# Ethics and Heritage Management

History I · Archaeology · https://tryals.app/learn/history-i/ethics-and-heritage-management

## Who Owns the Past?

Archaeology's evidence is finite, and everyone claims it: communities, states, museums, and collectors. **Heritage management** is the field where those claims collide.

A looted object survives, but its **context** does not. Looting converts evidence into decoration.

| Instrument | Year | Core Provision |
|---|---|---|
| **Hague** | 1954 | Protects cultural property in war |
| **UNESCO** | 1970 | Bars illicit import/export |
| **World Heritage** | 1972 | Sites of universal value |
| **NAGPRA** | 1990 | Returns Native American remains |

The 1970 UNESCO Convention is the bright line for acquisitions. **NAGPRA** recognized that descendant communities hold primary claims to ancestors.

## The Hard Cases and Ethics

The Parthenon Marbles, Benin Bronzes, and human remains pose the central question: does past legality settle the matter, or does the descendant community's claim outrank current title?

**Professional ethics** forbid archaeologists from appraising unprovenienced material, ensuring expertise never serves the market.

Descendant communities have standing to speak for their ancestors. Consultation is not a mere courtesy; it is a fundamental condition of doing the work at all.

Where the discipline once asked what we may study, it now asks **with whom**.

## Practice questions

9 of this lesson's 14 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Why do professional codes forbid archaeologists from appraising unprovenienced antiquities?

A. Expert authentication raises value and stimulates looting
B. Unprovenienced objects are always fakes
C. Archaeologists lack the training to value objects
D. Appraisal is legally restricted to auction houses

**Answer:** A. Expert authentication raises value and stimulates looting

**Why:** An expert opinion is the one thing the illicit market cannot manufacture, and the thing that converts a doubtful object into a priced one. Withholding it is the profession’s most direct lever against the trade.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/ethics-and-heritage-management/why-do-professional-codes-forbid-archaeologists-from-appraising

### 2. Order the milestones in the protection of cultural heritage.

**Answer:**

1. Hague Convention protects cultural property in war (1954)
2. UNESCO Convention against illicit trafficking (1970)
3. World Heritage Convention lists sites of universal value (1972)
4. NAGPRA requires repatriation to Native American descendants (1990)
5. Museums begin systematic return of the Benin Bronzes (2020s)

**Why:** From protecting property in wartime, to policing the market, to recognizing descendant claims: seventy years in which the question moved from "what is protected?" to "whose is it?"

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/ethics-and-heritage-management/order-the-milestones-in-the-protection-of-cultural-heritage

### 3. Why do archaeologists say looting destroys knowledge even when the object survives intact?

A. Objects deteriorate faster in private hands
B. The object loses its context: date, associations, sequence
C. Looted objects are usually broken in transit
D. It does not: only damage to the object destroys knowledge

**Answer:** B. The object loses its context: date, associations, sequence

**Why:** A pot in a sealed tomb dates the burial, partners its companions, and anchors a sequence; ripped out, it is a shape with a price. Looting converts evidence into decoration, the object is the receipt, not the knowledge.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/ethics-and-heritage-management/why-do-archaeologists-say-looting-destroys-knowledge-even-when-the

### 4. Match each legal instrument to its core provision.

**Answer:**

- Hague Convention (1954) → Protects cultural property in armed conflict
- UNESCO Convention (1970) → The watershed date barring illicit acquisitions
- World Heritage Convention (1972) → Lists sites of outstanding universal value
- NAGPRA (1990) → Returns ancestral remains to descendant nations

**Why:** War, market, sites, ancestors: four instruments, four battlegrounds, and 1970 remains the line every reputable acquisition must clear.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/ethics-and-heritage-management/match-each-legal-instrument-to-its-core-provision

### 5. Sort each action: **ethical practice** or **ethical breach**?

**Answer:**

- Ethical practice: Consulting descendant communities before excavating a cemetery, Publishing full context records for every excavated find
- Ethical breach: Authenticating an unprovenienced antiquity for a dealer, Acquiring material exported without documents after 1970

**Why:** The rescue rationalization ("someone had to save it") is the market’s favorite line, and it funds the next dig. Consultation, publication, and repatriation are what the discipline’s codes actually require.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/ethics-and-heritage-management/sort-each-action-ethical-practice-or-ethical-breach

### 6. A looted vase arrives intact at a museum. Archaeologists say knowledge has been destroyed. What exactly was lost?

A. Nothing scholarly; the loss is entirely a legal and ethical one
B. Its context: the layer, associations and site that dated it
C. Its legal title, which prevents the museum from displaying it
D. Its authenticity, which cannot be verified without excavation records

**Answer:** B. Its context: the layer, associations and site that dated it

**Why:** The vase answers questions about style and little else, while the destroyed context held its date, its associations and its use, the information density was in the ground. This is why professional codes forbid appraising unprovenienced antiquities: valuing them funds the next hole.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/ethics-and-heritage-management/a-looted-vase-arrives-intact-at-a-museum-archaeologists-say

### 7. Because Lord Elgin obtained a permit from the Ottoman authorities, the question of the Parthenon Marbles is settled.

**Answer:** False

**Why:** The permit’s scope and validity are disputed, and legality at the moment of taking does not exhaust the ethics: the Benin Bronzes were also taken "legally" by the standards of an 1897 punitive expedition. Contemporary claims turn on descendant standing, not old paperwork.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/ethics-and-heritage-management/because-lord-elgin-obtained-a-permit-from-the-ottoman-authorities

### 8. What did NAGPRA (1990) change for American archaeology?

A. Institutions had to inventory their holdings and notify tribes
B. Native American remains and sacred objects became repatriable to descendants
C. Consultation with descendant communities became a legal requirement
D. All excavation of Indigenous sites was permanently banned

**Answer:** A. Institutions had to inventory their holdings and notify tribes; B. Native American remains and sacred objects became repatriable to descendants; C. Consultation with descendant communities became a legal requirement

**Why:** Repatriation, inventory, consultation, a structural shift from extraction to negotiation. It did not ban excavation; it changed who holds the pen when the questions get chosen.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/ethics-and-heritage-management/what-did-nagpra-1990-change-for-american-archaeology

### 9. The UNESCO Convention on illicit trafficking, the bright line for museum acquisitions, dates from which year? **Set the slider.**

**Answer:** 1970 (within ±5)

**Why:** 1970. Reputable institutions now refuse anything that left its country of origin after that date without documentation, a single year functioning as the market’s conscience.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/ethics-and-heritage-management/the-unesco-convention-on-illicit-trafficking-the-bright-line-for