The Cultural Property Observer suggests that the Cuno interview in Science magazine discussed here yesterday about the UNESCO “treaty on the looting of archaeological sites” (sic) was „thoughtful” - when it was anything but (see here and here). Obviously we will have to differ with the pro-collecting lobbyites in our definition of what actually constitutes “thinking”. It does not seem to me to be a very well-thought-out strategy to criticise first a non existent "treaty" and then to lay into the invented and non-existent alleged wording of the preface of a UNESCO convention. Perhaps this is another of those pro-collecting tinfoil helmet brigade conspiracy theories about a UNESCO cover-up of their real intentions by making the convention say something other than what it "really" means...
Tompa also notes the recent Al Ahram article 'Hands off, and we mean it' about Egypt's proposed new antiquity laws with harsher penalties for damaging archaeological sites and monuments, looting and smuggling. He comments that:
“the corrupt and authoritarian Egyptian government will likely make its own harsh antiquities laws even more draconian […] One really wonders about the point of confiscating antiquities from registered collectors just so they can be installed in "archaeological storehouses" […].{Actually, I would like to hear Tompa's explanation why the existing 1983 antiquities laws of Egypt are any more "harsh" than the 1979 Archaeological Resources Protection Act, NAGPRA and other State and Federal cultural preservation laws of the USA - or when you strip away the facade, the system in Egypt is necessarily more "corrupt" than that of his own country, but that is by the by}.
To answer his comment about native collectors, the "point" is that the Egyptian authorities are aware that the current system is clearly being abused and unreported freshly dug-up artefacts are still reaching outside markets, the new legislation is intended to make this more difficult and increase the penalties. If foreign collectors and dealers had stopped buying Egyptian antiquities no-questions-asked in 1970 or 1983, collectors in Egypt would not now have to be giving up their collections and the other penalties would not be necessary. Foreign collectors and dealers have no intention of doing any such thing so the Egyptians are applying the only means available to them in those circumstances. Making a portable antiquity free-for-all as Tompa suggests is clearly not the answer to the main issue. Neither is increasing penalties for violations of the law necessarily "cutting the Egyptian people off" from their heritage, there are a number of ways of appreciating the heritage which do NOT involve making personal collections of little pieces of it.
People who suggest that countries should for some reason model their antiquities protection systems on the laissez faire one of England and Wales tend not to want to admit that illegal artefact hunting, trade in illicit artefacts and illegal exports of archaeological material occur there - though the Brits don't like to admit it, or are completely unable (and more than a bit unwilling also I'd suggest) to quantify its scope and scale.
I think actually the proposed Egyptian law does have a number of interesting points to it, but prefer to wait and see what parts of it become legislation before discussing it in more detail.
Vignette, tinfoil helmets to stop those unfocussed pro-collecting and anti-SAFE "thoughts" escaping.
3 comments:
I wonder whether conservation would be served by the abandonment of the term “trafficking”? In itself it is a harmless activity, merely meaning “transporting”. Only if the objects transported are illicit does it become reprehensible.
But that is not the reason for my suggestion. Transport implies a journey, commencing at a source and ending at a final destination. Yet it seems to me trafficking tends to be thought of as involving a much shorter journey, and in the case of archaeological artefacts one that takes place in a faraway country and involves foreigners, one that certainly doesn’t extend into one’s own country or involve one’s own countrymen.
But in logic, this cannot be true. If a journey from source to port is trafficking then clearly the journey from port to display cabinet is also trafficking. Accidental or deliberate, careful or deliberately not so, eyes wide or carefully averted, it matters little if the journey is completed. Source to final destination – one journey, one process of trafficking - sometimes in illegal goods, who could seriously think otherwise? Could this be true? Could a sophisticated Western collector be in precisely the same moral position as an unlettered peasant-looter thousands of miles away? I think so, on the basis of my limited knowledge and rudimentary grasp of logic. But I’ll be happy to be put right on the point so long as it is explained in full detail.
In case I’m right I feel the term “trafficking” should be dropped from the lexicon of the debate – partly because it tends to misleadingly and unjustly point the finger at the “foreign” part of the incoming journey alone and partly because sophisticated, educated Western collectors and dealers would hate to be labelled as “traffickers”. So may I suggest, as an alternative, “looting facilitators”. That sounds rather more professional, something they might feel far more comfortable with on their business cards and golf club membership forms, while still describing their role in the artefacts’ journey with absolute precision.
"Looting facilitators"? I think they'd baulk at that, but what about "cultural property acquisition and dispersal facilitators", now THAT sound professional - antiquities free of the taint of the L-word and the T-word.
Well I must say "baulking at" doesn't play much part in a search for the truth, not in most academic and legal circles anyway. Or is commerce different?
But if "cultural property" is to appear on the business cards I think the L word, together with P for Pillage and M for Misappropriation and Th for Theft would all have to feature as well if you wanted the golf club to see you as a good egg since they are all intimately connected. For instance, if you were involved in any way with cultural property you'd not want to be guilty of flouting the spirit of your country's commitments under the '54 Hague Convention relating to stuff in war zones to "prohibit, prevent and, if necessary, put a stop to any form of theft, pillage or misappropriation of, and any acts of vandalism directed against, cultural property" would you? Or, again, is commerce different?
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