Customer Reviews

Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers, and the Looting of the Ancient World

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There is nothing to add to the detailed analyses of this book previously detailed, except:
Know what you are buying: This book is 95% about the author
's experiences excavating at Sipan; as well as some discussion regarding other sites in northern Peru.
If this is what you want, it is an excellent book; however, it, in no way. is a more general discussion of its title and subtitle.
I was really hoping for a more extensive discussion regarding the many other sites around the world. So, in this difference, I would only give it one star.
Just know what you are buying.
I am keeping the book; however it's lack of what the title promised, and the many other sources that are available regarding
Peruvian (and particularly Sipan) resulted in my being very disappointed in its restricted coverage in contrast to its title.

Stealing History takes an important subject and makes it interesting and readable. Atwood writes the book like an Indiana Jones novel mixed with a true crime story in the context of a history tome. He follows the path of an ancient golden artifact which is the largest ever found in the Americas from the looted tomb in Peru to the New Jersey Turnpike(!) in the US. Atwood writes in a compelling fashion which makes it hard to put the book down. Highly recommended!

Not quite Laura Croft or Indiana Jones, this book follows the fate of several Peruvian sites and the artifacts taken from them. The focus is as much on the conflicts between the commercial antiquities trade and the archaeologists who wish to study the sites intact (taken to the extreme in actually reburrying sites as to not attract the attention of looters). Not so surprisingly the Museums operate somewhere between - benefiting from the scholarship of the archelogists and also from the tomb raiders who supply them with items for their collections (not directly of course). Well told tales of FBI stings, government policies based more on diplomatic pressures than the "saving" of cultural records and in infighting between the Peruvian archeologist Walter Alva and what seems like the world. On the most basic level, this is about the destruction and loss of history in the quest of money. The book ends with a list of suggestions for what can be done to save these sites from destruction, but I still was left with questions. Some of the measures taken by the government seems a little broad and sweeping. It left me with many questions if government intervention is the best way to stop the flow of illegal artifacts. Although the author seems to show some preference to the side of Alva and the archelogists, he does speak and interview people from all parts of the community, from the actual people who rob the graves and archelogical sites to the people who buy these artifacts either for profit or art. The introduction wrote about Iraq right after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The looting of museums and archelogical sites was immediate. I appreciated the detail of the rest of the book and its covering of covering one subject (Peru and more specifically Sipan) when it would have been very easy to make this a survey and less personal. You get a great sense of the individual personalities involved.

This is just what good non-fiction should be: fascinating, un-put-downable, and important. Not only did I learn about how the art world is allowing the great treasures of history be destroyed or lost to private collectors. This is effectively depriving the world of its history. I recommend this book not just for anyone interested in art and artifacts--though you will learn about it--but for anyone who wants to read an important book about the way we're letting the ability to study our past and our heritage go to ruin. A really good read!

Grave robbing has always happened; the tomb of Tutankhamen was broken into in antiquity, long before Howard Carter found it in 1922. Grave robbing is part of archeological history, and continues today. The lesson in Roger Atwood's book, _Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers, and the Looting of the Ancient World_ (St. Martin's Press) is that starting in the twentieth century, grave robbing became much more efficient, and is effectively robbing not just graves, but robbing civilizations of their history. Atwood has concentrated on one particular site, the royal tombs at Sipán in Peru, and has given its sad modern history in great detail, but that has not stopped him from taking a larger historical view. Throughout the book are the contrasting digging techniques and aims of the robber and the archeologist, with the practical realization that often the two must at least informally work together, particularly in the case of looters finding valuable sites with the archeologist ideally showing up very soon afterwards before the good stuff is gone. Atwood's sobering book shows that there is no reason to assume that the archeologists are winning, and that the treasures of the world may simply be dug out soon, with little learned from the spoils and no more left to learn from.

The problem, of course, is that treasures ripped out of context lose their meaning; one archeologist said that looted objects are pretty but dumb. The problem is accelerated by faster shipping, with traders able to bring looted goods to international markets with an efficiency that was previously unimaginable. Atwood has gone out with the diggers; he gives a scary account of accompanying them on what was for them just an evening's work. He is able to do this in good conscience because the robbers themselves are not the villains of the book. They often have no other means of survival, and are using their land for its best possible production. The bad guys are the dealers, private collectors, and even museum officials who power the digging engine by means of huge payments further up the delivery chain. The main hero of the book is the famous Peruvian archeologist Walter Alva. He had dug up tombs, and run a provincial museum, a quiet and obscure professional life, until looters struck a Sipán tomb in 1987, emerging with riches in gold of a type that had never been seen before or documented. The dealers moved fast to close in on the find, and the smooth robbing of the territory was only stopped when one of the looters felt cheated of his fair pay, and alerted police. When the police found a looter's hoard, they called Alva, who got his first glimpse of the treasures which would make his
name in archeology.

Atwood has described many aspects of the world trade in archeological loot, and how it damages all of us. There is a description of steps here that might cure the problem, like a moratorium on trade in antiquities that have no accurate record of provenance. He admits that there are no magic bullets in his recommendations, and that there will always be loopholes. Museums would have to change their bureaucratic ways, dealers would have to give up part of a lucrative business, and governments would have to enact legislation without succumbing to pressure from the antiquities lobbies. Significantly, he gives examples of locals on other archeological sites who have seen the advantage of preserving their past rather than exploiting it. It will all be a tough sell at all levels, but Atwood's book is clear documentation that unless changes come, the current system will deprive "everyone who ever will live of part of the collective memory that makes us human."

This is a great, GREAT book, but it essentially only covers the excavation and robbing of archaelogical sites in Sipan (Peru). The author does try to make some cross-comparison, but it is apparent that he is not nearly as familiar with other areas of exploration, such as Iraq. However, it is a fantastic exploration of an example of what is currently happening with "open" archaelogical sites. Like the book cover indicates, it also has a lot of fun detective/police chase stuff. The real life characters in this saga are fascinating. Worth a read!

The phenomenon of exploitation of the dead has recently been brought to public attention by media publicity surrounding Jan T. Gross and his ZLOTE ZNIWA (GOLDEN HARVEST). Gross, virtually ignoring the wartime context involved, selectively dwells on Poles who exploited the properties of Jews killed by the Germans. This is nothing distinctively Polish. In fact, Atwood writes: "The rise in the 1990's of the issue of Holocaust art added to pressure for more transparency in how they acquired art. Paintings, sculptures, and prints that had been stolen by the Nazis and their allies from Jewish Holocaust victims wound up in the U.S. art market, and sometimes in American museums. The Holocaust art controversy exposed an amorality in 1940s acquisition policies that was so complete as to seem almost unbelievable by current standards." (p. 149).

Nor is all this anything new. Atwood comments: "Grave robbing is an old phenomenon, some will argue. The Romans looted the tombs and temples of the Greeks, the Vandals looted Rome, the then European colonists looted nearly everyone. Most of the tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings were robbed within a hundred years of their sealing, and even the famously pristine tomb of Tutankhamen had been penetrated at least twice in antiquity before Howard Carter found it in 1922." (pp. 11-12).

This book focuses on another form of exploitation of the dead--that of archeological treasures, and in recent years. Note that looting of architectural treasures involves not only a looting of the dead but also a destruction of one's historical and cultural heritage. Instead of repeating other reviewers, I focus on mostly-unmentioned content.

To begin with, it would be a mistake to regard looting as primarily the work of western imperialist peoples. Consider Peru: "The tombs were all dug up, the place tapped out. It all happened very fast and very recently, in the last two decades of the twentieth century, a period which will be remembered as one in which more Andean historical heritage was lost than in the previous four centuries..." (p. 24).

It would also be a mistake to regard looting of archeological artifacts only as the work of professional thieves and profiteers. As an example, Atwood writes: "Back in Sipan [Peru], villagers had overrun the burial mound and were sifting the backfill left by the looters for scraps of metal or anything else that looked valuable...People from nearby villages had come, too, all hoping to strike it rich." (p. 51). The crushing poverty of the villagers was a major motive behind their looting. (p. 54). [So also was the crushing poverty of WWII- and post-WWII Poles in the looting of Jewish properties.]

Massive looting of archeological treasures took place after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Without exaggeration, some 13,000 objects were stolen. (p. 1). This has been a problem all over the world, as manifested by headless Buddhas in Cambodia, and nameless places where one can see such things as "...giant holes that show where looters gouged out tombs." (p. 243). [The latter is reminiscent of the looter's holes at Treblinka, begun by members of the Soviet Army using explosives.]

This work elaborates on some remedial measures to reduce the extent of global archeological looting. It is not easy. For instance, it is difficult to prove that an object was looted. (p. 195).

In the area of antiquity theft this book is a tour de force, a fast-paced revelation of the dark side of the modern world of antiques. Stealing antiquities in Iraq under battleground conditions, stealing them at night with tomb robbers in Peru, stealing them by lobbying in the US capitol, and stealing them by international, high stakes illicit, money-laundering operations funded by organized crime, you name it, the sky's the limit for Atwood. The most rewarding part of this book is in the last few chapters where Atwood advances solutions. They necessarily deal with legal language, model legislation and proposals for change and they are ambitious and pitched at the global level, but they are bound to put a dent in a great deal of the illegal action. In his book Atwood shows how museums will have to change their ways, dealers will have to give up part of a lucrative business, and governments will have to enact legislation without succumbing to pressure from the antiquities lobbies, and "...unless changes come, the current system will deprive everyone whoever will live of part of the collective memory that makes us human."

One drawback of his book is that it concentrates on Peru, though he includes a great section on repatriation of the Parthenon marbles. In the process of researching that subject, he elicited a statement in an interview with the director of the British Museum that puts the Museum's position in a nutshell, in that the marbles, "...have a purpose here which they can fulfill nowhere else..."

This book is a must-read for any archaeology student. I agree with other reviewers that the title is somewhat misleading, however the author uses the site of Sipan only as a case study. He includes information about many other sites and legal cases as they fit in with topics covered in the case study. The best part of this book is that the author actually offers plausible suggestions for solving the problem, not just complaining about it. I am, of course, against tomb robbing, but I also value the material available in museums. I recomend that readers also look into the museum and collector's positions in order to form your own opinion. This book is very persuasive (especially the photos), but I would still try to keep an open mind.

Though the author limited the scope of the book to the Sipan site in Peru, he does a fascinating job of describing the unique relationship between looters, smugglers, antiquies dealers, collectors, museums, and politics. And Atwood does it all by telling the tale as if it were a story, not just facts and figures regarding the antiquities market. Other than his political views coming through a little too much in certain sections, the book was a great read and hard to put down!