Celator text more revealing

Yesterday I discussed in this blog Reid Goldsborough's presentation of an article written by Rick Witschonke which he had read in the US numismatic magazine "Celator". Goldsborough said "[h]is editorial is so insightful perhaps more than any other reason because he agrees exactly, without any deviation whatsoever, with what I've written here and elsewhere about the subject". Well, I should have known better than to trust the ability of a heap-of-ancient-coins-on-my-table numismophile to read and summarise a simple text. Anyhow, I received the original text from its author which I have posted here in the comments to the original post.

It turns out that seen as a whole, Witschonke's text says something completely the opposite to what Goldsborough writes in the text I discussed yesterday! I therefore owe Mr Witschonke an apology.

Looking back over the past couple of years when I've been engaging with this peculiar milieu (one of the most vociferous in the debate on "collectors' rights") it seems to me that there has been a change in their arguments. When I first started getting interested in what they say, almost unanimously the collectors and dealers over there in the USA were in collective denial. It's nonsense to talk about looted objects on the market, they argued, what is being sold today has been on the market years, decades centuries ("why, Petrarch was a coin collector don't ya know? "). All that has happened (they said) was that they were no longer associated with their 1920s Macey's coin department receipt. This argument still pops up today (mostly from Wayne Sayles when he's being more polite). Today however, there seems a readiness to admit that, yes, looted coins and artefacts from the Balkans and Middle East are, in fact, coming onto the US market, but "it's OK because..." (and then follow a series of "justifications" some of which I discussed yesterday in the context of Reid Goldsborough's text)

Witschonke falls in neither of these camps. He say the coins on the market come from looting and.. its "not OK". He explains why he has reached this conclusion, using coin-centred arguments (see his full text here). He stops short however of saying that collectors should avoid buying material which seems likely to be not kosher (that is cannot be documented as kosher). So in that respect his article is still not a call for more ethical collecting, which is what is (nothing more, nothing less) urged in this blog.

What Rick Witschonke writes seems pretty clear and logical up to the last paragraph, when (after discussing briefly the successes of the Portable Antiquities Scheme) he writes:

Convincing other source nations to adopt a similar approach will be very difficult. But if the collecting and archeological communities come together in support of an enlightened U.S. law which encourages such approaches, we might just reach a resolution that works for both groups. One thing is certain: if we merely maintain the status quo, both groups will be the losers.

I am in total agreement with the last point (though would strengthen it by saying "while" and use the present simple tense), its the intention behind the second sentence which I do not comprehend (and I think it's what misled Reid Goldsborough). How can an "enlightend US law" encourage other countries to change their legislation? Is however Witschonke proposing something that can allow the exploitation of Bulgarian etc. sites to continue, but under a different system? Preserving the archaeological resource as such surely means it has to be curbed (and drastically as well as urgently - otherwise the problem will cease to be a current issue as the sites are emptied). He concludes (I assume this is now the text of his comment sent to this blog, rather than the original text from "Celator"):

And, to respond to Paul's point, I am not suggesting that source countries change their antiquities laws in order to accommodate American collectors, but rather to reduce looting.

We have a lot of fine words from the collecting community about how somebody else could "stop (sic) the looting", lots of cunning plans which usually involve massive (and often self-defeating) compromises on the part of the archaeological resource protection lobby, without which the collectors refuse to budge. This is part of the intention of course, to place the blame on the 'other side' for being "irrational" (ie not sharing the collector's world-view of collecting and its "benefits"). Witschonke has not (presumably partly here for lack of space) presented the reader with any reasoned vision of what kind of "enlightened US laws" would "reduce looting" in the Old World. It remains merely a desideratum, rather than firm proposal. So we really are all in the dark about what he is suggesting, more to the point, what collectors can do to bring this about.

He ends:

T[reasure] A[ct]/PAS has (sic) demonstrably accomplished this in the UK, although Paul refuses to acknowledge it.

That is right. And not just "Paul". Such claims do not take into account the wider context of the facts and (especially) figures used to present the picture of a PAS-collectors'-saviour/partner. Note: to present it rather than examine it. All I have been saying all along is that we need to examine it like any other proposition. I hold that when we do, it turns out to be a somewhat warped picture that is currently being presented and functions in public discourse (I've co-authored a book on it, due out soon). That aside, let us note however that what is at the basis of the PAS is encouraging ethical collectorship, not only in terms of preserving provenance and context but also (aim 4 "promoting best practice") where these things come from. This tends to be ignored by its many portable antiquity-hungry fans over the other side of the Atlantic who seem only too willing to see in it what they want to see in it (rather like Goldsborough's presentation of Witschonke's text on a larger scale).