Robbery excavation

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This article or paragraph presents the situation in Germany and Austria . Help us to describe the situation in other countries.

A robbery excavation is the targeted search for fixed or mobile ground monuments contrary to the legal norms that regulate digging for ground monuments. As a rule, they are carried out under ignorance or disregard of scientific standards and thereby destroy valuable information that would enable a more precise historical classification of the finds. The main motif is the illegal trade in archaeological finds and art objects , known as stealing from antiquities .

Digs

Objects of crime are ground monuments, i.e. archaeological or - if provided for under monument law - paleontological cultural monuments . Examples of this are grave fields, castles, Roman forts, but also prehistoric settlements.

Legal situation

Warning of robbery excavations at the ruins of the Raffenburg in Hagen

Germany

Monument law

Various interest groups (“treasure hunters”, antique dealers ) have an interest in excavating monuments in the ground to extract finds - and thereby destroying them - while others want to keep them as intact as possible ( preservation of monuments , archaeological research). The resulting conflicts in Germany are governed by public law, predominantly in monument protection laws, in that an “excavation or research permit” must be issued before an archaeological site can be examined. The permit can be provided with conditions or requirements, for example restricted to certain areas or stipulating that findings and findings are to be documented in a prescribed standard.

The responsibility to issue such a permit is assigned to different authorities, depending on the federal state. In the case of accidental finds, there is an obligation to report to the competent authority, usually the monument authority, the State Office for Monument Preservation .

Ownership of the property

It should also be noted that in addition to this permission under monument law, the property owner must also have permission to enter and dig on his property. Otherwise, offenses such as trespassing or property damage come into consideration.

Ownership of the find

There is also a need for legal regulation with regard to who finds objects belong to and who will own them . In Germany, this is partly regulated under civil law via Section 984 of the German Civil Code (in Bavaria ), and partly under public law via the monument protection laws (other federal states ). Robbery excavations are usually characterized by the fact that the find - and thus the property - are withheld. Anyone who buys, exchanges or sells such finds can commit stolen goods .

Sanctions

Consequences of a violation of the mentioned regulations can be:

  • in case of violation of the monument protection laws, fines according to the monument protection law;
  • criminal prosecution;
  • Collection of used equipment (metal detectors, excavation tools, etc.);
  • Confiscation of finds;
  • possible recourse for damage caused;
  • civil law claims of the owner, be it the owner from whose property the find was taken, be it the state whose treasury was violated.

Austria

In Austria, a uniform monument protection law applies to all federal states . A permit for research or excavation for archaeological monuments can only be issued by the Federal Monuments Office to persons who have completed a relevant university degree.

Regulations similar to those in Germany apply to ground monuments discovered by chance. The report must be made no later than the working day following the day on which it is found. The site must be left unchanged until it is assessed by the monument office.

The ownership structure in the case of soil finds is regulated by Section 399 of the General Civil Code , which provides for a division in equal parts between the finder and the property owner. There is no treasure shelf in Austria, as in most of the German federal states.

Robbery excavations

If an excavation violates one of the aforementioned regulations, it is called a robbery .

In addition, the term is still used outside of these legal categories if an excavation is carried out with the legally required permits, but without the necessary care of an archaeological-scientific documentation with regard to the findings and finds , so that the archaeological monument is damaged or destroyed in its original substance without this loss being replaced by documentation (plans, photographs, drawings, excavation diary ). This constellation is more theoretical, however, since in practice the excavation or research permit is only given to those applicants who guarantee that they will provide the necessary documentation. Robbery graves are now equipped with technical equipment with which they search for finds. This started with metal detectors . Many German ground monuments are now almost completely metal-free on the surface. Other technologies are now also being used, such as ground penetrating radar .

history

Robbery excavations in the modern sense have only existed since the cultural category soil monument was created and thus could also be an object of research or monument protection. Robbery excavations are a relatively new phenomenon since the beginning of legislation in the 19th century. Robbery excavations have recently increased. A growing, largely illegal, market for antiquities offers financial incentives for robbery excavations. In addition, the search with metal detectors has become a widespread hobby in recent years, with only a fraction of probe users working together with specialist science and monument conservation.

The illegal excavation, however, is in the form of grave robbery , so the "treasure hunting", an old phenomenon. These have existed since prehistoric times , when valuable gifts were placed in graves . Then as now, such perpetrators disregarded existing protective regulations out of financial interest - and today often because of the "fun" of an exciting search.

To this day, robbery excavations are often played down as a treasure hunt and perceived as a peculiar offense. Drastic prison terms for robbery were imposed in 2011 and 2012 in the UK, Greece and China. In principle, prison sentences for robbery excavations and stealing from antiquities were threatened as early as the 19th century.

Damage from robbery

Traces of a robbery: holes in the field

Robbery excavations can cause various types of damage:

  • Secured scientific knowledge is prevented: The undocumented and unspecific digging for historical objects destroys artefacts and the findings that may be materially worthless, but archeological and cultural-historical significant artefacts . The exact context of a find is critical to its scientific value. The combination with other finds, but also the exact location, can provide information about people in the past or at least provide significant source-critical observations.
  • Improper "restorations" by robbers often destroy the object itself.
  • Predatory graves select the finds: metal finds are taken away, the ceramic finds, which are often more important for dating, are discarded, but taken out of their original context.
  • Property is withdrawn from the landowner - or, if there is a treasure trove , the state representing the public.
  • Finds are lost to the general public. - As a rule, they are not available for processing, if only because of the effort involved in determining the current storage location. Finds in private ownership are often disposed of in the event of inheritance.
  • The sale of finds encourages further robbery excavations and antiquity .
  • In the case of graves of fallen soldiers, stealing dog tags can irrevocably destroy the possibility of identifying the dead.
  • There is an increased need for action for the ground monument preservation, which is already insufficiently staffed, which further limits the possibilities of scientific supervision of construction sites.

Examples

Nebra Sky Disc
  • The find of the Nebra Sky Disc, brought to light by a robbery excavation, attracted particular public attention . Despite subsequent excavations and a research project, the circumstances in which the disc and the allegedly associated daggers were deposited have not been completely resolved without any doubt, as the context of the findings was destroyed by the robbery graves.
  • The Berlin gold hat , which came on the market as looted archeology and of which there is no reliable knowledge of the circumstances of the find. Therefore it is still not clear what its function actually was. Also all information is lost that the golden hat could have provided about the role of its place of discovery in the settlement structure of the Bronze Age. The local citizens are deprived of an attraction and an object of identification.
  • For decades, organized robbery excavations have been taking place in all states with ancient high cultures. B. Whole necropolises were and are turned into funnel fields. Robbery graves are currently particularly active in Iraq , Syria and Egypt , where archaeological sites are being destroyed on a large scale.
  • At the Heidentor (Egesheim) a prehistoric sanctuary was visited by robber graves in the 1990s, who found hundreds of dating metal brooches here, but left behind glass beads and ceramic shards. Exact stratigraphic observations and distribution analyzes could probably have shown whether the sacrificial customs had changed over the course of time. The finds were offered for sale under the pretense of a false location of the Prehistoric State Collection in Munich in order to benefit from the more liberal handling of ownership in Bavaria. The experts recognized the finds as outside Bavaria.
  • In autumn 2010, Helmut Thoma admitted that he had looted a grave in the ancient city of Palmyra . The historical connection between the sculptures he stole and illegally brought to Germany and now on display in his private living room is lost forever - an important source for the social history of the desert city was deliberately destroyed.
  • In Apamea am Orontes , the archaeological site was almost completely destroyed by robbery excavations between 2011 and spring 2013 during the civil war in Syria . The scope indicates a planned procedure with the aim of supplying the illegal international markets.
  • In Rülzheim a late antique hoard was unearthed by a probe . Under pressure from police investigations, he delivered the find to the preservation authorities in early 2014. Subsequent excavations could no longer provide any information on the storage of the objects. Reconstructions of the finds are made more difficult, statements about the conditions for laying down are no longer possible.

exhibition

literature

Web publications:

Filmography

  • Archaeologists, looters and the Queen of Sheba . Documentation, 60 min., Production: arte , director: Karel Prokop, broadcast: February 17, 2007, on youtube, in 6 parts .
  • Adventure knowledge : the prince's grave at the crime scene. Documentation, 30 min., Production: ZDF , broadcast: January 24, 2007, summary ( memento from August 19, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) by ZDF.
  • Gold mine Bulgaria : a paradise for archaeologists and art thieves. Documentation, 7 min., Author: Tom Fugmann, production: WDR , broadcast: January 21, 2007.
  • Greece's Treasure Island. Smuggling antiquities on a large scale. Documentation, 6 min., Author: Christoph Spielberger, production: ZDF- aspekte , broadcast: February 2, 2006, table of contents by aspekte.
  • A culture is pillaged - the business of grave robbers in Peru . 2000, director: Hans Giffhorn, production: arte, first broadcast: September 9, 2000.

Web links

General
Germany
Italy
Switzerland

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Grave robbery is not a trivial offense". Interview on Helmut Thoma's grave robbery confession
  2. ^ Archaeologik (December 27, 2012): Prison sentences for probe users ; Archeology (September 27, 2011): Most severe punishments for robbery graves in China
  3. ↑ "Archeology (July 18, 2011): Prison sentence for the purchase of looted archeology"
  4. ^ Austrian-German media manager Helmut Thoma plundered UNESCO world heritage site of Palmyra ArchaeoNews ( memento of December 9, 2010 in the Internet Archive ); Archeology (November 15, 2010)
  5. ↑ The total destruction of Apamea on the Orontes: Syria in April 2013. Archeology (April 30, 2013)
  6. ↑ A robber in the magic forest - the destruction of a spring during the migration period. Archeology (February 21, 2014)
  7. ↑ Axel von Berg u. a .: Deprived of history - the late antique treasure trove of Rülzheim . In: Blickpunkt Archäologie 2/2014, pp. 52–55.