Stealing from ruins/archeological sites

Why do people do this?
i've mostly heard about americans doing these sort of stuff but there is no denying there are entitled assholes all over the world.

youtube.com/watch?v=1DldeXc3Wqo
>i couldn't help myself because 2000 years ago another human being held this brick`
whoop di doo! holy shit that's so deep brah! that's all the reason i need to desecrate an historical site and abuse the hospitality of an entire nation1

anyway. have you ever stolen something or known anyone who's done it? if you have why haven't you killed yourself yet?

I dont ever take anything or deface ruins.

But however I DO cup my balls with my hands and wipe my hands across priceless artifacts when I come across them.

I have also ejaculated into a 2300 year old peice of pottery before

>I have also ejaculated into a 2300 year old peice of pottery before
what does that feel like?

I took a piece of the parthenon and then I lost it in a move

>why haven't you killed yourself yet?

Don't wanna

People do it because they think a little piece of broken pottery / brick that's been lying there for 2000 years isn't important to archaeologists, and it's a neat souvenir. It's just picking some crap up off the ground and going "oh wow this is super old cool!" In reality it's fucking incredible what archaeologists can deduce from a small piece of broken pottery, and I agree that taking shit from sites is bad, even if it seems so minor.
At least the guy admits he was a cunt, most people wouldn't even have that self-awareness.

I had an old roman coin but somebody stole it.

Chinese are the worst they have zero respect whatsoever.

There is literally so much fucking pottery that archaeologists don't even know what to do with it.

This. Most people just want to have a cool piece of history and don't realize what they're doing. Although some people are assholes about it and insist they're not doing anything wrong. There are also a lot of people out there who do it for profit. I live in an area now that's known for professional looting. I guess it can be lucrative, but it's illegal, and incredibly harmful to the archaeological record. It also happens much more than people realize. Last summer I was working at an unlooted site (which is pretty rare), and on a day off, me and some friends went scouting to check out other recorded sites. There was pretty much nothing left of them. It was pretty sad to come across big holes in the ground that have had their history destroyed by people looking to make a buck.

This made me laugh so hard.

Domination. Pure Domination.

still stealing if the victim is rich yeah? and it's never just 1 person who do it it's thousands every year.

One of my old Uni professors once got arrested for urinating on the Arch of Titus when visiting Rome.

>picking up broken pieces of pottery off the ground that beling to no one
>stealing

if it's a historical site it belongs to everyone you dolt. and are you missing how arrogant it is to waltz in to another country and then decide if a piece of pottery that is older then your entire nation is useless trash that's up for grabs?

Americans? Most of that type of theft is done by locals...in Egypt, China, Southeast Asia...etc...its the same type of people who steal copper wire from street lamps for money

Remember when that one dude on /b/ skull fucked a skull from the Paris catacombs?

When I was three years old I took a fist-sized piece of stonework from the Herculaneum site. By the time my parents noticed we were hundreds of miles away.

Now it sits on a shelf in my dad's office (he's an architect).

stealing, for example, a loaf of bread because you're hungry is a little less scummy then stealing bread because "it was totally baked in this really cool old way and i know i shouldn't have done it but i took it when no one was watching :P"

That's not really a good example. Professional looters know what they're doing is illegal and they don't give a fuck. In conflict areas, the antiquities trade has direct ties to terrorist organizations, who operate partially on funds from selling looted goods.

Only guy I know who did this was an immigrant with Iranian parents who broke off an ornament from a wall in Persepolis because muh heritage.

But really, tourists do it because the average person is very self-centered and values their own short-term satisfaction over the long-term preservation of the archaeological site.

I'm angrier at the jump cuts

well obviously that's no good at all i give you that but somehow, even next the terrorists, the tourist doing it seems pretty shitty.

>the tourist doing it seems pretty shitty.
Sure, but clueless selfishness is more excusable to me than deliberate criminal behavior. And looters can get away with some pretty egregious shit because of how hard it is to catch and prosecute them. A lot of the major looting that happens in the US now is also the result of methheads, which isn't great in its own right, and can get dangerous.

why?