I have to admit I learned more about Sgt. This relic hunter’s name is John Kendrick, and he and I went back and forth several times via email. But I had just read Finders Keepers, and that brought my understanding to a much higher level, where the “good” and the “bad” were not so easily distinguished. Since I’d recently helped to organize local archaeologist Randy Daum’s presentation on his “Old Farms” archaeology dig – our town’s own notable piece of buried history (a Colonial village from the late 17th century) – I might have been quick to pass judgment on a relic hunter as someone stealing history from the rest of us for their own gain. F, and he wondered if the Hatfield Historical Society might have any additional information on Graves. Edwin Graves, of the 37th Massachusetts Regiment, Co. He’d purchased a gold badge that had belonged to Hatfield Civil War soldier Sgt. (Aug.Two years ago, not long after my “ I n Praise of Provenance” post where I talked about the issues raised in Craig Childs’ book Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession, I got an email from a Virginia man who organizes Civil War relic hunting trips. This is an engaging and thought-provoking look at one of the art and artifacts' world's most heated debates. But, he says, artifacts that cannot safely be left in place should go to museums. He is also unhappy with the legal sale of relics to collectors, which he believes led to "more digging and smuggling." His own "collection" consists of finds he has left in place across the Southwest.
Childs is critical of museum facilities inadequate to protect items that archeologists removed from their sites precisely to preserve them from destruction. On the other hand, he scrutinizes the "stewardship" of past archeologists who removed sacred objects when "o one thought indigenous cultures would survive to start demanding their things back," returns now required by U.S. Questioning whether artifacts should be left in place, Childs argues that although surface surveys and electronic imaging permit study of buried objects without digging, that reliance on technology risks the loss of the "physical connection to the memory of ancient people." Yet he mourns the loss of context that comes from removing, say, the Temple of Dendur from its natural environment. Childs (The Animal Dialogues) intermingles personal experiences as a desert ecologist and adventurer with a journalistic look at scientists, collectors, museum officials, and pot hunters to explore what should happen to ancient artifacts.
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