Unidroit-L SS and Stolen Cultural Property

Well, there was little chance of reasonable discussion breaking out on either Unidroit-L or Tim Haines' closed-access "AncientArtifacts" list after Dave Welsh's attempted dissection of my views on cultural property. Several people, including Mr W., seem to have had difficulty grasping the core concept. John Hooker also replied to Welsh, but after a few dozen lines like a stuck record got onto his hobby horse of his "method" of studying the inconography of "Celtic coins" and something he wrote a decade ago, the relevance to the question in hand is totally a mystery to me.

One person who has no doubts about what he thinks about it all is Unidroit-L member and fellow coin dealer "SS", who writes (among other things):

Defining "cultural property" is of great importance only to those who would use the bastard concept in their own interest. [...] But however defined, or left undefined, CP is not the main issue. The best arguments against confiscations and repatriations are broader, and have been raised in this forum many times: importance of context in archaeology, importance of archaeology, public education better served by distribution, visibility of objects, objects better protected in private ownership, overly-narrow concepts of what a culture is, issues of sovereignty and private property, etc., etc. Focusing on "cultural property" and giving the term legitimacy by trying to define it is playing THEIR game. Instead, why not speak of the issue of (or debate over) RETENTIONISM? [...] By giving this agenda of radical archaeologists and grasping third-world politicians a name and identifying its idiotic precepts, we can, in some measure, take it back. Why not put effort into defining them and their agenda, rather than helping refine their ideas about what they want to steal from us?

well, it is easy to see here that the philosophical issues are not as much interest to Scott Semans as the problem of those nasty US authorities "confiscating and repatriating" items at the behest of "radical" archaeologists and "grasping third world politicians" (Italy "third world"?). Well, since that which is confiscated and eventually repatriated is cultural property which is in the US illegally (ie. in some sense at least stolen cultural property), I think many will be surprised that Mr Semans is so adamant that these items are being "stolen from us" (North American dealers and collectors).

Oddly enough, while Welsh has been quite vocal on his own and Haines' list in explaining that in broaching this subject he really was not intent on criticising me ("really, honest") and my views, just raising something collectors should know more about, he fails to put Semans right about the origin of the use of the term "cultural property". It is neither a "bastard concept" nor does it need to rely on coin collectors and dealers using it to be regarded as a legitimate term.

But yes, I think it would be a jolly good thing to have a precise definition of this collectors' concept of "retentionism", and a definition of what its opposite is. Presumably - given the origin of this pseudo-debate - the latter will apply to the United States of America's Cultural Property (or maybe lack of it, does the USA have "cultural property" Mr Semans?)

Also I would like to hear more about this notion that "the importance of context in archaeology" is "one of the best arguments against confiscations and repatriations" (eh?)
the "importance of archaeology" likewise. Perhaps the dealer means the (from his narrow perspective) "unimportance"?

I think we get the drift of "public education being better served by distribution, visibility of objects" being "one of the best arguments against confiscations and repatriations"> Sort of ACE stuff then? I would counter by remarking that public education in the source countries would be best served by this cultural property being distributed and visible there, rather in some foreign land across the Atlantic. So the US dealer is thinking here only of his own back yard, hang the rest.

Also we get the drift of the "objects better protected in private ownership", though I do not believe it. Objects in museums and public collections are frequently much better documented than what we see coming onto the market as old collections are split up. Conservation standards among private collectors leave a lot to be desired too. There is more to curation than putting an item in a secure place like a bank vault or home of a gun-owning padre.

Mr Semans thinks that US authorities have "overly-narrow concepts of what a culture is". But really that has nothing to do with whether an object on the US market has a valid export licence or not, does it?

Finally another of those "best arguments against confiscations and repatriations" are "issues of sovereignty and private property". Well, surely importing material which has been illegally exported is indeed one of those issues of sovereignty. The right of a sovereign nation to define what is and what is not its cultural property, and what it will allow to be exported and what it will not. A right US no-questions-asked dealers not only ignore but also trample upon.

Mr Welsh and all the rest of his motley crew are perfectly welcome to discuss this here in the comments section as long as they keep it reasonable.