un: 46692 ; text ; 2/1

[escardos]

hey guys! happy vday and stuff! quick q!

how much time needs to pass for grave robbing to become archaeology? like, if i pull a gold bracelet out of a pyramid, i've made an archaeological find. if i pull one out of the common graveyard, i'm a dick. whats the waiting period for looting the dead?

Comments

UN:ThreeCoffins

[improbablenotimpossible]

Good question, actually. At least two hundred years, would be my estimate - long enough for most people who would know the person to no longer be around.

Or if you're an archeologist from the 19th and early 20th century, any time is archeology long as the grave you're robbing isn't from anyone you know.

[escardos]

i mean, i guess i could google it, but it is more fun to ask everyone.

huh, things really were wild in the victorian era!!! did you grave rob mister holmes?

[improbablenotimpossible]

This is an area I suspect would have some wildly different answers. Having permission is I believe another key point between grave robbing and archeology.

Yes, that era would seem wild by modern standards, wouldn't it? It's a time when the citizens of the British Empire were full of pride and arrogance, for the sun never sets on it and it seems every day a new discovery in the fields of science was being made, giving false confidence in that they are the Masters of the world, rather than residents.

As for graverobbing... yes, in a technical sense. It gets murky when it comes to vampires.

UN: Epicyon

[heromedal]

I do not think time is the major variable. The significant element is how unknown the identity of the grave resident is- for example, it will likely never be possible to loot the grave of Lincoln Tomb without objection because its contents are well recorded. On the other hand, if there is an unmarked grave exhumed for the purpose of identifying the dead person it is possible for that to be acceptable. Time is a factor in determining the progress, but not the key quality.

Also the intentions of the person doing the digging. For personal profit vs academic study.

[escardos]

once enough time passes and you all turn to dust, the new humanity will probably see the lincoln tomb the same way that we see the egyptian pyramids.

i mean, if you kill someone for academic study vs personal profit, is one better than the other?

un: xx_heartoffire_xx

[stavros]

Are they cursed?

[escardos]

maybe? it was all hypothetical. but it probably would be, huh?

un: hemlock

[spelleton]

If the occupants are animate and sentient enough to object, or they have living descendants who still consider the grave ancestral property it's graverobbing no matter what the original time period is, I believe

Most archaeology happens to be graverobbing by that metric but that certainly didn't stop anyone.

If none of those rules apply then wait a few hundred years probably. [ He's not that interested in archaeology but a few hundred years seems like a safe bet. ]

[escardos]

ok but what if you're legally declared dead but are still animate and sentient. i guess kinda like you/mister holmes/mister hector etc etc

UN: FinalBossy

[descolation]

[Clearly this question requires all of her impressive knowledge on the subject. ]

Probably a really long time! Desco would say at least thirty years!

[She's Helping.]

[escardos]

that's a lot shorter than i thought ppl would say!

so if your dad dies (is he dead?) and someone waits 30 years to take from his grave, then it'd be archaeology?

[hawkwardness]

[This is the third ridiculous post from the same guy. Is that like, a thing people do on the internet?? Maybe he should try it.]

Five thousand years.

[escardos]

thats a really long time! do you not like archaeology?

un: werther

[imitationsoul]

I don't believe there is a hard line. It depends on two things:

1. How well you make your argument, because the art of speech is really what makes or breaks a social construct.

2. What kind of events have occurred since the death of the person. Normally it would be frowned upon to open the casket of someone who died only 20 years ago, but imagine Nightfall occurred and left humanity with only very few survivors. Knowledge of the old world would wind up being lost much faster, raising the value of sepulchral culture at a much greater speed!

[escardos]

totally agree! i'd also have to say that money probably has a lot to do with it too, since you can probably buy your way into and out of most situations, huh?

but i think it'd be fun, no? like, imagine we all turn to dust bc of nightfall or some other horrible catastrophe...i think it'd be super cool for our survivors to take the scraps that remain from our lives and study them under a microscope.

UN: JOJO2

[standless]

[wait

wait!!! wait-]

Oh dear...

It shames me to say but I've never actually considered this question. I don't want to say it felt obvious, but somehow I just never thought....

oh

[escardos]

are you a grave robber?!

UN: REIRA

[soft_focus]

[it's reira she's back again with the hot takes]

It's still stealing if it's from a pyramid.

Don't be mean to dead people.

[escardos]

ehh? so you think that would be being mean to the dead?

[nor_iron_bars]

mostly it comes down to who you sell it to.
if you gotta arrange a clandestine meeting at 2AM with a couple drug lords and a museum curator, it's archaeology.
if you get 50 bucks for it at a pawnshop, it's graverobbing.

[escardos]

woah so that's how museums get their content?!

[playitagain]

Hm...

"Do they have living grandchildren?" seems like a fair way to judge.

[escardos]

ok but what if they dont? what if they died without children?

or what if they ask the grandchildren for permission?

[hatesdeerstalkers]

Flat, don't rob any graves. It's rude.

[JUST PUTTING THAT OUT THERE]

[escardos]

didnt plan to! it’d be very rude!