Perhaps my spiders (see next post) were just confused by this one, as I was last night … from Standart:
A pot with gold jewelry dating back from the Thracian period was donated to a museum instead of being smuggled by black archeologist’s mafia. A day ago the police found in the house of 41-years old R.T. from the town of Svishtov valuable finds cached in one of the rooms. The police determined that the jobless man found a ceramic pot containing a gold spiral bracelet, 6 pieces of gold jewelry, 6 gold earrings and bronze tools, including axes and other blades. The police didn’t press charges as the man decided to donate the treasure to a local museum.
The treasure turned out to be very valuable. The finds date back to the Bronze Age or 4,000 years ago, archaeologist Ivan Tsarov said. Currently experts cannot estimate the real value of the treasure but most probably its price will exceed hundreds of thousands euro. The objects will remain in the Svishtov Museum of History.
I’ve never read/heard of the (somewhat offensive, in context) term “black archaeologist” or the related “black archaeologist mafia” before … it seems likely a literal translation of something akin to tombarolo, or is there more to it?
I understood it as “black market” archaeology, i.e., excavating vel sim. for illicit trade and profit. could be wrong, but that was my first thought.
… could be … you never know when they run it through the translation machine …