What is the value of ancient artifacts brought to the modern day via time travel?
My novel involves time travel from the modern day to New Kingdom Egypt (14th century BCE). My characters bring home with them large quantities (equivalent of a handful of grocery bags) of jewelry. Gold, silver, other metals. Gemstones of various kinds. Both loose items and finished pieces. Some miscellaneous other items, but mostly jewelry.
Jewelry with provenance to New Kingdom Egypt is worth a fortune. Precious metals and gems from any era have intrinsic value (which would be a fraction of authenticated pieces but still a fair bit). Where would these "souvenirs" land?
The details of this process are in the background and not shown in the novel. Only the acquisition of the jewelry and a mention in the epilogue of how they sold some pieces, including to museums, and raised a lot of money.
Assume time travel is not a known thing to the buyers but also handwave away the idea that the buyers would think the sellers had done anything illegal. The sales would be in small amounts over a period of a couple of decades.
Would the jewelry be thought to be replicas (worth more than ordinary modern jewelry, especially to a museum) or could they be thought to be the real thing (in impossibly excellent condition)? Are pieces routinely carbon dated (which would not show the true age given the time travel aspect)? Are there other tests for Ancient Egyptian artifacts?
In relative terms, what is the value of my time travelers' New Kingdom jewelry?
1 answer
Your time travelers are not being smart.
Instead of bringing loot back with them, they should bury it in a place that they know they will have private access to in the present, and where nobody thought of digging. Then they can uncover the artifacts when they get back. The loot will pass all carbon dating and other tests since it really is old.
Your time travelers could even include tablets with inscriptions linking the artifacts to a particular king, artisan, or whatever, complete with intriguing story of why they were buried there.
The time travelers would certainly see things modern historians don't know about. The tablets could provide pointers to other locations to dig, what modern archeologists would find there, and some useful but currently unknown historical context. That would help validate the rest of the cache found with the tablets as not just being something you buried and very skillfully made appear old.
One problem with all this could be antiquity laws. Some governments view ancient artifacts as public property, whether found on private land or not. I don't know what the laws are in modern Egypt, but they are probably a reaction to foreigners essentially looting the place and carting off lots of treasures until only recently. The government may take the found loot, with maybe only modest compensation to the finders.
One possible way around the above is to leave the loot in a "shipwreck" in what is today international waters. You have to be careful to pick a place someone wouldn't notice a sonar anomaly and investigate before you could "discover" the wreck yourself.
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