What is the "Cultural Property Observer"?

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Trying to follow the arguments of the pro-collecting crowd is particularly difficult for a number of reasons. One of the most frustrating ones to make any sense out of is Peter Tompa in his "Cultural Property Observer" blog. The guy is a Washington lawyer, works in an office a stone's throw from the White House. Obviously he has some kind of an education. Yet some of the things he writes are so transparently unrelated to any kind of reality (for example wholly misleading accounts of what the CCPIA says when its there in black and white to be checked by anyone with a computer mouse in his hand) that one wonders just what he is thinking writing such stuff. I must admit I have long been puzzled why that is.

Some kind soul recently helped me out of my frustrations in understanding this pattern of activity by pointing out a possibility which I had stubbornly overlooked. It never struck me that Tompa could be being utterly insincere in what he is writing in his "Cultural Property Observer" blog. I admit the possibility had never once crossed my mind. It has now been suggested to me that the texts of this blog are written for money as part of the lobbying efforts Tompa's firm is engaged in and it would seem he is paid by quantity rather than quality of the observations on which they are based. In the past in comments here, Peter Tompa has denied the connection between the blog and his firm's activity (though the blog is linked on Bailey and Ehrenburg's webpage). Certainly if you analyse it, the blog consists not so much of "observations" - still less any reflections, but instead a constant barrage of criticism focussed on a restricted range of countries - namely primarily those which have cultural property MOUs with the USA (Italy, Greece, Cyprus) with Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt thrown in as having given US collectors headaches. Another topic of criticism is so-called "radical archaeologists" who stand in the way of the collector of dugups. Basically there is not much else there. This would indeed support the model suggested.

A good example of the genre which seems "written to order" provocation is the recent post 'Bankrupt Greek Government Seeks More Money From Germany as Greek Cultural Bureaucrats Work With State Department Against German Interests'. What complete nonsense. "The Greek cultural bureaucracy is likely working with our own State Department bureaucracy to harm the interests of German small businesses that export ancient Greek coins to the United States". Any real "observer" would know that in reality there is nothing "small" about the German trade in dugup coins, it is very big business and much to his shame the Bavarian (not "German", local not federal Mr T.) trade minister Martin Zeil was persuaded last year to support the local "Munzenmafia" (as the archaeologists of the region refer to the Munich dealers who are almost certainly behind this initiative). Is the participation in the trade on a massive scale of coins and other dugup antiquities of unknown and mixed provenance to the US no-questions-asked market in the "interests" of the average conservation-conscious German citizen? Do they benefit directly from this trade, or do the profits mainly go to a small coterie of dealers, collectors, investors, middlemen and smugglers who among other things finance the looters? Tompa's post is tendentious and serves mainly to draw attention again to one of the minor "victories" (I use the term loosely) of the international coin trade from a year ago, lest US collectors forget that some "Europeans" are on their side.

Then we have the "news" that Odessey Marine has revealed that it has entered into a partnership with the UK Government to salvage two hundred tons of silver from the Gairsoppa, a ship that was sunk by a U-Boat during WW II. The sole reason it gets mentioned as a "cultural property observation" is Tompa's suspicion that:

archaeologists will find something to criticize about this partnership as well. But, doesn't the age of the wreck, its depth, and money the venture will bring to the UK taxpayer distinguish it from the "Black Swan" wreck and the controversies that surrounded its exploitation?

That seems to me a question better posed after Tompa's "suspicion" is proven correct. Archaeologists are archaeologists and are engaged in archaeology. This is a run-of-the-mill salvage operation, like many carried out by salvage companies all over the world. the problem is when archaeologically important wrecks are dismembered under the 'salvage' laws. As it turns out the "Black Swan" site, the 1804 Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes is less of an archaeological site than the earlier candidate for the wreck plundered in absolute secrecy, rumoured to be the Merchant Royal, which sank near the British coast at Land's End in 1641. I'd say there was an ethical problem in that the Gairsoppa contains human remains (but, as I understand, it has not assigned protected wreck or war-grave status). So what is the justification of Tompa's criticism of "archaeologists" here?

Since it turns out that Tompa's blog is twenty-five million down in the ranking it would seem that I am one of the last dozen people in the world to have been taking what this guy writes with any seriousness. In fact probably the fact that I've been clicking on the blog numerous times to see what he's written now, and then put links on my blog showing others what I am writing about, I am probably responsible for him getting quite a bit of the traffic he does. I intend in future to see what appears on the blog in future as paid-for-by-the-trade provocation and nothing else.

It goes well with the other nothing-is-as-it-seems stuff prepared by the Ancient Coin "Collectors" Guild, quite clearly a lobby group for no-questions-asked US dealers in dugups masquerading as a collectors' group. Most of the main US pro-collecting cultural property blogs and web resources are owned by individuals in one way or another affiliated with the ACCG.

If that is the case, where actually do we see any proper public debate about antiquity collecting in the US?