Jonathan SCHESCHKEWITZ
(Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart – Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Esslingen am Neckar, Germany)
Since online auction became a common possibility to sell objects via internet also more and more archaeological objects were sold there. The variety of objects contains exceptional finds as well as pottery fragments and stone artefacts. Mostly no information of the origin was given and it was obvious that judicial problems were not considered at all. The American internet company ebay is the most important player in this field. Due to the increasing number of artefacts of unknown origin sold there German archaeologists contacted ebay Deutschland to solve this problem. Since than so called pedigrees were introduced by ebay which should testify the legal origin of the archaeological objects. The result was a remarkable reduction of offers. The project as well as future perspectives should be presented in this paper.