Yahoo's Artefact Collecting Forum: the Looters Rejoice

.

In a thread called (apparently) "The Barford Inquisition" on Yahoo's moderated "responsible" artefact collectors' forum, Quispe Huacavaciada President of a group calling itself Huaqueros Anonimos (HA), a grass roots organization involved in the realisation of the assets of the historic environment applauds (message #55471 ) the earlier post there of Pietro Tomparolo President of the Italy-based ETRA and the position of collectors' spokesperson Kevin Neve (whose affiliations are unclear). Tomparoli's message, referring to earlier discussion there opposing my comments on ethical collecting of antiquities was brief but to the point:

I second that Mr. Neve, and whatever Mr.Welsh has to say. Blast Mr. Barford and his ilk. In the meantime we at ETRA will continue propagating the word (lets get on with looting as long as it fills our pockets), and the benefits of "no questions asked". In fact lately we are having problems with some auction houses. Couldn't the ACDG do something ?

I presume the President of the Etruscan tomb robbers association had in mind the Collectors' Guild. I think these two posts well illustrate who stands to benefit from the suppression of the preservationist measures which groups like the ACCG (6000 members) and Tim Haines' (Yahoo) AncientArtifacts group (2000 members) are engaged in fighting.

It beats me how a discussion group can claim it is dedicated to "responsible collecting" while promoting the sort of views promoted by lobbyists of no-questions-asked collecting while blocking archaeologists from the discussion for openly discussing the problems inherent in such an approach. No wonder they hide their discussions from public view.