Some prominent journalists say that archaeologists should work with treasure hunters because treasure hunters have accumulated valuable historical artifacts that can reveal much about the past. But archaeologists are not asked to cooperate with tomb robbers, who also have valuable historical artifacts. The quest for profit and the search for knowledge cannot coexist in archaeology because of the ① time factor. Rather incredibly, one archaeologist employed by a treasure hunting firm said that as long as archaeologists are given six months to study shipwrecked artifacts before they are sold, no historical knowledge is ② found! On the contrary, archaeologists and assistants from the INA (Institute of Nautical Archaeology) needed more than a decade of year-round conservation before they could even ③ catalog all the finds from an eleventh-century AD wreck they had excavated. Then, to interpret those finds, they had to ④ learn Russian, Bulgarian, and Romanian, without which they would never have learned the true nature of the site. Could a “commercial archaeologist” have ⑤ waited more than a decade or so before selling the finds?

* prominent: 저명한 ** excavate : 발굴하다