3 ms·

I'm imagining it's parallel to cops announcing the value of drug seizures at (variously inaccurate) estimates of "street value", but for black market antiques.

• azinman2 5y ago
  It could also be how much it costs to repair the damage they did.
  • jameshart 5y ago
    'repair' is a bit of a fuzzy concept when you're talking about an archaeological site, though, still more when we're talking about a site that was caught up in a volcanic eruption. You can literally never repair it to the state it was in before the robbery, in the sense of restoring it to a pristine condition as it was left by the eruption.
    • fragmede 5y ago
      You can also literally never step in the same river twice, but that's a bit more metaphysical than literal. Photos by the robbers before they vandalized the site would be invaluable. Nowhere near as good as if they'd left it intact, but better than nothing.
      • jameshart 5y ago
        The whole question of this thread is how they are putting a ‘value’ on the damage done. If photos (which presumably do not exist) of the site in pristine pre-robbery condition existed would be, as you say, ‘invaluable’, then how can we put a value on the damage done?