Yemen Calls on US Market to Respect Export Regulations

The Government of Yemen has requested U.S. import restrictions on archaeological material and ethnological material. This request was submitted pursuant to Article 9 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property as implemented by the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act.

The Cultural Property Advisory Committee will meet October 29 – 30, 2019, to review new requests for cultural property agreements from Morocco and Yemen. The Committee invites public comment on the requests no later than October 15, 2019, at 11:59 p.m. (EDT). Use regulations.gov, enter docket DOS-2019-0031. The details of the Yemen request are here.

the Republic of Yemen invokes Article 9 of the 1970 Convention and requests the imposition of U.S. import restrictions on its archaeological material dating from the prehistoric periods through the Ottoman Era (up to 1750 CE) and on its ethnological material dating from 1517 to 1918 CE. Protection is sought for archaeological material including fragments of monumental architecture, statues and other sculptures, inscriptions, vessels and containers, coins, stamps and ring seals, accessories and tools, ornaments, weapons, jewelry, and human remains. Protection is sought for ethnological material in stone, metal, ceramic and clay, wood, bone and ivory, glass, beads, textiles, and leather and parchment.

The document then summarises the evidence of pillage and jeopardy to the cultural patrimony of Yemen and 'steps the Government of Yemen has taken consistent with the 1970 UNESCO Convention to protect the heritage of Yemen.

And now Ms Fitz-Gibbon of the dealers' lobbyist group,  ACCP will probably be digging up the dirt on Yemen and its government and Peter Tompa will be getting coineys to pump out the usual irrelevant uncomprehending cut-and-paste nonsense - like this one that the hapless Deven Kane was induced to write ("I submit this comment without much expectation it will make any difference because the die is cast. For the last decade the State Department has slowly been strangling the hobby of coin collecting and causing an unbelievable amount of harm to our study and research of the past by including coins in these MOUs bla-bla-bla"). The question is, does he think he's addressing the Yemeni plea, or the Moroccan one? It does not much matter, he'd apparently follow the same template no matter which country he was denying the right to control their own heritage.