Any thoughts on wreck looting?

[KenGordon]

Things in the UK, Australia, and Europe in general are far more restrictive than they are over here. If I found some cannons in a muddy river, you can bet your a$$ I'm going to salvage them. That man-o-war found in the Thames was left for centuries to rot and then all of sudden the government cares when divers find it and want some awesome keepsakes?

I've heard about people tearing apart wrecks for the wood to use as furniture. Now if the wreck is a busted up pile of wood that has no historic value to it, then by all means go to town. However if we're talking about a warship from one of our wars (only 4 major ones were fought on our soil), that may require some deliberation. If it's a wargrave were we have remains on it, then that's the line that should be drawn.

The Mary Rose was left to rot for hundreds of years. Should the club that found it have made a nice table and chairs out of it?

All that rubbish the Romans and Egyptians left lying about? Just let people pick it up and decorate their bathrooms?

Most of the real wrecks involved people dying. Some of the most tragic were not at war. In a war there is a point to it at least. Some drunk or idiot in charge of a ship load of people gettting it wrong is a tragedy too.

Do the T&Cs exclude calling someone a philistine?

 

[Jared0425]

The Mary Rose was left to rot for hundreds of years. Should the club that found it have made a nice table and chairs out of it?

All that rubbish the Romans and Egyptians left lying about? Just let people pick it up and decorate their bathrooms?

I believed I said wrecks of non historical significance.

The Mary Rose went down with some 400 sailors and soldiers so that case is closed. Roman ships usually lie at great depths that divers cannot even get a 1/10 of the way there. Let's just say for giggles that you financed a expedition to find a Roman wreck in deep water. ROVs, survey equipment, and ship costs are quite high. If you find an ancient wreck it is your own prerogative if you want to keep what you find.

So yea have at it. Why arnt divers and normal people entitled to some artifacts?

 

[lermontov]

KWS, aside from ignoring admiralty law and such, you're not looking at the economics of insurance status. In an insurer paid out for a wreck in 1830, when simply trying to locate the wreck would have cost a fortune, and trying to reach the wreck and salvage it might not have been technically possible, there was and is every good reason for the insurer to let it lie there, until someone can say "Oh hey, there's our ship, and we can actually get down to it now". Without spending a fortune trying to locate it. So yes, it still belongs to the folks who took over the title to it--the insurer or otherwise. And the million pounds or dollars that they paid out in 1830 otherwise would have been INVESTED for all these years. Simple compound interest over the last 200 years would turn pennies into fortunes, so every year that goes by without the insurer making a salvage operation, they are actually PAYING OUT large amounts of money, tied up in their "investment" that cannot be redeemed. Yet.

I very much doubt thats whats the insurance company have in mind when paying out a claim ( waiting for a long term investment to mature ) there would never be a sufficient return on investment unless its something unexpected like some mineral in the cargo hold that has become in great demand. insurance companies owning the wreck is akin to councils owning a rubbish pit

 

[KenGordon]

I believed I said wrecks of non historical significance.

The Mary Rose went down with some 400 sailors and soldiers so that case is closed. Roman ships usually lie at great depths that divers cannot even get a 1/10 of the way there. Let's just say for giggles that you financed a expedition to find a Roman wreck in deep water. ROVs, survey equipment, and ship costs are quite high. If you find an ancient wreck it is your own prerogative if you want to keep what you find.

So yea have at it. Why arnt divers and normal people entitled to some artifacts?

Because it is theft.

Those cannon which you describe as keepsakes were take on HMS London. Some bloke, known for his diary, wrote at the time:

“This morning is brought me to the office the sad newes of “The London,” in which Sir J(ohn) Lawson’s men were all bringing her from Chatham to the Hope, and thence he was to go to sea in her; but a little a’this side the buoy of the Nower, she suddenly blew up. About 24 [men] and a woman that were in the round-house and coach saved; the rest, being above 300, drowned: the ship breaking all in pieces, with 80 pieces of brass ordnance. She lies sunk, with her round- house above water. Sir J(ohn) Lawson hath a great loss in this of so many good chosen men, and many relations among them. I went to the ‘Change, where the news taken very much to heart”

So, 300 dead and noted in the most famous contemporary document. How historic do you want?

My Roman and Egyptian point is about land based antiquities. I assume that you would agree that picking up and walking off with finds on land is wrong? So why is the sea different? Because you can’t easily see the theft?

Where I live we have historical artefacts going back a long time. Some of those are of no obvious value and many are destroyed by farming, building and so forth. Our understanding how people lived is based on the careful study of those things, many of which are invisible to casual view. For example Dartmoor is covered in former dwellings, but looks like a rock field until you start marking it out.

Your attitude is exactly the one that leads to the loss of the historical record.

 

[Jared0425]

I recall many British and French expeditions that ran off with artifacts. I also remember the musuem destroying some. I stand by what I said. If you finance a expedition to the Valley of the Kings and find a tomb. Have at it. I doubt anything will change in understanding on how ancient Egyptians lived.

How many of the same items does a musuem need to determine how they lived? What's the construction difference between HMS London and the HMS Victory? I also said that if you are not going to spend the time, effort, and money to restore artifacts then you're better off leaving them on the wreck.

The sea has always been different than that of land. The law of the sea is finders keepers, not finders givers. If you find them, then it's your prerogative on what YOU do with it. Not the government's.

 

[Rred]

I've been called worse names than that.(G)

Funny how they don't teach anyone how Catherine the Great died, until you're at least in college. Makes history way more fun than memorizing the Tudor lineage.

"How many of the same items does a museum need to determine how they lived?"
Funny thing, I unearthed an intact Iron Age pottery base once. Unusual for us to have found completely intact bases. Took it to our supervisor all excited, and he said "Eh, we've got plenty of those." So my plunder includes a three of four thousand year old vase base--which the authorities simply didn't want. Gives you a reminder of perspective, to have curios that are that old.

On the other hand, if there had been written inscriptions on it...off it would have gone.

 

[EireDiver606]

If there are thousands upon thousands of bullets or 20mm shells and you took one, are you allowed to?

 

[EireDiver606]

I’

I recall many British and French expeditions that ran off with artifacts. I also remember the musuem destroying some. I stand by what I said. If you finance a expedition to the Valley of the Kings and find a tomb. Have at it. I doubt anything will change in understanding on how ancient Egyptians lived.

How many of the same items does a musuem need to determine how they lived? What's the construction difference between HMS London and the HMS Victory? I also said that if you are not going to spend the time, effort, and money to restore artifacts then you're better off leaving them on the wreck.

The sea has always been different than that of land. The law of the sea is finders keepers, not finders givers. If you find them, then it's your prerogative on what YOU do with it. Not the government's.[/QUOTE
In Ireland I’m pretty sure it’s the governments and you have to have a permit to dive most of the wreck here legally

 

[pepperbelly]

I assume the British Museum is returning all of the artifacts that were looted from Egypt? I believe they may even have some ruler's bodies?

 

[Bryan@Vintage Double Hose]

It's very popular these days to desecrate, destroy and or remove any semblance of the non politically correct graves and monuments that are land based here in the us as well.....