An article in the NYT today looks at how the new “Gospel of Judas” came to light: “The emerging details are raising concerns among some archaeologists and other scholars at a time of growing scrutiny of the dealers who sell antiquities and of the museums and collectors who buy them.” Then there’s this quote:

“We are dealing with a looted object,” said Jane C. Waldbaum, president of the Archaeological Institute of America, a professional society. “The artifact was poorly handled for years because the people holding it were more concerned with making money than protecting it.”

This is ridiculous. It may very well be that the artifact exists because the people holding it were concerned with making money. They had a financial incentive to protect it. Waldbaum’s comment is part and parcel with the academic war on the private antiquities market. A lot of scholars simply can’t stand the fact that ancient items might lie in private collections rather than in their own university warehouses, and so they scorn discoveries such as this one. I wrote on this subject for NRODT in 2002:

The real answer is not simply to tolerate the market but to embrace it by permitting the direct sale of artifacts to the public. This is apostasy among many professional archeologists, but the benefits would be enormous. If they were allowed to sell some of what they dug up, they would have more money for the protection of existing sites and the exploration of new ones. Most looters are peasants trying to earn a little extra money; they might be just as glad to be hired as diggers at excavation sites. …
It’s been said that archeologists handle priceless objects for poor pay. If they could attach a few price tags, though, we’d all wind up the richer for it.