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This is scientific American 60 second science. I’m Cynthia Graber. This'll just take a minute.
When eBay first came onto the scene more than a decade ago, archaeologists were petrified1. Easily buying and selling antiquities2 online might increase the looting and trafficking of archaeological treasures. Now they are letting out a sigh of relief. Charles Stanish of UCLA writes in Archaeology3 magazine that eBay has paradoxically driven down looting. Stanish is an authority on Andean archaeology, he’s been tracking antiquities on eBay for 9 years. He's also worked with the US Customs authority and visited workshops recreating antiquities.
Instead of creating an incentive4 for people to go out and steal artifacts, eBay created a market for fakes, carefully produced by artisans in China, Peru, Mexico and elsewhere, the forgeries5 can be sold at absurdly low prices. The flood of fakes has depressed6 the market lowering the incentive to loot. And collectors are ever more warier7 of buying on-line. Stanish estimates that half of the Andean artifacts on eBay ten years ago were fake. Five years later, 95% were phony. Bad news for the people who think they are buying stolen treasures, good news for archaeologists and the sites they study.
Thanks for the minute, for Scientific American 60 second science, I'm Cynthia Graber.
1 petrified | |
adj.惊呆的;目瞪口呆的v.使吓呆,使惊呆;变僵硬;使石化(petrify的过去式和过去分词) | |
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2 antiquities | |
n.古老( antiquity的名词复数 );古迹;古人们;古代的风俗习惯 | |
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3 archaeology | |
n.考古学 | |
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4 incentive | |
n.刺激;动力;鼓励;诱因;动机 | |
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5 forgeries | |
伪造( forgery的名词复数 ); 伪造的文件、签名等 | |
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6 depressed | |
adj.沮丧的,抑郁的,不景气的,萧条的 | |
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7 warier | |
谨慎的,小心翼翼的( wary的比较级 ) | |
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