Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues

A blog commenting on various aspects of the private collecting and trade in archaeological artefacts today and their effect on the archaeological record.

Friday, 1 May 2026

Israel in Lebanon

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Israeli forces have detonated the historic Shamaa Castle and the shrine of Shamoun al-Safa (St. Peter) in south Lebanon, destroying the UN...

Tuesday, 28 April 2026

Excavation-Permit Flaunting Archaeologist Goes Free

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Poland has released Russian archaeologist Alexander Butyagin who was due to be extradited to Ukraine to face charges of carrying out illegal...

The Wheels of British "Justice" Once More Grind Slowly when Antiquities and the Establishment are Involved

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"Great" Britian shows once again what a load of tossers they are when it comes to chasing up antiquities crime (Craig Simpson ...

Monday, 13 April 2026

On the US Bombing Iran

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This young lady from TicTok has an important message for Trump, the cognitively-challenged guy who struggles to construct a coherent sente...

Monday, 6 April 2026

Cultural Property in War, 2026

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Not so long ago, American academics and heritage professionals were eager to leap in and tell Syrians and Ukrainians how to protect their o...

Saturday, 21 March 2026

Missile Attack on Old Jerusalem

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A missile has just struck Jerusalem’s Old City, very near to the Western Wall, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (all U...

Friday, 20 March 2026

These Ancient Sites are in Jeopardy

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In the southwestern Amazon, one archeologist is fighting to protect ancient sites from Brazil’s seemingly unstoppable agribusiness indust...

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About Me

Paul Barford: British archaeologist living and working in Warsaw, Poland. Since the early 1990s (or even longer) a primary interest has been research on artefact hunting and collecting and the market in portable antiquities in the international context and their effect on the archaeological record.

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