
EBay is saving archeology by killing the antiquities market - terpua
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/05/ebay-is-saving-archeology-by-killing-the-antiquities-market.ars
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mblakele
The summary is pretty good, but the actual article is available and isn't much
longer: <http://www.archaeology.org/0905/etc/insider.html>

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ars
I understand if someone makes a fake de-novo, and passes it off as antique -
that can really mess up knowledge of the past.

But what is the difference between a replica of an item made today, and an
item made in the past, if both are made by exactly the same methods?

They are identical - both were made by humans, both are made of the same
thing, and by the same method, just one had some time go by. Why does that
matter?

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pietro
One of them has a story, the other doesn't. People care deeply about stories.

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eru
Yes. As an interesting aside, some famous forgeries acquire their own stories.

