Clueless Antiquities Buyer Gets Stung

David Knell has once again drawn attention to the old collector's adage, before you buy anything, buy the book. In other words find out all about what it is you intend to buy to avoid getting 'stung' ( Cuneiform Tablet on eBay - legal dilemma? Wednesday, 2 April 2014).

A nice big cuneiform tablet sold on eBay last month for £410 (approx. US $680) after a frenzied battle of bids from a starting price of 99p. The UK seller announced that the "tablet is part of a collection of tablets and clay figures purchased in 2013 from an antiquities dealer in Turkey". Before cracking open the bubbly however, the lucky buyer may want to consider two minor drawbacks to their purchase ...

The first is Turkish law and the second is that it's quite obvious to anyone who's seen any real ones that the tablet is a "glaringly obvious modern fake aimed at the gullible tourist market". Look at the writing on the reverse above the "seal" (oh dear), the faker got bored with making up signs.  Knell discusses what would happen if the buyer discovers the fraud and "discover their purchase is just a piece of tourist tat and feel that £410 is a bit too much to pay for it". They can live with the lesson learnt, or try to get their money back. He then discusses the problems anyone might have with the latter option.

would the buyer insist on a refund on the grounds that they were under the impression that the tablet was truly ancient, a genuine antiquity smuggled out of Turkey in 2013? Well, of course that angle would be a tacit confession that the buyer was under the impression that they were happily and knowingly acting as a receiver of stolen property. That is a criminal offence in most countries, certainly in the UK.

Knell suggests that those of us who care about the preservation of ancient sites "can all relax in the knowledge that many eBay buyers are cluelessly gobbling up tourist tat rather than encouraging looting by buying the real thing".

Looking at the seller's other offerings today, I do not see a single item which looks to me authentic.