
Brazil wins legal fight over 100M-year-old fossil bounty - pseudolus
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01781-8
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ptah
Now if we can just get a courtcase similarto this one for the entire contents
of the British museum and other artifacts looted by pirates like this
one:[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/26/westminster-
ab...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/26/westminster-abbey-
sacrilege-ethiopian-relic)

~~~
polartx
IMO there should be a limited period of time for which nations can lay claim
to 'artifacts', especially when considerable effort to recover them is
expended by a private party. Take for example the Odyssey group that spent
years tracking down, and excavating treasure from an 1804 spanish vessel off
the coast of Portugal
([https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/01/treasure-
trove...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/01/treasure-trove-
galleon-returned-spain)). There's no reason that a judge in Atlanta, should be
able to force a private company to return 200+ year old property found near
Portugal, to Spain that was lost in a dispute with the British.

~~~
Shivetya
I look at it from this standpoint. It is highly unlikely in many parts of the
world that the government now laying claim to an artifact has any relationship
to the government if any at the time that existed in the same area. Just
because you live in the same area should not automatically be an absolute
right.

The care of the artifact must be weighed against those who seek to claim it.

Even items freely given have had attempts to take them back. I also am greatly
concerned with antiquities returning to areas which have experience real
strife if not outright wars. Especially the rash of religion based conflicts
even between sects of the same. We have seen the destruction visited upon
irreplaceable sites and this must be a consideration before any object is sent
to a claimant.

~~~
ganoushoreilly
Sadly the middle east has proven by example that had some of these artifacts
not been removed, they would have been substantially lost by now. It's not an
easy topic to address.

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samcday
Stories like this are kinda amusing when you consider that what it essentially
boils down to is this. Some collections of carbon imbued with sentience are
squabbling over who "owns" some other collections of carbon that were sentient
a few millions years ago.

Maybe a hundred million years from now something will be deciding who gets to
own the carbon remnants of the people involved in this current predicament :)

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diego_moita
Que bacana!

Now we (Brazilians) have something relevant to loose when our next museum
burns down for lack of maintenance.

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dosbre
I'm not sure that's the best destiny for the fossil.

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/09/news-
muse...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/09/news-museu-
nacional-fire-rio-de-janeiro-natural-history/)

~~~
ptah
it can happen anywhere [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-
fire-m...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-fire-master-
recordings.html)

~~~
LunaSea
But in some places it happens more often than others.

