Page 28 - Green - Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook. 2nd ed

Chapter 1: Introduction to Maritime Archaeology 7
worth a large amount, have often fooled the unwary treasure hunter (working on the theory that the numismatic value of a coin is say, £200, so because I have 10,000, this means I have £2,000,000). In the same way, the investor who has a coin worth £100,000, because there are only four in the world, is faced with the danger of a hitherto unknown wreck site which is found to have 10,000 of these coins. Christie’s also sold dinner services as lots:
A magnificent dinner service . . . four tureens and covers, 25.5 cm diameter. Four dishes, 42 cm diameter. Eight dishes, 39 cm diameter. Four deep dishes, 38 cm diameter. Six dishes, 35.5 cm diameter. Sixteen dishes, 32 cm diameter. Eigh- teen dishes, 29 cm diameter. Twelve saucer dishes, 26 cm diameter. Eight jars and covers, 11.5 cm wide. Twelve salt cellars, 8.5 cm wide. One hundred and forty-four soup plates, 23 cm diameter. One hundred and forty-four plates, 23 cm diameter £–100,000 to 15,000.
There were about 17 dinner services auctioned, mostly smaller than those illustrated above. The suggested price in the catalog was generally far exceeded at the time of the auction, often by up to ten times. The auction was the second highest total for a Christie’s sale and no doubt, for them, a very profitable operation. From this moment on, shipwreck treasure hunting was not just looking for gold and silver.
The whole problem of course started much earlier. It must be remem- bered that this started at a time when governments, academics, and archae- ologists had no real interest in, or concept of, the extent of the underwater heritage. As a result, the looters made rapid inroads into shallow water sites (up to 40 m). By the mid-1960s, there were growing reports of sites in the Mediterranean being extensively looted. Countries bordering the eastern and western Mediterranean (France, Greece, and Turkey) started to take steps to protect these sites by enacting legislation. These countries, partic- ularly Greece and Turkey, had suffered in the 19th century from terrestrial collectors. Because the underwater looters were more often than not visit- ing tourists (who could afford not only the holiday, but also the expensive diving equipment), the enactment of legislation came easily and was widely accepted by the local people who generally did not have access to this equipment, did not benefit from the process and, more significantly, had a growing interest and pride in their cultural heritage. The treasure hunters in the Caribbean were beginning to run out of really valuable sites and were running into more and more bureaucratic opposition to the process. This opposition gradually extended outside the United States, as international organizations such as UNESCO and the International Council on Monu- ments and Sites (ICOMOS) became concerned that valuable underwater heritage was being lost to a small, elite group of commercial operators. Naturally, the Geldermalsen opened up a huge new opportunity, particularly