Sturt Manning, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Classical Archaeology in the classics department, writes in this CNN opinion piece that Hobby Lobby's decision to buy more than 5,000 artifacts from the ancient Near East in December 2010 is "tragic."
"These objects have been ripped out of archaeological sites with no documentation and now forever lack context and key associations -- the kind of valuable information possible only with careful scientific excavation by archaeologists," Manning writes. "This looting occurs because there is, sadly, a market for these objects -- even if this trade is illegal in many countries. We will now never know the full archaeological history of the 5,548 objects Hobby Lobby bought for $1.6 million."
Read the entire CNN piece here.
