Vorsicht "erdfrisch"!

I have discussed earlier in my blog several times (for example here) the parallels between different types of shopkeepers, those selling food and those selling portable antiquities dug up "like potatoes" and suggesting that if one can document the origins of the items they trade in, the other can too.

One of the arts of selling vegetables of course is making them look as if just an hour or so they were still in the sun and wind in the fields. New potatoes for example look nicest in the marketplace if they look "erdfrish" as our German neighbours would say, fresh from the earth. Antiquities on the other hand are appreciated by their collectors if they have a patina that shows they have been in the soil an appreciable time, but also in the fabled "old collection " a fair amount of time too (at least since before 1970). So "erdfrisch" antiquities are really a bit of a no-no for the responsible collector unless, of course, they have clear documentation of their legitimate and legal and properly recorded removal from their original context and source country.

Last week in the German edition of the ‘popular science’ magazine “Focus” appeared an article by Noelani Waldenmaier called “EBAY: Vorsicht, "erdfrisch"!” ["EBay: beware, fresh from the soil"] (Focus 17/2009, 50) which gives a more balanced view of the reasons behind the recent German police investigations of collectors buying items on eBay from certain sellers which have aroused such anxiety in the US ancient coin-collecting world (for example, here and here). The collecting community gets its news mainly from the uninformed (or deliberately manipulative) rants in the hobby press such as Celator or Coin World and their forums and discussion groups. It is therefore nice to be able to point out that the mainstream "popular science" media which form and inform public opinion are taking a more balanced view than what can be contrasted with them as 'the lunatic fringe'.

Certainly the message is ‘caveat emptor’. It really is difficult to believe that all those “erdfrisch” coins by the kilogramme represent the splitting up of old collections (though one coin dealer tried to assure me that that was the case with the bulk lots he was selling..., though nasty old sceptic that I am I found this a rather weak and unverified protestation).

The focus article can apparently be downloaded here by those who missed it.

Druggies Stealing State's History

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Les Smith reports ("Druggies Stealing Arkansas Artifacts") that looting of archaeological sites in Northeast Arkansas USA is seriously damaging our ability to understand the past of the region. The area has become a lucrative hunting ground for those interested in archaeological artefacts not for their value for scholarship when interpreted in context, but for black market bucks gained from looting sites in search of valuable antiquities.

Dr. Juliet Morrow, Jonesboro-based archeologist for the Arkansas Archeological Survey, says, "There are some people who collect artifacts and there's others who loot them so that they can then sell them to get money to purchase drugs. Especially, methamphetamine that's popular in this part of the state." Morrow explains that on the no-questions-asked US collectors’ market, the artefacts these people hunt, "can bring very high dollar figures upwards of 50 thousand dollars for a single pottery vessel, if it's the right time period, the right style. There are spear points that can go for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's what the buyers are willing to pay. This is a market that's been escalating over the last couple of decades."

The report uses as an example of the effects of this looting what AAS archaeologists found at one farm located about an hour east of Jonesboro, where earlier this month they learnt of the looting of an old Native American cemetery. The artefact hunters dug into the grave to extract artefacts for sale to portable antiquity collectors and in the process, left scattered around their holes a number of the artefacts they had dug out of the archaeological record but were not deemed ‘saleable’, as well as human skeletal remains. This is just one case of many reported year after year all over the United States.

Arkansas already has laws against this kind of thing, including increased criminal penalties against desecrating burial grounds for profit. Through a seminar scheduled for next week at A-S-U, Dr. Morrow hopes to secure help from surrounding local law enforcement agencies to more aggressively enforce the law. She says that, "If we fight the looting problem, we'll also be putting a damper on the drug trafficking that's going on because it's […] intricately connected."

Watch a video of the original news report here.

This report illustrates a number of things.

1) Firstly there is no difference between portable antiquity collectors in the USA buying an object (say a pot “of the right right time period and style” to fill a gap in their personal collection) and portable antiquity collectors in the USA buying objects looted from ancient sites abroad (say an ancient Greek coin “of the right right time period and style” to fill a gap in their personal collection). It’s exactly the same phenomenon, and to treat them as separate cases is simply self-delusion.

2) The United States has laws protecting the archaeological heritage (which they call a “Resource” – which it is, a fragile and finite one). Artefact diggers and no-questions-asked collectors are ignoring it in the same way as the foreign artefact diggers ignore theirs because collectors outside their country’s borders will pay (no-questions-asked) dollars for what they dig up.

3) Not all artefact diggers are doing it to get money for “starving families” as collectors claim – it seems to be an emerging pattern that the antiquities market is increasingly seen a source of easy cash financing a number of iunsavoury and illegal activities. The no-questions-asked collector is directly responsible for the cash flow which sustains these activities.

4) The numbers of artefacts on the market at the ‘buyer’ end are disproportionate to the amount of destruction done in “mining” them. Dozens or hundreds of archaeological features and layers will be destroyed in the search for the one pot that sells for 50000 bucks. Thousands of other pieces of pottery will be dug out of their archaeological context (destroying the latter) only to be discarded on the site – they never make it to the market for collectors to “preserve” in their personal collections.

5) It is notable that the US advocates of collectors rights (such as ACCG Executive Director Wayne Sayles who lives just across the state line 160 km from Jonesboro) do not apply their stock arguments about the alleged social benefits of the no-questions-asked market in portable antiquities to the artefact hunting and collecting occurring on their own doorstep. Isn’t that a little inconsistent of them? The arguments about portable antiquity collecting as a source of personal “knowledge” about culture, tolerance between nations, preserving the artefacts from having to lie in the ground (giving them a better home), the “free enterprise” benefits of disregarding “restrictive laws” imposed by an authoritarian government for the benefit of ivory tower elitist archaeologists (to a man, compliant “nationalists” to boot) and all the rest simply do not apply here. So why on earth would anyone want us to believe they apply to the collection of portable antiquities from anywhere else?

As I have said earlier, before urging other countries to liberalise their archaeological resource protection legislation to facilitate the stigma-free collection in the USA of portable antiquities taken from sites in their territory, let these US collectors campaign loudly and publicly for the repeal of the comparable laws that protect the archaeological heritage of their country. After all, they can hardly expect other nations to follow where the USA and its law-abiding citizen refuses to be an example, can they?

Here is an interesting web page about Arkansas pot hunting and artefact collecting (Sam Dellinger and much more) which has a venerable tradition (sound familiar?)

The web page of the Arkansas state archaeologist (They produce teaching resources for schools, including a 'discovery box' - sounds like a handling collection to me. I bet, unlike the Ancient Coins For Education programme, the aim is not to produce young collectors by giving them potentially stolen archaeological items from foreign lands to take home and keep.)
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"Barford in particular is way off base"

Peter Tompa discusses the attention which bloggers of the archaeological resource preservation lobby have given the ACCG attempt to question the doings of the Bush administration over the Cyprus and China MOU about import controls of certain categories of portable antiquities into the USA. He writes (though without giving a link to this blog where he found the comments he is discussing, so is relying on hearsay to make his point - not for the first time):

Certainly, Barford in particular is way off base when he claims that the only relevant criteria under the CPIA is whether or not coins are "archaeological objects." Additionally, he also shows little, if any, understanding about the practical effect of import restrictions on those trying to legally import large numbers of ancient coins.

Now, frankly I'm personally not terribly concerned about the "practical effect" of import restrictions [by the way all that is required is that the items have a valid export licence from the source country] on those importing "large numbers of ancient coins". I am more interested in the practical effect for those now and in the future trying to interpret assemblages, sites and historic landscapes when all the diagnostic artefacts (which include coins) have been dug up, dug out displaced and removed totally at random and unrecorded by artefact hunters making money from destroying bits of the archaeological record to supply the commercial market - the other end of which is the dealer Mr Tompa speaks of making his money by "importing large numbers of ancient coins". Those "coins" imply "large numbers of holes" in various bits of the archaeological record. Let us not lose sight of that.

I assume that decent reputable coin dealers will be carrying out their trade legally and ethically not just because there is an MOU, so they will already in setting up and expanding their businesses have worked their way through the "practical difficulties" in doing so. If they are unable to do so, then perhaps it would be as well if they went out of business, there presumably is no place for the unethical and illegal in (for example) the IAPN and PNG.

I do not claim that the "only relevant criteria under the CPIA is (sic) whether or not coins are "archaeological objects". What is at issue in the ACCG/IAPN?PNG case against the US government (as Peter Tompa himself tells us) is whether coins were "added" to the list when the original request "only" specified archaeological artefacts (China) and the CPAC might have suggested they not be treated as archaeological artefacts (Cyprus). But then if most normal people accept as a matter of course that ancient coins are indeed as much an archaeological artefact as an ancient buckle, brooch, lead seal, inscribed gravestone, currency bar, hacksilver, coin weight et cetera, then nothing has been "added" by naming coins among other such items.

The ACCG/IAPN/PNG "case" is indeed entirely about "whether coins are archaeological artefacts", which is why several ACCG officers are currently bending over backwards but in total disregard of the actual evidence to "demonstrate" that coins do not come from archaeological sites - in other words are not found "in a direct physical relationship with archaeological resources". Mr Tompa as a US lawyer will know why that is.

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Coin Dealers Spends Thousands of Dollars of Collectors' Money to Catch the Bush Administration Out

Peter Tompa discusses the publicity which bloggers of the archaeological resource preservation lobby have given the ACCG attempt to question the doings of the Bush administration over the Cyprus and China MOU about import controls of certain categories of portable antiquities into the USA. He reckons the bloggers ("Barford" in particular) have got it all wrong. He says we do not understand what the struggle of the Ancient Coin 'Collectors' Guild, the International Association of Professional Numismatists (IAPN) and the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG) with the US government is all about. Well, as far as I am concerned at least, this is only too true, since it is clear what the fuss is actually about, it is difficult to see what all the fuss is about. In particular it is difficult to see why the ACCG think it is worth throwing so much of its members (collectors') money away chasing it.

First of all, it is not a collector's issue. Collectors do not "import" "large numbers of ancient coins" from Cyprus or China. This is a dealer's problem, why is the ACCG (composed mainly of coin dealers) and the IAPN and the PNG making collectors pay for their tilting at the US government windmill?

But secondly, what actually is the problem? Well, forgive me for saying so, but if an organization has just spent $45800 of its members money and is now announcing its intention of getting more ("lifting the benchmark" as ACCG Executive Director put it), surely it behoves them to say precisely what the money is being spent on, and how much of it has gone where (and to whom). So far the fruits of the expenditure of 45800 dollars are only evidenced by a series of more or less imaginative and personal conspiracy theories (concerning 'cronyism') on Peter Tompa's blog and some ranting ACCG-centred posts on the Unidroit-L discussion list. That is hardly a convincing result from the expenditure of 45000 dollars which could have otherwise been spent on more heritage-conscious projects by ancient coin collectors. Mind you, I am not an ACCG member, perhaps in the mind of US coin collectors, these conspiracy theories are just what the money's-worth product they are looking for. I could not possibly comment.

More to the point - and I would have thought of importance to the collectors asked to pick up the tab of this action, we have been told how much collectors have footed this bill, what we have not learnt is whether this has been matched by funding of similar magnitude by the IAPN and the PNG. I am sure collectors would appreciate a bit of 'transparency' here too. Before they try to get more money out of collectors to fight a dealers' battle, let the ACCG, IAPN and PNG be fully open about how much of whose money has already gone where and on what.

But that is a collectors' problem. Let us look at the nuts-and-bolts of the case.

The US Cultural Property Advisory Committee is a governmental advisory committee which has the task of advising on a matter which - like it or not - is connected with foreign policy. It is understandable that communications between the US government and foreign governments and details of negotiations affecting foreign governments are not going to be splashed all over the US tabloids. Like many government advisory committees the world over, neither are individual members at liberty outside official channels to reveal details to all and sundry, the press or other interested parties. Certain texts and documents on the ACCG website and contributed to various collecting forums, however, hint very strongly that some details of CPAC deliberations and recommendations in certain cases are already known outside the CPAC and this information is in the hands of the coin dealers' lobby.

It seems, furthermore, that this is the key to the ACCG/IAPN/PNG case. Let me indulge in a little conspiracy theorising of my own. It looks very much as if what the coin dealers have learnt is that the CPAC recommended imposing import restrictions on (among other things) "archaeological artefacts" but for some reason recommended (perhaps) that this should not apply to the items which US ancient coin dealers want to get their hands on. Now, since ancient coins self evidently are archaeological artefacts and come from the looting of sites, this is a very odd recommendation indeed. I for one - as I have said before - look very much forward to seeing the full text of whatever recommendation the CPAC made and the justification given for it. This would make very interesting and revealing reading.

Let us just assume for the moment that the CPAC really did recommend a lack of import controls on ancient coins as opposed to other ancient artefacts.

So what is the problem that when the MOU was published, that coins were included in both the Cyprus and then the China one? After all, the President of the United States and the State Department operating in this regard with his authority do not have to be bound by the recommendations of CPAC. It is after all an advisory committee; this is rather like the situation regarding the recommendations of English Heritage and the British government. In any case, members of the US administration are surely not totally stupid, most of them probably went on to some form of higher education before being appointed; anyone can see that ancient coins are archaeological artefacts - to say they should not be treated as such goes against common sense, it seems uncharitable to assume that the President and his people could not see that. According to the “Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act” [CPIA], Section 303 (f) “the President shall-[…] (3) consider, in taking action on the request or proposal, the views and recommendations contained in any Committee report”. The Act furthermore specifically notes that he can take a contrary action. The decision is taken and authorised by the President, in both the Cyprus and China cases, the last President, George W. Bush.

The whole ACCG/IAPN/PNG case in fact boils down to one little detail. For the dealers in ancient coins kicking up this fuss, it is a huge giant of a windmill of an issue. The CPIA, Section 303 (g) states that if the President in taking his decision does not do so in full accord with the CPAC recommendations, there should be documentation and justification of that fact in the document establishing the MOU.

Well, anyone can see that the State Department did not include this piece of text in the officially published document.

It is this documentation that the ACCG/IAPN/PNG accuses the former President of not having provided. It seems to me that the Bush administration kept quite a lot of "documentation" of a lot of things under wraps. Probably with good reason.

But here is the 45800 dollar question. IF the CPAC recommended something other that what was published (I say "if"), the official publication does not acknowledge that fact as required by Section 303(g) of the CPIA. But if that is the case, it does not take a 45800$ investigation to determine this. Anyone can see it! (Can I have 45000 dollars from the ACCG if I say I can see it? I can see it guys, there is absolutely no mention of a contrary CPAC recommendation in the Cyprus or China MOUs as required by Section 303(g) of the CPIA. But it's OK, I'll settle for a 45000$ donation to SAFE from the coin collectors guild.)

But then again, let us recall that the problems only start for importers who have not got the correct export licences for the objects they want to trade in. Whatever the MOU says, or does not say, traders who already respect the archaeological heritage, the law and maintain the highest standards of good practice are not affected one way or another by the MOU. So why are collectors being asked to fork out YET MORE money to support the ACCG dealers in their questioning of the pragmatics of the creation of this document?

Hans Brinker, Horatius and the US ancient coin market

We saw earlier that in the view of the Executive Director of the US ancient coin dealers' lobby:

The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild might be compared to the legendary Dutch Boy with his finger in the dike (sic).

Well, it might be, but the story itself is not a part of the Dutch heritage but a purely American invention imposed by them on the Dutch. It was a literary invention by the New York born writer Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge (1831-1905), for by her children’s novel 'Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates', dating from 1865. There is no trace of it earlier than that. Hans Brinker is an American conception of the völkisch virtues of the forebears of the Dutch settlers more than it is associated with attributes the Dutch assign to themselves.

We have heard ad nauseam from portable antiquity collectors (and the myth-making ACCG in particular) that no-questions-asked collecting of ancient artefacts is allegedly "a good thing" for society because it allegedly spreads knowledge of Classical values in an otherwise poorly educated public. So one might ask why, instead of a fictional Dutch boy made up by a New York writer, does Sayles not liken himself and his fellows to Horatius Cocles on the Pons Sublicius holding off the forces of Lars Porsena?

I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path, a thousand may well be stopped by three:
Now, who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?
Then out spake Spurius Lartius; a Ramnian proud was he:
"Lo, I will stand at thy right hand and keep the bridge with thee."
And out spake strong Herminius; of Titian blood was he:
"I will abide on thy left side, and keep the bridge with thee." *

Of course the bridge was totally destroyed and Horatius was then left stranded standing alone on the wrong side of the river...

I suppose it is quite symptomatic that ACCG's Sayles and his coin gathering fellows envisage themselves reinforcing an impenetrable wall between them and the changing context of portable antiquity collecting in the twenty-first century, while a number of years ago other collectors urged the construction of a bridge - leading to the formation of the PAS and the attitudes that go with it. While I may have issues with the latter, it is obvious which type of strategy is likely to be most effective and workable for collectors in the long run. It is not the "cold dead hands/numbed finger in the dyke" one.

*Thomas Babbington, Lord Macaulay "Horatius" (http://www.tom.womack.net/epic/horatius.html)
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Per Lucem ad Veritatem, sed nemo surdior est quam is qui non audiet.

In his comments to David Gill’s Looting matters, Wayne Sayles quotes Latin to the blog’s author:

You and others in the archaeological community may take the efforts of the ACCG lightly, but I can assure you that the State Department is not taking them lightly, nor will they take lightly the issues presented in further litigation. The motto of the ACCG, Per Lucem ad Veritatem, will in the end be prophetic as the truth is enlightened in court.

I bet the State Department, Maria Kouroupas, and Nicholas Burns are in actual fact taking the clownish conspiracy theories of the coin-collectors very lightly. I do not think we should. I think we should give them every encouragement. The ACCG with their very public posing, denial and insistence on a no-questions-asked status quo are putting a lot of effort into making a total laughing stock of the US numismatic community.

Let us remember that under the new regulations, there actually is no problem whatsoever in importing Cypriot or pre-Tang Chinese ancient coins into the USA if they have the proper export licence required by the law of the exporting source country.

Let us remember there is absolutely no problem with the buying, selling and collecting of ancient Cypriot and pre-Tang Chinese coins already in the USA before the relevant MOUs came into force (they are in any case only temporary) or those that entered it legitimately, as long as that can be documented if questioned.

What is behind all this is the distaste of US dealers in ancient artifacts (especially those making a living from selling old coins) for keeping proper records of where their goods come from, as importers and dealers in other goods automatically do.

As an archaeologist, what interests me more is that at the core of this issue and upcoming court case is the implicit denial that ancient coins (and by implication any coins I guess) can be regarded as archaeological artifacts. In other words they insist that if Ruritania requests the US to regulate the movement of archaeological artifacts coming from archaeological sites on Ruritanian territory, that this should for some reason automatically exclude coins. What is in question in this whole upcoming court case is the implicit assumption that coins should be included in the category of archaeological artefacts from Cyprus and China.

I must say I am particularly looking forward to the court case which will inevitably hinge on whether in the understanding of the normal non-collecting member of society (such as a civil servant) they are understood as such or are not. I suppose it will also consider whether the ones in question in this case are found in the source countries "in a direct physical relationship with archaeological resources" in the understanding of US law (how can they not be?). It seems to me that there will be no end of potential expert witnesses that can be called from US academic institutions suich as the universities and the AIA which will help the judge resolve this non-question in no uncertain terms. Where, then, will that (and the attendent publicity) leave US collectors of ancient coins?

Vignette: an ACCG representative of the US ancient coin collecting community rushing to court to show the judge that ancient coins are not ancient artefacts. He has a copy of an old book of numismatic fairy tales under his arm which he will use to demonstrate the basis for his belief that ancient coins in fact were not deposited in the soil in the past, but are given to US coin dealers by the jolly old elves under the hill. Will he be so happy after the judge tells him what HE has determined?

"ACCG Presses Claims to Hidden Information"

Dear oh dear. What is the problem? It seems the coin dealers' lobby group the ACCG (together with the International Association of Professional Numismatists and the Professional Numismatists Guild) did not in their Freedom of Information request get enough documents the first time to support their conspiracy theory about the Executive Director of the State Department’s Cultural Heritage Centre Maria Kouroupas, and former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns being allegedly agents of "foreign governments" with their nefarious nationalistic agendas. Despite this, ACCG officer Dave Welsh assures his readers "State Department Misconduct Evidence [is] Emerging". This is real tinfoil hat /they've-put-a-chip-inside-my head stuff, and rather modest "achievements" for the $45 800 raised by the ACCG "benefit auction" (funny, I thought they originally claimed to have made more...). Anyhow, in order to get the conclusive "proof" they need, they are going to hold another "benefit auction" in August/September this year. Why? Well, it turns out that in the view of its Executive Director:

The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild might be compared to the legendary Dutch Boy with his finger in the dike. The antiquities trade has all but abandoned the cultural property battlefield, the museum industry has withered under constant attack from cultural property nationalists and ancient coin collecting faces a torrent of opposition. If the guild were to disappear, there would be no serious resistance to a virulent nationalist monopoly on everything ancient. Opponents of ancient coin collecting have the considerable weight of academic institutions and nationalist governments on their side. However, private collectors have inherited a 600-year-old tradition and a very long track record of contributions to society. The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild will not concede our right to preserve, maintain, and enrich this tradition.

Real "cold dead hands" fighting talk that. Well, it seems to me that the global non-numismatic antiquities trade and the museums world ("industry"?) have to a greater degree than a small group of loud no-questions-asked US coin dealers recognised that the manner in which they collect does have a damaging effect on the archaeological record. They rather than ignoring it like the coin collectors - are now facing up to the problem by trying to mitigate that by more responsible collecting. Both groups now have codes of ethics which go well beyond the rather transparently weasel-worded ones adopted by the numismatic trade and its lobbyists. The argument that "Petrarch did it like that 600 years ago, so there is no need to change now" (which is in effect what the coin collectors are saying) really is such a self-serving one that it needs no comment. A lot of things have changed since Petrarch's day and to argue that coin collecting need not be one of them is pure comedy. It is not to the Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke that no-questions-asked antiquity collectors should be compared, but Stig of the Dump.

It is only right and proper that this sort of atavistic and selfish behaviour should provoke a "torrent of opposition" from all who really care about the long-term survival of the archaeological record and what it can tell us all about our common past. This is information which is put at severe risk by the commercial concerns of a small but damaging minority. US no-questions-asked coin collectors are determined to be the bird egg collectors, the ivory poachers, the real looters even in the twenty first century.

If the deniers and naysayers of the Ancient Coin Dealers Guild ACCG "were to disappear" from what Sayles terms with some exagerration "the cultural property battlefield", it would indeed be a step towards a new era of co-operation between the interests of responsible collectors and those of the groups concerned with the long term protection of the archaeological record against unregulated exploitation for commercial aims.

Leaky old CPAC - mystery solved?

Eight months ago there was talk of the ACCG "having reason to believe" that President Bush's Cultural Property Advisory Commitee (CPAC) did not believe ancient coins to be archaeological artefacts. We were speculating on the source of the leak of this information. The mystery seems to be solved by the publication on the ACCG website of a statement by former CPAC Chairman, Jay Kislak. This suggests that the CPAC in assessing the Cyprus request for more stringent checks by US border officials that imported ancient items from that country had actually been exported legally actually DID say this should exclude coins. This is a pretty astounding revelation for two reasons.

The first is that a government advisory committee is exactly that. It advises government. By what right is Mr Kislak making public what he says are the results of deliberations of this committee if the report has been witheld?

Secondly IF this committee did indeed for some reason conclude that ancient coins are not archaeological artefacts, it certainly calls into question the competence of the people appointed by George Bush Jnr to be his advisors in this area of foreign policy too.

Yes, by all means let us all see these CPAC reports, let us also see the documentation of the CPAC's deliberations and voting and the contribution of the collector-chairman. Let us all have a good laugh. Are ancient coins archaeological artefacts? Let's not bother asking collectors, what do the US universities say?

[If ancient coins are not archaeological artefacts, why does the "Ancient Coins for Education" programme use them as if they were in their pathetic "archaeological simulations"? Maybe they should take their lead from the ACCG and Bush's CPAC.]

Photo: Jay Kislak, collector and former chairman of CPAC

“ANCIENT COINS FOR EDUCATION”, or schoolchildren used as pawns in heritage debate?

Over in the Ozark Mountains, the Executive Director of the US Ancient coin dealers’ lobbying group ACCG, collector and coin dealer is fulminating over a post made here. That's the one discussing the findings of a US journalist on the ground in Pakistan and Afghanistan where it turns out that among its other sins, the no-questions-asked market in portable antiquities is partly responsible for financing America’s enemy, the Taliban. Mr Sayles evidently regards it as “defamation” that I draw attention to this (Look at the URL to his blog post). On his blog over the weekend, Sayles wrote:

An insightful contrast presents itself in two "news" items that appeared recently online. I'll simply post the two links and let the reader decide which rings true and determine where the high road is.

One of the links is to a piece of text on my blog, while the other is a link to an article (Eleanor Chute, ‘Ancient coins enthrall, educate pupils’ April 25, 2009) from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about ACCG poster-girl (and member of their “Education and Youth Programs Task Force”), Zee Ann Poerio of the St. Louise de Marillac School in Upper St. Clair, Pittsburgh and her involvement in the Ancient Coins for Education (ACE) programme.

Sayles calls his own blog post “Where is the High Road?” and it is between the two points of view, that of a CNN journalist on the ground in the Middle East observing the illegal artefact trade at one end of the chain and a local Pittsburgh journalist at the other looking at the use of the effects of this trade. So where is the high road?

Well, it seems to me the reader of Sayles'blog is urged to agree with him that this "High road" is the route taken by the advocates of commercial destruction of the archaeological record of various source countries. This involves the illegal removal of material from their original contexts , and then from the country of origin necessitated by the need to obviate local laws (ancient coins are not found on any soil which is the territory of the United States of America, for example). These tainted artefacts are then split up amalgamated with others (including, yes, some from dismembered old personal collections) and sold off like potatoes by dealers who are only interested in protecting the status quo to protect their profits. These dealers and collectors are in denial about - and keep their customers and the rest of us in ignorance of - where these items come from and what damage to our ability to interpret the archaeological records is caused by their commodification.

Now they wish to bring innocent schoolchildren into the argument, staging the classroom use of these items in order to use their “educational” use as a pawn in the argument over the destruction of the archaeological heritage due to the no-questions-asked market (That’s what we hear from the UK "metal detectorists" too - “It’s OK, it educational innit?”).

Many of us (the author of this blog included) have experience of classroom outreach propagating knowledge of the past. Oddly enough, most of us manage to do it successfully without the students being involved in unethical and unsustainable practices. No archaeological sites were trashed without record so that our students get a "feel for the past". This seems not however to be a concern of the ACE. There is a revealing text available for its advocates: "Mark Lehman's guide to answering questions about the ethics of collecting ancient coins. Prepare yourself for these questions by reading this guide". Symptomatically the text is entitled: "How to address the collector/scholar vs. AIA "no one but the 'experts' should have access to antiquities" viewpoints…." and of course when we look into its contents, its the usual old stereotypical collection of glib mantras of this collecting milieu. The real issue about the unsustainable and irreversible damage done to a finite and fragile resource is not addressed. At all. In fact, the author of the text begins: "My first, and most important advice is to you is to avoid these discussions like the very plague - I cannot possibly stress this strongly enough". Well, I guess if they have not any kind of answer to questions about the central issue, the collecting advocate would be unwise to tangle with those who ask them.

Why do the lesson plans of the ACE contain no reference to the need for conservation of the archaeological resource - one of the central concerns in global archaeology today? There is not a word about this in the "resources" they provide teachers. What is interesting though is that, although the ACCG and its supporters are adamant that "ancient coins are not archaeological artefacts and should not be treated as such by international law", the ACE uses coins as archaeological artefacts in its archaeological simulations.

It seems to me that the people involved in the ACE are being used by the pro-collecting lobby as pawns in the heritage debate in the US. The pro-collecting lobby gains from it a series of photos of cute kids holding ancient coins (a tactic also over-employed in the UK by the PAS) , an assurance that ancient coin collectors (in reality largely dealers) are a bastion resisting falling standards of education in the US, and that - surely - advocates of collecting argue must be a good thing.

There are many ways in which students can have a "piece of the past in their hand" which does not involve the student in the process of the destruction of the historic environment of some far-off country. Many small bronze coins with fully documented provenance exactly like those used by the ACE come onto the market from the treatment of hoards under the British Treasure Act. These coins furthermore are associated with stories of law-abiding citizens doing the right thing for the sake of our joint knowledge about the common past - a far more salubrious tale to involve US students in than clandestine site-trashing artefact hunters and organized criminal gangs and the pillaging of the archaeological record merely for commercial gain. So why are they not used in the ACE programme? I guess when it comes down to it, the ones mixed with those stolen from the Balkan archaeological record are cheaper for the ACE propaganada purposes than those legitimately obtained from another.

The ACE has of course another aim. Mark Lehman says: "We profoundly hope these coins will serve, as intended, as a sort of "dragons' teeth" seed, sown in the hope and expectation of raising a whole new generation of collectors [...]" (the dragons' teeth of the myth as we remember were to give rise to an invincible army). It is quite clear that the ACE is intended to propagate no-questions-asked ancient coin collecting among the young and impressionable by giving the students participating the first object which the dealers supporting the scheme hope will encourage the kids to buy more, bulking out the ranks of no-questions-asked collectors (already estimated by the ACCG as comprising 50 000 people) in order to oppose the conservationists. Let us promote a desire to find out about the past, fine. Let us even promote responsible and sustainable portable artefact collecting as part of that, fine. But why in the twenty first century are otherwise responsible teachers engaging their students in a programme that simply refuses to address the central issue which is that irresponsible (no-questions-asked) collecting is compounding the existing problems we face regarding the protection of the archaeological record?

An additional point is that the average collector reading around the subject will come across information about the origin of the coins in their collections. they may choose to ignore the fact that by buying items of totally unknown provenance they are surely running the risk of buying items looted (stolen) from archaeological sites and smuggled out of their source countries (stolen) by organized criminal gangs and networks of various types. They may comfort themselves by thinking there are differences between one kind of "stealing" and another - and that ancient coins are not really stolen from the archaeological record because they "were made to circulate" and as heritage they "belong to everybody - so that means me". They take the deliberate choice to ignore the fact that through their buying practices, they may be keeping potentially stolen items in their houses. The kids who get unprovenenced ACE coins, which their FAQ indicates come mostly from the Balkan looting fields, are most likely uninformed that their nice teacher and that nice fat man from the coin collectors' club who knows so much about the emperors on the coins are giving them things to take home which are stolen property. Some of these kids (especially Zee Ann Poerio's students at the St. Louise de Marillac School in Upper St. Clair, Pittsburgh) will come from good families, maybe highly religious ones, to whom such a thing would be an anathema if committed deliberately. There is perhaps a very good reason why the participants in this propaganda exercise are kept in the dark about how those coins really came to the USA. Come on ACE, let's have some real truthful education about how the world works, less stuff-and-nonsense about "potato fields" and more about the criminal gangs through whose hands many portable antiquities on the market today are inevitably passing.

'Looter fine is a letdown'

Icklingham landowner John Browning said the legal system had 'let down' the British public and after a metal detector using looter who stole ancient artefacts from a site designated as an ancient monument site in his fields left court with only a £60 fine (Kirsty Marais 'Looter fine is a letdown', Bury Free Press 24 April 2009).

Browning sat in Bury St Edmunds Magistrates' Court on Tuesday to see Andrew Chamberlain plead guilty to the offence, but afterwards said "The courts have let down English Heritage very badly […] If the hearing had been half an hour later I would have exceeded my time in the car park and would have been fined more than a man who travelled 70 miles for the purpose to steal."

Fining Chamberlain £60 and ordering him to pay £60 costs and a £15 victim surcharge, District Judge Andrew Campbell said: "This is an unusual case and one can look at it very seriously. Firstly, this is theft from the Crown, there is also the case of disturbing the site and taking things that have prominence found in that particular context."
The problem is that Judge Campbell is wrong thinking this is an “unusual” case. It is happening all the time.

Britain has just spent a lot of money producing a strategic report on illegal artefact hunting – and one of the principal conclusions was that the judiciary and law enforcement authorities are at a total loss when faced with this kind of crime. A “fine” that is less than a parking ticket is absolutely no deterrent. If Mr Chamberlain admitted going to Mr Browning’s field equipped to steal, why was his metal detector not confiscated? If a burglar was apprehended having broken into Judge Andrew Campbell’s house at four thirty in the morning, would he get off with a sixty quid fine and be allowed to keep all the lock-picking tools found on him?

Iraqi Defense Minister Abd al-Qadir - Antiquity Smuggling "Finances Terrorism"

Iraqi commandos recently smashed a smuggling ring and arrested a gang of seven men who were preparing to smuggle the objects out of Iraq. The authorities were tipped off by Iraqi citizens, residents in the southern Iraqi towns of Abu al-Kahsib, Bab al-Tawael and al-Amir who obviously have had enough of the plunder of their cultural heritage for the entertainment and profit of foreigners. (Caroline Alexander "Iraq Troops Bust Smuggling Ring, Recover 235 Looted Artifacts", April 24 Bloomberg).

The objects 235 looted Babylonian and Sumerian artifacts recovered in the raids were turned over to the Tourism and Antiquities Ministry, they included gold jewellery, ceramics and stone figurines. They were not marked with museum serial numbers, suggesting they were illegally dug up from one of Iraq’s estimated 40,000 archeological sites. Hopefully the questioning of the smugglers might lead the authorities back to the actual looters and those who mediate with them. Iraqi Defense Minister Abd al-Qadir said in a statement.“The Iraqi Army is putting extraordinary pressure on smuggling gangs that steal Iraq’s history to finance terrorist operations.”

US dealers and collectors involved in the no-questions-asked market of portable antiquities from Europe, the near East and North Africa dismiss the information coming from Iraq that the sale of antiquities is being used to purchase weapons and explosives for use in furthering the civil unrest in that country which has been initiated by the 2003 US-led invasion. I suggest though if they wish to contradict the Iraqi Minister of Defence's assessment of the siutuation in his own country, they might like to demonstrate to us what other kind of activities the money raised by the illegal sale of Iraqi antiquities on the foreign markets is being used to finance.

"Found in potato fields by poor peasants"?

The dealers in portable antiquities from the Balkan region are fond of claiming various things about where these items are came from, that they all come from mythical hoards buried on the "edges of battlefields" by war-bound soldiers who never made it home, that they are found by peasants in potato fields… These fairy stories however have little connection with the reality of the situation.

In the “Crime” section of the Sofia News Agency Novinite we read of the apprehending of some artefact hunters from the area of Veliko Tarnovo last Friday. The group included four individuals, ages 35 to 55, some of them with criminal records, related to illegal treasure-hunting. The group dealt with illegal archaeological excavations and trade of objects with cultural and historical value. Let us be clear about this, many antiquities of southeaastern European origin are reaching the international no-questions-asked markets through the hands of law-breakers, some already with a criminal record. Current evidence from the region suggests that much of the trade is in the hands of organized crime groups. Who would buy any antiquities of any description from the dealers and middlemen who cannot prove that they are not dealing with such types of people?

'Bulgaria Police Seizes Priceless Find from Illegal Treasure-Hunters’

Antiquity Collectors Helping Finance the Taliban Revival?

ABC News correspondent Gretchen Peters based in Pakistan and Afghanistan has a book coming out soon, the “Seeds of Terror” (pub May 12 2009) which looks at the resurgence of the Taliban and in particular its financing by illegal activities such as involvement in the illicit drugs trade. The pre-publication blurb says that the book was written on the basis of hundreds of interviews with Taliban fighters, smugglers, and law enforcement and intelligence agents, as well as utilizing intelligence reports. In it she traces the illicit activities of the taliban "from vast poppy fields in southern Afghanistan to heroin labs run by Taliban commanders, from drug convoys armed with Stinger missiles to the money launderers of Karachi and Dubai”. Seeds of Terror makes the case that if the western world ever hopes to beat them, it must make every effort to cut terrorists off from their illicit means of financing their activities. Peters argues that the failure to halt this money flow to terrorist networks is "the single greatest failure in the war on terror," and argues that staunching the flood of money from illicit activities into terrorist coffers is essential. She contends that the "union of narco-traffickers, terrorist groups, and the international criminal underworld is the new axis of evil."

On Gretchen Peters’ blog there is a parallel article about “The criminals running the Af-Pak border” which is worth reading. Among other things, she writes:

In the last eight years, the Afghan Taliban have greatly expanded their illicit activities, morphing into a force more violent and ruthless than when they were in power from 1996 to 2001 and building up an economic empire worth almost half a billion dollars. Their activities are diverse: In some parts of the south, they collaborate with drug traffickers to dictate poppy output. They provide armed protection for opium convoys leaving Afghanistan's farm areas and protect heroin labs along the Pakistan border. In addition, they work with kidnapping rings that have snared diplomats, journalists, U.S. contractors, and wealthy local businessmen. They cooperate with gunrunners, human traffickers, and the smuggling gangs that illegally export millions of dollars worth of Afghan antiquities.

Readers will remember that the ACCG has been very free with its "Friends of Numismatics" award to US congressmen who recently opposed the proposed introduction (HR 915) of stricter controls over the import of antiquities from Afghanistan into the US. Now a few years on, there is emerging information that it is precisely the trafficking of these antiquities to the no-questions-asked markets of the west which is contributing to the financing of the enemies of America, that is buying them weapons and explosive. Let us remember their names, these "Friends of numismatists", the text “ACCG has friends in Congress” names them as Mark Green, Tom Petri, Paul Ryan and adds "The ACCG is proud to count them as "Friends"." I am sure they were not alone in opposing the introduction of stricter regulation of the market in antiquities from Afghanistan. I hope the publication of Ms Peters' book is accompanied by the publication of a full list of US lawmakers who opposed HR 915. Who were these people that put the self-interest of a minority group of traders and collectors over the need to stem the flow of dollars to lawbreakers?

On ACCG President Bill Puetz’s Vcoins online coin store at the moment, the search engine reveals that there are about 180 coins from “Bactria” (an ancient polity, most of the central urbanised area of which falls into modern Afghanistan). They are collectively worth more than $10 000. Very few of them however have any kind of documented provenance capable of demonstrating they left the region before the rise of the Taliban. Ebay has 29 at the moment, and the same comments apply. The total value of the latter is some $20 000. So where do they come from? How do potential customers of these stores know they are not putting money into the pockets of the Taliban and other illegal groups (for example in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan)? The collector may wish to persuade themselves that this "cannot be" the case, but to what extent is that simply short-sighted wishful thinking?

Photo: The fruits of the seeds of terror - financed in part by no-questions-asked portable antiquities collectors? How can they be sure?

When on Google Earth 23

Here is the next When on Google Earth. I only won the last one because Chuck Jones chose as his site one which looked like the one on the cover of a book I have here, and while it was not that site, it gave an idea of where to look, and I found it in the neighbouring country.

With reference to the title of my blog, this one is not so much a "portable antiquity issue" though there are indeed "heritage issues" connected with it. This photo is part of a complex of monuments which extends over many kilkometres square, though part of it is damaged by modern activity. There has recently been some discussion over the best means to preserve it. This complex is not only well known for its exceptional archaeology, but also the various speculative pseudo-scientific notions part of it attracts.

[Since it is a complex of features which may have accrued over many centuries, and not all of them have been properly dated by investigation yet, the date can be expressed vaguely as a general period or periods].

The area in the photo is about 1.3 km across.

One other thing, although the site can be determined without, to get the view seen here, you do need to use one of the newer features of Google Earth...

Sorry the photo is a bit dull and lacking contrast, that's how it came out. I'll try and put a better version up a bit later, though I am expecting it to be solved quite quickly.





The Rules of When on Google Earth are as follows:
Q: What is When on Google Earth?
A: It’s a game for archaeologists, or anybody else willing to have a go!

Q: How do you play it?
A: Simple, you try to identify the site in the picture.

Q: Who wins?
A: The first person to correctly identify the site, including its major period of occupation, wins the game.

Q: What does the winner get?
A: The winner gets bragging rights and the chance to host the next When on Google Earth on his/her own blog!

Previous winners are given on the table on WOGE 21... Being blog-illiterate, I could not copy it here.

Mr Browning catches another one

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Landowner John Browning in Icklingham Suffolk has caught many metal detector users seeking for collectable (and saleable) artefacts on his land illegally. His farm contains the Icklingham Roman settlement which has in the past produced a whole series of amazing finds (including the Icklingham bronzes now owned by Shelby White). It is of course a scheduled ancient monument and any "metal detecting" there without a permit is illegal.

On April 5th, Andrew Chamberlain, a 25-year old unemployed man from King's Lynn (50 km to the north) was artefact hunting with a metal detector on the site at about 4.30am. He was spotted by Mr Brown, who now patrols his land precisely to catch such heritage thieves at work. Mr Browning has been warned by the local police not to tackle these metal detector wielding intruders as they have been known in the past to be dangerous, so he called the police who sent a patrol car and Mr Chamberlain was apprehended as he returned to his van to return home with what he had found (stolen from the archaeological resource on Mr Brown's land). He was charged with stealing three Roman coins from a site of crucial archaeological importance.

Yesterday he pleaded guilty to theft in court at Bury St Edmunds and was fined £60, ordered to pay costs of £60 and a 'victim surcharge' of £15.

The court was told that Chamberlain, who had no previous convictions, was unaware that the former Roman settlement in the Suffolk village was now a scheduled monument site of archaeological interest. He was said to have a strong interest
in history, particularly medieval Roman times.

As do all "metal detectorists". It really beats me how any "metal detectorist" living locally could not know this particular site was a scheduled site (see the comments of one of them here). There is a resource however that one can check (magic map). So if he did not know it was scheduled, what was he doing there at four-thirty in the morning? He can hardly claim (as some night-time detectorists do) that they "work shifts". Also its a bit odd he claims he did not know the site was "now" scheduled. It was scheduled well before Mr Chamberlain bought his first metal detector.

Also the site must now be in a poor state if now (at the beginning of the artefact hunting season) all he could find on this immensely rich site was a measly three Roman coins. Presumably by now- despite it being a site protected by the law, all the rest of the finds have been taken away and are scattered in many ephemeral personal artefact collections of many no-questions-asked coin and artefact collectors in the UK and beyond its shores - wherever the unregulated internet market takes them.

Britain has archaeological resource protection laws, portable antiquities collectors say these laws are the "best in the world" (that's because they are among the weakest in the world). Nevertheless, even that does not stop people like Mr Chamberlain going onto protected sites and taking stuff away, despite the fact that there are tens, hundreds of thousands of other places where archaeological finds can be sought legally. Obviously the current system is not protecting the significant archaeological heritage from being trashed. What would stop it however if the posession of archaeological material which cannot be shown to have a licit provenance was in some way restricted - either by social pressure or by law - or preferably the one and the other.

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Photo: John Browning (from East Anglian Daily Times)

America helps Britain pay for its heritage

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On this blog on Sunday I suggested that US collectors might help out a small local authority museum in England trying to raise the cash to purchase a hoard of nine Late Roman coins from Nailsworth, near Stroud, Gloucestershire recently declared Treasure. Half of the 450 quid needed is for the landowner who allowed a metal detector using artefact hunter on his land, and half for the finder. The next day this anonymous news message appeared on the ACCG website (of course omitting any mention of this blog and my suggestion). The ACCG makes it look as if it is its own unprompted initiative for North American collectors to donate to this appeal:

As collectors and dealers we all benefit from the sensible laws in England governing coin finds and we support the voluntary reporting of metal detector finds. [...] This is an ideal opportunity for us to support these laws and the good practice of voluntary reporting by giving something back.

So get your checkbooks out please guys and help out. Just think what good publicity it will be.

The actual total costs of the payments given to artefact hunters all over the UK for complying with the law and handing over government-claimed finds to the state for inclusion in public collections is currently unknown. We should not forget that administering the process is not without its own costs. This system must cost the citizens of Britain in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland a hefty number of hundreds of thousands of pounds a year for them to buy back from metal detector using artefact seekers pieces of their own heritage. In some years, the overall annual costs must top a million pounds, surely. These are the hidden costs of the "British system" that US portable antiquity collectors (like those in the ACCG) want other nations to adopt because it allegedly works so well in the UK. So while it is nice to see the ACCG chipping in to help Stroud Museum find 450 UKP, one wonders how much they will be willing to donate to the purchase of the Harrogate Hoard (probably somewhere in the region of 1,082,800 UKP) and other such shiny goodies.

I suspect the argument might be raised that such items will be going in most cases to the larger museums where the issue for the pro-collecting lobby is that there such items may not be on permanent display and "would undoubtedly be stored away from view and perhaps never seen again". Nevertheless if they are to find their way into the public collections, somebody must pay for them.

I was also interested by the ACCG's remark: "The museum has an annual budget of only about £100 for the purchase of all finds! Most private collectors could hardly imagine such a small amount to devote to their collection each year". The ACCG's estimated 50 000 US collectors of ancient coins alone spending more than 100UKP on coins a year is putting at least 5 000 000 pounds a year into the market. Just think how much artefact hunting that can finance.

Now, the only problem is if countries like Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and all the others from which a steady flow of portable antiquities currently on the US market come from were to adopt the "British system", who would help THEM foot the bill? Many of them are countries which do not have the resources of the United Kingdom and what they do have is clearly better spent elsewhere. Even if each of them "only" has to find something like the equivalent of Britain's (estimated) million pounds per annum, that's a lot of funds got to come from elsewhere. All the citizens of those countries would have to foot the bill, all so a small minority of collectors do not have to "say no to tainted and undocumented artefacts". Why?

UPDATE: No sooner had I spoken than Peter Dearing posted to the Moneta-L list an appeal from the "Friends of the British Museum" (which he calls an "English museum" sic) for help aquiring the "Vale of York [aka Harrogate] Hoard". They only need a cool quarter of a million quid. But that is just one Treasure find, there's many more out there the Brits would appreciate help with securing for public benefit instead of them disappearing on the open market. I think museums from all over the British Isles might like to send requests for financial help to the US coin collectors lobby organization - The address of the secretary Wayne Sayles is on the ACCG website.

Citizens’ Archaeological Protection Patrols – where are the British ones?

British archaeologist “Jake’s” typical defeatist approach ”Metal Detectorists are here now and we are stuck with em”
is put to shame by the story over on SAFEcorner (Monday, April 20, 2009 Organizing local people can save knowledge ) about the proper archaeological investigation of a tomb that would otherwise have fallen prey to looters. The reason it did not is that it was in an area where local archaeologists have organized villagers to protect the local archaeological sites. It is “a really clear example of how organizing local people can save knowledge". Roger Atwood in his seminal Stealing History, page 230, describes the efforts of this type of 'archaeological protection group'. “They scout the land, chase away bands of looters, or they surround them and tie their wrists with rope until the police arrive, and they seize their tools -- shovels, poles, buckets. ...”.

It’s a shame that we can only read about the activities of such patrols among, for example, the villagers of southern America, or southern and eastern Asia. British archaeologists cannot manage to organize similar citizens’ initiative among the heritage conscious public of their own country, simply collectively shrug their shoulders and say that “Metal Detectorists are here now and we are stuck with em”, and decide that if they "cannot" (really?) beat them, they might as well join them as "partners".

CPAC Resignations 18th April 2003

Six years ago, on 18th April 2003, three cultural advisers to the White House resigned in protest at the failure of US forces to prevent the looting a few days earlier of Iraq's national museum during the US-led invasion .
The three resigned from the Cultural Property Advisory Committee, an he 11-member advisory committee composed of experts and professionals from the art world. They were Martin Sullivan - who had chaired the CPAC for eight years. The other two members to resign were Richard S Lanier (director of a New York foundation) and Gary Vikan (director of Baltimore's Walters Art Museum). According to the Associated Press, Mr Lanier criticised the Bush administration's "total lack of sensitivity and forethought regarding the Iraq invasion and loss of cultural treasures".

After the resignation of Martin Sullivan over this matter the chair of the CPAC was filled by Jay Kislak (2003-2008).

Get your genu-whine Crucifiction relics 'ere, get your wallets out and come over here, gents!

Over on the Moneta-L forum they are still huffing and puffing about me making a comment on some people’s (mis)use of written sources to “authenticate” a piece of stained linen many claim to be the shroud in which Jesus was laid in the Tomb. The thread of the argument though has long been lost. I was struck by the comments of a man of the cloth, the Rev. Mr. Rob Page “a former teacher of history and an ordained deacon” remonstrating with coin collectors on the true meaning of “relics” as a focus for contemplation rather than worship. He adds that if an individual believes they are the actual object that it purports to be, “that individual gains a more personalized experience”. He continues:

When I hold a coin that I think is authentic, I experience a closer union with that time period. I have taken coins of Caesar and Brutus and have shown them to my students who remember that experience and appreciate what we are studying. Likewise, I have taken a Roman crucifixtion nail and shown it to members of my parish. While it is not the nail, it does make an impression that the people don't easily forget.

Now the first part is the conventional “pieces of the past in the hand” (emotion versus intellect) argument which suggests that a great help in the cutting down of personal artefact collecting might be if US (and not only) museums and educational institutions could develop more effective programmes of circulating handling collections of artifacts around schools like we had in England when I was a kid. Then teachers would not themselves have to buy artifacts for their show-and-tell which is then used to promote no-questions-asked portable antiquity collecting as an “educational” tool.

More disturbing however is the vision of a robed churchman somewhere out west each Easter solemnly taking from a case a cruddy black or brown corroded spike and holding it up reverently (or maybe triumphantly) and intoning in a voice full of dark significance “and this…is a real Roman crucifixtion (sic) nail, just like the one they used to crucify Our Lord, just imagine, come, touch it - feel how sharp it still is”. At this point, the old ladies cross themselves and the more fragile members of the congregation start to weep quietly with emotion.

But what is a “Roman crucifixion nail”? Leaving behind the debate on how frequently victims of this punishment were nailed to a cross or tied there, how can one tell what a Roman nail was used for or intended to be used for? The Romans had a well-developed iron production industry in most provinces. They made lots of nails. Their buildings were full of them. Their sites are littered with them. They made huge nails for joining big bits of wood (roof and floor joists, ships), middle sized ones for joining middle sized bits of wood (roof laths, floorboards, carts, doors and shutters) and little ones for small pieces of wood (caskets, hobnails). The Roman military was a large consumer of these nails, we have a pit full of them (about a million in fact) for example from the fort at Inchtuthill. Here’s some of them. A detachment off to do a morning’s crucifixion duty would drop off at the fort canteen to get their cheese and ham sandwiches and at the fort's blacksmith’s workshop for a bag of stout long carpentry nails.

So actually if the Reverend has been sold a “genu-whine real nail used by the Romans to crucify Christians – who knows “who” might have hung from it?” on eBay or by any other smooth-talking “don’t-ask-me-questions-I’ll-tell-no-lies” dealer in authentick artifacts, he’s been taken for a ride.

More to the point, in not determining the basis of the assertion that a particular spiky piece of rusty iron is both Roman and a “crucifixion” (and not roofing) nail - so basically the provenance again - and apparently representing it to his congregation as such, he is plainly abusing their trust and misleading them. (Note that interesting "the people" in the quote.)

Anyway what were claimed by their seller to be the "real nails" from the (a?) crucifixion were on offer on eBay last year.

Lots-of-nails:

L. Pitts and S. Frere, 1985, Inchtuthill: the Roman legionary fortress excavations 1952–65. London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.

Diggin' in Virginia

In the past couple of decades, US archaeologists have developed a methodology of examining extensive topsoil sites such as battlefields and military encampments in a manner that helps reconstruct the flow of a historic fight, give insight into military strategy or, at a campsite, illuminate the living conditions of the soldiers there in a way that documentary evidence alone cannot. This approach was pioneered in the US. The work done at the site of Battle of Little Bighorn, Custer's Last Stand (1876), in Montana for example is a classic of this methodological approach in which metal detector users were involved. It also shows how easily the evidence held in the top few inches of topsoil can be destroyed if part of it is taken away by artefact hunters and collectors.

From Virginia, Brigid Schulte reports ('Unearthed War Relics See Battle Again Archaeologists Decry History Buffs' Digs ', Washington Post April 16, 2006) on a three-day commercial "safari" relic hunt called Diggin' in Virginia one weekend this spring, which was anything but the careful systematic work needed to investigate such a site. More than 200 relic hunters (interestingly dressed mainly in camouflage as in the UK) swept the fields of Brandy Rock Farm in Culpeper County with their metal detectors. To take part they'd paid a couple of hundred dollars each.
Obviousl some thought it was worth it. One metal detectorist is stated to have found a Confederate ‘Mississippi belt plate” apparently worth $12000, while others are quoted as getting excited about finding a Minié shot as “about as close as you can get to stepping back in time."

The site of this metal detecting rally – a form of exploitation of the archaeological resource which she reports is becoming increasingly popular in parts of the USA - was an 1863 Civil War campsite. While the “dig” was perfectly legal, the site was stripped of a large amount of any evidence of past activity it may have contained. Since no recording of findspots seems to have taken place here and all the finds have anyway been scattered into 200 personal collections and on eBay, that is now one more site of this period that can no longer be studied by more sophisticated investigation techniques to understand the past.

The same weekend as Diggin' in Virginia, 200 relic hunters roamed Fort Powhatan on the James River during the Texas-based North South Hunt, jockeying to see who could mine the most Revolutionary and Civil War goodies. (The same group holds the Grand National Relic Shootout and the Git R Dun hunts in Virginia.)

Again, it appears no recording of findspots was done and information was lost and the site irreparably damaged by the selective and unrecorded removal of part of the evidence.

US archaeologists are not slow to point out that such metal detecting rallies represent the wholesale destruction of evidence of the past. Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the state's Department of Historic Resources says: "These digs are like ripping the pages out of a book as you read and setting them on fire […]"It's an outrage."

The metal detectorists counter such concerns with the same time-worn old excuses that we see in the UK . The relic hunters deny any connection with “the bad guys -- the ones who use night-vision goggles and sneak into protected sites at night to dig things up, or the ones who sell what they find on eBay”. “Metal detectorists” “have such a passion for the past”, “they write books on what they find” (references please). Some "pinpoint what they dug up”. Others have "donated hundreds of hours to help archaeologists”. “many of the places they dig have been ploughed for 140 years and that artifacts have been scattered, there is no context" (not true- see above). "This stuff's just rotting in the ground," “If these sites are so important, why haven't archaeologists staked their claim?” (heard of conservation guys?). We’ve heard it all before, it cuts no mustard when the overall effect is erosive and destructive.

Members of the Council of Virginia Archaeologists have begun protesting to state legislators and other officials and are enlisting the aid of local historic preservation groups. They've also contacted landowners to get them to stop the digs. Last year in the state's General Assembly, lawmakers considered a measure that would have required relic hunters to get written permission from landowners before digging, and to catalogue and report what they found. The bill also would have established that relics belonged to the state, not any individual. It was resoundingly crushed in committee. Del. Kenneth R. Plum (D-Fairfax) said he got hundreds of angry e-mails and letters for sponsoring the bill. "I was not prepared for what happened to me," he said. "The floodgates opened."

Oh, we can imagine. On a safari you are told never to get between a hippopotamus and water, it will attack you. Equally anyone suggesting that like some other finite resources artefacts in archaeological context should be under some form of state protection is asking for trouble from US collectors. Still, I do not expect Democratic delegates do much hanging around on US collectors’ forums and listen to the anti-establishment “cold dead hands’ pose-striking there.

What is more interesting is the anger that seems to have been directed at a proposal that it is reported “would have required relic hunters to get written permission from landowners before digging”, what on earth is so devastating about that? What actually is wrong in obliging those who dig up an historical site and take away artifacts from it to “catalogue and report what they found”?

We have all been witness to the constant barrage of calls from the artefact collecting community, and the US artefact collecting community in particular, for all those “source nations” (with their “restrictive laws” which stand between them and the ancient geegaws they want to decorate their collections with) to adopt “the British system”. By this they mean hefty rewards for reporting state-acquired finds, archaeologists working as “partners” of the artefact hunters to record as much as possible of the findspot information, but teh artefact hunter talking away (for example to sell to US collectors) as much as they want. So why is it so difficult for them to apply a system based on similar principles in their own country? Why are US relic hunters against the recording of finds? Why have US detectorists not even set up something like the UKDFD, let alone lobbied strenuously for the US government to set aside the funds required to set up an archaeological outreach programme like the PAS which would record finds made by members of the public in the course of their everyday and recreational activities? It seems to me that before calling for other nations to change their whole system of heritage management to suit the US collector, US advocates of collectors' "rights" should be applying it consistently to their own land. Before they can convert foreign governments, civil society and artefact hunters to the British system, let them convince their own. So what about it ACCG, when do you start?

Photo: "History Buff" looking for pieces of the past to take home. Photo Lucian Perkins.

A taste of things to come or just a load of gas?

I’ve been unable to find out more about an anecdote which recently appeared on the ancient artifacts forum here and here.

Apparently a collector in north western USA (Idaho) “just this past week” had two local customs-FBI gentlemen visit her and they “told her they noted she was actively buying artifacts on ebay”, they apparently examined all the items in her collection and collected the names of sellers. The items concerned were apparently Maya objects, import of which is restricted in the USA depending on what country they come from.

Now, if true, and not just a one-off fluke, it suggests that US authorities might be beginning to observe internet sales more carefully in the same way as in Germany. We all recall the fuss about that from US collectors a few weeks back. This is one to watch.

Metal detecting is purely about love of history: "computer says no!"

In a thought provoking post ("Metal detecting is purely about love of history: computer says no!") the British grassroots conservation advocacy group Heritage Action discusses this story which they suggest gives a vivid insight into the artefact hunters' mentality.

A hoard of nine silver Roman coins was found near Nailsworth by detectorist Wayne Jacobs in 2004. Now, Stroud Museum in the Park (annual budget to buy finds, £100) has launched an appeal to raise £450 to buy them for the benefit of the people of the area [...] The reaction to this story by detectorists on minelabowners.com, the detecting forum where it appeared is revealing, to say the least…. .

Read more here.

Since the whole point of putting them in a public collection is to allow the assemblage to be kept together allowing future study (including numismatic study), perhaps our US coin-collecting frinds who are so keen to see the "British model" applied in other - often poorer - countries would like to chip in and help this small local authority museum fund this purchase (To make a donation, send a cheque payable to ‘SDC Coin Appeal’ to Museum in the Park, Stratford Park, Stroud, GL5 4AF, I wonder if they take Paypal?).

[Foreign readers might be puzzled by the joke in the HA title. It is a reference to one of the recurring sketches in the 'cult' comedy series "Little Britain", a character called Carol Beer].

The artefact collector-friendly archaeological "Federation": debate quashed

The British Archaeology Jobs Resource (a sort of a online job seeking service for British archaeologists) is apparently trying to set up some kind of a "Federation" to "save" British archaeology from something or other. Sadly though it is not from the damaging public perception of archaeology fostered by current treatment of the artefact hunting and collecting issue in that country. Archaeologist David Connolly the spiritus movens of BAJR is very publicly pro-collecting, pro-"metal detectorist" up to his ears, so it is not surprising that he has gathered much support in the pro-collecting milieu.

Recently on "Britarch", the discussion list of the Council for British Archaeology (so in some ways perhaps a rival for the task of representing archaeology and archaeologists to other bodies) a discussion started up on the topic of the federation, gathering members' thoughts. Some doubts certain individuals had were expressed about the apparently less than democratic means by which is was being set up, and whether it was ultimately a good or bad idea to have yet another body (alongside the CBA, the IFA, ALGAO, PAS and various other organizations acting as the public face of the discipline, and trades unions protecting the rights of its members). Especially one with the - to some - somewhat controversial David Connolly as self-appointed leader.

What was interesting about the discussion was that among the first of a rapid flurry of posters who leapt to defend the new organization on Britarch, three were "metal detectorists" chastising archaeologists for not supporting the new initiative (including one defending BAJR by provocatively accusing some British archaeologists of being "heritage brownshirts", thinking it was a surefire way to gather support in the milieu no doubt). It would seem that at least some British "metal detectorists" see it as very much in their interests that Mr Connolly should, by means of this Federation, achieve some "clout" in British archaeology. That alone might lead some of us to question what the grounds for that might be.

Part of the British archaeological community will face a problem finding out about and expressing opinions on the creation of a body which aims to represent them. Much of the organization of the new federation is currently going on over on a closed section of the BAJR forum. As is well-known, Mr Connolly does not let all and sundry on his forum. For example, I have found to my cost that one is not allowed to call artefact hunting there "artefact hunting" or disagree with what Mr Connolly says, both appear to be (I was told) offences against his forum's "Accepted Use Policy". Since I do disagree with David Connolly over a number of things (in particular what seems to me a fundamental issue of whether portable antiquity collecting really is in any shape or form "archaeology for all" as Connolly insists), it's not worth the effort of trying to register there to have him block and manipulate my posts. Though if I took up metal detecting and artefact collecting I might have more of a chance I guess.

Readers of this blog will now not be able to see in turn what members of Britarch said over the past couple of days about the new "Federation" and the questioning of certain methods being applied to create it. On Friday, Mr Connolly contacted CBA asking them to remove certain members' posts, and apparently when they (rightly) refused, Connolly (and possibly one other person - unconfirmed) contacted the CBA's service provider (JISC) who today obligingly removed the whole of two threads on the BAJR "Federation" from the Britarch list ! Free speech no longer rules in Great Britain it seems. This is ironic, as it is precisely this type of behaviour on Mr Connolly's part (hidering free discussion of his proposals in an OPEN forum) that was being questioned in that thread. The would-be leader seems to have shown his hand and how how he would treat those in British archaeology who have a different perception than his own. If the "Federation" had any guts (which it would need to face the problems archaeology in Britain faces today), it would reply to the comments and doubts expressed on a public forum and not simply brush them aside by having two whole threads of comment and discussion deleted by a third party. These are, however, the same tactics we have seen David Connolly apply consistently whenever his approach to artefact collecting is questioned. I have observed that he will not face or tolerate criticism, nor justify his views or actions, simply dismiss the question. While this is what we have come to expect from the no-questions-asked portable antiquities collector (who simply have no real justification and much to hide), it is disturbing to see this inability to articulate a coherent answer to legitimate concerns about the heritage in a professional archaeologist.

Once he'd removed two threads from an independent forum, he then set up an open thread on the forum he controls "for the benefit of Britarch members" (!). But is is hardly a conducive environment for the Britarch member since most of the first three pages of the thread consists of jokes about Britarch, and personal comments at the expense of the Britarch members who had earlier questioned the Federation in the now-missing posts (suddenly it seems the AUP is less stringently applied than when talking about Connolly's views on "metal detecting" and its role in archaeological policy). Not surprisingly Britarch members have not been flooding to BAJR to discuss the topic of this new federation there.

I will not be supporting a "metal detectorist" friendly "Federation" run by David Connolly to represent British archaeology, especially one that uses such methods to quash alternate opinions. Neither do I personally think, until certain issues are cleared up, would it be wise for anyone else to do so. In any case as far as I can see, a lot of attention has been paid to who is eligible for membership of what kind, but there is no overall statement of the actual aims, nor manner in which those aims will be achieved.

Nomadi del Tempo

A short film on archaeology today, 'La collina e la Luna', by the Swiss-based Nomadi del Tempo talks of the passion of the archaeologist and its situation in a modern society: see http://www.lacollinedesceltes.ch/, [chapter Au Cinema]. More information on http://www.nomadideltempo.ch./(seen first on BAJR) where in the comments on this film, the point was made about today's developer-funded field archaeology being "essentially the stormtropers of the construction industry". Thought provoking.

In order to find decent coins

Nafez Qanadilo writes Wed Apr 15, 2009 on Moneta-L about the country in which he lives (he does not name it, but searching his name suggests it is likely to be Jordan) about “collectors who destroy the context sometimes, but always preserve the artifact”. He says that in his country “it is illegal to trade ancient artifacts” and “In order to find decent coins, you have to go visit gangsters who control looters, you need to visit black markets controlled by corruption, smuggling and crime.” But that is of course only if you are local and have contacts on the ground there. Foreign dealers of course tell us they do not have any contact with these sellers or people who have dealings with them. They presumably have a hotline to the Elves under the magic mountain that supply them with as many coins as the market needs from the region without having to deal with a single local law-breaker.

Vignette: the new logo of the Ancient Coin Dealers Guiltless lobby group.

Welsh addresses weighty issues

Guess who a certain Californian portable antiquities dealer and officer of a certain portable antiquities dealers' lobby group is talking about here...

He consistently refers to "collectors" and "dealers" in ways which imply that those who collect, or trade in, "portable antiquities" are morally inferior to himself and to others who would like to see private collecting of antiquities banned.

Note the subtle suggestion there (the false banning bogeyman argument yet again). All collectors and dealers, Mr Welsh, or just the no-questions-asked collectors and dealers? Precisely what superior "morals" does that kind of treatment of a fragile and finite resource for personal entertainment and profit actually evidence I wonder?

Apparently the person under discussion has some"sterling qualities" (yuk) but when it comes to portable antiquity collecting these:

are not matched by an equally developed sense of fair play and respect for the rights of others.

The rights of others to benefit from the archaeological record. One might say the same about no-questions-asked dealers and buyers of portable antiquities who take away any chance that the archaeological record of countries they've never even set foot in can ever be properly studied, because huge bits of it have been trashed so Mr Welsh and his artefact collecting mates can buy and sell geegaw bits of it.

He continues:

Although I do not have any definite knowledge of Barford's religious beliefs and political orientation, I suspect that many would join me in imagining him as an atheist who is also a far left wing Socialist, if not a Marxist. Perhaps one day he will reveal his own thoughts as to where he stands regarding religion and politics.

Hmmm. He forgot to bring my sexual orientation into it; I'm disappointed. At least, unlike some, I do not believe in benign pixies and elves who allegedly allow the no-questions-asked collecting of archaeological artefacts to take place without causing damage to the archaeological record.

Photo: Mr David Welsh - frankly I do not care to know his religion or politics.

When on Google Earth 17

There is now another photo of my WOGE 17 here.

UPDATE, 15th April: We have a winner. Congratulations. WOGE 18 will presumably be on http://sjmcdonough.blogspot.com/

Shrouding the issue of provenance

Could it be that the former president of a prominent US antiquities dealers’ lobby group is a Shroudie (believer in the identity of the Turin Shroud as the one (sic) used in the burial of Jesus after the Crucifixion)? On his blog Peter Tompa notes with evident interest:

“this Easter, the Vatican has weighed in with information that the Knights Templar hid the shroud for the period it disappeared from the historical record.”

Not being an avid reader of L'Osservatore Romano, I cannot judge what the Vatican actually stated, but the object today known as the Turin Shroud was not IN “the historical record” in 1287, neither was it “in” Constantinople in 1204 for any “Templars” to find there. The manipulated artefact has no provenance traceable before the period of the Black Death in France.

All the rest of the ‘Shroudie’ case is guesswork and special pleading which ignores and misinterprets the context of isolated and selected pieces of historical records used to support a highly dubious case – based largely on special pleading. In a word, not unlike the way portable antiquities collectors present their arguments in favour of maintaining the status quo over no questions asked artefact collecting. The lack of provenance indicating origin of the objects they buy from no-questions-asked dealers does not bother most artefact collectors, so its odd to find the former president of the ACCG not questioning the made-up provenance for this one object. Obviously even he recognizes this is crucial in determining whether it truly is what some misguided people represent it to be.

The Turin Shroud is a highly interesting, but Medieval, object. There is however no way that it can be linked with Jerusalem in the 1st century AD. Any study of its external form, chemical composition and physical condition can tell us nothing about burial practices or anything else about events in the first century of our era, nor even prove where it came from. The lack of a documentable provenance here is crucial, which is why those sad individuals who stubbornly cling to a belief in its pre-Black Death origins cling so desperately to any mention of any kind of “cloth” which they take out of context (like that mentioned by Mr Tompa) to ‘prove’ their case – when of course it does nothing of the kind. Once again conspiracy theories fill in the gaps between what we can document and what some would like to believe. Like all unprovenanced archaeological artifacts, the object known as the Turin Shroud loses most of its value to inform us about the past once it has lost the information about the original context of discovery (or manufacture) – without which all the rest is the made-up surmise of the antiquitist.

There are very clear parallels with the way the Shroudies try to present their case (including their use of media like the internet) and the supporters of the no-questions-asked antiquities market. Interestingly, both have their most extreme manifestations in the United States of America. Depressing.

Of course the current story (in which no closer details are provided of the actual text being cited) is hype for a forthcoming book.

To all you young collectors out there

Mr Okkam S. Reizer has passed on to me some material produced by the 'Ancient Coins For Young Americans collectorship encouragment program' (obviously not to be confused with the ACE) which he came across and he thought might be of interest. It explains a lot about the background to statements such as this from Californian coin dealer and ancient coin dealers' lobbying group (ACCG) officer Dave Welsh who steadfastly maintains:

Paul Barford and his fellow travelers maintain that a trade in unprovenanced artifacts "obviously" encourages and abets looting. But there are few principles in science better established than that what seems to be obvious is not thereby proven. Causality has to be established. Accepting something as true because it seems to be obvious is in fact one of the most fruitful sources of error. Where is there any verifiable evidence that the acquisition of unprovenanced coins by collectors causes looting of archaeological sites?

The text I received from Mr Reizer is undated, but perhaps it is a copy of an older text on which the present generation of antiquity dealers and collectors was raised. Let us take a look at it, I reproduce it in its entirity in the original spelling.

To All You Young Collectors Out There.

Hello Young Collectors!
Uncle Sam, your jovial friendly coin dealer here. I want to talk to you today about a serious problem, so y'all pay attention. You might have heard what some grown ups are saying about nasty things like “looting” and our beloved and beneficial American hobby of ancient coin collecting. I want to put your minds to rest about this.

Now, “looting” is a nasty word for people taking things they should not. Now we don’t do that do we AC-ites? No, of course we don’t. We believe it to be a self-evident truth that the coins we look after for the world are our rightful heritage as American citizens, the true and only inheritors of the mantle of the ancient world, aren’t they? But just in case some of you were getting confused, I want to tell you today where these coins really come from to stop these stupid lies and the questions some of you have been asking your teachers and they have been asking Uncle Sam.

Now, we know that over in Europe in those quaint little countries with poor educational standards and corrupt un-American governments there are poor uneducated people who cannot afford soap and water and proper dental care that are so impoverished they have to grub around in the dirt to find things to feed their families. You've probably all seen them on the television and in the movies. Well, these are what some grown ups call “looters”. But don’t you believe what these grown-ups say about them. Of course they are not really digging up the coins we sell to you! No! That is a nasty lie! What really happens is that these poor people take what they find in the soil to the museum-pixies. Yes! They place the things they find in sacks under the village maypole and overnight the pixies come take the things away to pixieland and leave bread and deoderant in their place. One day when the poor people have decent education, the pixies will bring back all the old things they looked after for them so they too can enjoy learning about their land's history like you do now. Isn’t that nice?

And where do the coins come from we sell you? Well, many many years ago, far far away a race of Elves lived in caves under the Magic Mountains. They made these coins and put the faces and names of the old emperors on them for people to use, and when the people did not want them any more, they gave them back to the elves. The wise old elves kept them in their secret vaults for a while and then put them in great sacks and sent them through secret tunnels to the old coin emporium in Europe. That’s a magic shop run by some good friends of mine which collects together all the old coins people do not want any more so they can be sold to enlightened people like you and me to collect. The wise shopkeeper knows what bright kids you are, and sends them to us across the sea as presents for American children ! Yes. That’s where we get all the coins we use in our program from, they are from the quaint old European magic coin shop!

Now, why would the pixies be giving coins to the old magic coin shop? We all know that pixies don’t like elves, so obviously it is all unfounded lies what some grownups say that the ancient coins and things you buy from your Uncle Sam and all my jolly dealer friends all over our great country are taken from archaeological sites over the sea!

I hope you can see now that this is obviously just a made-up fairy story by some mean grown ups to scare good, decent, bright, educated coin-collecting kids like you. Those bad people we grown-ups call "cultural property nationalists" (Uncle Sam will explain that term in the next ACCE newsletter) are obviously subversive communists and what we call their fellow travellers. If you hear people talking like this, you should never listen to them, and tell your parents. One day perhaps they will have to answer before an Un-Americal Activities Tribunal for such talk.

Children, remember, there is no verifiable evidence that the buying of unprovenanced coins by constitution-loving American collectors causes looting of any archaeological sites anywhere in the world. So ignore anyone who tells you otherwise.

Until next time, keep collecting kids !
Yours jovially
Uncle Sam the Coin Man

Now I do not know if the current adult generation of collectors over in the US still believes in the pixies and elves as a mechanism to explain “where coins come from”, it is difficult to say, they offer no other sensible explanation. Mr Reizer asks if there is a more adequate resolution of the problem , artifacts are taken in large numbers by looters from ancient sites in Europe, increasing quantities of fresh artifacts arrive in the dealers' shops of the USA. Mr Reizer asks why some bend over backwards to deny that there is any connection whatsoever between them, and suggests logic suggests a simpler explanation than one involving pixies. I am inclined to agree with him.

These "no verifiable evidence" type arguments from special pleaders leave a very unpleasant taste in the mouth. After all we’ve heard them all before (and in particular from the United States) – about gas chambers and the disappearance of vast numbers of individuals from the townships and ghettos of central Europe between 1941-5. This portable antiquities collectorship “Looting revisionism”, this Looting Denial, is a shabby and unworthy argument to come from the ranks of collectors who claim to be erudite and concerned people “passionately interested in learning about the past”.

The pro-collecting lobby would be well-advised to abandon this tactic of attempting by such means to deflect attention from their own responsibilities in the wholesale no-questions-asked acquisition of archaeological artifacts from dealers unwilling to provide material with securely documented legitimate provenances in accordance with the principles of ethical trade of such material. The sooner, the better all round. As one collector, Voz Earl, recently put it:

I can only speak from my own experience which leaves me with little doubt that looting is a problem and that much knowledge has been irrevocably lost. We do ourselves no favors by pretending otherwise.

and Voz Earl again:

I think Reid makes an excellent point: "Attempts by some here to downplay or ignore the smuggling/loss of provenance problem just come across as disingenuous as well as extreme." One might also add that taking such a tact simply helps our opponents to marginalize us and dismiss our entire point of view.

Absolutely right. While this tactic remains the principle one offered by the pro-collecting lobby as a whole, quite frankly, nobody is going to take them and their other arguments at all seriously. Unconcerned collectors in collective denial are clearly not partners for discussion.

As for the “evidence” Dave Welsh claims is absent, a few months ago several people were drawing attention to a 2007 report by a pro-democracy group (so outside archaeology) on organized crime in the Balkans, Bulgaria specifically, which very clearly shows the links between the US collectors’ market and the looting of archaeological sites – and a good many other things besides. In case the Ancient Coin Dealers’ Defence Guild missed it, the document can be accessed here. So far the 'Collectors in Denial' have not addressed that report. [when can we expect a full review and rebuttal from the collectors and dealers, citing references?]. A discussion on it on Moneta-L was however broken off by the moderators abruptly when it got too close to "dealers' issues" (as indeed such a discussion cannot fail to do - so presumably as far as dealers are concerned must remain taboo).

A high proportion of ancient antiquities on the US (and British) market at the moment (ebay and Vcoins) explicitly or apparently come from Balkan sources, indeed in many cases Bulgarian ones – including as I pointed out here some time ago some bulk lots which Dave Welsh’s “Classical coins” has been selling. If Mr Welsh and his fellow antiquities dealers and collectors wish to claims that the Resource Preservation advocates "cannot provide any evidence to support their claim", by ignoring this report by an outside and unbiased institution with no axe to grind against collectors, they are simply turning their back on at least one element of what we have shown.

The day that antiquities' dealers dealings are totally transparent and we can see exactly where every single one of the items in their stock are coming from, that is the day we will be able to test the model properly. It is not a little suspicious that the dealers who claim "there is no evidence" are the very individuals who are actually actively concealing the evidence that could be used to determine the truth. Challenging us to provide the evidence while denying us access to it is simply the sort of weasel-tactics one can expect from this band of Merry Men.

UPDATE:
Collectors awake?
Over on the Moneta-L forum Voz Earl has now given the link to a "report by the Center for theStudy of Democracy, entitled--Organized Crime in Bulgaria: Markets and Trends" which he found mentioned on this blog... though of course studiously avoids giving the link to the actual post here (or blog) concerned. He could have saved himself the potential embarrassment of admitting he reads such heretical contributions to the discussion on portable antiquities as mine, since the report was brought up on their very own coin-collectors' forum on January 14th by Nathan Elkins. This was in a discussion on looting (the one that was infamously abruptly cut short by a coin-dealing moderator who said they'd be accepting no more posts from me there) so perhaps its not surprising that it was not properly discussed there and uninquisitive coin collectors obediently did not look at it. This rather reinforces the point I am making that collectors and dealers can shout loudly that "no evidence has been provided" while turning their backs on one that has been put right under their noses.

Well, now Mr Earl has again brought attention to it, let us now see the ACCG (and in particular Dave Welsh, dealer currently with coins from the region that is now Bulgaria in his stock and the head of its International Affairs committee) write a review of this report and say why the report's conclusions are untenable and thus of no relevance to the material US dealers sell. No more pixies and elves and dodging the issue, but discussion of the facts behind the flow of Balkan material onto the European and US market please.

Vignette: One of Hugh Thomson’s illustrations from Eric Parker’s (1908), Highways and Byways in Surrey.

Collector Myth number ... I've lost count

During Soviet rule finders just stockpiled what was found. When the iron curtain fell the market was flooded.

How many times have we heard this? What actually is the evidence? As far as I can gather from my colleagues the problem with looting of archaeological sites in those regions really only began after 1989. True I never lived in the USSR but certainly lived and worked as an archaeologist in the Soviet Bloc and through the two institutes with which I was associated had a lot of contact with "Soviet" colleagues in those (for me) extraordinary times.

The Soviet model is put to use by those collectors who claim that "repressive laws don't work - why look at the Soviet Union" as in the quote above. In fact it seems to me that - with a few obvious exceptions (some of which are fascinating and scandalous stories in their own right) the Soviet Bloc as a whole seem to be a very interesting case of quite the opposite. If US collectors want to use this argument, let us have more than anecdotal evidence please that the looting of archaeological sites in general was anything like that after 1989/1990 and the opening of the borders - to western markets (see a pattern here?). The argument about "stockpiles" really seems to be a means of deflecting blame from the no-questions-asked collector.

There is a whole lot of "Viking" (sic - it is not Scandinavian type material) stuff on eBay right now being sold by a US seller who admits (or boasts?) it comes from the Plakun cemeteries around Lake Ladoga. I am sure everyone buying it is getting a copy of the export licence which its movement out of the region requires. These by the way are for the most part barrow cemeteries, so there's a fair bit of digging and destruction involved in the gaining of a buckle or dangly thing ornament to sell on eBay for a few bucks.

Testing the scrap seekers myth

One of the old saws trotted out by the artefact collectors is that if they did not buy metal antiquities like coins from the people who buy them from the diggers, the items "would end up melted down as scrap metal to turn into tourist trinkets" or some such related excuse. We are asked to believe that there are hordes of subsistence diggers out there in the so-called "source countries" feeding their families by digging up scrap metal from ancient sites. The artefact collectors thus represent themselves as "saving" the artefacts from certain destruction.

Dave Welsh (more of this later) is currently throwing out a challenge to "archaeologists like Paul Barford" to PROVE the link between collecting and collecting (which he denies exists), to document the link between people buying a commodity and the people who supply the demand by digging it up and destroying archaeological assemblages in the process.

Well, let's ask him to apply the same standards to his "melted down for tourist trinkets" model. I propose before we can accept this model trotted out by the pro-collecting community of "what is happening in the source countries", we need two things from the pro-collecting lobby:

1) Documentation that the subsistence digging of ancient sites is currently (let's say post 1989) occurring on a regular basis across a whole region or regions, independently of the search for saleable antiquities. Not anecdotal evidence ("XXX was in an Iranian market once and saw....") nor "common sense" arguments ("it stands to reason that ..."). Some examples of proper documented observations of the process. To support the case the collectors are making, it has to apply to an ancient site, not a modern one.

2) I'd like to see the collectors making this argument also put their money where their mouths are. I do not think they have the foggiest idea about the mechanics of the process which they are proposing is a "general" one. I bet very few of them have much of an idea how metal is distributed in the "average" ancient archaeological site.

I'd like to see them prove me wrong by doing it.

I propose a fair test of the proposition. I'd like to see a group of three of them feed their families for three weeks by selling scrap metal which they have dug out of the ground. Let's give them a headstart on the "source country peasant", just let them meet all food costs from selling excavated scrap (and cover any expenses incurred in the search), we'll leave all the other expenses of US daily life out of it. And since they are in the US, we will not insist they grub the metal only out of "ancient" sites. Any place likely to have metal artefacts (not cables, pipes etc) underground which does not have above-ground elements with metal installations will be game. Whether they break the law or not by digging on federal land, or private property without permission is entirely up to them to decide.

One important restraint. Above all, the toothless, jobless, landless, brown skinned peasant with sixteen starving kids at home that they imagine is doing this generally is not going to have a Minelabs Explorer metal detector at home (or be able to afford the batteries), neither do they have a four wheel drive SUV. So in the proposed test both are forbidden. They must walk to the search site (or go by mule, OK, I'll accept a battered old bicycle). They cannot take metal detectors (divining rods are OK) nor mechanical excavators.

Let's give them another headstart. They can use the local library first to identify where they would search. Old farmsteads, river crossings, fairgrounds, the sort of places where metal detectorists would go for example.

But then that's it. Let them dig with hand tools, picks, shovels, hand hoes, sieves if they like. They can dig as deep or as wide as they like. Dig all day or just a few hours until it gets hot. They might find a few silver dimes, maybe a dollar or two. Or maybe a coin hoard - but they are only allowed to consider their scrap value as their model suggests. They might find some corroded copper alloy or lead, and a lot of corroded iron. I'm sure they will, they are all clever guys those collectors. The ubiquitous Aluminium ringpulls... OK, let's let them use them too, but that is cheating a little isn't it?

To make a record of each day's work, let's have a digital shot of what they've found and an approximate weight of each type of metal. Now let's see them get the loot to the scrap dealer. On foot or by mule or bike. Because this is a fair test, let's allow them to phone round first to ask the local scrap dealer if he'd be interested in buying the corroded dirty and mixed material they have on offer.

So how long can they feed their families like that?

How viable a proposition is it?

Now, just to show what a really fair test this could be, since we all appreciate that Californian coin dealer Dave Welsh and his mates are busy making money other ways, the test would be equally valid if they found three homeless jobless hobos to do the digging for them - but whatever arrangement they make, the money from the digging must be sufficient to feed three families for three weeks.

Frankly, I do not think it is at all possible for a number of reasons. Firstly after the first two or three days' hard digging on the most productive site, the easiest stuff to find will be found. The diggers will have to dig deeper, shift many cubic metres of earth for decreasing yield. They could move on to another site, but after a while the sites are going to be beyond the area easily reached in a few hours' walk from home base, and further to carry the (heavy) yield.

Now having lived in Communist Poland at a time when the economy faltered, collapsed and went haywire, I actually saw this process in action. Right outside my home in fact. The Nazis torched a village in 1944 (the inhabitants were supporting the partisans) and its foundations were visible in the trees and rough grass just beyond where I parked my car in the place where I lived in the 1980s. Quite often I was able to observe small groups of grubby men from the 'margins of society' as the Poles would say, digging around in the ruins. There was in fact quite a bit of non-ferrous scrap just beneath the grass in the rubble, taps, pipes, various fittings. These guys were digging them out and - what was more interesting to me as an archaeologist who dabbled in archaeometallurgy - they were melting down the brass ones at least on site to make them easier to carry away. They had a few bottles of vodka, some food, and there they sat among the trees fanning a makeshift ground-level charcoal hearth. I have a set of photos somewhere recording the remains left behind. Fascinating stuff. Now, I never saw anyone apart from me take any interest in what they were doing, and there was certainly nothing to stop them digging deeper, but I noted that they really were raking over the top ten centimetres of most of the area - so about as much damage as a wild boar would do on the same site.

Coincidentally, I was back there a couple of weeks ago, the area has now been nicely landscaped after some building work in the vicinity, so I decided to fieldwalk the area - there is a lost 13th century village 'somewhere' in the area; I found none of that, but noted that there was still a good deal of metal in the scraped surface which had not been dug away. Today though nobody seems too interested in taking most of it, the price of scrap metal has dropped, especially in the current economic climate.

Back in the 'old days' though, these sad old blokes in the trees were an exception. The more frequent source of scrap metal (until the authorities had a big clampdown) was standing buildings - usually abandoned, but not always, in which there was a fair amount of metal available. Sadly the brass lettering on monuments and gravestones was also taken, iron railings would disappear and in my local park an entire bronze sculpture (recovered from the scrap merchants). This type of grubbing around in the ground was not the preferred option - too much like hard work (as Mr Welsh would soon find out if he took up our challenge). As far as I am aware, there were no cases recorded in the late 1980s of the quarrying of real ancient archaeological sites in Poland for their scrap metal content (and looting for relics was rare in those days as the market was controlled, and anyway metal detectors were rare - and Polish-made ones next to useless in those days).

A final point. As Jesus said, the poor will always be with us... if the digging for scarce scrap metal is as "natural" an option in a developing economy as the collectors' lobbyists pretend, then why are there any metal artefacts at all left in the accessible portions of two thousand year old ancient sites? If what the collectors say is happening is viable, generations of people would already have stripped every ancient site of the non-ferrous artefacts ... and yet oddly enough, until the artefact hunters come along with their metal detectors, there seems to be quite a lot left. This seems to suggest that even if this kind of digging can be documented, it must be episodic and localised, and not a general process occurring across the entire ancient world throughout history.

Is not therefore a better explanation of the digging that is taking place now not that the seekers are primarily searching for scrap, but they are searching for relics to sell? That which is not saleable but taken out of the ground anyway of course will be sold as scrap, but this material is a byproduct of the antiquities market.

For these reasons I really do not believe that subsistence digging of ancient sites merely and only for scrap metal is anywhere near as prevalent as the pro-collecting lobby likes to make out, even in "developing countries". Neither do I think that in reality that it is a viable option IF the sale of artefacts as collectables is ruled out. The majority of settlement sites would be difficult to exploit in this way, a few cemeteries may be more "suitable" for such a process, and of course maybe a peasant may stumble upon a buried hoard, but as a general process affecting the entire archaeological record of the "source countries", I think this is another of those poorly-documented collectors' myths.

If however the collectors would like to make the effort and document it better in the two ways I have indicated, I think we'd all be interested to see the results.

Photo: hot work digging holes in Somalia

US Portable Antiquity Collectors Demand change in foreign laws

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More portable antiquity collecting rant from the USA, this is Jorg Lueke again bad-mouthing other countries attempting to protect their archaeological heritage.

If source countries continue to implement restrictive laws that lead to looting in those countries who is responsible for stopping that looting? Under UNESCO it those source countries. They can also ask for help via import restrictions which Italy may soon do. If Italy insists on a domestic policy that discourages reporting and increases looting should the United States or other countries grant import restrictions or should they politely refuse and offer the UK Treasure Act as a model to better protect cultural property?

Well, first of all, let us note how insulting the notion of a “source country” is here. In the eyes of the US collector a country does not have a cultural heritage of its own, but is merely a “source” for the collectables that US collectors will buy by hook or crook! These “source countries” have “restrictive” laws which aim to prevent their archaeological heritage being dug over by looters eager to find geegaws with which to earn a few dollars from middlemen acting for foreign markets.

The reason why the laws are not as effective as they should be is that people like Mr Lueke back in the USA will pay money no-questions-asked for whatever is offered, no matter if it is looted and smuggled or not. It is not the laws that are at fault but those who pay money to those who break the laws.

More importantly the United States of America regards itself as above the other nations that have become party to the 1970 convention. It has passed the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act [19 U.S.C. §§ 2601-2613 (1982)] which totally ignores recognising any obligations under Article 13 of the Convention it has signed. Instead there is a convoluted process of individual nations requesting it to enforce any form of restrictions on the undocumented (and here's the crucial point so often ignored) trade in cultural property of specified types. This request then undergoes a protracted review process in the State Dedpartment in which the Presidential advsory CPAC plays its role, and which inevitably is fought at every step by self-interested collectors and especially dealers eager to prevent its own nation actually respecting export licencing concerns (even though this is required by the convention).

Now we see a further development. US collectors like Lueke are trying to persuade that the honouring of such requests should be conditional on those "source countries" who have already stated that their cultural heritage is threatened by looting should adopt collector-friendly laws first. Collector-friendly laws by their very nature however DO NOT protect the archaeological resource from being exploited as a source of collectables, they merely facilitate it. Where is the logic in that?

Further lack of logic is evidenced by the suggestion that in the interests of US collectors and dealers would be if nations were forced by the US to adopt something like the "UK Treasure Act" (sic). Well, the useflness of that for the COLLECTOR varies on whether Lueke means the English version, the Scottish or Northern Irish one. Whichever he means however, these are all acts intended to secure material for PUBLIC collections and not to release it on the market! I suspect that what Lueke means is however the English Portable Antiquity Scheme, though this does NOT "pay" collectors for reporting finds, it merely attempts to deal with the recording of non-Treasure items. I suspect the latter is what Lueke is really getting at. He wants "source nations" to differentiate between the shiny glittery stuff it wants for museum cases (which it buys off the legalised looter) and the more mundane stuff like coins and painted pots which Mr Lueke and his buddies would all too willingly collect.

John Hooker in Canada thinks Lueke is onto a good thing and adds his two cents:

This is the crux of the matter, but before we can hope to change the minds of these states, it must be made very clear to them that what they are currently doing is not working. In areas where the demands of foreign states are eroding the citizen's rights of the collector's own country then such actions should be really brought into the light and demands must be made. After all, many people have even lost their lives in order to win these rights. Should that amount to nothing? [...] going along with any of these ideas about buying only provenanced objects etc. will only encourage the states to try for more and it might be about something very different next time.

Well, it just so happens that the Good Ole' Portable Antiquities Scheme seems to be setting out to do just what Hooker suggests for their "partners" the artefact hunters. In September 2009 the PAS is organizing a conference which the pre-event blurb suggests is primarily instigated to demonstrate the corresctness of the US dealers and collectors' assertion that "only" the Portable Antiquities Scheme is the way forward to deal with the threat to the archaeological heritage caused by portable antiquities collecting. The UK's is a defeatist approach of "if we cannot beat them, let's join them", and that is precisely what US collectors want the rest of the world to be induced to do.

Fortunately there is still another school of thought which is that if collectors and dealers were to be induced to act ethically and responsibly (ie take responsibility), then nobody would need to become "partners" with artefact hunters and collectors. All it takes is for collectors and everybody to "Say No to Tainted and Undocumented Antiquities". ("SANTUA"?)

I would like to propose another paper for the PAS conference, applying the PAS to the protection of the Iraqi archaeological record - a theme dear to the heart of the British Museum that will be hosting this pro-PAS-propaganda event.
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Who are the Friends of Numismatists and why?

Before they officially became partners of artefact hunters and collectors the PAS became "friends" with the heap-of-loose-contextless-coins-on-a-table "numismatists".

Roger Bland, head of Britain's Portable Antiquities Scheme has been to the US twice (at whose cost it is not recorded, in June 2007 and June 2008) to spread the word about the Portable Artefacts Scheme partnership with artefact hunters over there. On the first occasion, he was presented with the ACCG "Friends of Numismatics" award. See here for other, previous recipients of this award which to my mind render highly questionable the appropriateness of its acceptance by a representative of archaeology's biggest public outreach. It is clear why the dealers' lobby the ACCG issued their award to congressmen that had opposed the restrictions on the unregulated import of ancient antiquities from Afghanistan, what is less clear is why the Portable Antiquities Scheme got one. What are the ACCG relying on the PAS for?

Photo: Dr. Roger Bland (left) accepts the ACCG Friend of Numismatics Award from the ACCG president Peter K. Tompa at the U.S. Capitol in Washington (from the ACCG website).

Texas Collector uses this blog to seek "low end artefacts"

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Joel Warren, astronomy buff and apparently also a Nazi memorabilia afficionado (member of the Wehrmacht Awards forum) admits:

Personally, I like reading what Barford says. Thanks to some of his stories, I've found some great new sources for antiquities

One can only presume he is referring to the eBay sellers of looted Balkan artefacts and the connection with organised crime discussed here. Mr Warren is also (as "Sloppy Joe") apparently interested in acquiring from (US?) treasure hunters "lower end items" such as nails, tools, musket shot and cannon balls from "any pre 1733 shipwrecks". Surely there is a law against that, even in the USA?

If Mr Warren is interested in buying the kind of artefacts I discuss on this blog, no-questions-asked, and interested in acquiring genuine Nazi memorabilia for his collection and equally not a bit interested where they come from, he'd perhaps be interested in a group of metal detectorists whose activities I have been following over here who can supply genuine Nazi badges and uniform fittings (not like the reproductions and 'doctored' items which infest eBay these days). Straight from the bodies of fallen soldiers in the forests of central Europe. I will not however be giving him their addresses, I am sure any collector of this sort of stuff can find them themselves and decide whether or not there are questions they should be answering (in court actually).

I wonder how many intact dog tags from Nazi war graves are in US collections in general? They are quite a popular "collectable" in the Nazi militaria market these days. Of course none of these collectors asks whether they should be on the market, or where they came from - still less what happened to the human remains (since the two halves are together) they would have accompanied and which can be identified by the items they so avidly collect - which was after all their function. I would say given the circumstances of their discovery, that these items rank pretty "low" on the "lower end' of the no-questions-asked relics market - just above the collection of bits lopped off mummified bodies.

There are six on ebay right now. Being sold from the UK ( 140312550069, 140312550310 [oculomotorius22] “It was dug out in Poland using metal detector”) and Poland. It is not just archaeological artefacts that should be encompassed by a strictly enforced eBay policy of only accepting objects of documented legitimate origin.

Article 13 - another one we ignore.

Thinking about what Andrew McCabe wrote on the Moneta-L coin collectors' discussion forum about "not only have the massive Balkan finds of the 90's and 2000's gone unrecorded", I was put in mind of Article 13 of the 1970 UNESCO convention which reads:

The States Parties to this Convention also undertake, consistent with the laws of each State: (a) To prevent by all appropriate means transfers of ownership of cultural property likely to promote the illicit import or export of such property; (b) to ensure that their competent services co-operate in
facilitating the earliest possible restitution of illicitly exported cultural property to its rightful owner; (c) to admit actions for recovery of lost or stolen items of cultural property brought by or on behalf of the rightful owners ; (d) to recognize the indefeasible right of each State Party to this Convention to classify and declare certain cultural property as inalienable which should therefore ipso facto not be exported, and to facilitate recovery of such property by the State concerned in cases where it has been exported.

Both the United Kingdom and the USA are parties to this convention. So what are they actively doing "to prevent transfers of ownership of cultural property likely to promote the illicit import or export of such property"? Surely the appropriate means for this is to clamp down on the no-questions-asked trade within their own states in artefacts apparently or potentially coming from clandestine excavations and illicit transfer of ownership. I presume Mr Mc Cabe knows of these hoards because the coins from them were noticed appearing on the open market. So what was done about this in the countries where this was noted?

Did the dealers to whom this material being offered inform the proper authorities on those offering it to prevent illegal transfer of ownership? I imagine if they were walking through a shady district of town one night and a shady guy offers them sex with underage girls, whose photos (looking scared and lost) they pull out from under their coats these antiquityu dealers would not only refuse the offer, but one would hope the m oment they are round the corner would get on their mobile phones to the police to have them come and arrest the man and find out where the girls are. Wouldn't they? Frankly, I would not care to do any kind of business with an individual that I feel would not behave in that way - would you?

If somebody offers you stolen goods, do you buy them anyway because the price is tempting and "they are restricted by bad laws anyway" or should you report the vendor? Frankly, I would not care to do any kind of business with an individual that I feel would not behave in that way - would you?

But then who would one report them to? Now there is an interesting question. What actually is the UK doing to "prevent transfers of ownership of cultural property likely to promote the illicit import or export of such property" when objects are openly sold on eBay under the noses of the archaeological commununity and law enforcement agencies (and on an eBay policed by the PAS for goodness' sake !) when there is not a single element of the seller's description suggesting the objects are of legitimate origin - and some actually admitting that they are not? What actually is the British government waiting for to actually put their "Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act" into action? Since it was passed in 2003, many thousands of 'tainted' items have passed through the British antiquities market totally unchallenged. Now why, actually, is that?

Britain's endangered battlefields

Even the less highbrow UK papers are getting on the conservation bandwaggon. According to the Daily Mail, it is a matter for concern for its readership that battlefields, which have shaped Britain’s national story more than any structure, have almost no legal (or any other) protection at all (Robert Hardman, ‘Battles of Britain: They are the sites of bloody clashes that shaped this nation, now you can fight to save them', Daily Mail 10th April 2009.

The Battlefields Trust a small grassroots charity has teamed up with English Heritage to create a national network of volunteer patrols to prevent crucial chunks of the historic environment disappearing under development or being eroded by metal detector wielding artefact hunters. They are employing a number of development officers to help amateur conservation enthusiasts up and down the country form a 'neighbourhood watch' to monitor threats or damage to sites all over England and Wales (in due course, it hopes to do the same in Scotland). At the same time, the newspaper reports, English Heritage is pushing for restrictions on unauthorised metal- detecting in the Government's forthcoming Heritage Protection Bill.

The Battlefields Trust has initially chosen 43 sites for special supervision, eight of which are deemed to be at 'high risk' from threats such as housing and looters with metal detectors. These sites do not currently command any special status, merely an obligation on local authorities in Britain to 'consider' them before granting any planning permission. The Battlefields Trust wants to recruit a custodian for each one, a local who will keep tabs on planning applications, vandalism, rogue metal detecting or fresh accidental discoveries of archaeological material. They also want to include many more battlefields on their list. With an English Heritage backing of £125,000, the trust aims to have custodians and support groups for 100 known battlefield sites by 2011.

Many of Britain's historic battlefields are now simply ploughed fields or meadow. Few of them have any above-ground earthworks, the primary physical evidence left consists of patterns of artefacts deposited during the battle, almost all of which will be in the topsoil. We often hear artefact hunters and collectors protesting that they "do no damage" when they remove artefacts from the topsoil, which in any case they assert is not in its original place of deposition due to being moved by the plough ("animals and wayter"). On the Battlefields Trust webpage there is an interesting 2004 plot here of the distribution of evidence in the ploughsoil of the battle of Naseby found by systematic survey - evidence that would be totally lost if metal detectorists had been here previously collecting away all the lead bullets without recording any details and melting them down (as they do) for the scrap metal. Plots of the patterns of distribution of finds in the ploughsoil like this need to be confronted with the glib assurances of those in the pro-collecting circles who say that the distribution of material in the ploughsoil "has no meaning". If it was the case that this evidence had been "moved by the plough" - there would be a random and even spread of metal items all over the search area, which clearly there is not. There is a pattern to be interpreted, but that can only be the case if it is recorded before various people loot unknown quantities of the material away without record.

How many artrefact rich sites in Britain can one say have NOT already been depleted of a substantial amount of evidence in order to make the interpretation of what is left facing the fact that an unquantifiable and unclassifiable part of the data are already missing? That does not just apply to the surface survey of battlefields.

Portable Antiquities: a "dirty but fair bargain"?

Collector of Roman coins Andrew McCabe writes on the Moneta-L coin collectors' discussion forum that as far as Roman Republican coin hoards were concerned, after the publication of "Roman Republican Coin Hoards" in "1970" (it was actually 1969, M.H. Crawford, Royal Numism. Soc. Special Publ. 4), there was only:

a scattering of significant published hoards in the 1970s, and then complete and utter silence. Not only have the massive Balkan finds of the 90's and 2000's gone unrecorded, hoards from Italy and Sicily also dried up completely - so far as information is concerned anyway. What has changed?

This is a rhetorical question, for of course the collector sees this only in terms of the date of publication of the collector's favourite old bugbear, the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. A broader view would see that the change was more connected with the proliferation of the market for so-called "minor antiquities" at this time, due in some degree to the rise of metal detecting as a hobby. The same trend is visible in donations of archaeological material of all types and material to many British provincial museums, which in the same period tended increasingly to be replaced by 'purchases'. Of course Mr McCabe's generalisation falls flat when we look beyond Roman Republican coin hoards, for example there is a relatively large number of hoards and also single finds published from Germany (both East and West) and Poland well after "1970". In the case of Poland, a crucial point seems to be the opening up of a less-restricted antiquities market after 1989.

McCabe has an answer to the problem. It will be no surprise that it has nothing whatsoever to do with collectors' responsibilities. It's the same old one we see trotted out time and time again by the pro-collecting lobby...

The enlightened UK Portable Antiquities scheme has, as I understand it, greatly increased reporting. The effect of the scheme has been to achieve partial alignment between the goals of land-owners, dectectorists (and thus ultimately coin collectors) and museums, through, to be frank Adam Smith's invisible hand of commerce. The museums get the information provided the looters get the cash. A dirty but fair bargain.

Now whether publicly-funded archaeologists working as "partners" of artefact hunters ("looters" according to McCabe) and portable antiquity collectors is a particularly "enlightened" approach, is certainly a matter requiring deeper discussion. It seems to me it does nothing to prevent the erosion of the archaeological record by having it collected away for entertainment and profit. Which hardly seems "fair" to the rest of us who highly value the archaeological heritage but do not own metal detectors or personal artefact collections. Of course the coin collector sees it differently...

What this tells us, is that there is hope that the "market success" of the UK scheme may over a very long time persuade other countries of the benefits of change in a direction that recognise that open commercial viability is a key factor in enabling publication.

We have heard all this before of course (including once again the muddling of the Portable Antiquities Scheme and the provisions of the UK's Treasure Act which seems to be a tradition in the antiquity collecting community). The collectors are only concerned about their ability to get their hands on more and more stuff without the stigma. McCabe sees the problem only in terms of non-publication of looted material. He ignores the erosion of and damage to the archaeological record connected with the artefact hunters getting the artefacts separated from the archaeological record in the first place, which is the real source of the stigma. He sees as beneficial "some definition of a culturally significant object in terms of uniqueness, value or whatever that would allow by excption an export licence to be withheld, but a presumption that coins and ordinary pottery could flow unhindered". Where and why? It's pretty clear which minority sector of society would benefit from such a trade - the question is to what extent would the preservation of the surviving bits of the fragile and finite archaeological record "benefit"? Surely, and not only from a purely academic view, these conservation issues should be of concern of the decision (and law) makers.

McCabe reckons that "enlightened academics may also realise the case for encouraging private collector to do their bit in contribution to research, and that private ownership - together with publication of same - is not inconsistent with protecting cultural patrimony". I think many academics are only too pleased when amateurs do research which produces results in the form of a usable archive or publication - though not all of us accept that one can only study what you physically own. We have museums and publications and non-invasive investigation methods which allow ample space for much useful research without a single mote of the surviving record being squandered. Ornithologists do not "own" the birds they study, and yet make great contributions to our knowledge of the avian world. Train spotters also do not own the object of their study, though their contribution to wider knowledge is perhaps comparable to those that spend ten years studying the evolution of patterns on a particular group of coins (though as this case shows, numismatic research of this type can be done without physically owning all of them, but studying those in public collections and on the basis of documentation, which will increasingly be the trend with better access to digital forms of recording and information storage).

What however is doubtful is how much of the "knowledge" generated in the heads of the owner of an ephemeral personal accumulation of contextless archaeological artefacts is ever disseminated in any other form than show-and-tell sessions with other collector-geeks. This was the question I asked of Jorg Lueke's "thesis" about context the other day.

What however is entirely clear is that, published or not, the quarrying of archaeological assemblages as a source of collectables for the commercial market is indeed "inconsistent with protecting cultural patrimony" if we see the latter holistically in terms of the archaeological record and not at the level of the individual isolated artefact ripped from it.

McCabe finishes with a few words apparently addressed to the ranters and conspiracy theorists lobbying on behalf of the interests of no-questions-asked dealers, the ACCG:

Groups such as coin-collector lobbyists can help in the process, but it is important that they adopt language perhaps sensible to European ears - just now is perhaps not the time to talk to European governments and academics about the "rights" of collectors and of an unrestrained marketplace, but rather to emphasise the aspects of mutual benefits obtainable.

How lucky for the collectors that they have the Portable Antiquities Scheme already doing that for them.

Antiquities Market "undermined"?

Charles Stanish (director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and a professor of anthropology at UCLA) recently opines (Forging Ahead, Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love eBay) that “the Web has forever distorted the antiquities trafficking market in a positive way”. He argues that the growing sophistication of forgeries and the drop in prices of antiquities on the global market brought about by internet sales is undercutting the market for real looted items which in the absence of any documentation of legitimate origins, the buyer cannot distinguish from fakes. He says "it is just conceivable that online commerce will actually put a lot of antiquities looters and traffickers out of business by the sheer volume of sales and quality of products that fool even the experts". Speaking mainly of material of South and Central American origin, he suggests that:

many of the primary "producers" of the objects have shifted from looting sites to faking antiquities. I've been tracking eBay antiquities for years now, and from what I can tell, this shift began around 2000, about five years after eBay was established. People who used to make a few dollars selling a looted artifact to a middleman in their village can now produce their own "almost-as-good-as-old" objects and go directly to a person in a nearby town who has an eBay vendor account. They will receive the same amount or even more than they could have received for actual antiquities. […]The economics of these transactions are quite simple. Because the eBay phenomenon has substantially reduced total costs by eliminating middlemen, brick-and-mortar stores, high-priced dealers, and other marginal expenses, the local eBayers and craftsmen can make more money cranking out cheap fakes than they can by spending days or weeks digging around looking for the real thing. It is true that many former and potential looters lack the skills to make their own artifacts. But the value of their illicit digging decreases every time someone buys a "genuine" Moche pot for $35, plus shipping and handling. In other words, because the low-end antiquities market has been flooded with fakes that people buy for a fraction of what a genuine object would cost, the value of the real artifacts has gone down as well, making old-fashioned looting less lucrative. The value of real antiquities is also impacted by the increased risk that the object for sale is a fake. The likelihood of reselling an authentic artifact for more money is diminished each year as more fakes are produced. […]It was only a matter of time before a few workshops producing the cheap fakes started turning out reproductions that can fool even supposed experts like me. A number of these workshops have swamped the higher-end market with beautiful pieces that require intensive study by specialists and high-cost tests to authenticate. This manufacturing business never could have developed on such a scale without the Internet, and these forgers have forever transformed the antiquities market into something that we could not have imagined just a decade ago.

The author suggests therefore that the days of the no-questions asked buying and selling may be numbered, as dealers will have to be able to show the origins of the artefact they are claiming is ancient in order to demonstrate to the buyer that it is not a sophisticated recent fake. Standish says:

From the professional's point of view, there are really three kinds of "antiquities" on eBay. About 30 percent are obvious fakes or tourist art that can be detected by looking at the pictures, even the fuzzy ones. [...]Another five percent or so are probably real, while the rest are in the ambiguous category of "I would have to hold it in my hand to be able to make an informed decision." This latter category has grown fast. In the first years of eBay, I observed about a 50-50 real-to-fake ratio in Andean artifacts. About five years ago, my informal assessment was that about 95 percent were obvious fakes and the rest were real or dubious. This was the period when the workshops first went into high gear; the market was flooded with low-end junk. Now, the workshops are producing much higher-quality fakes, increasing the category of ambiguous objects now available. I base these estimates not only on what I see on eBay, but also from my occasional work with U.S. Customs, in which I help authenticate objects.

What is more important for archaeology is the assessment that "the experts who study the objects are sometimes being trained on fakes", the same of course will go for the dealers on whose "reputation" and ability to separate fakes from real and potentially looted artefacts collectors pin their trust. Stanish mentions "the work of the famous Brigido Lara, who created tens of thousands of fakes in the 1950s and '60s, practically creating his own "ancient" culture in Veracruz, Mexico, in the process". The Lie Became Great.

While certainly I would accept that there is abundant evidence that the majority of people buying "antiquities" through internet sales outlets seem to be uninformed and naive individuals in addition - to judge from what they bid on - apparently devoid for the most part of any sense of "style" and aesthetics enabling them to spot pieces that simply 'do not look right', I think Dr Stanish is overstating the case by suggesting that because of the number of gullible people buying forgeries, the looting problem is to some extent over. What applies to pre-Columbian antiquities coming into the USA cannot be extrapolated to the whole global market. It does not affect for example those collectors that go out and "do it themselves", like the damage caused to Europe's archaeological record by metal detectorists. I think also we should recognise that the prevalence of fakes is an indicator that the most accessible parts of the archaeological record have already had the collectable portable antiquities collected away.

"Context" in a no-questions-asked buyer's collection

A portable antiquity collector’s recent insistence that the “context” of portable antiquities in modern accumulations of such items is an important source of knowledge about the past reminded me of a case I saw discussed in the internet a while back and seems worth visiting.

Stephen Herold (M.A., Ph.C., “palaeographer and epigraphic historian, originally of early Celtic manuscripts” and dealer in antiquities) wrote something under the title “The Leroy Golf Antiquities Collection, A reconstruction of a collector’s life and antiquities collection”. Herold published his comments on this collection as “an exercise to see how much can be learned about, and from, such an ephemeral and undocumented collection”. So in other words, a very good test case for some of the assertions made by the pro-collecting lobby about the self-didactic qualities of no-questions-asked portable antiquity collecting, the 'curation' of portable antiquities in ephemeral personal collections, and the creation of "knowledge about the past" through the association of different types of decontextualised objects in "new contexts" formed by the act of collecting itself.

Apparently this Leroy Golf was

an American archaeologist (professional or amateur) who came from Oklahoma and worked in the oil industry in the Middle East in the 1930s and 1940s. While there he assembled a modest collection of artifacts that was exceptional both in its choice of subject and its quality. [...] He returned home around 1950 and died shortly thereafter. He had no family and only one close friend, a Mr. Henderson in Kansas who inherited his collection. Mr. Henderson died in 1974, and by that date the collection was carefully wrapped up and placed in a carpenter’s wooden chest in the attic [...]. Mrs. Henderson died in 2001 and the collection, along with the contents of the house, was then sold to a local second hand dealer. The items were sold by her on eBay or to other dealers in 2002 and 2003. Some of the original items sold on eBay have reappeared on the market within a few months.

Herold claims that this material accumulated by Golf (which he divides into the following categories I. Sumerian Carvings, II. Sumerian Seals, III. North Mesopotamian-Syrian Seals , IV. Egyptian Artifacts ) is an extremely important collection since it is:

one of the few still completely unknown to scholars, and dates from the last period in which the purchase and export of antiquities was still legal. It was assembled at the same time as the famous Moore and Erlenmeyer collections, and with an equally critical eye, but without the expert advice available to wealthy collectors and public institutions. As with these famous collections, provenance, except for the known areas of Mr. Golf'’s employment, is entirely conjectural and analytically derived by scholars”.

Herold asserts that as a collector, Golf had a “critical eye” and was an "archaeologist” (sic) whose “specialty was seals, especially those depicting complex mythological scenes and unusual symbolism”. This is a somewhat subjective assessment. The lack of any sort of provenance for any of the objects is hardly surprising. They are for the most part crude ‘tourist’ fakes bought by somebody whose primary concern was not whence the seller had obtained the items they were selling, but merely accumulating new collectable geegaws motivated by sheer acquisitiveness. The random accumulation of undocumented portable antiquities by this collector tells us something about (one aspect) of the character of a resident of Oklahoma in the big wide world. It has very little value indeed in creating knowledge about the past. Nevertheless the artefacts formerly in that collection are now presumably circulating in the antiquities market, misinforming each successive owner about whatever aspects of the past and ancient cultures that they use them to "learn about".

Photo: a nasty nasty piece of not-antiquity in somebody's personal collection

Irish Treasure Hunter's Daughter 'had no idea'

The Gardai (police) in Roscommon and Dublin noticed something interesting among a haul of stolen goods they recovered from a Dublin house when they apprehended two suspected burglars. Among the items which they determined had been recently stolen from a Strokestown chemist's safe, was a Bronze Age gold Lunula and two gold Sun Discs. The deceased finder's daughter from whom the'd been stolen claimed she had "no idea of the value" or the age of the artefacts which she'd kept locked in a safe for 40 years.

In Ireland since the 1926 antiquities act it has been illegal to search for archaeological artefacts without a licence and an obligation to report all finds was introduced. That doesn't stop some people; as a result, objects such as these are removed from their original archaeological contexts and priceless archaeological information is lost forever. In this case the finder decided to keep these items for himself, and any information about where they came from was lost with his death.

Following the Derrynaflan Hoard court case in the 1980s the law was strengthened with regard to metal detecting. Current Irish law states that any and all artefacts found, belong to the state and must be reported. The National Museum has no legal obligation to reward anyone for doing so, but generally does to encourage reporting. It did not work this time though, did it?

The writer of Blather.net which I used as a basis for this report comments:

such priceless artefacts belong to ALL the people of Ireland who share the right to have such national treasures safeguarded and presented to the public. Along with the right NOT to have to pay inordinate prices to get their own heritage back from other thieving Irish ****s, I mean, people, who plundered it
from its find spot in the first place. Ireland has one of the most progressive legislation in Europe when it comes to this type of thing. Spare a thought for our neighbours in England, where metal detecting on private land IS legal. Known battlefields and archaeological sites which have not been scheduled by the government are sometimes used to hold metal detecting 'rallies', with the landowners permission. The Portable Antiquities Scheme is sometimes forced to set up a stand [there], in the hope that 'participants' voluntarily bring over their finds for examination. It is a rare case where Ireland leads the way on certain issues and legislation. Now, of course the Strokestown find was probably nothing of the sort. At all. The said items will be formally presented to the National Museum sometime this week. No doubt through gritted teeth. But all's well that ends well. Thanks to several thieving bastards, separated by four decades, we can now take solace in the fact that as it went unreported to the Museum, there's no need for a 'finders fee'.

Photo: the lunula and sun discs.

Coin collector finds "Context" in his coin cabinet

Jorg Lueke writes on the Moneta-L numismophilic forum about contexts, which he agrees "are very important in advancing knowledge". But he considers:

The most important context aside from the coin being created is arguably the context of a coin in a collection. Each time the collection changes, the relationship between the coins change, and a new context can emeerge to create new knowledge. An owl in the context of a type collection generates different information than if the context is a collection solely of owls, or of Athenian coinage of a particular time. Contrast this to archaeological context which may impart one bit of important data or it may not.

What is it that coin collecting does to people's heads that they cannot see the total illogicality of their arguments? There are many situations when the context of discovery of coins has been useful in advancing numismatic studies, the discovery of denarii in stratified contextrs in Morgantina allowing the dating of the series, the association of Celtic coins in hoards, Parthian and many types of European Medieval coins likewise. The occurrence of associated numismata can give data on the length of circulation of certain coin types in different milieux (the stratified coins in Pompeii or other sites/deposits the precise date of formation/destruction are known, the composition of hoards in different areas of barbaricum). To negate this in one's own "dicipline" is simply ignorant. To attempt to impose it on a broader discipline from the narrow viewpoint of a coin-fondling collector is doubly-so.

In the study of Early medieval societies the types, distribution and nature of coin finds are very important in determining what kind of economic structures existed in various regions of Europe, they reveal information of site hierachies and settlement (and land use) patterns, which leads to wider considerations of social structure. Coins need not be in stratified archaeological deposits to serve as a source of information, but we do need to know where they are being found and how in order to interpret this information. Yes, also coins stratified in archaeological deposits associated with other objects also serve as another (but by no means the only) form of information for archaeology. Even the study of iconography of the coins can only be interpreted properly when we know where and among which milieux these coins were circulating (thus the special purpose money and bracteates of Early Medieval central Europe) and we can only determine this from knowing where those objects ended up.

Mr Lueke's rows-of-unprovenanced-coins in-a-cabinet "context" really is a pretty pale substitute for the information about the past the same coins would provide if their provenance was known. Why, without even documentation of where they come from, one cannot even use Mr Lueke's coin cabinet as a source of information about the collecting habits of a twentyfirst century Mid-American ancient coin collecting geek. Without that, its a heap of shiny or patinated geegaws, not even a cultural record of our own times, any more than a heap of random pebbles on the windowsill picked up on various holiday trips.

In any case what kind of "knowledge" does a heap of unprovenenced coins on a US collector's table create? Where does it lead us, and where does it go?

I really do not see why in this day and age to conduct typological studies of coins, anyone needs to actually collect ripped-up bits of the archaeological heritage. With digital technology Mr Lueke can collect no end of images of "Athenian owls" to put in as many rows and series as he likes, remake his "different contexts" with the pictures on the coins, bigger eye here, longer helmet crest there. Playing typological and stylistic "spot the difference" with the pictures on the coins can be independent of physical possession of the coins themselves. Very soon we will see the rise of new forms of three dimensional recording and replication which means Mr Lueke can have every one of his digital images as a three dimensional object in virtual or real space which will allow their appreciation in new ways that the mere coin could not. Perhaps before long Mr Lueke's old coin collection will be going the same was as my wife's old collection of seventies pop music on casette tapes and vinyl records. Now these objects (thrown out years ago) are fit only to be hunted down by strange people with woollen bobble hats and odd body odours in charity shops who say that today's digital versions of these oldies "do not have the same ambience" as the original old scratchy crackling sounds. Perhaps not, but collecting old vinyl records does not lead to the destruction of vast amounts of other types of the cultural record.

Taking care of the Past? Rather not.

Antimo Russo who has been living in Hong Kong for four years writes on the Yahoo Ancient Artefacts group that he needs a suggestion from artefact collectors in the group:

about a restoration of a Sword and two daggers All three Items are DONG SON bought from Vietnam. They have Bronze Handle and Iron Blade. I bought it "as found", the handles are in good conditions, the blades have rust and decay (start to have also some pitting on the edge.I would love to restore the blades .

Well, I suppose the first question one must ask concerns the purchase of "as found" Dong Son culture metalwork by a private collector in Hong Kong. Vietnam has export controls. So who sold Mr Russo these antiquities and what kind of export licence do they have? He does not say.

So he wants to conserve the items in his care. Sadly however he knows not the first thing about it so is looking for "suggestions" from other enthusiasts on the Internet group - though does not supply even a photo to show what sort of state they are in. He does however have an idea how he will go about it:

"somebody here ask me to utilize a product called Fertan(it is a rust converter but do not turn the metal black as the usual similar products) The final color is greish and the treated part do not assume a "plastified effect". May I have a suggestion from some expert on how to restore it? I do not want incurr in a loose of value of these beautiful pieces!"

I think we may safely presume that Mr Russo (who earlier had contacted the group about some coins he wanted to sell "for a good price") is mainly concerned about the financial rather than archaeological value of the items he has appropriated for his personal entertainment and maybe profit.

This is pretty typical of the milieu. Fertan is a water based tannic acid mixture. Yes, it will convert "rust" into a black ferro-tannic compound, which can be brushed off. But to use it properly, the "rust" has to be wet, grease-free and also with any loose dirt and thicker crust removed. In other words, if the iron looks like one might expect an iron blade in contact with copper alloy to look like after a number of millennia buried in damp tropical soil - that's the entire original surface and any evidence of organic remains preserved in it. The object is not an iron object with rust on it - like the car bodywork that Fertan is produced to be used on, but a complex structure of fragile and unstable corrosion products around an eroded metal core. Some untrained amateur soaking it in a water-based acid car body rust stripper in the bathroom or garden shed is the last thing you'd want to have done to it. Conservation of archaeological metalwork is a complex discipline.

My advice to Mr Russo would be one word: "don't". I would then urge him to hand the archaeological objects he is so obviously incapable of treating properly to a museum which has trained personnel that can.

The Portable Antiquities Collector's Code of Ethics I discussed earlier here has a few words on this: "(4) Recognise your role as custodian/ Do your utmost to ensure the wellbeing of the objects in your care./ Consider the condition of artifacts prior to purchase and whether you will be able to carry out any necessary conservation or repairs. Any intrusive operation should ideally be carried out by a competent professional."


Certainly something as drastically intrusive as Mr Russo is contemplating should not be carried out at all. That certainly would be neither responsible nor ethical collecting.

This is important since it is so often claimed by private collectors that museums and government agencies are failing to do look after items in their care, and that collectors are in some way curating pieces of (somebody else's) past for future generations to enjoy. Not by dunking them in things like car bodywork rust stripper they are not. They are simply destroying them.

Egypt Requests Coffin’s Return

This "ornately decorated coffin was seized by customs officials in Miami last month, when an American, who bought it from a dealer in Spain, was unable to provide sufficient paperwork to prove ownership. The council has sent documents to authorities in Miami proving that the coffin was taken out of Egypt illegally in 1884" (Steven McElroy, 'Egypt requests Coffin's return', New York Times 22nd march 2009). Egypt has now asked for it back.

This is another of those frustrating reports originating from Egyptian press releases where nobody is too sure what is going on. In some reports the place it was taken from is named as Thebes. It is one of the yellow painted ones that wsa typical of the region in the third Intermediate Period. Zahi Hawass is quoted in several newspapers as saying the wooden coffin "belonged to Pharaoh Ames of the 21st Dynasty, which ruled from 1081 B.C. to 931 B.C." (Egypt News). But there was no pharoah of that name in the 21st dynasty ( Smendes, Amenemisu, Pinodjem I, Amenemope, Osorkon I, Siamun, Pinodjem II) and those tombs of these rulers that have been recovered were in Tanis (and had better finished and more ornate coffins). In any case, if its a pharoah - where is the ureus?

I suspect something has been lost in translation here. At the same time there was the rule of the Priests of Amun in Thebes, but they are conventionally called the 22nd dynasty (though the dates - conventionally 1080 to c. 943 BC - fit better the range given in the news reports). But again I cannot find mention of an Amun priest called Ames. The name is not mentioned as being one of those from the Bab el-Gasus cache of priests' mummies (nice online summary here) - which was in any case discovered in 1891 and not 1884, or in the published lists of the high priests of Amun in this period.

Finally - on what grounds was the removal "illegal" in 1884? As we all know, this was the time we all know the Egyptian authorities were giving away objects from the discoveries at Luxor (and objects from Bab el-gasus are now widely scattered because of this). All very odd. I wonder if we will be told more ?

More Typical Stuff and Nonsense from the US on "Where ancient coins come from"

Jorg Lueke writes on his “Ancient Coin Trade” blog that “at the most recent meeting of the Twin Cities Ancient Coin Club we were treated to a presentation by a long time member and metal detectorist”. He must mean Jon Buck "Medieval Keys and Coins," March 26th, 2009. Apparently Mr Buck “told a lot of interesting stories of himself and associates going on trips for detecting. A lot of the trips were in England. But through connections he has travelled to over 27 countries” ("metal detecting"?). Perhaps the trips to England were with the “England Detecting Adventure!”firm run by a mysterious individual known to outsiders only as “Roy” which has a pretty full schedule for guests from the US, paying a mere 2000 dollars a head a week to take away little pieces of the nation's archaeological record to brighten up their otherwise drab lives. Lueke reckons that:

in talking with people who have metal detected for decades it is clear that coins aren't found by detectorists stratified amidst sites. For one detectorists go to plowed fields which can't really be excavated in most cases certainly not in the plowed surface. Secondly coins buried for long times are succeptible to
be moved by erosion, water, animals, along with the plows and other tools of man.

Nowhere near as much as they are moved by “metal detectorists” putting them in their bags and carting them off to Minnesota.

Now tour-going US detectorists might not be aware too much what kind of sites guides like “Roy” select so their punters can have something to find, week after week, with different groups coming back to the same fields. I have no personal knowledge of “Roy’s” business practices, but do know that those “on the inside” and who know what-is-what accuse firms like this of “salting” fields so that finders can go home thinking they have not spent thousands of dollars in vain. So while on a metal detecting holiday, Mr Buck’s knowledge of field conditions is only reliant on what “Roy” and his firm show him.

Lueke concludes:

“Could it be that some archaeologists simply can't leave aside the paradigm of their education when it comes to field archaeology? Are they stuck believing in a process that works great for certain types of discoveries even though for other artifacts the process become sill suited? In other words do they see every coin floating in a field as a nail to be struck by the full weight of procedural excavation? If so that explains a lot. It would also imply that archaeologists need some new training to be able to distinguish a meaningful, stratified site where context is key from scattered small coins and artifacts dispersed by loss, time, and erosion. The obsession with archaeological context when it comes to coins is a prime example.”

Oh dear. Coin-accumulating Mr Lueke, who it would seem has never in his life read a proper archaeology book, nevertheless presumes to explain to the rest of the world that archaeologists have got it all wrong. Well, of course it is Lueke who has got it all wrong as he has obviously fallen for the stereotype that all archaeologists "do" is dig holes, and has apparently never heard of landscape survey (even though I know for a fact they do it in the US, though perhaps not in the middle of St Paul Minnesota). Mr Lueke, if you are going to try to dissect archaeological methodology, perhaps it would be an idea to find out what it is? It’s not rocket science.

What is obvious, surely even to a US coin collector, is that archaeological artefacts removed from an assemblage or site or any other part of the archaeological record cease to be archaeological evidence allowing that assemblage or site to be properly interpreted. The evidential value of a site is damaged and the artefact becomse a commercialised gee-gaw. The collectors who pay dealers from the coins coming from the commercial exploitation of the archaeological record are contributing to its erosion and destruction, and no amount of weasel-worded trying to pretend otherwise will change that fundamental truth.

Photo: Jorg Lueke (the anti-archaeological chip on his shoulder is not visible in this shot).

Keeping Evidence of the Past SAFE for Everyone

In a somewhat spiteful text which is presumably meant to be [I'd say a somewhat puerile] April Fool’s “joke”, coin-collecting Washington lawyer Peter Tompa once again pokes fun at what he terms “the archaeological advocacy group” Saving Antiquities for Everyone (SAFE). Except he renames it “Saving Antiquities from Everyone ("SAFrE')” which allegedly (oh, ha ha) “has announced a new initiative in conjunction with source countries to "recontextualize" artifacts repatriated from collectors and museums. According to SAFrE's spokesman, Gill Barmore, the idea to rebury artifacts is meant to give them a new life for archaeologists.”

Well, I guess if one is a coin collector, the concept of archaeological context might be hard to get your head around. Most other people however do not have too much trouble understanding that this is not "just" about objects and where they are kept and by whom, but about when an archaeological site or any other part of the archaeological record - a fragile and finite resource - is destroyed, the potential information it contained about the past has gone and can no longer be realized. That is why there is archaeological resource protection legislation in most civilized countries. Why, even the District of Columbia where Mr Tompa lives and collects his portable antiquities has some.

Are organizations such as SAFE and the cultural heritage protection laws as Mr Tompa and his fellow collectors claiming really concerned to keep archaeological evidence from “everyone”? From the context of what Tompa says and the general tone of the rest of his blog (and US collector lore in general), we may take the “everyone” as meaning no-questions-asked collectors of portable antiquities who would like to get their hands on as many decontextualised little collectable bits of it as they want. There are reputedly at least 50 000 collectors of archaeological artifacts (ancient coins) in the USA (as estimated by the ACCG - Ancient Coin Dealers’ Guild ). Nobody has counted, but perhaps we can assume that the overall number of no-questions-asked collectors of portable antiquities in the United States (so lets include purchasers of looted archaeological material from the classical civilisations of the Old World, central and Southern America, and collectors of Native American pots, baskets and other artifacts dug out of settlements and graves across the USA) might be perhaps two even three times that number. Against a population of 306 million people, the number of collectors of portable antiquities as a whole is clearly a very tiny minority. Hardly “everyone”. (50 000 collectors is 0.0163% of the overall US population).

Just for comparison, the Family Watchdog resource on the location of registered sexual offenders in the USA shows that in three separate US states (California, Florida, Texas), there are as many or more registered sexual offenders as the ACCG claims there are ancient coin collectors in the whole US. Obviously the total figures for the whole country would far exceed the numbers of portable antiquity collectors which Peter Tompa would claim is “everyone”. Obviously there is something wrong with the type of logic that Mr Tompa uses that would make “everyone” in the USA a pervert.

Perhaps if Mr Tompa really believed that archaeological resource protection legislation is depriving “everyone” of the opportunity to access the past, his firm (Bailey & Ehrenberg, PLLC where Mr Tompa offers "advice and lobbying services related to the trade in cultural artifacts") might like to spearhead lobbying Congress to get the US 1979 Archaeological Resource Protection Act repealed on behalf of several tens of (?) thousand pot-diggers, basket hunters who would like to collect pieces of that resource for themselves for entertainment and profit. There is also that Native American Graves and Repatriation Act which I am sure all USD citizens "passionately interested in the past" must feel is discriminatory against would be private collectors (“everyone”) of the artifacts and remains of past inhabitants of their land.

US portable antiquity dealers and collectors oppose export controls for archaeological artefacts (including coins) and in their lobbying say that foreign nations should stop exercising their right to try to protect their cultural heritage, the historic resources of the soil of theuir territory and allow a free-for-all unregulated market bring antiquities to wherever there is a demand. It is obvious they should propose scrapping the US own legislation before demanding that other nations too stop protecting their cultural heritage from looting. Let us see just how much support from “everyone” in the United States of America unregulated destruction and looting of archaeological evidence has. Tompa and his mates suggest that nobody cares, and it is the collectors’ interest which should be paramount (placing themselves as some sort of elite above the interests of the rest of society). If Mr Tompa really believes that any such legislation is against the interests of “everyone”, then let him put his money where his mouth is. This would be an acid test of public opinion. I dare him.

Paul "Barmore"?

PS. I asked the same sort of question of Jorg Lueke on the Heritage Action blog (his own blog seems to be blocking my attempts to make comments there – no doubt some software glitch he has not sorted out). Not surprisingly he has not replied.

"Bulgarian Antiquities" - The Oddest Thing

An ebay seller from Southern California calling himself "the oddest thing" who deals in antiquities (see below) has this to say about how he began collecting ancient artefacts:

My interest in antiquities began in 1966-68 when I served as a Navy Journalist aboard the USS SPRINGFIELD (CLG-7) homeported in Villefranche-Sur-Mer on the southern coast of France. I bought coins and artifacts from coin dealers and antique shops in every country surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.

Perhaps export restrictions for these portable antiquities were bypassed in a US military man's kitbag? I am sure there are lots of cases where they have been.

I am more interested in the guy's bare-faced challenge to the intellect and literacy of his potential customers. This is part of what he says in almost all of his auctions at the moment:

To answer my most frequently asked questions: I am a collector. I sell so I can collect. I buy large lots of unsorted artifacts from a group of Bulgarian treasure-hunters working several sites in the Balkans. They don't keep track of where individual artifacts are found so there is no precise provenance, and they don't provide Certificates of Authenticity. Neither do I. So far, after two years the variety has been endless! What I don't keep for my collection, I sell on eBay so I can afford my hobby. Currently, Bulgarian law does not define treasure-hunting as a crime, as there are regions in the country where treasure-hunting is recognized as a way to make ends meet. (Search Bulgarian Antiquities) The laws are slowly changing and I know this "Bulgarian Bonanza" could end anytime, so I'm buying all I can...while I can!

No-questions-asked, a nod's-as-good-as-a-wink eh? No provenances, no vouching for authenticity. Simple, and its all above board, why, do an Internet search. Well, it is true that if one searches for "Bulgarian Antiquities" the first hits are sites concerning churches and monasteries and so on, so perhaps a portable antiquity collector with a short attention span may not notice anything else. Nevertheless there is a lot of information in the Internet about the looting of portable antiquities from archaeological sites in Bulgaria and who is doing it, why and who for. There is more than enough information available just a mouse-click away that (despite what the seller bare-facedly declares), it is indeed illegal to dig up archaeological objects from sites in Bulgaria without an excavation permit. It is certainly illegal to export it to Southern California without an export permit. There is also easy access to the information that much of the digging for and trade in these objects is organized by organized criminal groups. The potential eBay buyer able to put two and two together will realise that unless the items are accompanied by proper documentation, it is only self delusion that to a large degree the money which they are paying no-questions-asked to eBay and other dealers in their own country for these items is not going back to finance organized crime groups.

But the bottom is coming out of this market. It would seem that the "productive sites" of many regions of the Balkans which have been intensively exploited by metal detectorists as a source of "collectables" have been drying up as anyone with half a brain cell would realise they would. The accessible parts of the archaeological record are a finite resource and one easily damaged. Despite what some may wish us to think, we cannot go on taking away from it and expect it to go on "producing" collectables indefinitely. For the past two years or so most of the dealers offering finds "from the Balkans" have their offerings bulked out by fakes of metallic "minor" portable antiquities and ancient coins, some teeth-gratingly obvious, others quite subtle. Some are copies of real archaeological artefacts, some are total fantasies, items the like of which have never come from properly-investigated archaeological contexts. The latter are a total falsification of the historical record, giving the collector who "studies the past" through these unprovenanced items a false picture. Some of these pieces of retro-metalcraft are skillfully patinated (though not as skillfully as the chinese forgeries) others have a desultory attempt at a dirt-and-green patina and others are sold as having been "cleaned - ready to wear".

When he started trading (I think a year ago rather than the two he claims) this dealer had a number of objects one could give the benefit of doubt to - they looked like real looted artefacts. These days most of the items he offers as "authentic"... well, take a look at them.

The metal detector users seeking coins and artefacts to sell who are directly financed by the money which no-questions-asked (irresponsible and unthinking) collectors have been paying the dealers they supply have by now managed to irreversibly destroy a substantial part of the archaeological record of the Balkans region. This has occurred to such a degree that it is now profitable to cast fake bronze (and where do they get the non-ferrous raw material from?) items and then apply various processes to them to make them look ancient. This is labour and resource intensive, nor is it easy. The prevalence of these items on the European and US markets is a sure sign that the "productive" sites of the Balkans are no longer as cost-effective to quarry for collectables as they were a decade ago. That means their archaeological evidence has also been severely damaged, if not pretty effectively destroyed.

Photo: USS Foreign Antiquities Seeker

This is no April Fool Joke

.

“Very Beautiful Roman Silver Ring with Emperor On The Top. Material: Silver, Found In Balkans. Size: 21mm-0,8 inches. Weight: 8,0 Gr. Period: 1-3 A.D. Century”. Sold two weeks ago for $64.18 to a buyer in a private auction on eBay in the section “Antiquities > Roman” by dealer/metal detectorist (?) “Nextgal” from Brentford, in the UK.


I guess the buyer thought they were getting a bargain, a real piece of looted archaeological heritage freshly robbed from some ancient grave or other site in the Balkans and smuggled out to the UK market perhaps by drug-dealing, human trafficking Balkan bandit groups, and all in a private auction so nobody can find out. The epitome of the no-questions asked market. What a crass idiot. I am glad they got stung (look again at the coin and that supposedly 1st-3rd Century AD “countermark” lower right "[...]OPY" it's not Greek).

The number of totally fake "archaeological artefacts" currently coming out of (or represented as coming out of) the Balkans masquerading as metal detector finds is thought provoking. Could it really be that the finite archaeological resource has finally been so depleted by just two decades of metal detecting (since 1989), that there is nothing much left to find and sell? What does that mean for countries like the United Kingdom whose archaeologists think we can go on letting artefact hunters and collectors take the accessible archaeological material from Britains "productive sites" as if there were no tomorrow?

This interesting auction was originally spotted by one of the more colourful characters in the portable antiquity collecting scene Don Ramon Saenz de Heredia Jr. Photos from the eBay auction site.

Another repatriation row brewing?

In the shadow of the fuss over Gandhi's glasses, the Summer Palace bronzes, and the St Louis/Sakkara mummy mask, another repatriation disute row seems to have been somewhat neglected by the press. Bernadette Merdalors ('Van Gogh's ear to be sold at auction' Artnose), reports that a mummified ear, believed to be the one severed by artist Vincent Van Gogh and recently discovered by the staff of a well-known auction house in a glass jar in the attic of a farmhouse in Provence was recently auctioned in New York, arousing dismay back in Europe:

French auctioneers are furious that the ear has been allowed to leave France . “It is a disgrace,” said Patrick Soigné, a leading French commissaire-priseur. “Vincent’s ear is part of the national patrimony, like the Mona Lisa, the Rosetta Stone, or the cave paintings at Lascaux . It belongs in the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay.” “This is baloney,” commented Hertz van Rental of the Stedelijk Museum in Rotterdam . “Vincent was born in Holland. The ear is ours.”

The 1970 UNESCO convention does not seem to cover human body parts if they are not from archaeological contexts. Obviously if ownership is to be contested, this is a case that can only be resolved by civilised debate and discussion of the ethical issues rather than invoking international law. But in the absence of proper context, how sure are we that this piece of shrivelled tissue is indeed van Gogh's ear?