"AncientArtifacts" Siding with the Antiquity Smugglers

In this blog I have several times discussed the efforts of the authorities in several countries to help stem the flow of illegally exported and clandestinely obtained artefacts across international borders. This is essential if the no-questions-asked market in portable antiquities is to be effectively policed to prevent the flow of looted items onto the market.

It is important to see how collectors and dealers see these efforts. I have obtained the following rabble-raising text from the Yahoo "AncientArtifacts" collectors' forum which somewhat throws into question the claim that it represents "responsible collectors". Its author (an antiquities dealer) stresses that US Customs agents are "grappling with many practical issues involved in the application of import restriction regulations in whose issuance they had no voice, in whose practical application there are many difficult if not impossible problems, and which in the opinion of some very knowledgeable observers do not make much sense". This concerns export licences of course - according to this writer "do not make much sense". Really? Says who?

Those inconvenienced by such administrative chaos should place the blame where it belongs, and I do not think it belongs upon the shoulders of the Customs organization. Instead I recommend that you direct your ire and concerns toward the authors of these foolish and impractical regulations, i.e. the U.S. State Department and the Archaeological Institute of America. This regrettable situation has arisen because the archaeology lobby has insisted on standing upon abstract principles which may seem laudable when viewed without regard for their possible practical consequences, but which when put into effect as government policy, are revealed as utopian concepts advanced by irresponsible idealists who do not understand what must inevitably happen when a society that does not share their ideals and delusions comes into conflict with restrictive laws and regulations that the average sensible person considers to be an unreasonable affront to personal liberty. Just such a conflict now impends between the "retentionists" AKA the archaeology lobby, and the public which is interested in collecting artifacts.

The question is whether we are talking about members of the public who are interested in collecting just any old artefacts, or members of the public who are interested in collecting artefacts of verifiably legitimate origins. There is of course a considerable difference. There is another public involved here, a public which does not collect artefacts but equally does not want to see the archaeological record trashed for and by those who do.

Let us note that what is being discussed behind the closed doors of the Yahoo "AncientArtifacts" collecting forum as "foolish and impractical regulations", " abstract principles", "utopian concepts" and "an unreasonable affront to personal liberty" is nothing more nor less than the purchasing and import into the US of goods bought from a legitimate source and accompanied by documentation of legal export from the source country. What kind of "personal liberty" do collectors of the Yahoo forum want upheld? the personal liberty to do business with those who buy artefacts from criminals? The personal liberty to buy looted artefacts? We may legitimately ask: what "collectors' rights" are the members of this group in fact holding out for?

Are attempts to restrict the international flow of cultural property to those items purchased by responsible collectors from legitimate sources and with the relevant export permits really "foolish and impractical", "utopian concepts", or "abstract principles"? In the light of statements like this appearing on that list, we might ask the Yahoo list members in what way is the notion of a responsible collector of archaeological artefacts in fact in itself an "abstract" one?

Is it responsible portable antiquity collectors who are in conflict with the U.S. State Department and the Archaeological Institute of America? In the current dominance of the global no-questions-asked and indiscriminate market which aids the flow of illicit artefacts onto the market, do responsible collectors see that that the regulations which exist on movement of cultural property across international borders as "unneccessary"? Surely what is regrettable about this situation is that there are those irresponsible dealers and collectors that would still willingly profit from the abscence of any such regulations.

These attempts to regulate the antiquities market are not "abstract principles", but are supported by those who truly want to see the trade in illicitly supplied artefacts to the international market severely curbed. The question is how many collectors of portable antiquities (such as those on the Yahoo AncientArtifacts list) see it that way. Log on and see how many criticised the author of that post for expressing his negationist and anti-preservationist attitudes.

Those collectors should remember that there is a wider public than that which is "interested in collecting artifacts". There is the public that is the main stakeholder in the archaeological heritage these people wouyld like to have dug up so they can buy and collect bits of it, without any regard (their "collectors' rights") for what the rest of us may think or feel. But that is not quite the case as is shown by the fact that they keep their discussions of artefact collecting (and irresponsible views like that cited here) hidden from the rest of us. What have they got to hide away like a porn ring? Log on and see.

Vignette: Some collectors would like to see even more porous borders.