UK Detectorist Accuses "Thieving Archaeologists"

                          Bonhams                               

Metal detectorist John Howland writes about the "rampant double standards and low ethical standards" of archaeologists (Let them who are without sin… etc, etc… ,* Detecting and Collecting Blog, December 5, 2022). He starts with reference to mystery about the fate of some objects allegedly in the care of the PAS and its partner-organization that nobody can seem to trace now (shhhh.....). Howland is sure that some archaeological malpractice is involved and refers to a

"Detectorist who (rightly) complained in an online forum that he’d received an email from the PAS telling him that a hoard of Denarii coins he’d reported and handed over to them had gone missing. Naturally enough, he is somewhat aggrieved. Theft is a serious criminal offence". 

He then goes on to place this (possibly premature) allegation "in perspective” by relating it to  alleged archaeological thefts of the past ("Clearly, despite claims to the contrary, Detectorists don’t have the monopoly of the villainy"). 

For Howland, a key example is "the scandal and allegations that Howard Carter stole artefacts from Tutankhamun’s tomb". Certainly, there does not seem much doubt now that a hundred years ago, several small items from the tomb were indeed not handed to the Egyptian authorities as they should have been under the terms of the excavation permit. 

Howland, however, insists on bolstering his "case" against the discipline and urges his readers to cast their minds back forty years and not to forget: 

about archaeologist Ralph Pinder-Wilson’s sticky fingers, who in 1982 was sentenced to death in Afghanistan for stealing gold coins from a dig in Kabul. He was later reprieved serving a brief term in an Afghan slammer.  

I doubt that Howland actually has much first hand knowledge of this affair (exemplified by him not actually knowing where the coins were from - see below). I remember the matter was dragged up by Peter Tompa and his coiney friends of the ACCG, which may be where Howland heard of it (he cites no sources). 

Ralph Pinder-Wilson (17 January 1919 – 6 October 2008) was a Cambridge-educated British historian of Islamic art and linguist. Though he was involved in digging, I cannot see that he was educated in archaeology. He was formerly curator (and later Deputy Keeper) in the Department of Oriental Antiquities at The British Museum (1948-1976), he then left to become Director of the British Institute of Afghan Studies in Kabul (1976-82). His obituary by David Whitehouse, Journal of Glass Studies; Corning Vol. 51, (2009): 257-258 mentions that his tenure of the Kabul post "ended unhappily. In the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Institute closed in 1982, and Ralph was imprisoned on a trumped-up charge". His situation was mentioned at least once in Hansard. In another contemporary source we read:

Dr Ralph Pinder-Wilson, a 63-year-old British archaeologist, was first sentenced to death, then to ten years' imprisonment, and finally granted a pardon by the Afghan revolutionary government between March and July 1982. Pinder-Wilson, head of the British Institute of Afghan Studies, who had been working in Afghanistan since 1976, was charged with smuggling archaeological finds out of the country; with helping Afghan nationals to leave; and with criticising the government and spreading propaganda against it.

The New York Times reported July 15, 1982:

A British archeologist, Ralph Pinder-Wilson, was released from jail in Afghanistan today after nearly four months. He was flown immediately to India. The frail, 63-year-old director of the British Institute for Afghan Studies was one of the few Westerners to remain in the country after the Soviet intervention began in December 1979. He was jailed on charges of trying to smuggle antique coins out of Afghanistan and helping Afghans leave.
An expert on Islamic antiquity and for many years director of oriental antiquity for the British Museum, Mr. Pinder-Wilson had been in Afghanistan since 1977 as head of a British Institute team studying and cataloging architectural findings from the city of Kandahar. He was reportedly detained in Kabul on March 28.

More information comes from the archives of United Press International July 14, 1982

Distinguished British archaeologist Dr. Ralph Pinder-Wilson, sentenced to 10 years jail in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan last month, has been freed and is on his way home, a colleague said today.

Pinder-Wilson, 63 and in poor health, was released Monday in Kabul and was on his way to London via New Delhi, India, the Foreign Office told Basil Gray, president of the Society of Afghan Studies. Gray said he was 'deeply relieved' at the news because Pinder-Wilson, a former deputy keeper of oriental antiquities at the British Museum, suffered from a chronic stomach complaint and had been held incommunicado for three months by police in Afghanistan on smuggling charges. 'This whole business has been misunderstood and magnified by the Afghans,' Gray said. It is all a terrible mistake'.

Pinder-Wilson, a world authority on Islamic archaeology, went to Kabul in 1976 as Director of the Institute of Afghan studies. He was arrested by police in the Afghan capital in April and was accused of smuggling coins to Britain and encouraging Afghans to leave the country. He was tried by a revolutionary court in Kabul in early June and sentenced to 10 years in jail.

Gray said Pinder-Wilson had been in nominal charge of an archaeological excavation in the 2,000-year-old fortress in the old city of Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, where large numbers of ancient coins were being unearthed. These were being shipped back to London for conservation with the agreement of officials of the Afghan government he said. 'I can only assume that the officials who gave that permission are no longer in power in Afghanistan following the troubles there and that is how this mistake has been made,' he said.

Mr Howland however prefers to side with the version of the Revolutionary court in Soviet-occupied Kabul in his accusations over the coins.

On the other hand, there is another aspect to be discussed. 8 Oct 2009, Bonhams  London, New Bond Street sold for £ 6,600 in an Islamic and Indian Art auction, 'A STUDY COLLECTION OF GLASS FRAGMENTS OF THE EARLY AND MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC WORLD ASSEMBLED BY RALPH PINDER-WILSON Egypt or Syria, 8th - 13th Centuries [...] Together with excavation drawings by Ralph-Pinder Wilson (115)'. The sales blurb is interesting:

"Provenance: The Collection of the late Ralph Pinder-Wilson (1919-2008).

Ralph Pinder-Wilson was one of the foremost Islamic scholars of his generation, [...] Director of the British Institute of Afghan Studies in Kabul (1976-82). When the Institute was forced to close in 1982 under charges of espionage, Ralph was brought to trial, accused of encouraging Afghans to leave the country, and was given a ten-year prison sentence. He was released later the same year following the intervention of MP George Galloway. He returned to the UK and spent the rest of his life a dedicated, highly-respected and much loved expert in the field of Islamic art.

Ralph had a special interest in Islamic glass and this interesting collection of glass fragments reflects this. Many of the fragments are from Fustat, Egypt, and have parallels to those he published with George Scanlon in Fustat, Glass of the Early Islamid Period. Finds Excavated by the American Research Center in Egypt 1964-1980, London, 2001. Other fragments are labelled as having come from Raqqa, Syria.[...]

So, how did they leave Egypt and Syria? Note Bonhams misses out mention of the aspect of the court case that so interested Mr Howland. There was aso a manuscript miniature.

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*With the general level of education of detectorists, one need not be surprised by this exhibition of Biblical illiteracy in misquoting this phrase, totally negating the actual point being made ("Let he").