If Muscarella had been in private industry, he would have been sacked long ago. However, in the not-for-profit world of the Met, he managed to hang on for 44 years...
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If the Metropolitan had threatened to sack Otto Muscarella after writing of the false provenance of Ziwiye ("Ziwiye" and Ziwiye. The Forgery of a Provenience, in: Journal of Field Archaeology 4, 1977), or the publication of his “The Lie Became Great” (2000), both about the no-questions-asked market in antiquities, would Bailey and Ehrenburg have refused to represent him? Just curious.
It is also interesting that Peter Tompa is among those who claim (falsely) that supporters of collecting of portable antiquities are somehow "black-balled" by the archaeological community (this is to expain away why so few voices are raised in the defence of the no-questions-asked market in the archaeological milieu which collectrs say are solidly behind them, it being just "a few radicals" [sic] that are not). Yet Tompa himself is obviously advocating archaeological black balling of heritage professionals who are anti-looting and confronting the issues caused by the no-questions-asked market. Where is the consistency in that standpoint?
How many more people critical of the no-questions-asked market would ACCG activists like Mr Tompa like to see "sacked" from their workplace, or perhaps in the case of younger academics prevented from being employed there at all?
I wish Dr Muscarella a long, happy and fruitful retirement and long may he continue to spread the word among the public about the damaging effects of the no-questions-asked market in decontextualised artefacts on the preservation and integrity of the world's archaeological record. That is what basically this is about, integrity and truth.
Photo: Oscar Muscarella (SAFE)
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