"Ancient Art" on Flickr

Some guy calling himself "Ancient Art Project" (and whose email address usurps the name of the anciet Greek painter "Exekias") has posted some galleries of collectables on Flickr ("a few of my favorite examples of ancient art that are currently in public and private collections throughout the world"). The accompanying explanatory text asserts:

There are, inevitably, many other objects which would rank among my favorites but are impossible to show here due to unreasonable restrictions of photographing objects in museums. Many of the very finest objects extant from ancient civilizations are, unfortunately, held in countries that are completely ill-equipped to properly study and document the objects and as such, are unavailable to the public although they are in "public" collections. Many governments have turned objects into absolute political garbage and as such, have completely degraded the study of ancient art to a disgusting and irreproachable political issue which will, inevitably, make the subject inaccessible to future generations due to nationalistic attitudes of modern-day politicians who know absolutely nothing about the subject. Most ancient art that is being discovered in the so-called "source countries" is destined for warehouses to be eaten away by vermin due to the "supposed inability" of non-source country citizens to be able to study and document and display it properly. Enjoy it now while you can before our common cultural heritage becomes "illegal."

Well, I am sure Mr Ancient Art would prefer many of the "very finest objects extant from ancient civilizations" to be available to private collectors in countries which like him use US spelling and have so many photos from North American collections. Note the emphasis throughout on the mere "object", that which can be bought and sold and then possessed, rather than the archaeological information.

I rather think it is greedy collectors who have degraded the subject of the accumulation of such "art works" to the level of political garbage. It is the disgusting no-questions-asked antiquities trade which will, inevitably, make archaeological information become inaccessible to future generations, because it has all been dug up without record, and what is not destroyed in the process is whisked away clandestinely to various scattered ephemeral private collections, to eventually "surface" anonymously on the market when they are split up.

Let it be noted that the "attitudes of modern-day politicians" who according to this aesthete wannabe "know absolutely nothing about the subject" are those that would like to see the material excavated properly with due regard to scientific procedure and made accessible for future generations to both admire and study through being placed in properly curated public collections. Something which "internationalising" (sic) collectors like "Exegias123" aka Ancient Art Project would not like to see. They want it all for themselves to control in private collections.

The concerns of the archaeological preservationists are not with the "ability of non-source country citizens" (sic) to be able to "study and document and display ancient art objects properly", but the fact that such collectables are generated for the market by the dismantling of something else, the archaeological record. The point is not what a collector in a foreign land can "document" once he has a decontextualised "art object" in his hands. The only thing that can be documented at this stage is how the object arrived in his hands. In most cases as we have seen (and many of the objects depicted in the galleries are no exception) they cannot be bothered [or are simply unable] to do even this. What is lost because not documented is the entire range of information that derives from studying the associated archaeological information in the context of deposition and discovery.

It is not "nationalism" to want to protect the archaeological resource from being treated merely as an "artefact mine" for the sole "benefit" of the self-centred accquisitiveness of the greedy foreign collector with his dollars and self-serving pseudo-justifications.

Exekias123's "favourites" include: 69 photos of Ancient Greek Coinage, 58 photos ofAncient Roman Coinage (pictures taken from "those that have come on the market", so presumably not his own photos, funny how he sees no "unreasonable restrictions on the use of this material, cf aengland's galleries where many of the same coins appear). Then there is a whole series of 209 photos from the Miho Museum in Kyoto, and the George Ortiz collection (he also claims own copyright on these photos). His favourites also include 29 items "currently on the market" (many of them in the gallery of Phoenix Ancient Art in New York and Geneva) and as many as 178 items from (just the) Greek galleries in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is interesting to note the relatively restricted range of the "world culture" represented by Ancient Art's favourites, hardly very comsmopolitan, virtually nothing from the world of the nomads, let alone northern European groups, little from the Far East or Australasia. Just loads and loads of the little (easily smuggled) objects of Greek and roman civilization and a few bits and bobs from their neighbours in the Near East. As if nobody else had anything worthy of the name "ancient art".