Consenting with the UNESCO guidelines, nearly all countries with looting problems have enacted laws that prohibit looting. However, the laws vary in severity and enforcement, according to Steponaitis.

In addition to the actual looting of items, another illegality question arises with the smuggling of looted objects.

The Senate ratified the United States' accord with the 1970 UNESCO convention in 1972, but did not pass implementing legislation until 1983.

Since that date, the import of illegally acquired archaeological artifacts--whether taken into the U.S. by looters themselves or by dealers--has been illegal.

However, there is no law against the exhibition of undocumented pieces.

The Documentation Process

Responding to the UNESCO convention, museums and galleries worldwide established policies prohibiting the acceptance of undocumented pieces.

Harvard's 1971 policy was one of the first, HUAM sources say.

According to Winter, the drafters of the policy--both HUAM representatives and University officials--wanted to "adequately reflect the concerns of the UNESCO convention for the preservation of archaeological sites."

To that end, the committee required "reasonable assurance" that the object had valid documentation.

"Normally, documentation means that it has been scientifically excavated so that there is a precise and detailed record of exactly where [it has been excavated]," says Hester A. Davis, state archaeologist for Arkansas and chair of the Society of American Archaeology's Committee on Ethics.

"It is necessary for interpreting the nature, the age, the use of that particular object," she said.

In HUAM, Winter wants to see the establishment of a form, to be filled out by the curator, that would give the excavational and exhibitional history of a piece.

"We should leave a paper trail on every object acquired or shown to be sure that it does conform with our policies, in advance," she says.

From the archaeological point of view, documentation helps to provide a bulwark against the practice of looting.