Archaeology's Secrets Revealed

 

Over the pandemic months, a number of archaeologists met up through online conferences and meetings to discuss the crisis that was unfolding and was affecting their working lives. Due to the closing of  its traditional venue on Široká street in Prague, the international archaeological federation 'Archeon' has been able to arrange the annual gathering of  the elders for two years. This is important because the organization's constitution requires balloting (with white and black balls) proposals on the organization's budget which has therefore been frozen. While the organization itself has been run on the same lines without change during living memory, this does not affect its day to day operation. The problem for the rest of us is that this is the body that administers the not inconsiderable sums of money paid to archaeologists to hide certain facts about the past from the public that would be uncomfortable if they became wider-known. The existence of this fund has been a secret for a long while now and even the number of beneficiaries is unknown. The fact remains, however, that we have not received these payments in the past two years, and it is beginning to affect our living standards. Letters and legal overtures to Archaeon have failed to produce any satisfactory response, so affected archaeologists have decided to take drastic steps to attempt to prod Archaeon into action. To this end, we have set up a website called Tota Veritas to reveal what these funds have so far kept the archaeological community from making public. It is a private site, launched today that for the moment is available only to subscribers . This sets out the truth about the past that archaeologists for generations have remained silent on. It is time the public knew the truth.  At the moment the site is available only in English. Note: the site will be deleted when Archaeon keeps to the bargain it made with the archaeological community and pays the non-disclosure fees including arrears. So, subscribe today, there are special rates available for those subscribing today (there are also special rates for students).

Russia's Indiscriminate Destruction of Non-military Targets Directed Towards Cultural Destruction Too?

Russia's indiscriminate bombing of non-military targets
Photo : Mykhaylo Palinchak/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock 
          

Many Ukrainians believe Russia is destroying and damaging churches, museums and monuments as part of "erasing" Ukraine from the map (Conor Devlin, Is Russia intentionally targeting Ukraine's cultural landmarks? NBC News March 28, 2022). A number of cultural properties in Ukraine have been affected by Russia's so-called 'special military operation' (in which we remember they claimed only military sites would be affected by 'precision' bombing and shelling). The frequency with which this has happened (along with the massive damage done to civilian targets) promotes doubts on the Russian aims and strategic targeting abilities. The paper cites damage to the building of Kharkiv’s Fine Arts Museum and 17th century Holy Dormition Cathedral, the latter was shelled as residents sheltered inside, damaging the building, shattering the stained glass windows and causing damage to the interior fittings. In Mariupol, the Russian military has destroyed the city’s Arkhip Kuindzhi Art Museum. Since Feb 24, more than 60 spiritual sites have been destroyed or badly damaged by Russia. It's approx two sites a day (map here). These are Orthodox, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Muslim, and Jewish spiritual buildings. AS Devlin puts it:

Targeting historic monuments and cultural heritage sites is a war crime under international law, according to The Hague Convention of 1954. But that all seems to be part of Russia’s plan, some cultural authorities say. “They just want to erase from the map Ukraine — our heritage, our history, our identity and Ukraine as an independent state,” said Iryna Podolyak, Ukraine’s former vice minister of culture, who said Russia’s military seems to be targeting cultural heritage sites in addition to houses, hospitals and schools.

Russia’s military tactics have made it harder to determine whether landmarks are being specifically targeted or whether damage is a byproduct of attacks on the civilian population. Russian forces have shelled nonmilitary areas from long distances in an attempt to demoralize Ukraine and drive civilians out of cities.

It will be remembered that just days before Russia started this war (Feb. 21, 2002) Vladimir Putin had claimed in a speech, “There is no nationhood in Ukraine. … Contemporary Ukraine was completely created by Russia … by Soviet Russia”. This is a claim he'd made before and reflects a notion of identity/nationhood/ethnicity that itself has its roots in soviet ideology. It rather looks like damaging Ukrainian cultural sites, and the specific urban landscapes of their cities is an attempt to embody these ideas and express the motion of Russian cultural superiority. Let us also take into account the reports that have been emerging suggesting that cultural cleansing has been attemptyed in the areas occupied by the Russian military. Reportedly, Russian authorities have there been confiscating textbooks on Ukrainian history from libraries in occupied areas and burning them (here, and here for example). The Russian position seems to be that the "Ukrainian language doesn’t exist, that Ukrainian people do not exist, that Ukraine is a nonentity and can never be sovereign because there is no such country as Ukraine”.

By leveling the country’s landmarks, some experts argue, Putin will try to redefine Ukraine’s history and culture as Russian. “If we are speaking about Russian politics, during the last few years, we could say that the Russian president and government says there is no Ukrainian culture and everybody is all Russian,” said Igor Kozhan, director general of the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv.

The post below concerns an attempt to gather information on the scale and location of these incidents.

One element of Russian culture that is quite well-known in the Internet are their folk music ensembles, dressesd in folk costume or replica Cossack uniforms and singing rousing melodic songs or romantic ballads. One cannot fail to note that in their repertoire are indiscriminately mixed Russian and Ukraininan pieces as though they were all part of a single culture. I have stopped listening to these groups while Russia contibnues its aggression in Ukraine.

 

Civilian and Cultural Damage in the First Month of the Ukrainian War

As Conflict Antiquities (@conflictantiq) has spotted, @bellingcat has started mapping open-source evidence of civilian harm in Russia's war on Ukraine, including damage to and destruction of cultural and religious sites. He reports that this uses an adapted version of @ForensicArchi's TimeMap. 

https://ukraine.bellingcat.com. This sort of information gathering will hopefully be an important resource for future research and investigations and a first step towards ensuring accountability for war crimes.

 

Just a Novice, Seen it on TV: Can't be Expected to "No the Lore"?

            A man      

Claire Harrison, 'Novice metal detectorist stopped by police for Roman treasure hunt at protected site', Coventry Telegraph 28 MAR 2022

A novice Warwickshire metal detector enthusiast was arrested for undertaking a Roman treasure hunt at a protected monument [...] the man, who has not been identified, explained under caution that he had been hoping to find Roman treasure as he went about detecting on [a Scheduled Ancient] Monument [...] protected under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. During the joint investigation, the man's home was searched by the teams and detecting equipment seized. "Also seized was were a number of ‘finds’ we can accurately describe as buttons, bones and buckles", the rural crime team said on its page on Facebook. "The matter was concluded with a conditional caution for the offender, who made a full and frank admission to the offence.

How many finds were seized? How "novice" is "novice"? Why is a metal detectorist digging up bones?  We note that the newspaper journalist reporting this does not know the correct name for this type of protected site, nor knows tha there is a Portable Antiquities Scheme she should have asked for comment and criticism of this bloke. But then, this is the very same Warwickshire FLO that was just a fortnight or so ago doing "outreach" on "Henry Coles' Great British Treasure Hunt". Innit?

And the comment underneath the article is a classic:

Scooby112 7 HRS AGO
The police won't do anything about burglary or car theft but will come out in force over a few bits of rusty metal. Their priorities are completely wrong.

Colin Flogging off Roman Coins by the Bucketload

 

Have British dealers not got enough artefacts being taken out of the ground by UK artefact hunters? Where is all the stuff going that they have to import material from southeastern Europe too? 20 Assorted Unchecked "as Dug" Roman Bronze Coins (low grade) found in Dacia 7 available / 13 sold Seller: colin_colyton (5964 feedback) Colyton, United Kingdom. The guy has got bucketloads of these freshly-surfaced coins ... one wonders what the excavation permit looks like, and the export documenation. Dacia is more or less modern Romania, and it has laws on the looting of archaeological sites. In the thousands of comments this guy has received from ecstatic buyers, not one mentions the issue of the legality of the transactions involved in this material reaching them. 

The Journalist, the Customs Official and the Dodgy Antiquities (part 1)

 

Longish. Wiser colleagues often say they’ll not work with journalists who expect them to provide them with material for free. Since I am somewhat of a “mission” here, I have always felt that that the disadvantages of this might be offset by the effect of “getting the message out there”. I am now more inclined to listen to them and thought I’d offer my recent experience with an award-winning foreign journalist as a cautionary tale.

I was contacted by a colleague asking whether I would be interested in supplying a (“very smart analytical”) journalist contact of theirs with an opinion on some artefacts that they had been loaned by a collector who’d bought them on the London market in connection with the creation of a documentary on the antiquities trade that the latter was putting together. They needed to establish with some level of certainty the likelihood that these objects were what they purport to be or otherwise (and that there was the possibility of conducting laboratory analyses to back that up). The colleague said she’d heard the production company was willing to pay a certain (rather modest) sum for it. I looked up the journalist, looked legit, had won some awards. OK. So I agreed.

I had a phone conversation (17th January) with the journalist. It seemed to go well. Unlike most of them, they seemed to understand what was involved in the antiquities trade before the conversation. A plus, most journalist setting out to tackle the topic have no clue at the time they contact me (and I’ll assume others). Somehow we talked for an hour we established that we’d stay in touch during the project and the subject of money never came up. Hmmm – quelle surprise, eh?

Anyway, the journalist was going to send me these artefacts that a collector had bought from a couple of dealers – two of whom I take a particular interest in. So the attraction for me was that I’d get to see some objects fresh off the antiquities trade and get the correspondence and paperwork that the buyer received.

The journalist was unable to give much of a description over the phone (“something that looks a bit like a beetle and some little animals and something made of plastic”). I got a whole packet of scanned documentation by cloud that evening... oh my... this collector had been binge-buying and I got all the document about several sets of purchases among which would be the selection of items that were that evening on their way to me. I’d get them, I was told, the day after next, by a well-known International courier firm. I was intrigued to see what I’d be getting.

The idea was I was supposed to film myself examining them, pointing out gaps in the paperwork the buyer had received (oh yes, gaping ones) and whether there are indications that some, or all (?) of the objects were fakes. That I was looking forward to. – the photos from the scanned catalogue and several the journalist had taken in their living room were very suggestive that there were a number of features about some of the objects I’d be getting to handle that (if the photos gave the correct picture) when I had the object in hand, would suggest they were not authentic. That’s the kind of antiquities I love the most. I was also told that I had also the approval of the collector to do tests on film on the objects if they would prove he’d been scammed.

So I waited. Got my hair cut and ironed a shirt. Two days after the delivery date, I got an email from the courier. The package was in Warsaw (after a three-day flight?) and now they were going to put it through customs (for which I as the recipient would pay a fee).

For this, I was informed, they needed from me a full description of what was in the package and a copy of the invoice translated into Polish. This was to take the form of a formal declaration with legal penalties for me supplying false information. This was a bit of a dilemma as all I knew was that there were seven (or eight?) objects in the package, but I had the documentation of the whole series of purchases from several dealers including these objects, but without knowing which of them the journalist had packed up. Or when it comes to value, which scarabs (“beetles”) for example, were in the package. I of course had no invoice of my own, not being the buyer.

Of course the value was important as it means how much duty the recipient (me) was going to pay for the privilege of examining a numpty’s artefacts before sending them back.

At the beginning of the process, I assumed that there was a way to sort this out, I had the phone number of the courier’s “specialist for customs procedure”, and phoned her up to explain to this lady (let’s call her Grażyna – not her real name) what the problem is and ask for advice how to proceed in these circumstances. I was mightly puzzled by the fact that she was telling me things about customs procedure that did not tally with what I know about Polish customs procedure, and seemed not to want to talk about how this ‘import’ relates to the new EU legislation on cultural property.

‘Just write what you know’ she said. That was her specialist advice. So I did. Made a formal declaration, under pain of legal sanction on what the situation is, what I was told was in the package, what probably is in the package, and expressing my willingness to come in (the other blooming side of the city, mind you) and the packet can be opened and I’ll help them sort out their paperwork (masked, triple vaccinated, social distance bla la). A few hours later, got an email, the packet is still being processed.

The next morning, I got another. The packet “cannot be processed” until I supply more information. So I politely wrote back to Ms Grażyna and say that is all the information I have and they can scan the package to see what is in it (Grażyna lied saying they have no scanning equipment in the customs office in the main Warsaw airport, they jolly well have as I’ve seen it), or I can come in...

The next morning I got another message saying that until I supply the missing information, they cannot process the packet... I contacted the sender, the journalist, asking them whether they can supply more information (like a photo of the particular objects concerned before they were sent). Then it turns out that the journalist was not really much help, as they did not know how to name what was in the packet. They also told me that the atrocious description on the customs declaration accompanying the parcel on its journey from the UK which was part of the problem was done by the representative of the courier when the parcel was consigned. It read: “Full description of goods: 1 adult metal ring, 3 child clay figure, 4 adult metal figure” and the declared total value was GBP 82.50. And in Poland the courier’s specialist wanted me to pay duty (c. 20% of the value) even though I was not the owner/buyer and was going to send them back. Bear in mind that the package in fact contained eight [or nine?] antiquities and at least some were of stone.

What I also found out is that specialist Ms Grażyna has a linkedIn page where one learns that she trained in a local agricultural college (in "the care of small domestic animals") had had a number of different jobs in the past few years, and before she was appointed as a specialist had worked in a coffee bar for a year or so and had been in this post just six months.

Perhaps then not surprising that she was unable to talk with me about EU legislation concerning cultural property entering the EU from outside (the UK brexited).

To cut a tediously long story short (I made a folder in my inbox for correspondence, it contains 125 mails I sent out related to this between 16th Jan 2022 and 15 Feb 2022) after both the sender and I contacted other members of staff in the Customs department... well over a fortnight after the courier was supposed to deliver these objects to my door, the package was in fact sent back without doing more than begin to go through the customs process, because the time limit had expired within which the courier could charge me/us for their “handling” (I use the term loosely) the case. I also found out that in her files Ms Grażyna had lied about daily attempting to contact me by phone and being unsuccessful... Patently untrue.

Three things shocked me about this. 

First of all, the law itself. Although I’d written about the new EU legislation, on being faced with me having to deal with it in this situation (i.e., not as a buyer who’d purchased artefacts from a dealer, paid for them and had them delivered), it turns out to have some holes in it and be very cumbersome to find your way around.

Secondly when it started going through Customs, and despite having from me a very detailed breakdown with links to the articles involved of how these items relate to EU cultural property law to speed things up, it turns out that Polish Customs were somehow going to totally bypass that legislation and treat these artefacts as “collectables” like stamps, postcards, or collectable thimbles and spoons etc. What? I must admit I’ve not done it yet, but am planning to do a FOI to judge how often this happens with antiquities at the Polish borders.

Thirdly, and most upsetting... the journalist was completely unable to tell me which specific items had gone into the packet and as I have said, the only description we had was the declaration of contents and value that had been sent with it. In making my own declaration therefore, this was the only information available to me. What I did not know until after the event was that the journalist had not only made what could be seen as a deliberately obtuse description of the packet’s contents (a not uncommon tactic in antiquities smuggling) but above all severely undervalued the contents. This means that had I indeed been called to be present when the packet was opened and bring the documents, it would be look like MY declaration of contents and value had been falsified and I could as a consequence be in serious trouble with Polish authorities.

That is quite apart from the enormous amount of time I wasted trying to sort out the mess that one assumes nobody would be in if the sender had taken more care about filling in the declaration of contents. Quite ironic really in the case of a journalist currently engaged in producing a documentary about antiquities smuggling! It hardly places this person in a position to judge others about the way they move artefacts across borders... It gets worse (Part two).

The Journalist, the Customs Official and the Dodgy Antiquities (part 2)

Continued from Part 1. Having failed to send the artefacts a first time, the journalist announced they were going to have a second go, and that this time, I'd get the artefacts. In the meantime I managed to persuade them to make a set of as high resolution photos in daylight as possible with their phone. I do not know whether what I received were made in daylight, they were rather muddy. I should have thought and asked them to put a scale in, a ruler would have done. But I got about seven photos from different angles for each object At least we sorted out what had been in the packet and what lay behind those mysterious designations. The reference to “plastic” was that one seal was accompanied by a dealer’s impression in some material. If one played with the colour and contrast of what I received, I felt I could get a fair idea what the items were. There were three seal matrices (two scarabs) that had not been photographed from the sides enough for me to envisage their three-dimensional shape, so I asked for a video – “sure thing, tomorrow” was what I heard in response.

Nothing came, no videos, no package. I sent a polite reminder about the videos and an enquiry about when the package was due, after all, if I was to film myself looking at them, I’d need to tidy my desk (!) and set some time aside. But there was a mysterious silence on both counts. Meanwhile, the date of production of the video was inexorably approaching.

So, after waiting three weeks for information that the package had been sent (in the course of which War broke out next door to Poland), I decided to marshal my thoughts. I set aside a day to examine the photos and to look up the comparanda and think about it all. The results were thought provoking. The first item was an “Amlash” ring that the first photos had led me to think was a fake (because in the dealer’s own catalogue photo and another I had earlier received, the corrosion looked like chemical patina). The new photos showed that there was no reason not to see that corrosion as that of a dugup artefact. I concluded that (though I am not happy with the designation as “Amlash” – a made-up category) that when I had it in my hand, I’d decide it was most likely going to be a dugup without any paperwork. The next metal item was misdescribed by the seller and I decided had chemical patina, so the lack of paperwork is no surprise. The next three items were bits of Roman metalwork (Roman plate brooches in the form of cute animals) that had been sold as a lot, two seemed to be fake, and one a dugup. Two items in this lot were western European in style, one was Pannonian in type. None had any paperwork. The sixth item was a scrappy late Period shabti of pretty non-descript form and no paperwork. From the material I had, I was not sure whether it would turn out to be real or fake (but my bet was on the latter, the faience did not look very faiency). Then there was the intaglio chalcedony seal matrix with “figures”, no paperwork (and that impression). Whoah. What it had was a really crappy attempt at Egyptian hieroglyphics, and inscription that said nothing, involved non-existent hieroglyphic signs and had to my eye been cut with a high-speed rotary cutting disc (like a Dremel). Similar things are turned out in Thailand. Yuk. Sold as authentic by a well-known UK dealer, possibly with eyesight problems. Then there were two scarabs. There is an overseas dealer out there that puzzles me, has been selling for a number of years now lots of coins and all sorts of little MENA things that to my eye looked entirely convincing and it is odd that they have access to so much. None of them have a provenance. But these two recently purchased ones are to my eye definitely pretty bad and obvious fakes and with that in mind, looking over this dealer’s current offerings raises a lot of questions about what in fact we are looking at. Has the source of their supply run out? Interestingly, this dealer seems to have buyers’ trust still, despite that (and the lack of paperwork for their goods).

So, I wrote all that up longhand with an ‘executive summary’ and the proviso that when I received the videos and the artefacts I’d be able to say more and with more confidence. I sent it with a question when the package will be here.

That was 6th March. The journalist did not do the courtesy of replying to that email and attachment, not to the one when I re-sent it a while later (15th March). A ‘thank you’ for all that work would have been nice.

So basically, after this experience I have had it with journalists.  You waste a lot of time, generally get misquoted, and occasionally, you can end up potentially out of pocket and even in hot water through trusting people like this to be professional, know what they are doing and how it will affect those who agree to volunteer time and expertise to collaborate with them so they have material. 

[And it's not even the case that I've got my hands on some informative paperwork for all my efforts, as its legal status is far from clear to me in the circumstances].  

   

Vignette: The Thesaurus has a word for it.

Nighthawks and Not Nighthawks and British Archaeo-apathy

               Archaeo-apathy            

Over on social media, East Yorkshire Police have been congratulated by archaeologists for doing their job:

Great work by East Yorkshire Police. They detained 2 males on land with metal detectors in the Kilham area of East Yorkshire. They were reported for theft related offences and metal detecting equipment seized

You can almost sense the "Yaaaay!!!" 

 
I think we need to take that in context (archaeology is all about context) East Yorkshire, has a population of 600,260 people. Most are not artefact hunters or collectors. In fact, if we take the ratio between Sam Hardy's estimate of 27000 detectorists versus the population of England and Wales (just over 56 million), the ratio is going to be something like 1:2074. That would mean, statistically, that in East Yorkshire there are something like 289 active detectorists in the county. But, according to PAS statistics today, YORYM (so East and North Yorks together) in last three months those 280+ detectorists reported enough finds to make 52 records. That means, since it has been a mild winter, that most of the collectable finds made by those 280+ folk detecting legally (or at least not getting caught detecting illegally) are simply being pocketed unrecorded. And that is knowledge about the past of their communities stolen from 600,000 inhabitants of East Yorkshire who are neither metal detector owning pilferers or artefact collectors and their children's children. 

So I do not see what sense it makes for British archaeologists to be happy that two non-reporters trashing sites for their own selfish gain are brought to account, while not giving a moment's thought to the 200+ other non-reporters in the exact same region of the country who week after week freely and legally trash sites and pocket artefacts for their own selfish gain. The effect of both groups (smaller and larger - caught redhanded and not in any trouble with the law) on the archaeological record is the same. The same trashing and erosion, the same knowledge theft from us all by clandestine artefact pocketing.

Archaeologists are failing in our duty to preserve the archaeological record by consistently failing to actively try to STOP the larger group of knowledge thieves. Yes, the Police have in this case done their job, helping uphold the pathetically inadequate British laws that really do very little to actually protect the archaeological record from this kind of destructive pilfering. The question is, is British archaeology doing its job totally failing to inform and educate the public or lawmakers about what is currently happening to the accessible parts of the archaeological record and what can be done to safeguard it for future generations? My answer to that is that from where I am looking at it, they are doing sweet eff all. British archaeology is failing current and future generations by not getting the message across loud and clear: Stop Taking Our Past. It is easy to pretend this is something "somebody else should be doing, like the police". In fact this is something that concerns, affects, and is the responsibility of all of us.  

Macedonia: Metal Detectorists Face Charges

 Eight people have been charged in North Macedonia for being involved in illegal excavations, selling and smuggling antiquities in 2020 and 2021. The eight were arrested in September 2021 following police raids on their homes and other properties connected to them in 10 locations in the southwestern town of Bitola and the northwestern town of Tetovo. The antiquities are alleged to have been bought by buyers in Albania, Croatia, Greece, Serbia, Turkey and (of course) the US. The police raids seized metal detectors and computer hard drives, a large number of artefacts ("including ancient figurines and jewelry"), as well as firearms.

Six of the eight are under house arrest while the two suspects believed to have been the organizers are in custody. All eight were charged with destruction of archaeological sites and violating laws protecting antiquities. The two alleged ringleaders were also charged with forming a criminal organization, and potentially face a combined maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.

Who did the auction house say was the consigner of that antiquity? Who did they get it from? Is a buyer doing "due diligence" to reveal whether an artefact is legally-obtained or not without ascertaining that? I would say not, what do you think? 

 Vignette: Site-trashing and knowledge theft not a laughing matter in most countries.

Accused Dealer Extradited from Hamburg to Paris to Face Charges

             Hamburger            

According to the The Art Newspaper ( Vincent Noce, 'Dealer suspected of selling looted antiquities to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Louvre Abu Dhabi detained in Paris' The Art Newspaper 25 March 2022)

[T]he dealer suspected by US and French authorities of playing a central role in the sale of allegedly looted antiquities to museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre Abu Dhabi, has been arrested in Hamburg and transferred to France to face charges.

Meanwhile the persons who played a central role in the destruction of archaeological contexts - the artefact hunters and middlemen (organized gangs?) are not even being sought. We may doubt that the dealer kept any records that would allow them to be traced, let alone brought to account. So the dealer will have to take the responsibility for this alone. Reportedly, he has been charged for gang fraud and money laundering (no mention of culture-crime) and is being held in detention following his arrest last week. As Noce continues: 

In 2020, the French expert Christophe Kunicki and his husband, Richard Semper, were arrested and charged in Paris for an the alleged large-scale trafficking of looted artefacts from Egypt and the Middle East, before being held under house arrest in south-western France. Kunicki [had] sold a golden sarcophagus to the Met in 2017 for €3.5m. In 2019, the museum apologised and returned it to Egypt, after a criminal investigation exposed serious flaws in the Egyptian department’s provenance check. In his report, Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, stated that the sarcophagus came from the German-Lebanese dealer Roben Dib and the Simonian brothers, with a "forged" provenance. The same year, the District Attorney also seized an Egyptian stele on its way to being exhibited at Tefaf New York—it was also returned to Egypt.

I have been following in posts on this blog the news items on the Nedjemankh affair and Kunicki for some time. Let's just get the perspective here, the Golden Sarcophagus was sold in 2017, five years it's taken them to get this far. And of course all accusations are merely that until any eventual conviction. So basically we are nowhere except a few decontextualised artefacts being dumped on the museums service of the source country from which the objects had been clandestinely removed by bad actors. 

French investigators also suspect Dib of having sold (via Kunicki) five major Egyptian works to the Louvre Abu Dhabi for more than €50m, including another golden sarcophagus and a Fayum portrait. The museum has never made any comment, but Dib tells The Art Newspaper that Bogdanos's reports were "complete lies". According to him, the artefacts came from the late Simon Simonian, who was a dealer in Cairo from 1969 to 1984, and all had legitimate export documents dating to the 1970s.

I think the Abu Dhabi information here is new. Presumably the dealers handling this material that had access to the 1970s documents of legitimate export of items of this value will during their verification process have secured copies and passed them on to the buyers. It should therefore be relatively easy to produce them in court. After all, even selling something as humble as a hamburger requires there to be a paper trail showing the meat has passed the requisite checks, so why would a seller, or buyer, think something like high-end antiquities would be excepted from such requirements?

 

2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Russia’s War on Ukraine’s Cultural Heritage

 
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine aims to deny the sovereign country its right to a distinct identity writes Magdalena Psikowska-Schnass (Russia’s war on Ukraine’s cultural heritage European Parliament Think Tank 22nd April 2022).

Catherine Fiankan-Bokonga, ' UNESCO: deliberate destruction of Ukraine's cultural heritage could be considered a war crime' Geneva Solutions April 20, 2022.

Konstantin Akinsha  'Culture in the crossfire: Ukraine's key monuments and museums at risk of destruction in the War' The Art Newspaper 25 March 2022

Cultural Sites of Ukraine

According to the Wikipedia page (List of World Heritage Sites in Ukraine),

As of 2022, there are seven World Heritage Sites listed in Ukraine, six of which are cultural sites and one of which, the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, is a natural site.^[3] The first site was listed was "Kyiv: Saint-Sophia Cathedral and Related Monastic Buildings, Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra", in 1990. The most recent sites listed were the Wooden Tserkvas of the Carpathian Region in Poland and Ukraine and the Ancient City of Tauric Chersonese and its Chora, in 2013. Three sites are transnational: the Wooden Tserkvas are shared with Poland, the Struve Geodetic Arc is shared with nine countries, and the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests are shared with 17 countries. In addition, Ukraine has 17 sites on its tentative list.^[3]

[The links are to "Ukraine"UNESCO World Heritage Centre]. Chersonese is in Crimea, currently under Russian occupation. The Russians have recently been shelling the historic centre of Lviv. Of the tentative list, the historical centre of Chernihiv is in the area attacked and currently occupied by the Russians, the region around the National Steppe Biosphere Reserve "Askaniya Nowa" is currently an area of intense military activity, the Bagçesaray Palace of the Crimean Khans and the fortifications at Sudak and two other sites on the tentative list are currently in Russian occupied Crimea, the fate of the Kamyana Mohyla just north of the heavy fighting at Melitopol' Zaporizhia Oblast is unknown. Nearby is the Mykolayiv Astronomical Observatory. There are currently indications that the Russians are intending to occupy the Historic Center of the Port City of Odessa. The fantastic Derzhprom building (which is a prime and important/influential piece of Soviet architecture) is in the centre of Kharkiv, large areas of which are now almost totally smashed by needless Russian shelling of civilians. 

What is needed is for the Ukrainians to create as complete a database of information of the names of the  Russian commanders of specific groups so that after the War they can be hunted down and made personally accountable for any war crimes, including deliberate destruction by the men under their command of cultural property that non-combatants will be documenting.

 

The Artefacts Project: An Encyclopaedia of Archaeological Small Finds

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            "Artefacts" database plotted spatially and chronologically          
© Fond de carte H. Bohbot 

I must admit that I did not know about this resource (artefacts.mom.fr) run by Michel Feugére  of Le Maison de l'Orient, Lyons until a collector alerted me to its existence and thought I'd spread the word:

Welcome! This is the "in progress" version of Artefacts©, Online Encyclopedia of Archaeological Small Finds. This database, in free access on the internet, reflects part of a working base to which many researchers have contributed. It allows simple, or more advanced searches. [...] [it is searchable] [...] Artefacts makes use of a 3-level hierarchy, on which chronology is added. Every object is attributed to a function, and any function enters a domain. For ex., a dice (code DEJ) belongs to the 'game and counting' function, which is part of the 'socio-cultural' domain. The aim of this system is to identify the primary function of artefacts, for which they were produced, not their eventual re-use in a secondary context (such as religious, or funerary). {...] Nature and aims of Artefacts
Artefacts is not a finished product, but a evolving programme reflecting the work of a group of researchers: the database can therefore be improved, and a careful user will find some mistakes which can be corrected as soon as we are informed. The aim of the project is to offer a survey, as complete as possible, of all forms of artefacts, arranged in wide periods. A corpus of finds is out of the question, Artefacts only aims to produce an inventory of forms (types) for which will be provided, as far as possible, a detailed description, a selected bibliography and a chronology. The objects mentioned and the illustrations are only here as examples. NB : all the material of Artefacts comes from legal archaeological research and scientific literature. [...] To become an Artefacts author, please send your scientific project to: artefacts[at]mom.fr

Become an author on Artefacts?
Are you interested in archaeological objects? Do you have your own set of data (museum collections, archaeological excavations...) and do you have some knowledge of image processing and office tools? Are you interested in typology? You have all the qualities required to become an author on Artefacts.
The status of author will allow you to work on all the pages of the site, whereas with your current status as a simple registered member, for the moment you can only add titles to the general bibliographic list. Although limited, this functionality nevertheless allows you to discover how the site works and its interfaces.
To request an author status, send us an a motivated request [...], the field you are interested in and the categories you propose to work on. We will contact you and support you in all the steps that will allow you to acquire your autonomy on the site.
Join now the 200 or so authors who are already working on the database!

Apparently, "Artefacts" compte à ce jour 21 454 fiches pour 194 466 objets inventoriés (accessibles aux auteurs). Up until now the encyclopaedia has been viewed by 301,917 visitors.  

I was chuffed by the unintentional impression given by the Gif on the webpage that European civilisation begins with Neolithic France and spreads out over Europe after that, before contacting to leave France the centre of Medieval civilisation.  

Spelling

Viktoriia Zhuhan @uziaka BBC journalist from Ukraine. 16 mar
Dear colleagues! Russia tried to wipe out our language and Ukrainian spelling of our cities for hundreds of years. When you follow Russian spelling of our cities, you may as well report this war straight from Moscow.

Here's a simple web app where you can quickly look up common Ukrainian place names and learn how to correctly write them in English.

I have the same problem with editing texts by Polish writers who call Lviv "Lwów"... the name of the city when it was part of the Polish Commonwealth. I've known them to get quite shirty about me changing it (so that is exactly why it needs to be done). 

:

Recent Looting in Ukraine

There has been a lot of what is euphemistically known as "Black Archaeology" been going on in Ukraine over the past decade or so. As is being blithely reported on the website of OKM Detectors (Julius-Zinkeisen-Str. Altenburg, Germany) their Cavefinder locates Greek artefacts in the [sic] Ukraine (Jan 16, 2009):

A small team of treasure hunting enthusiasts discovered an interesting archaeological area where Greeks settled down in former times near to the river Dnepr in the Ukraine. With the help of their geoelectrical instrument Cavefinder B they located voids at a depth of about 1.5 m up to 3 m. Inside these small caves they successfully excavated various ceramic utensils like these antique vases and many coins. This discovery is not only by chance because the terrain where the team concentrated their research is of great historic interest. The city of Kherson, where the specialists came from, has been named the door to Europe. In ancient times there was the largest Greek policy - Olviya. This was the area which was also known as the Scythian Empire, here the Scythians settled down in the south of Ukraine and Russia. Scythians were nomadic herders of the steppes north of the Black Sea. The Scythians roamed and ruled much of what is now Ukraine and southern Russia, trading with Greeks, burying their dead in kurgans, and plundering villages. Starting from the 6th century the Scytians imported Greek goods such as wine jars (Oinochen) to the Ukraine.

It is not quite clear what this machine is and purports to do. But the photo shows what the artefact hunters are doing with their spades on this site on the cliff overlooking the Black Sea. Just look at the damage. Olbia is 55km to the west of Kherson and just south of Parutyne Mykolaiv Oblast, Ukraine. While there is visible looting here at lleast by 2003, it picked up in pace in 2010-13, and has been continuing until the present day. The OKM website shows some of the artefacts coming out of some of these sites. Note, there is no mention whatsoever on the website that this activity is totally illegal.

SLAPPs and the Public Right to the Truth

Ben Quinn, 'British law firms help oligarchs avoid legitimate media scrutiny, MPs told', Guardian 15 Mar 2022

Prestigious British law firms have been complicit in helping oligarchs prevent legitimate media scrutiny of their activities, MPs have been told. Two journalists, who have recently been on the receiving end of legal action over their reporting on oligarchs, told MPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee of the tactics typically used by law firms acting for powerful interests. They said this had pushed up insurance premiums to provide legal cover and many publishers had taken fright over the issue. Tom Burgis, a Financial Times journalist, named a number of firms, including Carter-Ruck and Schillings, and told MPs of the type of letters which were often sent. “In my experience they are often written in a tone of righteous indignation where the journalist is said to have behaved appallingly,” he said, in answer to a question from MP Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the committee hearing a session into the “use of strategic lawsuits against public participation”, also known as SLAPPs.

New ANS Deputy Director

 A good move. The American Numismatic Society has announced that from June 1, 2022, Dr. Nathan T. Elkins will be joining the ANS full time as Deputy Director. This is good news. Dr Elkins of course is well-known for his stance on ethical (and unethical) collecting of ancient coins that has in the past bought him the antagonism (and not infrequently personal attacks) of the lobbyists and advocates of no-questions-asked numismatic market in the US. So it is gratifying to see him receiving this recognition, and the Society no doubt will benefit. Congratulations.

Mexico Convinces Viennese Gallery to Halt Sale of Precious Artifact

Shanti Escalante-de Mattei, 'Mexico Convinces Viennese Gallery to Halt Sale of Precious Artifact' ARTnews March 11, 2022

Last week, the Mexican Ministry of Culture made an appeal for European galleries not to sell off precious Mexican artifacts. In its announcement, the ministry said it had identified more than 100 objects that were set to be sold in auctions in the following weeks at various auction houses, including Setdart in Barcelona, Carlo Bonte in Bruges, and Ader in Paris, as well as at the Vienna-based Galerie Zacke in Vienna. “From the Government of Mexico, we strongly regret and condemn this sale, whose pieces constitute the property of the Nation, inalienable and imprescriptible, extracted without authorization and illegally from the national territory, as their export is prohibited by Mexican legislation since 1827,” the statement read. For the most part, the ministry’s efforts failed. However, the piece held at Galerie Zacke will be repatriated, according to reporting from the German press agency dpa.

Interestingly, it is noted that the object in question was set to be sold in Chinese art sale but the gallery "in a gesture of compassion and corporate responsibility” had been able to arrange for the collector, who is from the United States, to repatriate the object. The estimate for the piece was €8000, so one wonders how those negotiations looked.

Mexico has been increasingly active in pursuing repatriation. Officials in the country have launched a movement known as #MiPatrimonioNoSeVende (#MyHeritageIsNotForSale), which is aimed at discouraging people from buying and selling Mexican artifacts by explaining how important they are for Indigenous and national pride. Mexican politicians have not always been successful in getting the world’s biggest auctions to pull artifacts from their sales, but their efforts have had some effect. Last month, a Dutch couple in possession of 17 Pre-Columbian artifacts returned their collection to Mexico after learning about the harms of collecting precious antiquities.

I would draw attention to the excessive erosion on this piece. A bit odd really, what kind of deposition environment was it in to get to look like that? Worth also looking at pp 185-9 ('Yugos and Hachos and Palmas, Oh my") of Kelker and Burns' "Faking Ancient Mesoamerica"....Just saying, it looks odd from that photo.

 Note that these more than 100 objects were being sold in a number of European auction houses: Setdart in Barcelona, Carlo Bonte in Bruges, Ader in Paris, as well as in the Vienna gallery. It would be interesting to look into why this is. If one were to look at the global distribution of collectors of middle- and high-end Pre-columbian antiquities, where are they? My guess is not centred on Barcelona, Bruges, Paris and Vienna. So are they shipped to Europe to be sold there to avoid a scrutiny that would be higher if they were being openly offered in the US?

A 2015 Cut and Paste on the Leutwitz Apollo

 

David Gill has alerted me to the fact that an independent US (?) scholar somewhere out there in gmail-land reckons he can explain my thinking better than I can:

Collation of Provenance Research and Scientific Reports about the Cleveland Apollo Sauroktonos (Academia edu)

Thomas Burchell

The information contained herein has been collected and put in a coherent order from the online postings of Paul Bradford, editor of the blog Portable Antiquity Collection and Heritage Issues.

Apart from the introduction and minor cosmetic edits none of the text below is mine. Unless otherwise cited Paul Bradford is the sole author. I organized this document because I found that using the information as it is laid out on the blog is cumbersome and difficult to follow. [...]

Hmmm. Almost as difficult for him as copying out my name properly.

First of all, I am the author here, not any "editor". It's also nice to see that a homegrown cut-and-paste sleuth thinks my "hypothesis" is "very reliable" because I can use the literature (!) and also David Gill from time to time quotes me. Passing over his rather pointless comment on Michel van Rijn, I'll add that Thomas Burchell has decided to strip out all the inline references (hyperlinks) which means that he is presenting somebody else's ideas in a different form than the original - stripped of the apparatus that allows the reader to check the source of my statements. Not only that, but he gives no link to where each individual lifted text can be found. I rather wonder what the point is.  

Hat tip David Gill

British Archaeological Establishment and the Real World

As we can all see too painfully, the British archaeological establishment has its head in the sand over artefact hunting, but this is a symptom of its institutional tunnel vision. Andy Brockman's Pipelinme asks: As colleagues internationally act, could Britain's archaeological establishment do more to support Ukraine's archaeology and archaeologists? ('Historic England Consulting Partners on Ukraine as CIfA, CBA and FAME Remain Silent', 9th March 2022). The answer is apparently yes, they could.

Time-Travelling Metal Detectorists Visit the PAS: How Reliable is the PAS Database?

An undergrad doing research asked me a question just now and I said "You know you can sort PAS records by the year the objects were found in, right?", and thought I'd provide a link to help them look at that and before I set it up, find that the statistics for 2022 reveal that of the 9903 objcts recorded (in 8426 records) since Jan 1st to today... 3705 were found in no known year (ie not now) and 72 before the Scheme was set up. One was reportedly found by a returning time-travelling metal detectorist in 2024 and a second was found in 2028. So at least a third of these records do not constitute mitigation of damage going on day after day right now with 27000 artefact hunters out there, but some of the records are simply FALSE and nobody's checking them. If you can get a date wrongh and not have it spotted, how many grid references can you get equally wrong?

Just to put that in context. I have an artefact erosion counter that is an extension of the Heritage Action one. You can look up what theirs says about the situation if it makes you feel better, but mine says that since 1st January 2022 by mid afternoon on March 8th (67 days), 27000 artefact hunters all over the country have most likely pocketed 194777 recordable artefacts (roughly 2900 a day ). And the PAS managed to record 9903-3777= 6126 (ie the equivalent of TWO DAYS' HAUL). That is more than pathetic.

PS. The Heritage Action one shows 53,561 recordable artefacts pocketed by its "8,000 active detectorists in England and Wales". IS that actually any better?

Ukrainians in race to save cultural heritage

Luke Harding in Lviv and Harriet SherwoodUkrainians in race to save cultural heritage Guardian Wed 9 Mar 2022.

Russia’s war on Ukraine has been an all-round disaster. Its army has shelled densely populated cities, killing hundreds. More than 2 million refugees have fled abroad in Europe’s biggest exodus since the second world war. In besieged Mariupol, families have spent more than a week living in desperate conditions without heat, water or power. Alongside this humanitarian catastrophe, cultural assets have been bombed and damaged. They include a museum in the city of Ivankiv, north-west of Kyiv, which housed dozens of works by the Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymachenko, some now lost forever. Last week Russian forces shelled the Assumption Cathedral in Kharkiv, hurling debris into its nave. In a video recorded early on Tuesday Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Moscow had flattened a 19th-century wooden church in the village of Viazivka, in the western Zhytomyr region. “An act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation,” Olha Rutkovska, a member of the association for the protection of monuments, posted on Facebook. Many Ukrainians believe this vandalism is no accident. In an essay last summer Putin claimed Ukraine and Russia were “one people” and Zelenskiy has argued the Kremlin’s ultimate goal is the “erasure” of Ukraine as an independent sovereign state. That includes its language, people and culture, suppressed during previous eras of Russification. “The USSR was one big totalitarian regime,” Lviv museum director Olha Honchar told the Guardian. “They tried to make everything the same. They had one kind of monument, and one kind of artistic style with socialist realism. Moscow wants to eradicate Ukrainian culture. It’s what defines us and our identity. It’s a memory of who we are.” [...] “Russians are used to living in a totalitarian system. They’ve been zombified. We Ukrainians value critical thinking,” she said. “The idea that Russia and Ukraine are the same is a totalitarian myth dreamed up in Moscow. Lenin didn’t invent us. We are different.”

Antiquities Impounded at Martin Schøyen’s Residence in 2021: Report

Report with assessment and recommendations concerning objects impounded at Martin Schøyen’s residence August 24, 2021 Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, March 2022. Date: 08/03/2022

The Ministry of Culture and Equality [of Norway] has received a report from the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo with expert assessment regarding the cultural objects from the Martin Schøyen’s collection that were seized by the police upon request from Iraqi authorities August 24, 2021.

Report with assessment and recommendations concerning objects impounded at Martin Schøyen’s residence August 24, 2021 (.pdf) [249pp]

There are not a lot of surprises here. Some of this makes very irritating reading, considering how long these issues have been being raised. The report is damning. It concludes that most of the seized objects are likely to have been illicitly collected and traded. As a result, it recommends that they are returned to the Iraqi government. Martin Schøyen’s are understood to be contesting these conclusions.  

 

Celebrity Antiquities Showoff Highlights a "Low Cost Resource for Museums, Galleries, and the General Public" [UPDATED]

     A very long-       
     armed shabti      

Some American celebrity published online a group of seven antiquities that they had bought online, two shabtis, two eyes of Horus,  a blue statue of Osiris,  and two cuneiform tablets (that the TV star's description of them reveals they'd not realised they were not "ancient Egyptian"). They published a jerkily- excited Instagram video (spotted first it seems by Peter Campbell and Erin Thompson) showing the purchases and the accompanying "certificates of authenticity". From these, it transpires that the objects had all been purchased from a company in the USA (Museum Surplus, Laguna Niguel, California USA) run by a Ken Martins. According to this URL metrics site, "The domain is 18 years and 0 months old. 126 users visit the site each day, each viewing 3.70 pages", while the LinkdiIn page of Mr Martins himself shows him to be 'Global Practice Leader, Industrial Water at Stantec". He seems to be big in waste water ("over 37 years experience in the design and operations of water and wastewater treatment systems"). Good for him. 

Museum Surplus used to sell on eBay as well as their own website, but the eBay shop seems closed. The website announces

Welcome to MuseumSurplus.com. We are a low cost resource for museums, galleries, and the general public to acquire high grade Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Medieval antiquities, ancient coins, and fossils. We cater to first-time buyers as well as the experienced collector supplying single and lot quantities of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman antiquities, ancient coins, and fossils. We sell ancient coins, religious implements, such as Egyptian scarabs and ushabtis and Medieval Christian crosses, ancient jewelry, ancient arrow and spear heads, ancient tools, and ancient glassware and pottery. We also purchase antiquities from individuals, museums, and foundations.

There is quite an extensive stock (more than I remember last time I looked), the fossils are mostly over-priced Moroccan, the bulk-lot discounts are an odd idea. I have not time today to look systematically through the stock, there is a lot there that at first sight look to be authentic artefacts, others less so. I spotted one piece of ostensibly Middle Eastern metalwork that has very similar characteristics to a series of pieces being sold by a dealer that I have taken an interest it. Sadly Mr  Martin's (non-existent) stated collection history does not bringing us any nearer either to how such a group would find its way onto the market. From the visual information supplied, I am less convinced of the authenticity however of some of the other items, including some of the pieces displayed by the US TV star. In these cases we need more information than the seller offers. 

One thing I find odd about the "certificates of authenticity" that we can see on the celebrity's dressing table in the video is that they will give a brief cultural assignation, like  and then give a set of dates, (which do not always match up very neatly with that particular culture as if from a different list). So one of these on the object the TV celeb bought was  "Ancient Egyptian 18th dynasty through Third Intermediate period". That is a time span of some 886 years (that's from here to 1136 - you know, death of Henry I and accession of Stephen and Matilda in Britain).* Actually within this period in ancient Egypt there were some quite significant stylistic shifts, so an antiquity - particularly of the types shown here - should be assignable to a closer time span. That is apropos the expertise that is supposedly (assumed to be) behind the authority of a "certificate of authenticity". It gets worse if you stopframe the video as the purchaser flips through them, the description on the certificate is nothing of the kind... it's a bit of name-dropping narrativisation.  You can pick out the name of Hatshepsut and Tutankhamun.. and, oh, somehow the Ramessids  and all the rest seem to have dropped out. As does anything at all about what the item is made of, where it was found, when and under what circumstances, how it left Egypt with respect to the various laws that existed at various times (so when was it exported?). I also do not see anywhere that explains why the waterworks guy can "guarantee" that it is genuine. The certificates are printed out onto thick paper stock, but lack any signature. 

I'd say the problem was even greater for a buyer in 2022 of two "Babylonian to Assyrian period, 2000-600 BC" cuneiform tablets "manufactured [...]  in Ancient Babylonia, region east of current day Lebanon" - what? Speak plainly man. There are twelve, both fired and unfired it seems, and two foundation cone fragments on the website.  I am not convinced they are all authentic dugups, but some I would say are. I'm not sure about the ones in the jumpy blurry video, one less so than the other. We need more information (as does the buyer). But any that are real, how is a buyer going to resell it if there is not export paperwork. It's just going to be "Hobby Lobby" on a scale of miniature. 

Frankly, if that's all the paperwork they can come up with, low cost or not, I do not see many public museums buying things from a "resource" like this. The general public (and celebrities) should be asking more questions before deciding to even touch something so poorly-provenanced, let alone bring it home. Also just what is the "surplus" referred to in the company's name? Artefacts that were deaccessioned from existing museums? If so, where is the paperwork verifying this? Or are they alleging that these items are all things that allegedly "the museums do not need - surplus to their requirements"? Which museums? In California or all those back on the Eurasian continent? 

So where is this coming from? One page gives a clue: "We have just acquired this collection of Holyland oil lamps.  These lamps were recently excavated in Bethlehem and Jerusalem". Oh. Do the Israel Antiquities Service know? Where is the export licence mentioned?  And the rest? 

*In fact, the seller gives different dates: "1400 to 713 BC"

Update 9th March 2022

A story about the video (including a mention of a Kardashain) made the pages of gossip columns (Julian Sancton, 'Demi Lovato’s Ancient Egyptian Artifacts Draw Suspicion: “I Thought It Was a Joke” ' The Hollywood Reporter, March 9, 2022). The article contains the untrue statement that 'international law largely forbids the trade of cultural artifacts trafficked after 1970 — the date of the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property' [the Convention is not a law]. There is a nice quotable quote from Prof Erin Thompson at the end:

"Thompson recognizes that “holding a piece of the past is really freakin’ cool” to some people. But she urges collectors to do their due diligence. “People are asking, ‘Where did my chocolate come from? Where did my shrimp come from?’ So if you can ask those sorts of sustainability and ethical-labor-practices questions about avocados, you can ask them about antiquities.”"

Newsy Documentary: The God Thieves

 In Real Life: The God Thieves   By Nelufar Hedayat   March 6, 2022 

Join Nelufar Hedayat and Newsy's "In Real Life" for an exploration of the multi-billion-dollar trade in trafficked artefacts, from Nepal to the United Kingdom to New York City, to see the human cost of the international market for looted antiquities.

.. ...

Posted by Newsy on YouTube Mar 14, 2022

An interesting documentary on an important topic, well-constructed and fast-paced. The camerawork is superb. I liked the use of graphics to show the movement on one piece and the disappearance of others. I don't think I have seen that before and it's an effective technique. What really comes home here is the struggle between cultural erosion due to the pace of modernisation and also the loss that is felt by a community already facing that when items are taken to fuel the no-questions-asked "art" market. The point is made that for their creators and users, these are so much more than just artfully carved pieces of wood that are used as trophies by some rich guy.

Another Milestone in Negligence

About seven o'clock this morning, Polish time, my Revised Artefact Erosion Counter ticked past the ten-million-items-pocketed mark and headed off towards its eleven millionth... What are the chances that by that time, British heritage professionals will have woken up to the fact that the "responsive and responsible artefact hunters" trope trotted out as an excuse for not doing anything are a myth, mirage or lie? That depends to what degree they are doing their job properly and looking at the evidence. That's what archaeologists do isn't it?

EAA Solidarity with Ukraine

EAA SOLIDARITY WITH UKRAINE

Open communication and cooperation are core to how the EAA works and what we seek to achieve, but challenging times necessitate taking a stand. We strongly condemn the aggression of the Russian and Belarussian governments on Ukraine. For this reason, we suspend institutional cooperation with Russia and Belarus until further notice. [...]

Russian invasion of Ukraine and the international legal protection of cultural property

Here's a useful text by Alexander Herman (Director of the Institute of Art and Law ) on the 'Russian invasion of Ukraine and the international legal protection of cultural property' The Institute of Art and Law March 3, 2022

It has been alarming to witness the invasion by Russian troops of Ukrainian territory over the last seven days. Distressing images of the bombardment of cities, communities under siege and refugees pouring into neighbouring countries have proliferated online. The primary focus of the international community has understandably been on the protection of human life and the cessation of violence affecting civilians across the Ukraine, as well as the clear violation of the principle of state sovereignty. But it is also worth turning our attention – ever so briefly – to the potential attacks on cultural heritage, which in some ways can be equally vicious and demoralising, with long-term effects that could be felt for decades to come [...].

The text gives a useful summary with links to the various international documents and agrreements concerniong cultural property. I was glad also to see mention made of the Amsterdam case involving items from Crimea that turned out in the light of events now unfolding to be even more significant than it seemed at the time. Worth a read, and let's keep our eyes on the documentation of items from the reguion on the markets.

Charles Ede Promotes Militarism?

Incunabula (@incunabula 4 g) notes:

"Talking of weapons of mass destruction being used in Ukraine, can we sell you an ancient spear...?" Horrifically misguided marketing email from the London antiquities dealers Charles Ede - using the ongoing murder of civilians in Ukraine as a hookline to sell Bronze Age weapons.

I think we should also look very carefully at where a lot of the prehistoric metalwork that is currently "surfacing" on the UK market is actually comiong from - even though some of it gets collection histories claiming it came from somewhere else... Incunabula also correctly notes that using the term "the Ukraine" implies the country is just a region of Russia, rather than a free and independent country - exactly the lie that the Russian government is trying to promulgate. I guess Martin Clist, the hapless author of this promotional piece got a little carried away trying to make his goods look "relevant" to the modern world and failing.

Racist Assumptions

 Justified outrage at language used to report on the Russian invasion of Ukraine: Moustafa Bayoumi They are ‘civilised’ and ‘look like us’: the racist coverage of Ukraine Guardian 2nd March 2022. While not wanting to comment on this at any length, I have long been calling out the same ambivalent approach to artefact hunting, when it is done by brown-skinned people it is called "looting", when it is white skinned people, it is "citizen archaeology" (and when the white skinned people are in Eastern Europe, the anglophone term is "black archaeology"). It is time to stop all of this.

3h