ABSTRACT
The looted material from Ban Chiang is described in Chapter 4 of Designs on Pots. Artifacts with no provenience are generally considered of no interest to archaeologists. Nevertheless, the artifacts that were looted from Ban Chiang have complex histories, as they move from a subsistence village to an antique dealer to a private home or a museum. The market for looted illegal antiquities provides an additional lens for examining Ban Chiang painted pottery. This chapter considers the extent of the illegal trade in antiquities from the site and the attempts to regulate and control the antiquity trade, the place of looted antiquities in the shadow economy, and the ethical complexity of donations to museums for tax breaks.
