statute was to form the basis of protection legislation for the whole of the Italian peninsula after unification in 1870, along with a papal law of 1802 that regulated “the preservation of monuments and of works of art” (d’Agostino 1984).

The antiquarian and archaeological developments of the eighteenth century continued at an increasing rate during the nineteenth century. Systematic field surveys in various parts of the world, such as Britain, denmark, Germany, and India, combined with an awareness of the adverse impact of the improvements resulting from late-eighteenth-century agrarian improvements and reforms, led to the progressive enactment of protection legislation. A Danish declaration of 1807 (Klindt-Jensen, 1975; Kristiansen, 1984) established statutory protection of major monuments in Denmark on the Swedish model. A number of German states also enacted heritage protection legislation in the first half of the nineteenth century—Mecklenburg in 1804, Bavaria in 1812, Prussia (which was to serve as the basis for German legislation after 1870) in 1815, Hesse-Darmstadt in 1818, Württemberg in 1828, and Baden in 1837. The Austro-Hungarian Empire enacted its first heritage protection law in 1850.

Within four years of gaining independence from Ottoman Turkey, greece enacted its first monuments protection legislation (1834), and it was based on the fundamental premise that “all objects of antiquity in Greece, being the productions of the ancestors of the Hellenic people, are regarded as the common national possession of all Hellenes.” The first British Ancient Monuments Protection Act was not promulgated until 1882, although there was protective legislation in force in India as early as 1863. There was no adequate protection in France until 1913, whereas legislation was enacted in japan in 1897 and in the United States in 1904.

In the countries that emerged after the struggles for independence in Latin America during the first half of the nineteenth century, the pre-Hispanic cultures were potent symbols of cultural identity, and their protection became a priority for the emerging legislatures. mexico achieved independence in 1821, and in 1825 the first law controlling the country’s archaeological heritage was passed. peru freed itself from Spanish rule in 1822, and in the same year a supreme decree was published that forbade any trade in ancient relics.

By the outbreak of World War I in 1914, there was some form of antiquities protection legislation in almost every European country (with the notable exception of belgium) and in most of the major countries around the world. In addition, the colonial powers had introduced legislation in many of their overseas territories or extended the application of their metropolitan statutes to their colonies. In the new nations that emerged after 1918, similar legislation was introduced soon after their constitutions had been approved, generally on the basis of the statutes of the major countries from which they had been formed.

During the interwar period, heritage legislative protection in a number of countries was progressively amended and expanded. For example, new antiquities laws were introduced in Denmark, Greece, and the United Kingdom in the 1930s, and two major laws covering the protection of the cultural and natural heritage, both of them still in force, were promulgated in Italy just before the outbreak of World War II. In Japan, the 1897 law, which had covered only ancient temples and shrines, was extended to all “national treasures” in 1929. The legislative protection of the cultural heritage in Peru stems from a basic law passed in 1929, while that of Bolivia was established by law in 1927.

With the creation of the Soviet Union and the introduction of a socialist constitution, state ownership of all cultural property was asserted in a fundamental law enacted in October 1918. This provided the model for the antiquities legislation of all the countries of the socialist bloc of central and eastern Europe that was formed after the end of World War II, as well as the legislation of other socialist countries such as the People’s Republic of China and Cuba.

As the colonial territories of Africa and Asia successively achieved independence from their European overlords, they introduced protective legislation, often modeled on that of the colonial powers. Thus, there is a consistency to be observed in the legislation of former British