Dave Welsh Back in the Fray

Leeks, good for health

About a year ago, cultural property activist and blogger Dave Welsh stopped posting material to his blog and the forum he runs. He resigned for 'health reasons' from the board of the Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild (and was replaced by Doris Sayles the wife of the Executive Director). It was reported that he was hospitalised for four months and failed to respond to goodwill messages. Anyhow, to the relief of all those following the discussions in which he took such an active part, he seems to have recovered his health and is back. Here's the latest comment from him: "There is however a huge fallacy in your argument. Cultural property law (all law for that matter) is not about what is "right" - so back to normal then.


UPDATE 3rd December 2014
Uh-oh: This morning I found this piece of text which he'd posted over on the IAPN's lobbyist's blog, it didn't take the coin dealer long to get the Nazis in.

I have previously observed that Barford has much in common philosophically with Dr. Josef Goebbels (who was however a much more formidable exponent of his creed than Barfy). There is indeed a strong component of totalitarianism in the arguments Barford advances. To be fair to the man, I believe that the entire concept of cultural property law is inherently totalitarian, and that Barford is simply being honest and consistent in advocating totalitarian concepts and measures as being essential to the preservation and advancement of archaeology.

Whether or not it is actually 'totalitarian' to propose that we need to be reassessing the way we treat the issue of collection-driven exploitation of the archaeological record, I leave it up to the reader to decide. I think we have the right to expect better from the international coin dealers in the way of contributions to the heritage debate as we approach the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century. The timeworn tactics of sick old men indulging Nazi-fantasies and ad hominem insults and dodging the issues raised by preservationists have today a limited appeal.