Polish- Ukrainian WW2 Heritage Not Just "Wołyń"

In Poland a court has decided, on the request of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland, that the country's controversial Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) must reopen the investigation into the "Vistula" action (the forced resettlement of the Ukrainian population from SE Poland in its post-War boundaries), which was discontinued by the institution's prosecutors several months ago. (Anna Gmiterek-Zabłocka "Głośne śledztwo wraca do IPN. "Słuszna decyzja sądu".." TokFM 24.08.2024).

Operation "Vistula" involved the forced resettlement of Polish citizens of Ukrainian and Lemko ethnicity from southeastern Poland in 1947, affecting approximately 140,000 people. The operation was orchestrated by the communist authorities in Poland. The prosecution of those responsible for the deportations had been demanded by various groups, including the president of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland and the chairman of the Lemko Union Presidium.

The justification given by the IPN for closing the investigation at the end of November 2023 was that there was no evidence to support the claim that "the resettlement under Operation 'Vistula' constituted a crime against humanity or a communist crime". The IPN argued that the decision to implement Operation "Vistula" was made to "ensure the safety of citizens" and that the deportation was intended to protect the population and to disrupt the Ukrainian Insurgent Army's access to supplies and intelligence from local residents. The IPN further claimed that no ethnic criteria were used in the resettlement and that the evacuation was conducted "in a humanitarian manner" (I do not know their documentation, but that the claim about the lack of ethnic discrimination seems dubious - possibly it is based on the fact that if there were any Poles living in Ukrainian villages in the region, they too were expelled before the villages were razed. The Union of Ukrainians in Poland and an association from Gorlice appealed the IPN's decision to the District Court in Warsaw. They argued that the case should not have been dismissed, as the IPN had failed to consider important research findings. The court agreed with their position. The investigation into Operation 'Vistula' will return to the IPN Prosecutor's Office," announced the Union of Ukrainians in Poland. Historians have welcomed the court's decision, considering it appropriate.

]Of course there is a parallel situation, the lands they were resettled to had been depopulated of the remaining German population,(many also had fled the advancing Red Army, never to return), forcibly resettled to Germany after the War. The villages they took over had been German for some 600 years before that and there are whole regions of western, south western Poland where the village structures, architecture and 'grain' of the landscape are "German" in feel. The same goes for large bits of Pomerania and former Ostpreussen, but to a lesser extent because the Belarussian Front of the Red Army was far more destructive (over-enthusiastically destructive) in these regions (not just the buildings, here were egregious episodes of gang rapes and arbitrary shootings, Bucha and Irpin have deep roots in the Russian mentality)].* The tragedy of the War did not end on May 9th(or whenever) 1945 with the capitulation of the Nazis.

*Actually the same thing happened when the Russian "Imperial Army" entered Ostpreussen in the First World War

Stolen Fragments

       policing is one part of           
           the problem that involves          
 wider public attitudes   
      

New book soon to be out:  Stolen Fragments Black Markets, Bad Faith, and the Illicit Trade in Ancient Artefacts by Roberta Mazza (Redwood Press), 17th September 2024 272 pages. $30.00 Hardcover ISBN: 9781503632509.

In 2012, Steve Green, billionaire and president of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores, announced a recent purchase of a Biblical artefact—a fragment of papyrus, just discovered, carrying lines from Paul's letter to the Romans, and dated to the second century CE. Noted scholar Roberta Mazza was stunned. When was this piece discovered, and how could Green acquire such a rare item? The answers, which Mazza spent the next ten years uncovering, came as a shock: the fragment had come from a famous collection held at Oxford University, and its rightful owners had no idea it had been sold.

The letter to the Romans was not the only extraordinary piece in the Green collection. They soon announced newly recovered fragments from the Gospels and writings of Sappho. Mazza's quest to confirm the provenance of these priceless fragments revealed shadowy global networks that make big business of ancient manuscripts, from the Greens' Museum of the Bible and world-famous auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, to antique shops in Jerusalem and Istanbul, dealers on eBay, and into the collections of renowned museums and universities.

Mazza's investigation forces us to ask what happens when the supposed custodians of our ancient heritage act in ways that threaten to destroy it. Stolen Fragments illuminates how these recent dealings are not isolated events, but the inevitable result of longstanding colonial practices and the outcome of generations of scholars who have profited from extracting the cultural heritage of places they claim they wish to preserve. Where is the boundary between protection and exploitation, between scholarship and larceny?

I'll be interested to see if, and to what extent, she covers the "investigation" (I am using that term rather loosely) of the British police, bless 'em, into the connections between a former Oxford University scholar and a number of other items of papyri that are reported to have disappeared from the same famous collection held at Oxford University and that have never been seen since. This story is not over.

The book will hopefully provoke some discussion into wider public attitudes, The Museum of the Bible, accumulating THINGS in order to tell a specific watered-down story in the interests of a certain group, but apparently nobody was asking the question (or rather the question was being widely ignored) where those "things" were coming from and whether other stories were being obliterated by this stuff being acquired, that infringes on the interests of not just one group, but multiple groups - and ultimately us all. These are questions we should be asking. Get the book.

China: Three Dock Workers Sentenced for Stealing Cultural Relics

 

            Three Gorges Reservoir              

Global TimesThree dock workers sentenced for stealing cultural relics in Three Gorges Reservoir area Global Times: Aug 18, 2024

Three dock workers have been sentenced to prison by the People's Court of Wushan for stealing cultural relics from Western Han Dynasty (206 BC–AD 25) tombs that were exposed in the Three Gorges Reservoir area.

The individuals—identified as Liu and two accomplices—received prison sentences ranging from three years and 10 months to four years and six months. Each was also fined 30,000 yuan ($4,190).

In 2011, Liu and his co-defendants discovered the exposed tombs when the water level in the reservoir dropped. The trio excavated the site and unearthed 20 items, including bronze drinking and ritual vessels from the Western Han Dynasty. They later turned themselves in to the police and confessed to the theft in March 2024.

Archaeologically, the region of the Three Gorges Reservoir contains a large number of buried cultural relics.The region is also known for the Bachu culture as well as cultural relics of the Han and other eras. Also "2 million years ago, the famous Wushan Man lived in this area", the newspaper says.

Play of Euripides on Excavated Papyrus

Imagine if they'd been dug up by artefact hunters and without being transcribed, anlaysed or interpreted sold on eBay to a buyer only interested in having something 'cool' in their ephemeral private collection, that may be saved by the heirs or simply discarded as "grandpa's old junk" (Guillermo Carvajal, 'Previously unknown fragments of two lost tragedies by Euripides, discovered in an Egyptian papyrus' LBV Magazine, August 4, 2024):

Two scholars from the University of Colorado Boulder have unearthed significant fragments from two lost tragedies by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides. This discovery, made after months of painstaking research, is hailed as one of the most substantial findings in over fifty years.

The journey began in November 2022 when Basem Gehad, an archaeologist with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, sent a papyrus to Yvona Trnka-Amrhein, an assistant professor of classics at the University of Colorado Boulder. The papyrus was discovered at the ancient site of Philadelphia in Egypt

The settlement of Gerza in the Fayoum was known as Philadelphia in the Ptolemaic era. It was established in the 3rd century BC as a central settlement in the framework of an agricultural reclamation project implemented by King Ptolemy II (Philadelphia) in the Fayoum region, with the aim of securing food sources for the Egyptian kingdom. An Egyptian archaeological mission began excavation work here in 2016 and revealed archaeological material from the period from the 3rd c. BC until the end of the 3rd century AD

.

Wealth Distribution

Reportedly, 50% of the world's GDP is produced in the areas coloured green.

Guess where most of the world's portable antiquities are bought and sold. And guess where the majority of the pieces of that stolen history come from....

Edinburgh University Text on "the Göbekli Tepe Calendar": Another Major Media Fail',

Gürkan Ergin, ' The Göbekli Tepe calendar and the Younger Dryas Impact: another major media fail', ArcheoThoughts Posted on August 16, 2024

Major media outlets have recently been reporting on a new sensational claim that animal carvings on a stone pillar at the archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey are a very early form of calendar, and that they commemorate a cosmic impact about 13 000 years ago that triggered the Younger Dryas cold snap (Sweatman 2024). This coverage has been almost universally uncritical. I have seen no attempt to actually evaluate the claim, even though it should be obvious to even moderately informed readers that the study is highly speculative and does not support its findings adequately. [...] The press release from the University of Edinburgh starts with “Markings on a stone pillar at a 12,000 year-old archaeological site in Turkey likely represent the world’s oldest solar calendar, created as a memorial to a devastating comet strike, experts suggest.” This is the main message that made its way, usually uncritically, into the coverage from major outlets [...]

[...]

We live in an age in which a sensational speculation consistently gets a lot more coverage than a reasoned, well supported conclusion, even in allegedly serious media. Institutions such as AAAS and public figures such as journalists have a responsibility to inquire before they disseminate, and when they do disseminate, they have a responsibility to be critical.

The media used to consider itself a fourth estate in our body politic, with a role to play in keeping the citizenry informed.

Academics in general have a responsibility to evaluate the ideas they see disseminated, and to help the public make sense of them. I will continue to do so as best I can.

Too bad the Archaeology Department of the University of Edinburgh cannot see their way to doing the same. Or any other archaeological body in the UK ("not my problem M8")

Anyway, the carvings are quite obviously vulvas, lots of them, anyone can see... surely. Prove me wrong.

  

Sweatman, M. B. (2024). Representations of calendars and time at Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe support an astronomical interpretation of their symbolism. Time and Mind, 1–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/1751696X.2024.2373876

Language in and Around Ukraine

 What is the relationship between language and culture?

----------------------------------

Olexander Scherba 🇺🇦 @olex_scherba

A Russian TV show introduces the “local dialect” of Russians in Belgorod oblast near Ukraine. The anchor seems to understand nothing, but Ukrainians understand every word.

Because “the dialect” turns out to be Ukrainian.

As putin says, “it’s historically our land”. #StandWithUkraine

A Russian TV show introduces the “local dialect” of Russians in Belgorod oblast near Ukraine. The anchor seems to understand nothing, but Ukrainians understand every word.

‘Cause “the dialect” turns out to be Ukrainian.

As putin says, “it’s historically our land”.#StandWithUkraine

A 🇷🇺 TV show introduces the “local dialect” of russians in Belgorod oblast near Ukraine. The anchor seems to understand nothing, but Ukrainians understand every word.

‘Cause “the dialect” turns out to be Ukrainian.

As putin says, “it’s historically our land”.#StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/1XWdR9qyBM

— olexander scherba🇺🇦 (@olex_scherba) August 15, 2024

Olexander Scherba 🇺🇦 (@olex_scherba) August 15, 2024

------------------------------------ -

The funniest part is when the voice over says "you won't find these words in any dictionary in the world!" And then they go back to the studio and the girl just speaks a local dialect of Ukrainian. Once again, we see the Russians refuting the existence of the Ukrainian language but instead calling it a "dialect" (of Russian). This little girl is taking part in this charade.

Within Ukraine there are several linguistic zones, those maps that separate Ukraine into two clearly defined zones of "Russian language" and "Ukrainian language" are in fact misleading and flat out lazy and awful journalism. It's more like this: 

                                     .                                          

Although Central Ukraine is often regarded as having Ukrainian as the native tongue, in truth a large portion of the Ukrainian spoken in central Ukraine consists of Surzhyk, this is a mixed Ukrainian/Russian sociolect due to centuries of Russian domination. The western region is actually the region where the more "pure" form of Ukrainian is spoken. Interestingly, this map actually depicts Kyiv as being Russian speaking. It is true that in that city, day-to-day interactions are almost exclusively in Russian, even if people identify more with the Ukrainian language  (map from Map Porn)

As any Ukrainian will tell you, the modern state, the one the Russians want now to wipe off the map, kill all the people (or forcibly Russianise them), and steal its resources is much smaller than the actual extent of Ukrainianness and the two republics founded after the end of the First World War and then attacked by Poland and the Bolsheviks. It is not just Kursk and Belgorod (Bilhorod - where this girl is from). 

I am actually working today on editing a volume about a site right on the eastern border of what is now Poland that in fact was a centre of the Halych-Volhynian principality. The material culture of the 13th/14th centuries is quite unlike that a few dozen kilometres to the west, there is a very clear difference. Most of the Ukrainians were driven out after WW2 (many forcibly resettled in the east of Poland in areas that Germans had previously been deported from). In the northeast are territories that formed part of the Sloboda Ukraine (Slobozhanshchyna) that is the regions of Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk but also parts of the Belgorod, Kursk, and Voronezh Oblasts of SW Russia. Also worthy of also is the large area Ukraine lost to the Soviet Union east of the Sea of Azov and bordering on Georgia and the Caucasus mountains, the lands of the Kuban Cossacks, formerly the territory of the Crimean Khanate in the 16th and 17th centuries.  

(map from here)

US Right-Wing Conspiracists on ISIL Destruction in Iraq

American conservative political commentator, author, activist, and television presenter Candace Owens Farmer writes:

Candace Owens @RealCandaceO 5:36 PM · Aug 15, 2024 ·

Sometimes I think perpetual war in the Middle East is about destroying what remains of the ancient world so they can continue to sell us fairytales about what has happened and where we come from.

Orwellian quest to fully control the narrative by making placing history into the hands of those who print the textbooks.

2.2M Views .

Textbooks that I am going to guess she's never read, because the enemies are "they" who make "textbooks". People who've read her stuff conclude for example, that "Candace Owens is certain the Bible is the only place we look to understand the world, denies evolution, and believes scientists are satanists". As Professor Bill Farley notes " Pseudoarchaeology is on the verge of becoming a pillar of conservative thought". Of course in the USA it always has with Biblical literalism (creationism, the anti-evolution Snopes trial, belief in ancient giants, quests for evidence of the Flood and Noah’s Ark etc). It was the same with the refusal to acknowledge that the Moundbuilders were indigenous but rather the Lost Tribes of Israel (see also the "Book of Mormon"). This type of conservatism with its inbuilt xenophobia, chauvenisms and racism fosters the development of pseudoscience to mirror and bolster such views. Then we get the skull-measuring and claims of "vanished white master civilisations" behind any progress made by the non-white inhabitants of this planet. Wherever there’s pseudoscience of this kind there’s almost invariably racism. Jimmy Corsetti @BrightInsight6 · 12h was actually stationed there in the ill-fated and ill-advised US-led invasion of Iraq but still does not understand what was going on:

"ISIS invaded Iraq with an entire FLEET of new vehicles. Who paid for these I wonder? 🤔 And who trained them?// Who paid ISIS to destroy the ancient ruins of the Biblical city of Nineveh, in Mosul, Iraq?? They went in on a mission. They brought in heavy machinery and jackhammers. This was coordinated and funded. Why? 🤔
1.7min views

Actually, far from bringing in anything, ISIS was in occupation of Mosul (ie right next to Nineveh/Kalhu) since 10 June 2014 and the destruction took place between January and the end of August 2015. The looting of antiquities had a lonbger timespan - began under US rule (Corsetti seems to have been there c. 2009 when it was already in full flow).

War and Landscape Change in Ukraine

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused so much devastation that the front lines are clearly visible from space (Business Ukraine mag@Biz_Ukraine_Mag 14.08.2024)

Angels... Demons and Ignorance

 

A Good Auctioneer

"Good auctioneer". Two attractive and interesting ancient coins (separate lots, same UK auction - Numisbids) where we can confidently say that their sale involves no damage to the archaeological record whatsoever. This is Responsible collecting.

British Heritage Vandalism Abroad

       British archaeological heritage looted        
    and they're OK with that    

In Britain, there is a national Scheme that encourages members of the public to go out with metal detectors and spades and dig up historical sites to see what they can find and pocket. The system pats looters on the head, calls them "citizen archaeologists" and "heritage heroes" if they show the arkies the good bits of looted past and hand over any gold or silver etc. The looters talk of their "rights" to use the archaeological heritage just how they like, and are disparaging of anyone who points out they are damaging the heritage for the rest of us. With attitudes like that, it is not surprising what happens when we let these heritage-negligent islanders into Europe: "British tourist sparks outrage scrawling family’s initials on world heritage site" [Standard 9 Aug 2024].

A British man has sparked outrage after he was caught carving his children’s initials into an ancient wall at Pompeii. The 37-year-old was reported to Italian authorities for defacing the Domus of the Vestals, a UNESCO World Heritage site that attracts huge numbers of tourists each year. According to Italian newspaper Secolo d'Italia the tourist had even begun to inscribe the date before he was apprehended. When questioned, the man, whose identity has not been disclosed, claimed he wanted to "leave a sign of his visit". He has since apologised for his actions. The tourist has been reported to the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Torre Annunziata for damaging artistic heritage. Under new Italian regulations, he will be required to pay for the restoration of the damaged site and face a fine.

Sources are suggesting that the man was Baz Thugwit, an office worker from Durham. This has yet to be confirmed, the man needs to be named and shamed as a deterrent to others. Actions have consequences. Obviously, it could have been anyone since the public media in Britain mainly portray archaeological sites as places to be "interacted with" and exploited for personal (self-centred) entertainment and profit - like through "metal detecting". They need to get a good education, but archaeologists over there on the island really can't be bothered to try and teach the public what real archaeology is, it's easier to do the dumbdown.  

Gobekli Tepe: YouTuber Rudely Tells the Arkies What's What

"You sound like a dumb person for 

being content with the total lack of excavations -

and the fact that a full excavation has been 

deferred to future generations" (Jimmy Corsetti)

Former US soldier with no archaeological competence, now YouTube personality:

Jimmy Corsetti @BrightInsight6 · 15h
It is a matter of FACT that full-scale excavations of GOBEKLI TEPE have been indefinitely postponed, despite only ~5-10% excavated.
Any archaeologist, anthropologist or academic of history that’s not denouncing this crime is either corrupt, incompetent, or a coward.

This is not at all any kind of "bright insight", in fact it's rather myopic. Rather, I would say, let us have a full publication of this complex site up to the present state of excavation, some proper discussion of the techniques and results, before trying to tackle any more. I think there are some fundamental questions about the way the stratigraphy and phasing have been handled, and I think there needes to be some stock-taking done. No more excavation until this has been done/, please.

Dnepr Hoards

 

There are a group of Early Medieval hoards of metal ornaments (fibulae, appliques, belt fittings etc) in the forest steppe zone of the Middle Dnepr region called the Martynivka type. The British Museum has some of the artefacts from the eponymous site. They are often linked with the Early Slavs, that's a bit dubious, but certainly they do not belong to the 'Antes' which is what many archaeologists - especially the Soviet ones - say they are. But in any case they are a pretty characteristic element of Ukrainian culture. Most of them are old finds (and most of the new stuff disappears onto the antiquities market). One of the best-published finds is the Gaponovo hoard of 411 itemsdiscovered in the village of Gaponovo (Krasnooktabrskoie) in the Ko renevo district of the Kursk region, Russia. The site was excavated and this shows the hoard had been buried in the archaeological deposits of a settlement belonging to the 5th-7th -century Kolochin culture (Gavritukhin I., Oblomsky A. Gaponovo hoard and its historic and culture context . Moscow, 1996). Another recent find was made in 2009, on the territory of the village of Zamostie near the city of Sudzha, Kursk Region. This one contained more than 1500 items and seems to have been a votive deposit in a wetland environment (Rodinkova VE, Saprykina IA, Sycheva SA 2018,КЛАД ИЗ СУДЖИ-ЗАМОСТЬЯ И ПРОБЛЕМА СОЦИОКУЛЬТУРНОЙ ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИИ ДНЕПРОВСКИХ РАННЕСРЕДНЕВЕКОВЫХ КЛАДОВ I ГРУППЫ РОССИЙСКАЯ АРХЕОЛОГИЯ, 2018, № 2, с. 130–147 ).

The topicality of this is that it is precisely in the area of the finding of these hoards on the NE fringes of the distribution of this body of material that Ukrainian forces are currently advancing into Russia in response to Russia's invasion of Ukrainian territory. If they hold this territory, maybe the Russian capitulation will include a clause on this material being surrendered by Russia so that it can be studied as a whole alongside that in Ukraine. And the British Museum can give back their bits. 

Cunie in UK auction

 

Cunie in UK auction marketed online:

"lot 183. Uruk III [...] 26.3 grams, 55 mm [...]. From an important collection of a London gentleman, 1980-2000s" "Believed to have been published in Cornell (ATCPC), no.140"

 It has got just one photo!  Why only one photo? How many sides are inscribed? The fabric looked a bit off, but when you check there are a lot of Uruk III tablets, apparently excavated ones, of this soapy/waxy clay and an equal (?) number of the more usual silty clay and some with a bit coarser sand temper. 

Where was this object before "1980"? Uruk [Warka] is in modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq, and Iraq has had antiquities laws for how long, eh? Maybe the (anonymous) seller can tell us - or maybe the UK auction house handling the sale? 

What kind of information is "Believed to have been published in Cornell (ATCPC), no.140"? Absolutely non, but it looks "official", no?. The collector is supposed to be too embarrassed not knowing what ATCPC means - but it is CORNELL, so must be good, eh?  What is the real reference? "Ancient Texts [....].... Private Collection?", "Arty Taxdodgers Cornell....?" What is it? And what significance is THIS tablet being "number 140" in that collection? 

Somebody "only in it for the 'istry": Metal Detecting Finds for Sale

           Artefacts looted from the historical record straight onto eBay                

Metal Detecting Finds: Lot H 'LUCKY BAG' Roman, Buckles, Buttons, Coins, Artefacts,
seller magnetyx (473) Located in: Bristol, United Kingdom

"If you bid and win you will get Lucky Bag: Lot H, exactly as shown. Lot H contains ...
1x bag of Roman Coins
1x bag of Buckles
1x bag of General Coins
1x bag of Buttons
1x bag of Mixed Artefacts
Lot D weighs approximately 1.7kg. The Finds have been washed but not scrutinised in detail and all the finds need to be cleaned properly to get them to look their best.
Good luck if you decide to bid"