of Egyptian tombs and
other archeologically significant locations to come. The more ancient Egypt was unearthed, the more interested Europeans, largely the British and French, became. Mummies in general were one
of the number one topics of fascination for the Victorian public, as they were displayed in museums for all to see and even touch. It's no wonder why people are
so fascinated with mummies. They are the one thing that is both human and an ancient artifact. Mummies make people of
past tangibly real to us in the most visceral possible way. They give us a window
into history in a way that no inanimate object could possibly do. The Victorian writer
Hezekiah Butterworth mused, "As we gazed upon these
mummies and the relics "of Egypt's storied past and faded glory, "the Bible stories that
we had learned in boyhood "seemed to pass almost like
dimly remembered scenes "before our mind. "We seemed nearer to Jacob, to Joseph, "to Moses and Aaron than ever before." To touch a mummy, Constance
Classen describes, is to seemingly destroy time. But this doesn't mean that people weren't also disturbed by them. Mummy horror began to crop
up in increasing numbers as the century drew on, such as The Mummy by Jane Webb in 1828. The reanimated mummy and its curses have been a popular topic in
science fiction and horror ever since, driven by the perception that the ancient Egyptians were so
carefully mummifying bodies intending them to rise
again from the dead someday. A lot of the time, these
stories placed ancient Egyptians in a reverse colonialist role, in a way conquering the British instead of the other way. Around in 1884, Grant Allen's My New Year's Eve Among The Mummies was the story of a man who
steps into the world of pharaohs where the mummies in a
pyramid have come alive. He is nearly seduced
by an Egyptian princess who tries to convince him
to become a mummy himself before he is eventually rescued. In 1894, Arthur Conan Doyle's, The Ring of Thoth told of a mummy and a Louvre museum attendant who die together in an embrace. And extremely on the nose as usual, friend of the channel Bram Stoker wrote The Jewel of the Seven Stars in 1903 about an English woman who
was possessed by the spirit of a mummified ancient Egyptian queen intent on rebuilding her empire. Ugh, those mischievous
ancient Egyptian royals, always possessing people. Just like in the present day, as we'll discuss in a minute, poor Egyptians during the Victorian era often had few ways to make money outside of selling their
history to British tourists. Europeans in general traveling to Egypt were confronted at every turn by locals trying to sell them looted artifacts. And yes, mummies themselves, often just parts of mummies, dismembered, or cut up in order to maximize profits. Sound familiar? Many of the tourists
recalling these experiences were disturbed or disgusted, but in defense of the locals here, the tourists were the reason
the demand for these things was even there, as England
effectively tore Egypt apart for all it was worth from 1882 to 1952. Is it any wonder why the
locals would've assumed this is what they wanted,
when oftentimes it was? Constance Classen writes, "One Victorian traveler
wrote that it was disgusting "to see antiquities
hunters tearing up the body "of some poor old Egyptian
for a few worthless amulets. "Why should not these old
Egyptians have been suffered "to lie in peace? "Did they not silently appeal to our honor "and beg us to leave them
in their chosen sepulchers? "The mummy, which seemed so powerful "when enveloped in legends
and showcased in a museum "appeared objectively powerless "when broke into pieces and
scattered over the sands. "Tourists could be just as
cavalier in their treatment "of mummies as collectors. "John Briggs wrote that
when he found a deep hole "in a mummy burial chamber, "I looked around for
something to throw down "to try the depth by sound, "and seeing nothing but
the remains of the dead, "I stuck my candle in a
niche of the limestone wall "and, raising a mummy,
hurled it down the pit. "There was a short pause then thud, "it fell with a distinct
hollow sound at a great depth. "The foreignness of mummies
and their implicit status "within the west as
trophies of colonialism "no doubt made it easier for Westerners "to treat them so casually. "It's hard to imagine John
Briggs duplicating his actions "back in England and using a
skull from a local cemetery "to sound the depth of a church well." In any case, many Victorians weren't disgusted, and in fact, sought out
mummies for various purposes. Some travelers in Egypt even used mummies or their coffins as
firewood in their camps. People used pulverized mummies
to make medicinal pastes or ate them for various ailments. Sometimes mummies were imported to England for use as crop fertilizer. Earlier, around the 16th century, mummies began to be used to
make a paint called mummy brown. Who knows, when you look
at a painting in a museum, the ground up remains of
an ancient Egyptian body might be there on the canvas. It was a favorite paint
of the Pre-Raphaelites, in particular. Mummy brown only stopped
being produced in the 1900s because there were so few mummies left. We literally ran out of mummies. Oh! Rich Victorians eating mummies didn't come out of nowhere. There was a long history
of the body as medicine all around the world. After 1492, Europeans
became morbidly fascinated with reports of cannibals in the Americas. And over time cannibalism
became people's favorite topic of disgust. Ironically, their vitriol
towards these cannibals, whether they were real
or not, was hypocritical given the fact that
Europeans had been using various elements of the human body for medicinal consumption
for decades, at least. In the medieval era, distilled human bone was used as an epilepsy treatment and distilled blood of healthy young men was sometimes used as a tonic. The word mummy itself
originally meant medicine, as Egyptian mummy started to
be used to treat ailments too, but the word applied in a
medicinal context to all corpses, to be used as medicine. Some fresh, some not. Followers of the Paracelsian
school of medical thought were dedicated to the
idea of corpse medicine and they grew an influence
throughout the 1600s. In the winter of 1668 to '69, the traveler Edward Brown
saw a man publicly executed in Vienna. He wrote, "As soon as his
head fell to the ground, "while the body was in the chair, "a man ran speedily with a pot in his hand "and filling it with the blood
yet spouting out of his neck, "he presently drank it off and ran away." Meanwhile, in Denmark, famous
author Hans Christian Anderson recalled, "a pitiful poor person "made to drink by his
superstitious parents "a cup of the blood of an executed person "in an attempt to cure him from epilepsy." As you can tell from the
tone of these quotes, corpse medicine wasn't a universal belief, but rather a common superstitious one, so it's not fair to peg it
on every historical European. A lot of them were
rightly disgusted by it. Ridiculing all historical
Europeans for this stuff is kind of like if in a
couple hundred years from now, people looked back on us
during the COVID pandemic and were like, can you believe all Americans were using horse parasite medicine to treat COVID? What idiots! Like, damn. Some of us, yes. All of us, absolutely not. There are stupid and
gullible people in every era. At the same time, let's give some more context
to why European Christians would've fallen for the idea
of the corpse as medicine. Think about it. In a deeply, deeply
religious Christian society, every week at church, people were consuming the
body of Christ, the Eucharist. This too would've been seen
as a form of corpse medicine. Consume Christ's flesh
and your soul is cured. So it's not a far leap
for people back then to think surely then a physical body can cure my physical problems. The body in death means nothing. Their soul is in heaven. It's saved. The person they were no longer matters. What issue is it then to make
use of the soulless thing left behind when the soul
was all that mattered, especially when the corpse was
that of a felon or a convict. It's just a completely
different realm of thought. But more often than not, the corpse medicine
was done by the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Richard Sugg writes,
"Marsilio Ficino was one of "the most highly respected
figures of Renaissance Europe. "In the 1490s, Ficino suggested that "the aged could rejuvenate themselves "if they would suck the
blood of an adolescent "who was clean, happy, temperate, "and whose blood was excellent, "but perhaps a little excessive. "Ficino also makes it quite clear "that blood was indeed used as a medicine "by good doctors at just this time. "If you chance upon the word
vampire in a non-fictional text "of the Victorian period, "there is a good chance
that it will refer to "some kind of allegedly oppressive person, "system, or nation. "It seems, however, that
in the early modern period, "there may well have been real vampires, "rich, elderly men who
sat in velvet chairs, "their mouths clamped to
the arm of some living "and impoverished donor. "The exploitation of human
life rarely gets more direct "than this." People eventually stopped
with the medicinal cannibalism as medical advancements grew and grew and medicine became a markedly
less religious affair. But the obsession with Egyptology
never really went away. I mean, I get it. I still love Yu-Gi-Oh! and
I had this book as a kid and, damn it, I enjoy The Mummy, probably because of Rachel Weiss. - [Sound Effect] She
is very gorgeous to me. There's no question that the
fixation on ancient Egypt and the colonialist roots of Egyptomania is a deeply complicated issue. It goes without saying that
it is an unspeakable tragedy that Egypt's ancient
treasures and mummified dead were so brutally looted,
destroyed, and scattered across the rest of the world. And in the turn of the century, the more Egypt's historical
riches were exported, the stronger its grip on the
European imagination was, coming to an explosive head in the 20s when pseudo-Egyptian
aesthetics dominated fashion and pop culture. Everyone wanted a piece of that history against the wishes of
Egyptians themselves, who often had no choice
but to go along with or even enable the
pilfering of their culture. So what do we do now
when Egyptians themselves wanna take the unearthing of their history into their own hands? In 2020, a video of an
Egyptian mummy sarcophagus being opened by a team of archeologists in Saqqara went viral. And well, you could say
the internet was pissed. Because this incident was
coming on the coattails of a number of other antiquity scandals and online discussions
about the white pillaging of non-white cultural history, people's first instinct
was to believe that this was the same, but in truth, this excavation wasn't carried out by foreign white archeologists
looking to exploit Egypt's dead. It was run and operated
by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities and a team
of Egyptian archeologists led by Mostafa Waziri. Significantly, there's
an obvious reason why Egypt chose to publicize the findings at Saqqara so dramatically. This was November of 2020 when the early part of the COVID pandemic had taken a metaphoric sledge hammer to Egypt's tourism industry. And whether we like it or not, Egypt's economy still depends
very heavily on tourism, hinged on the historical
aftermath of Egyptomania. It is completely understandable why the Internet's first reaction to the opening of the sarcophagus was to assume that white archeologists with dubious intent were doing it because, well, that's who was doing it for many, many decades. But while understandable, the
backlash from the internet still echoed, ironically,
dehumanizing ideas left over in our culture from Egyptomania, in particular, the idea
that opening this sarcophagi will unleash the mummy's curse. Anyone who's ever ridden
the Indiana Jones- Wait, no, that was right, I was right. Anyone who's ever ridden
the Indiana Jones- Why does it sound wrong
to me, Indiana Jones? Anyone who's ever ridden
the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland has gotten
a pretty prime example of how standardized the
mummy's curse trope has become. From The Mummy to Night at
the Museum to Goosebumps to Tutenstein to Yu-Gi-Oh!
to the other Mummy to Scooby-Doo to Under Wraps, to literally any random
documentary about ancient Egypt. - And the numbers are nine and nine is also the
number of the planet Mars. D`id we come from Mars or
was Mars a stopping place or was this a symbol that
we were just arriving at the ability to get to Mars? - Mummies, and all of ancient
Egypt for that matter, cannot exist on their own in
any mainstream discussion. They always come coupled
with this idea that Egypt's dead are inherently supernatural. And though often the
mummies curse is portrayed as a punishment for
overzealous and disrespectful white archeologists or travelers, it still simultaneously paints them in an antagonistic light. However disrespectful
our protagonists were to the wishes of the supernatural dead, there still our protagonists and the dead are still scar and must be put in their place. Though in non-fictional discussions, people frequently use
the curses of the dead are gonna get you for
being stupid enough to open that coffin up as a well-intentioned way of slamming entitled researchers, it's also often an outdated way of looking at the issue
that accidentally falls into the trap of painting non-white cultures as not the unique and complex systems that they are or were, but
spooky ooky paranormal things that definitely will curse you, which in a way, serves to
dehumanize and demonize them. These mummies weren't omniscient
immortal ghost wizards. They were regular people. And I really do think that we could have meaningful discussions
about ancient Egyptian religious and mystical
beliefs and practices without falling into these pitfalls. Sure, you could say,
maybe those archeologists were Egyptian, but they
should have just left the dead to rests. Why do we need to dig up these treasures? Well, if not them, then who? At what point does the culture
start and stop having a say in what they can do with
their own physical history? The Western world already
gutted Egypt's dead for all their worth. Are Egyptians themselves
not allowed to take their history into their own hands? You could argue about
the intentions of the Supreme Council of Antiquities or whether or not these archeology teams actually reflect the wants of
the regular Egyptian citizens. The tragic issue is, as nice
as it would be to believe that if we purposely don't
touch these treasures, they'll rest in peace forever, that's just not the case, because no matter what
culture we're discussing, people know they're there. And if anyone knows where they are, they can be exploited to fall
into the hands of the rich and disappear forever. It needs to be acknowledged
that oftentimes, local people can be active participants in the looting of their
own cultural artifacts because they desperately need the money. Alia Szopa continues, "The process of looting
antiquities is socially organized "and requires a multi-layered
network of diggers, "middlemen, and dealers. "The actual taking of
antiquities is often carried out "by local diggers, "referred to as either treasure
hunters or grave robbers. "The treasure hunters and grave robbers "view looting as a way to supplement "their inadequate incomes earned from "their legitimate jobs and legal jobs. "The challenge to these
individuals is locating "the antiquities, but over time, "these looters develop
tremendous knowledge "of where to locate and
how to value artifacts. "Once they have found the artifacts, "it is relatively easy to obtain them, "as archeological sites
are often ill-protected "or unknown to those outside
of archeological circles. "Ultimately these individuals
will sell their finds "to a middleman in hopes of liquidation. "The middleman in turn sells the artifacts "to either local or foreign dealers. "A significant portion of the
looted goods are smuggled out "of the country via planes,
trains, automobiles, and boats, "and into art collecting countries, "such as the United States,
Switzerland, Germany, France, "Japan, and Hong Kong, "making illicit antiquities trade "truly international in nature. "In fact, smugglers are said
to come from all walks of life, "but are oftentimes
journalists, art brokers, "and even diplomats who take
advantage of the immunity "from a search given to diplomatic bags." As expected, this opens up
yet another Pandora's box of problems and questions. Who owns the history of the dead \? Should it by right being
entrusted only to those who have the means to preserve it? When a random person finds
an artifact in the ground, who does it belong to, the
government or the finder? After all, that artifact
is the cultural history of a people and what is a
country but it's people? You may be wondering at this point what the laws say about this issue. Since at least the mid 1400s, countries have been
putting laws in the books detailing what should be done
with excavated artifacts. But these laws are always
notoriously hard to enforce. A lot of the time looters
will first deface an artifact in order to make it
unrecognizable to law enforcement. Frequently, artifacts are damaged anyways during the act of looting itself because the looters are in a hurry. It's nice to think that
antiquities are safest in the hands of scholars. Today, the researchers and archeologists have extremely strict protocols and have worked very hard
to reestablish public trust in the archeological process. Before I get into this section, I just wanna say that
I have a lot of respect for the work archeologists
and museum professionals do. Today, archeologists
are extremely outspoken on treating historical sites and artifacts as well as their people with respect. It's not perfect, sure, but the field today is a world
away from what it used to be. But of course there are exceptions. For example, the building of the wall separating Israel from
Palestine's West Bank has, in very recent
years, caused damage to Palestinian archeological sites. Oftentimes, the proper excavation
of these sites was forced to be done hastily or improperly
in order to get it done before the walls construction, or the wall itself was rerouted
to encompass these sites on the Israeli side. As of the late 2000s, over 2,800 sites were negatively affected
by the separation wall. The relationship between
locals and archeologists here has a similar history
to other SWANA regions. In the 1950s, American
archeologists James Pritchard excavated the Palestinian
historical village of Gideon. An excavator from al-Jib recalled, "This man excavated the
village at the end of the 50s. "He came three or five
months, not the whole year. "He would come in June or
July and stay until October, "and then he would disappear
together with his group. In the winter, when the weather gets cold, "the local people who worked
with him would start digging, "but not in daylight, just at night. "The people of the village
would object to that "because diggers were destroying the land, "but Pritchard would
encourage those people "and give them money for their finds. "Later on, those people
started working for themselves. "Pritchard was buying their
finds through a middleman "from the area of southern Hebron. "This man would store
all the finds in his home "until Pritchard came back "and Pritchard would take all the objects "and pay him any money he asks for, "no questions asked. "Other people were also
selling him objects. "And when he was not around, "they were selling them to
souvenir shops in Jerusalem." Stories like this are common
reasons why so many locals turn to digging for artifacts themselves. If we don't do it, foreigners will. And if anyone should be
profiting from our history, shouldn't it be us? It's an incredibly complicated problem. Nowadays, archeology is largely
focused on contextual data. How are these objects found? Where are they in the site
and around what other objects? What can their location
and condition tell us about what they meant to
people or were used for? This cannot be said for many
historical archeologists who were largely focused
on collecting treasures, often with grave consequences. Heinrich Schliemann, an amateur
archeologists who worked in the late Victorian era, is possibly one of the most notorious
examples of archeology gone wrong. In the words of Spencer Daniel, "Heinrich Schliemann
was a lying, cheating, "grifting, thieving
charlatan and overall scumbag "who only became famous
because he was extremely rich "and highly skilled in the art of lying "to make himself seem more
impressive than he really was." I couldn't have said it better myself. And here's why. Schliemann grew up dreaming of discovering the ancient city of Troy made
famous in Homer's The Iliad. Many people outside of
Greece believed that it was an entirely fictional city, but truthfully, locals in the
surrounding area in Greece always kind of knew where it was, under what was then called Hisarlik. They were really chatty about it, too. As early as 1801, the English traveler Edward Daniel Clark wrote
that he had visited the ruins of Troy at Hisarlik. But according to Schliemann's
romanticized story that he told, he actually
followed Homer's description of the land and was able to locate it for the very first time, thus proving everyone wrong. That's right. Schliemann was the only
one who found it first and thus the Trojan War really happened and we should all be thanking him except he's a dirty fucking liar so all of that is bullshit. Throughout the mid 1800s, various people, including John Bruton and Frank Calvert began excavating parts
of Hisarlik on their own, unearthing loads of
ancient Greek artifacts. They were thoroughly
convinced it was Troy, but didn't have the budget
to do a full investigation. This was the one advantage
that Schliemann had over everyone else. He had a lot of money. The thing is though, Schliemann believed that Troy
was actually at Pınarbaşı until he met Frank Calvert and Frank was like, no,
dude, Troy's over there. I've been excavating it this whole time. And Schliemann was like,
whoa, look, everybody. I just discovered Troy by myself. So Schliemann started woeing and wailing about how he had finally
proved all those mean non-believer scholars wrong. And Troy is actually real, thanks to him. And other scholars were like, I mean, we already kind of
suspected that, but okay. So Schliemann and his
fat wallet got to work fully excavating Troy. Unfortunately, because he was a moron who was obsessed with Homer, he ended up destroying most of it. He dug a massive trench through the city and obliterated all of the
upper layers of the city with dynamite. Calvert was deeply upset by this and published a huge call out article exposing Schliemann to try and
get everyone to cancel him, but it was too late. And all that destruction
was truly misguided too. He did it because all he
cared about was locating Homer's Troy in the
deeper layers of the city. Yu V. Andrea writes, "H. Schliemann, "who discovered Troy in 1870, "was mistaken in assuming
that Homer's Troy "was the settlement second from the bottom "of the seven occupations
discovered at the same site. "In fact, it has now been
established that Troy II "belongs to the second half
of the third millennium BC; "that is, it was occupied
almost a thousand years "before the Trojan War. "Troy VIIa was ignored by Schliemann. "Even worse, the relatively
well preserved stone walls "of Troy VIIa were demolished
to construct barracks "for the workers hired by Schliemann. "He even failed to sketch them. "Thus, Schliemann succeeded
in completing Agamemnon's work "by destroying Troy and
not leaving a trace. "The alleged backwardness
of archeological science "of the time is a poor
excuse in this case, "because archeology
had by then accumulated "more than one century of experience." The devastation doesn't end here. Having thoroughly destroyed Troy, Schliemann then proceeded
to loot it of its valuables. Because he continually
lied about where he located various artifacts, we
will never truly know who they belong to or any
other contextual information. He then smuggled the treasure
out of the Ottoman Empire with his wife, Sophia, who would go on to
personally where the jewelry that they dubbed the Jewels of Helen. Not narcissistic in the slightest. Schliemann would continue
to destroy ancient artifacts and structures in Greece
by ordering the destruction of the medieval Frankish
tower on the Acropolis, because it wasn't from
classical antiquity, against the wishes of
both the Greek government and the public. Another case involves my
mortal nemesis, Henri Lute, a French explorer and ethnographer. Through the mid-century,
Lute led numerous expeditions through the Sahara desert in Algeria funded by the Paris Musee de l'Homme, which he was able to do
because Algeria was occupied by the French until 1962. Lute and his team located
over 800 rock paintings in the desert. In the book he wrote on his findings, Lute publicized his stupid belief that these rock paintings were depicting extraterrestrials from outer space, effectively beginning the modern trend of believing that ancient aliens are responsible for all of the cool things that ancient people of color did. Outside of the irreparable
damage that Lute's shitty hypothesis did
to the public's ideas about the ancient world, he also did unbelievable
physical damage too. Jeremy Keenan writes, "He
likened the local people, "the Tuareg, who made
many of his discoveries, "to wolves and living by
the laws of the jungle. "Significantly, he made no
reference in his discovery claims "to Yolande Tschudi, the Swiss ethologist "whose work preceded his own. "Worse still, he undertook
what might be regarded today "as the systematic vandalism of the sites, "not only by liberally
washing the paintings "to restore their color, "but by collecting and
removing copious quantities "of material artifacts from the area." A very key aside here is
that Schliemann was not a professional archeologist
and the damage that Lute caused is widely recognized today. But while today we don't
usually need to worry about narcissistic scholars and archeologists obliterating ancient ruins for no reason- various governments and
militaries are doing that on their own just fine- it's unfortunately true that oftentimes some scholars may indirectly play a part in looting systems, whether
they're aware of it or not. All right, let's fucking
talk about Hobby Lobby. - [News Reader] These are some
of the 5,500 Iraqi artifacts an Oklahoma-based Hobby
Lobby says it bought to demonstrate its passion for the Bible. And Steve Green acknowledges quote, "regrettable mistakes that
he blames on inexperience." - So yeah, as most of
you can probably recall, craft store giant Hobby
Lobby Was involved in an early 2010s scandal
regarding the purchase of thousands of antiquities that
were smuggled out of Iraq through Israel and the
United Arab Emirate. in order to supply the inventory of the then unopened Museum of the
Bible in Washington, DC. Iraq tragically is no stranger
to the widespread pillaging of its historical artifacts. As we've seen, war torn,
destabilized, and poorer countries are the ones most
vulnerable to being looted by people from the very countries responsible for their suffering. Iraq was already a target before, but as soon as the US
invaded Iraq following 9/11, it created a hurricane
of looting and pillaging, supplying the black
market with antiquities, especially to Christian
collectors looking to hoard what they believe to be
Bible-related history from the Holy Land. This is exactly what Hobby
Lobby was looking to do. Hobby Lobby is owned by Steve
Green of the Green family who are extremely devout
evangelical Christians. You may recall the time
in 2014 when they went to the Supreme Court to contest
the Affordable Care Act's requirement that employer health insurance covers birth control. So yeah, you know who to thank for that. In 2010, Steve Green traveled to the UAE to look over and purchase more
than 5,000 Iraqi artifacts, which were, "spread on the floor, "arranged in layers on a coffee table, "and packed loosely in cardboard boxes, "in many instances with little to no "protective material between them." "Hobby Lobby wired $1.6 million "to seven different bank accounts "associated with five different
people to pay for the items. "The artifacts were shipped
to the United States "in multiple packages, falsely
labeled tiles (sample). "They were also sent
to multiple locations. "As the complaint notes, "the use of multiple shipping addresses "for a single recipient is consistent with "methods used by cultural
property smugglers "to avoid scrutiny by customs. "On customs forms, the UAE
dealers supplied false invoices "that substantially
undervalued the pieces, "presumably as a way to
avoid customs inspection." Hobby Lobby defended
themselves saying that it was new to the world
of acquiring these items and did not fully
appreciate the complexities of the acquisitions process. To put it bluntly, the Greens didn't care about how they acquired the artifacts. They didn't even fully care
much about the condition. Their claim to ignorance isn't even true. In 2010, they sought
out Patty Gerstenblith to give them expert counsel
on cultural property law and then deliberately ignored her. A lot of it was about
quantity and authenticity because that's all they needed to stock the Museum of the Bible, which at the time was
still being developed. The US Department of Justice
fined Hobby Lobby $3 million and forced them to give
up about 3,594 artifacts. This may seem like they
got put in their place, but in actuality, this punishment is more akin to a gentle stop that and a tap on the
wrist with a soft feather. The Green's wealth is wholly unaffected and they still have more
than 40,000 artifacts in their collection. All this did was clear the path for them to open the Museum of
the Bible uninterrupted. And it did, it opened in November of 2017, but has caused smuggling controversy as recently as last year, when they were forced
to return the fucking Gilgamesh Dream Tablet back to Iraq where it was discovered to
have been illegally smuggled out of the country with a
forged letter of legality. The same year, the greens
also had to return to Iraq over 8,000 other looted artifacts and 5,000 to Egypt as well, proving that they haven't
learned their lesson because they already knew the lesson and frankly just don't
give a shit about it. If I covered every theft
and return incident these people have gotten into
in the last 10 years alone, we'd be here all god damn day. The theft and smuggling
of historical heritage is a very complicated system,
as we discussed earlier. So complicated, in fact, that it's easy for scholars and
good-intentioned researchers to get caught up in the web, just by trying to do
the very important work of interpreting and uncovering the history behind these valuable items. Eagerness to learn what we still can from dubiously source antiquities often leads scholars to
authenticate stolen pieces, thus legitimizing them, and then driving up their
price exponentially, which instigates more looting, thus destroying more history, lather, rinse, repeat. Our knee jerk reaction
may be to lay blame, then, on scholars and museums. But in many cases, no one has any idea that they're dealing with looted goods because the market has
gotten so good at forging extremely legitimate looking papers. It's a truly unfortunate situation for most people involved
with no easy answers. Michael Press writes, "We've all experienced a loss here. "Because people like Green are
willing to buy these things, "the rest of us lose a massive amount "of interesting information
about the ancient past. "These tablets have no context. "Were they bits and pieces
looted from many sites? "Were they all one library? "Did the looters trash crumbly tablets "that weren't pretty
enough for the market, "but in the hands of
archeologists and epigraphers "could have told us marvelous
and groundbreaking things? "What else was with the tablets? "We don't get to know because
a rich guy felt his desires "were more important than
history and heritage." At the end of the day,
of course we all lose valuable history that
can never be found again. But more importantly, the loss is so much more painful and deep for the people from the places
these artifacts are from. Looting artifacts specifically steals away the irreplaceable history of people from Iraq, from Egypt, from
South America, from Palestine, from any of these places
that are hemorrhaging history in a very physical sense every day. I know some of you have already
gone down to the comments to angrily type something like
who cares, it's just stuff. Why should we give a shit
about some old dusty objects? All of us are suffering every
day for more pressing issues. Who cares if some dumb millionaires
are buying antiquities? Well, of course, I'll
give you my real answer, but if you really feel that way, I don't know if anything
I say can reach you. If you don't care, that's okay. Maybe history doesn't mean much to you. In which case, I don't know
why you're here on my channel. But logical reasons aside,
which are fairly obvious, isn't the pain of the
people whose cultures are being stolen from enough? Is it not enough that it hurts people to, in a very material way, lose
their past, their ancestry? That's something that I can understand on a very personal level
with my own culture during the Showa. And the issue with stealing antiquities is you can never get the context of its discovery location back. When something is stolen, it starts a war of ownership
that never needed to happen if not for someone's greed. It hurts an already hurting people. So how much of their pain
is enough for you to care? Humans just love to collect stuff. We love having fun stuff and things, and we love holding onto
them because we attach sentimental value to them , like a dragon sitting on
hoards of gold and jewels. For instance, I have
a shelf of little guys and I know you're gonna ask for a tour, so let's take a sec to tour
my shelf of little guys. So this is my shelf of little guys. Let's start over here. This is an owl that my friend
Duna brought back to me. This is just some old
man, I've named him Earl. Hi, Earl. That's pom pom pudding. This is a little wood block
that looks like my dog, Roxy. This is a little mouse that
I got from an estate sale when my neighbor died. Moo moo mama over here, tiny clay figurine of my web
comics antagonist, fuck you. This is a little bunny. I love him. Not sure what his deal is. He's a little suspicious,
but don't worry about it. A little wooden golden retriever
who looks like my dog Luna. I don't know, I got this
guy from World Market. It's a little mouse based on the ones from the Hilda cartoon
made by my friend Yuna. Two more felt mice. This is mouse Frodo and mouse Gandalf. And these two are the
newest members to the shelf. They were sent to me by a
subscriber named Audrey. Thank you so much, Audrey. And yeah, my collection of little guys. When does it stop being
okay to collect things? I would say damn, use common sense. I feel like it's pretty
obvious, but apparently not. Because here on the internet, we've seen more than
our fair share of people with collections that leave
the funky and unique category and have drifted into something
a lot more morally dubious, if not completely deranged. Let's return to the world
of TikTok for a second and bring our old friend
Tumblr into the ring as well. If you're tuned into
nerdy internet spaces, you might remember a fascinating incident that happened on Tumblr in 2015 that is frequently dubbed Bone Gazi. That December, a call-out
post by Tumblr user pastel-prouvaire surfaced,
accusing user littlefuckinmonster of stealing human remains
from Louisiana graveyards. Littlefuckinmonster AKA fuckinheathen AKA Ender Darling had
posted to a Facebook group called the queer witch collective group talking about how they had collected washed up human bones from
a graveyard in New Orleans. After backlash on Tumblr
started to surface, Darling fought back, accusing
those upset of racism because they offered to donate the bones to other people in a safe
space for POC witches. Darling wrote, "I was
walking into the graveyard "like I usually do once a week "because it's fucking in disrepair "and I try to do what I can
with weeding and offerings. "And I witnessed an old
man digging with a shovel "and a backhoe, tearing into old plots. "You fucks wanna threaten me, 'yet don't actually sit
to rationally think about "how in ground cemeteries
actually continue "to be able to have bodies buried there. "I made a quick decision "when I watched a few
bones tumble from the dirt "and into the street. "I picked them up and
went through the graveyard "and picked up the ones I saw on my path, "knowing that they were
either gonna be crushed "or swept away. "And I'm sorry, but for me, "a spiritual person who works with death, "seeing a fucking machine
tear into graves like that "seemed a lot less respectful to the dead "you all are so concerned about "than me picking them up and saving them. "I did not dig up anything. "Here's the thing, you bunch of fucks. "Magic is dark. "Magic is bloody. "Magic is scary. "Magic isn't just fucking
white light, fairy dust, "bowls of honey on your damn altar. "Instead of being angry
at the frat parties "that actually break into cemeteries "and cause fucking damage for
your stupid college parties, "you wanna be angry at the kid
who literally picked up bones "from the ground to save them
from getting swept away." It's just the most Tumblr
sounding post I've ever heard. Now here's the thing. I was lurking on
witchcraft Tumblr in 2015, so I saw this whole
debacle unfold firsthand. For what it's worth, I left witchblr because of
the rampant antisemitism and it looks like many of those people have now migrated to TikTok
and have gotten even worse. Anyway, Darling was not the only person on witchblr who considered
themselves to be a sort of benevolent scavenger. And it was incredibly common for people to be collecting all
sorts of random things for use in their practice. If there's one thing witches love, it's hoarding junk,
especially glass bottles. In any case, it usually
wasn't human bones. Animal bones, sure. And you can argue at
the ethics of that too, but not human bones. So this caused a pretty
big stir in the community. And people began to argue about when scavenging is or isn't okay. People argued, people had a
good laugh at Darling's expense, and people moved on. Except history always repeats itself. And in 2021, TikTok had a
bone collecting controversy of its own. TikTok user jonsbones AKA Jon Ferry built a large following
on his bone expertise. He had a room completely
filled with bones, most of which being human bones, including a spine wall. Ferry said- - And in the US, there's
no federal regulation against the ownership, sale, or possession of human osteology. So it's completely legal. - As it turns out, Ferry had
a company called Jon's Bones, which sold and distributed
bones to osteologists and medical institutions. He admitted that most
of the remains he sold were sourced from India,
China, and Russia. - In terms of where the bones come from, they typically came from
China, Russia, or India, India being one of the largest suppliers. - And were most likely, very poor people. He was unable to adequately prove that the bones were sourced ethically. In any situation where the
poor dead are involved, the answer is probably no. India banned the export
of human remains in 1986, but the black market there still thrives as grave robbers dig up
dead poor people to sell. Up until 2016, you could buy human remains on eBay. It goes without saying
that the users of TikTok were a little bit pissed. Now, I know what you're probably thinking. Kaz, what the fuck do the
social media bone clowns have to do with antiquities theft? I'm connecting the dots, okay. I'm connecting the dots. My point is people love
hoarding and collecting, even when it's bad, even
when it hurts people, because they might think
that they're justifiably not hurting anybody. These are human bones, sure. But this person is long gone. They're dead. What difference does
it make if I have them, I'm not like the rich
Victorians and their mummies or the Renaissance Europeans
and their corpse medicine. I'm not eating the bodies. I'm respectfully holding on to them. I do believe that Ender Darling
didn't have bad intentions when they collected those bones. The used bones in their practice and they allegedly saw
workers in the graveyard apparently destroying some graves and the graveyards are poorly cared for and flooding washes the
bones up all the time. What difference does it
make if Darling takes them? Well, the issue is these graveyards are majority non-white graveyards. Those are the bones of people of color. They could have done any
number of other things that would've at least been respectful. But the fact is, Darling took those bones because they wanted them. The same reason why Jon
Ferry didn't just have a morally dubious bones company, he had a bones room. They like bones. They saw them, they
wanted them, they got 'em. And people's outrage
at the bone collecting comes from a deeply personal space that is the same part of our souls that's first instinct was to be angry when we saw the Saqqara
sarcophagus being opened, a deep sadness for the ancestors who can no longer help themselves and a deeper fear for ourselves. A part of us wonders, when
I die someday in the future, will my bones end up on
someone's altar or bone room? Will I know? And more importantly,
will someone, anyone, bring me home and lay me back to rest? When the ancient artifacts are looted and taken away from their
home countries by thieves, it feels the same way
because those artifacts are the souls of people's cultures. When they're smashed and
sold in pieces for profit, real people's history is torn asunder too. They hold the answers to
infinite historical context and mysteries that get lost permanently. These artifacts are the
spiritual bones of a people. In 1970, UNESCO held the
Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing
the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership
and Cultural Property in an attempt to fight back
against theft, pillage, and misappropriation of cultural property and its restitution during peace times. 178 countries signed the convention, including US, France,
Switzerland, and Germany, which is surprising given that they have the most to
lose with restitution. Then again, the 50 years
since have proved that the convention is
extremely hard to enforce, just like every other
law attempting to prevent black market artifact threat. Black market artifact theft. Many nations signed on
with extreme conditions, such as that it can
only apply to artifacts already unearthed by 1970 and not held in private collections. It can also only apply to
artifacts stolen from museums and other institutions. These conditions rendered the convention effectively useless, and once again, left no official international agreement for the restitution of stolen history. This is a two-pronged issue too. The more legal restrictions
countries place on antiquity looting, the
stronger the black market gets and the more likely it is that artifacts are purposely damaged or
destroyed by the looters to get around law enforcement. And all to often, many countries with the largest art collecting markets simply don't feel inclined
to return anything, especially if not directly asked, because they truly believe
that these artifacts are better off here anyways. I guess I have a personal story that could serve as a good anecdote here. A few years ago, before the pandemic, I was puttering around
Goodwill, as one does. And I came across an
incredibly beautiful painting. It was a self-portrait made by
the artist over 50 years ago. And I won't say the name of the artist just in case he'd prefer that
his privacy be protected here. I had heard of him before, so after buying it, I sent him an email asking for any history behind the painting. As it turns out, he never knew what happened to it in the last half century and asked if I'd be
willing to part with it. This is the part that I
think a lot of collectors get tripped up at. They think, well, isn't there a reason this thing was for sale
in some crappy place? I bought it, so don't I own it now? Where does artist ownership end? Why, why can't I keep this
beautiful thing that I found? Why must you make me feel guilty when I didn't do anything wrong? Well, here's the thing. As it turns out, the painting
ended up at the Goodwill by mistake. It was never meant to be there. The artist wanted it to stay in his family and this painting, most likely made when he was an art student, is a precious part of his history. He was willing to pay me to get it back, but I didn't feel like that
was the right thing to do, as tempting as it is to recoup costs as a recently graduated art
student myself at the time. Luckily I was able to
meet up with his brother and hand off the painting, and it was personally driven
back home to his hands. Do I miss that painting? Sure, I do. I'm an artist, I love history. It's a painting by an
artist that I had heard of. It was a special find But the feeling of knowing that it's back where it's supposed to be, talking with this artist on the phone and hearing how happy and relieved he was to be reunited with it, well, that's a better feeling than any amount of money could be. That's a better feeling even
than owning the painting itself because what's the worth
of coveting history that was never meant to leave
home in the first place, that is being asked for by its family. Well, it's easy to say
that about a painting from the 60s or 70s that I
got for 10 bucks at Goodwill. It's not exactly the same situation as invaluable ancient artifacts purchased for millions of dollars. The thing is though, to these
millionaires and billionaires buying stupid expensive
treasure off the black market, it really isn't that different. They're buying this
stuff because the price is pocket change to them. They'll recoup those costs
from their investments and the riches they store overseas. They could repatriate their treasures and never feel their wallets hurt. They could always find something new. But as we've seen, it's not about money, it's about power. Rich people want to hoard
history because history is power. All of the great kings and
emperors of millennia past sat atop mountains of gold and treasures. Today, people replicate that by collecting those same treasures, as well as the artifacts left behind by the regular people of history and putting them in glass cases where no one else can have it. Or in Engineered Lab's
case, a clear acrylic slab. It's a very physical
incarnation of the instinct that historical wealthy people had to make their great
schools and universities too expensive for the poor to access. If we control history and
we make it inaccessible to the poors, well,
who then gets to decide what history says? Who gets to interpret it? Who gets to be represented? There's a good reason why so
much history we learn in school focuses so heavily on
the rich and powerful and their antics. If there's one thing the
aristocracy has always loved, it's talking about themselves. I don't have all the answers
because no one really does. Of course, I want knowledge and I want to learn more about history. We all do. It's just upsetting that
so often it comes at such a high cost and
that so often it comes in partnership with private collectors who drive this market. Where there is a demand, people will always figure
out how to supply it. So long as people with
money are willing to pay for antiquities of dubious acquisition, someone will always be
willing to provide it. If this was an easy conundrum to solve, it would've been solved
a long, long time ago. I wish I could end this
video with like a strong call to action or a definitive solution. But unfortunately, so
many aspects of this issue are intertwined gray areas, issues that absolutely nobody agrees on, problems that could be
argued in multiple directions forever and ever until
we all lose our breath. I guess this is one of those situations where looking at the larger problem, it's so massive and convoluted
that all I can do is scream, I'm angry, I'm frustrated, this sucks. But there's one thing that
isn't complicated at all. And that's that stuff like
these heritage museums are bullshit and no
business should be allegedly destroying artifacts so that
they can sell more people an itty bitty piece of history to put on their shelf and collect dust. Owning a thing just because
it's some historically significant special object
doesn't mean anything when it clearly means so little to you that you were willing to
buy a tiny speck of it that the company allegedly
smashed on purpose. It makes you no different
from the private collectors who buy looted artifacts
from poor countries. Maybe you're not the one
who broke it or stole it, but the demand has to come from somewhere. Don't buy these fucking things. Don't be the reason they make more. There are better ways to
collect something special, to hold history in your hands. I mean, shit, I'm lurking
around antique stores all the time. Just use your head, ask the seller where something came from. It won't fix the bigger systemic problem. And maybe you don't care. Maybe you think I'm just overreacting and none of this matters. I don't know, obviously
not all antiquities are equally impacted by this dilemma. I don't think that you're hurting anyone if you buy some Roman
coins from an online vendor or a fossil from a museum
gift shop or whatever, you know what I mean? Heck, I don't even think museums are bad. I love museums to death. And I know a lot of people
in the museum world, as well as the world of archeology, who are doing their best
to do the right thing and improve the situation. But at the very least, when it comes to most ancient artifacts, every single one is unique and special and has its own story to tell. And we should do better at listening to the needs and desires of
the cultures they belong to. Thank you for making it through
my extremely tangential rant about antiquity looting. Sorry, it's kind of a bummer. I'll try my best to
make next month's video a little bit lighter. So till next time, wash thy hands, wear thy mask, and put those bones back
where they came from or so help me. (harpsichord music)
