The IAPN has spent tens of thousands of dollars of their members' money retaining a lobbyist as an "observer" who has not the faintest idea what the others (the ones he's lobbying against) are talking about. Here is Peter Tompa in full flow:
The Ivory Tower academics of the archaeological lobby often speak about requiring "provenance information" and "export certificates" as proof that items are not the products of looting.We are talking about collecting histories and export licences are proof that an object was not smuggled. It is the easiest thing in the world to construct straw men arguments, the question is whether that is an efficient use of IAPN funds to continue to do so.
The straw man is one of the lobbyist's prime tactics. I left a comment on his blog in which he accuses me of stating Ptolemaic coins did not circulate outside of Egypt. He did not publish the comment in which I challenged him to back up the claim. He can't back it up, because I never said it! It's a straw man! What I did say was that Egypt had a well-known closed currency system (curiously never acknowledged by the lobbyist or ACCG in their dealings with CPAC) and that this meant that Ptolemaic and early Roman coinage in Egypt is primarily found in Egypt.
ReplyDeleteYet they will ALL protest loudly that by restricting imports, we are hindering their "scholarly" activity. Some of them have about as much idea of scholarship as my cat. Tompa says a lot of things he cannot back up, that's why he will not publish my comments on his blog either. So much then for the open debate and dialogue they all claim to crave.
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