'Cyprus: What's Wrong with This Picture?' asks a blogger referring to allegationsfrom the Paphos mayor that material has been stolen from a Cypriot museum. What is wrong with it is the story is gleefully reported by the very same lobbyist retained by antiquity dealers to push for monitoring of antiquities exported from Cyprus to be lifted, to allow material onto the US market without discrimination of source. Such is their "responsibility" that not a single dealer belonging to the IAPN, PNG and ACCG will have written to the board of any of them (two of which seem unable to find the time or courtesy to reply anyway) to query their judgement. And that is what is wrong with the antiquities trade.
Part of the problem is that in this milieu the Two Wrongs ['Make a Right'] argument reigns supreme. The underlying message is that we should not expect the dealers and collectors to bother about doing the right thing - because in an imperfect world other people do bad things too. They do not even notice they are doing it.
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