A couple of articles published this past week has highlighted the ongoing battle between nautical archaeologists and treasure hunters. The archaeologists have long claimed that since the treasure hunters are not trained in underwater archaeology many important clues about the cultural heritage of these sites are lost forever during the salvage of treasure. The treasure hunters retort that if it wasn't for them no one would have known about these sites to begin with.
The first essay entitled "Insider: Profiteers on the High Seas", is pro archaeology - "the clock continues to tick on the world's sunken ships. It's time to put science ahead of the Almighty Dollar, and cultural heritage ahead of the bottom line of private corporations. If we don't, we will truly be missing the boat."
http://www.archaeology.org/0707/etc/insider.html
The second "Curators Under the Sea", is pro treasure hunter - "The real bottom line is this: if treasure hunters didn’t do this kind of work, no one would. Without them and the people they work with — the divers, fishermen, tipsters and amateur historians — many of these wrecks would stay lost forever. Without the lure of a big and romantic payoff, no one would even look."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/opinion/08kurson.html
Odyssey Marine recovered more than 500,000 coins from the Black Swan site. It has been stated that the coins are in mint state, which to me means they are pretty much identical. Since the archaeologists are against selling any recovered artifact for profit just what would they do with the 499,000 coins that they didn't have a need for? I keep thinking about the ending of the "Raiders of the lost Ark" where the curators boxed the ark and placed it in the huge warehoused inventory of artifacts, never to be seen again.
Shipwrecks of Isle Royale National Park: The Archeological Survey
