Like most people in the antiquities collecting world (especially in the US), Bailey and Ehrenburg's cultural property expert 'Peter Tompa really does seem unable to cope with opinions divergent from his own. So today I find myself blocked from reading and replying to the Global Heritage Alliance twitter feed. That's a cowardly move by a 'lobbyist' who has blocked me from every other bit of the social media he is associated with.
I would ask, however, just how this reflects on the competence of Mr Tompa is to present any kind of a case for the antiquities market or collectors, if he is simply unable to answer the issues raised by those on the other side of the debate. How can we reach any kind of consensus or compromise, if the tub-thumpers of the antiquities lobby only feel comfortable when they are surrounded by (the same group of) yes-men? I think the answer is clearly that we cannot, and the kind of behaviour we see their lobbyists exhibiting is simply a symptom of the way that they are alienating themselves from the heritage debate, and will inevitably lose ground to those who are not afraid to wade in and raise issues about what the commerce in and collecting of archaeological objects involves. So what is the point of being a spokesman for the trade who will only talk with yes-men?
Her's intelligent enough to know his recent tweet about UK was a distortion of the truth:
ReplyDelete"When countries treat finders fairly as they do in UK, everyone benefits. When they don’t, items don’t get reported; are sold on the sly."
Translated as: Treasure rewards (ex gratia, NB, not as of right) are ransom payments to potential criminals. Without them detectorists would break the law.
We've said it for years and it's nice to have him admit it.