Yahoo AncientArtifacts: Gotta have friends in the "right places"

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So how to get antiquities through customs when many of the source countries have legislation forbidding such exports? Funnily enough, it seems that on the closed access Yahoo AncientArtifacts discussion list at the moment the gathered collectors and dealers are swapping information on precisely this, how to sneak stuff through customs without it getting stopped and opened. Perhaps that is the sort of information that should be kept behind closed doors, don't want that getting into the wrong hands do we? There are far more damaging things one can smuggle in and out of countries than portable antiquities. Still, that does not explain why antiquity dealers and collectors feel they are above the regulations which govern the activities of the rest of us.