A Presumption Too Far?

.

I have several times mentioned here two alarmist fictions concocted by the lobby for no-questions-asked dealing in dugup antiquities to drum up support from collectors.

The first is that if the US comes to a cultural property agreement with Italy, it will mean that it is acceding to alleged demands by the Italians that every ancient Roman artefact found anywhere will be treated as "Italian cultural property". No information is offered where these demands are documented or even hinted at.

The second piece of nonsense is the variant story that if the US comes to a cultural property agreement with the Hellenic Republic of Greece, it will mean that it is acceding to alleged demands by the Greeks that every ancient Greek artefact found anywhere will be treated as "Greek cultural property". No information is offered where these demands are documented or even hinted at.

This is self-evidently arrant nonsense, but as we have seen is a story swallowed hook line and sinker by the xenophobic, gullible and less critically thinking individuals in the antiquity collecting community and even as we saw the other day by academics in the US and outside. Where does it come from? Well, it can be traced back to the inventive brains of several individuals in the Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild, apparently a cover organization for the anti-preservationist lobbying of antiquity dealers such as CNG and V-Coins.

One of those who promotes this story is Peter Tompa (aka "Cultural Property Observer"), as discussed by me for example recently here. In answer to that post Tompa attempted to explain this away by suggesting that what was "meant" (which is totally a odds with what was and is actually being SAID to collectors) was that US customs officials would get confused and presume that all ancient Roman antiquities, exported from Lebanon, Bulgaria, Heathrow and Spain were somehow "Italian cultural property". Apart from that not being what is said, the logic of that totally escapes me.

Sebastian Heath questions it too ("This sentence might carry more weight if it came with a source. Do you have one? I don't believe you can cite such a statement ..."). Tompa indeed cannot, but undeterred he then replies:

Sebastian- Presumptions are what import restrictions are all about. For example, Customs seized the ACCG's unprovenanced Cypriot and Chinese coins because it presumed they were covered by the MOUs with Cyprus and China.

Well, Mr Tompa's brand of blogged speculations, spite and conspiracy theories does not have many readers, but I am one of his regular fans and attentive readers, and I knew this was not in fact the way he himself had presented facts earlier. This is what we find he himself had written on May 21st:

The ACCG imported the coins in April 2009. ACCG’s Customs Broker had to tell Customs that the coins were subject to potential restrictions. On the 5th attempt, Customs seized the coins, but instead of filing the required forfeiture action, Customs did nothing. ACCG waited for almost a year, and then filed its own suit against Customs and the State Department.

So it was the ACCG who put customs up to this seizure, not any "presumption" by US customs, and it took five "attempts" to effect the detention and then seizure of these coins so the ACCG could then use that as an excuse for an expensive court case (which apparently starts next week by the way).

So, we are really no nearer to understanding why US coin dealers and academics are being led by the dealers' lobby to believe that if the US adopts measures requiring the examination of the paperwork of antiquities leaving Italy and Greece over a five year period, it means every single Roman and Greek coin anywhere in the world is suddenly made somehow into "Italian" and "Greek" cultural property. That is simply a bad attack of self-induced paranoia.

Why can't the ACCG and their dealer pals just come clean and say WHY they do not want the US ICE looking too carefully at the paperwork of the antiquities they import from Greece and Italy? What's the problem? (Rhetorical question).