Wednesday, December 9, 2015

SAFE Founder Receives AIA's 2016 Outstanding Public Service Award

Congratulations to Cindy Ho, founder of Saving Antiquities for Everyone (SAFE), who will receive the 2016 Outstanding Public Service Award from the Archaeological Institute of America.

I became aware of SAFE back in 2007 when I began research on the illicit antiquities trade in response to some of the bizarre arguments I saw repeatedly deployed to defend it.  Cindy was very encouraging of those early explorations .  Cindy has done a great deal to raise popular awareness of the looting problem and is thus well-deserving of this distinction.  As she might say, looting is not just a loss to archaeology and historical study, but it constitutes a loss to us all.  The AIA's citation for Cindy's award states "For her prominent and dedicated work to raise public awareness of the need to safeguard archaeological heritage."

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