First, it recounts the tale of the now famous Euphronios krater, bought by the Metropolitan Museum of art in 1972 for $1 million, and explains how the looting and trade of antiquities like the Euphronios krater can damage archaeological heritage, thereby weakening or compromising historical scholarship. This chapter examines by way of four case studies various harmful manifestations of the antiquities trade. and while traditionally, the antiquities trade has been in the hands of specialist dealers, the increasing availability of illicit antiquities on the open market has opened opportunities for more routine criminal involvement and profit.

Nevertheless, this regulation has not succeeded in controlling or reducing the trade, and since the 1950s the material volume and monetary value of the trade have risen at an alarming rate. Over time, as the material damage caused by the looting of antiquities came to be recognized, proliferating national and international laws placed the antiquities trade under progressively stronger statutory regulation, so that increasingly it has been made illegal.

Since at least the eighteenth century, antiquities have been taken from archaeological sites, monuments and museums and traded internationally. although the term ‘antiquities’ is in general usage, and seems to enjoy some consensus of understanding, there is no agreed date-threshold for separating antiquities from ‘non-antiquities’, and so it should be born in mind that the term is subject to a certain fluidity of meaning. examples might include ceramic or metal vessels, statues or parts of statues, or broken off pieces of architecture.

Antiquities are generally held to comprise individual objects or parts of larger objects or structures that were made in ancient times (antiquity).

Download euphronios sarpedon krater