Wayne Sayles has a blog article ('Candi Dunlap Arrest' October 23, 2012) mainly one feels to advertise the fact that he's spoken to a journalist writing about the Dunlap case. The main subject of his post however is that the Macedonian News Agency article mentioning the Dunlap story has some generic stock photos of coins rather than a photo of the several hundred coins the woman reportedly had in her baggage as she left the country. He calls the article "blatantly false" and attributes that to the ill will of the Macedonian people. But then his accusation is based on his interpretation "the reader might naturally assume that they represent two of the coins seized from Candi Dunlap". It is not clear why he comes to that conclusion when the rest of us can see that the article in question discusses TWO separate recent cases both involving Americans.
Sayles calls Mrs Dunlap's attempt to leave the country with a series of ancient dugup objects (256 ancient coins, two pendants and two pots) a "faux pas", but the Macdonians "malicious" and "heartless" for daring to hold her accountable for her activities. He alleges that the foreign border controls are done "in the interest of nationalist government control" (not like border controls in the US which obviously he regards as in the interest of... something else presumably). Sayles asserts that the artefacts which were seized as Dunlap tried to take them out of the country are "merely ubiquitous utilitarian objects":
The tedious claim of myopic cultural property nationalists that everything old is a precious resource does not stand up very well in the light of day [...] It is entirely possible that Candi Dunlap is an unwitting and unfortunate victim in the ever growing cultural property war.No, she is a victim of an entirely arrogant approach to the laws of the country in which she was a guest. Checking the regulations about what she can take into and out of the country and do while she is there are her responsibility. That she quite clearly and irresponsibly did not do that is puttng a lot of people to a great deal of trouble.
Sayles is always among the first to criticise "corrupt" foreign governments, so I am sure he'd not really want to see the young Macedonian Post-Communist democracy applying the law one way for one person, but another for somebody else who happens to have influential people behind her. That is the very definition of a corrupt system. Dura lex sed lex, unless yermerkin? Sayles concludes:
One would hope that justice will prevail and the tribulations already endured by Candi Dunlap will be sufficient redress for what can hardly be classified as a great crime against the people of Macedonia.As a dealer he contests the notion that the coins are considered of considerable value by those from whom Mrs Dunlap was intending to take them. As a dealer he sees them as worth only a few dollars apiece. But then, is everything measured in money?
Finally in what he writes, Sayles is entirely inconsistent to the vision of the world the ACCG portrays - according to this, the US Department of State is the willing instrument of the World Conspiracy against collectors, the very den of the Devil, pandering to the whims and dictates of the Radical Archaeologists ["hisss"]. In that case, why is he not predicting that the State Department is going to stand by the principles of the "cultural property nationalism" he accuses them of supporting and do nothing to obtain the release of Cindi Dunlap? He says nothing of the kind, which suggests to me that he does not really believe the junk-arguments the ACCG puts out to rile-up dullard, gullible and receptive coin collectors.
There is of course an interesting possibility which Sayles does not mention. The archaeological sites of Macedonia are frequently heavily damaged by looting (pillage). Was the offer of a favourable reception of an application for a cultural property MOU with Macedonia on the table in order to secure this lady's homecoming? If so, it will be interesting to see how the ACCG react to that. A goodly lot of ancient coins were minted and used in ancient Macedonia.
3 comments:
hi paul,as far as this article in the macedonian paper is concernd,wayne sayels is right.the article is full of inaccuracies.i have come across this paper before when reading a very nationalistic article about the name disagreement with greece.this paper is very nationalistic and its fact checking is nonexistent.a group of 10 year olds would do a better job running a paper.
as for this case,personally i would be very suspicious of anyone giving me 200 ancient coins as a gift,who gave her the coins? do we know? maybe she was set up.im glad they let her go and im sure she learnt her lesson.i saw a photo of the haul somewhere on line and they looked like scrap to me,hardly worth smuggling.
kyri.
Yes, well, not even the British press can get things right 100% of the time, some real howlers in the Daily Mail for example. I think the British media have been well and truly compromised recently (the NoW phone hacking and now the BBC)
But do not forget this is Macedonian press in English made for export, and clearly THAT article had an agenda (as did Sayles in his). Certainly I do not think there was much point in the "point-scoring" sniping Sayles engaged in instead of addressing the real issue.
Note that (as far as I could see) the sympathy-seeking US press mostly only referred innaccurately to "a few/ some" coins, not a kilo or thereabouts of them. That number only emerged now she's on her way home.
In any case, why is nobody remarking on the utter nationalism exhibited in the US coverage of this case ("who cares about their coins? This lady is AMERICAN" they screech).
So when are the ACCG going to produce their "guide for US travellers"?
"as for this case,personally i would be very suspicious of anyone giving me 200 ancient coins as a gift,who gave her the coins? do we know? maybe she was set up."
It is an odd story isn't it? If I was a toothless old macedonian peasant whose mother Mrs D had helped treat and I had a pot full of old coins in the garage, if I wanted to give the nurse a present, I'd pick out the nicest ten and put them in a little box with a ribbon and a card on it and throw in some honey from the hives in the garden (she cannot take that into the US either, so she'd eat that). I do not think dumping a kilogramme of cruddy ones on her together with two big old pots is any kind of present UNLESS both you and the recipient are under the impression that "they must be worth a lot back in the US". So her taking them out remains the same problem as in the opposite case, which would be that in fact she'd bought them (or dug them up herself). It is in the fact that its not ten nice ones that her problem lay.
A customs officer finding ten nice ones might have waved her through (though confiscating the coins), but that she had so many, he had to detain her. I am amazed she seems not to have realised this.
But yes, as a resident of a former communist country (and seen it happen to colleagues in another foreign country where I have worked) I am afraid that there might be more to this. For one reason or another in this model, she might have been singled out (because she's good-looking?) and the items given to her as provocation by an agent. If the victim takes the bait, customs would be tipped off. Once they have a foreign citizen in their hands with legitimate cause (she WAS apparently of her own free will trying to take the objects out of the country, which IS illegal) the host country has a useful bargaining card. I doubt whether we will learn what exactly was on the negotiating table. It might have been an MOU, or it might be American technology.
What is interesting is that (a) we never heard that the person who gave them to her is in jail, and (b) She's been whisked off somewhere before going home, they say for a "rest", but is it not debriefing? ("What did they want to know?"). If that is so, it would suggest that this is indeed what the US suspect from what they've learnt might have happened.
Gosh, that's almost a Peter-Tompa-style conspiracy theory!
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