Treasure Seekers

Overview

Archaeology Turns from Passion to Plunder Archaeology was born of treasure-seeking, but it became the stimulus for rampant pillaging of antiquities in the 18th and 19th centuries. This program charts the escalation of archaeological acquisition from gentlemanly passion to national plunder, from Lord Elgin and the marble friezes of the Parthenon to Richard Lepsius and his Egyptian collection that took sixty barges to transport to Berlin. Also examined is how greed gave way to altruism and preservation, most notably under August Mariette, the acquisitions expert for the Louvre who curtailed the sacking of Egypt and created the Cairo Museum.