“What this town needs is a good old-fashioned lynching. The real thing. With all the trimmings. It would be like going to church. Puts things in their proper perspective. Reminding everybody of who they are, where they stand. Divides the world simple and pure. Good or bad. Oppressors and oppressed. Black or white.”

There is a prickly debate in the field of art law over who should own the past. Nevermind business. When the items for sale have totemic significance to a nation or culture, ownership is a privilege, not a top-dollar right… But an entire genre of artifact has been overlooked- underwater cultural property. There are some fifty thousand shipwrecks in the U.S., with 5-10% being of historic significance. As with art, so with shipwrecks and their related artifacts: who should own the past?