Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues

Princeton Statement: the Numbers

2012-01-25T21:09:00.000-08:00

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David Gill reports that Princeton has at last released a statement about the return last month of some objects from its collections to Italy ('Princeton University Art Museum, Italy reach new antiquities agreement' The Trustees of Princeton University). Gill notes that the statement issued on behalf of this new Jersey university on behalf of the Trustees of teh Art Museum is lacking somewhat in details, but what struck me was the wy the number of objects acquired/relinquished was portrayed:

Under the agreement, six works were returned to the Republic of Italy in December 2011 [...] a black-glazed askos; a pair of fhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifemale statuettes; four fragments of a red-figure calyx krater; fragments of an architectural relief; a pithos in white-on-red style; and a group of fragmentary architectural revetments

Meanwhile, what is more revealing about the sort of things the 'art museum' has been buying for its "research and teaching" and gives a better idea of the scale of the return:

tra cui un askos a forma di astragalo, due statuette di donna, di cui una che suona un tamburello e l’altra la lira, un pithos a figure rosse e bianche, raffigurante animali, e 166 frammenti (quattro di un cratere a figure rosse, cinque di rilievi architettonici, un gruppo di 157 elementi architettonici con figure di tori);

Now, I can understand a need to have some hand-specimens of red figure pot fragments so the student can see the difference between it and modern flower-pot so they don't make idiots of themselves when they go out in the world with a Classics degree from Princeton, but 157 knocked-off bits of building facade?

Lewis Defence Lawyers Urge Dismissal of Case Against Client in US v. Khouli et al.

2012-01-25T00:31:00.001-08:00

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Rick St Hilaire has an interesting text about the court case ensuing from the New York antiquities bust ('Lewis Defense Lawyers File Motion to Dismiss in US v. Khouli et al.'). An indictment is not a finding of guilt and a criminal defendant is presumed innocent unless the prosecution can prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. Basically Lewis' lawyers are arguing that collectors have no obligation to ensure that "freshly surfaced" artefacts they are purchasing are not illegally obtained. Let us see if that is a position upheld by a New York court of law, but even so, is that not really precisely what collectors buying precisely this category of material should, in fact, be doing? Also let us note that the lawyers say that Lewis as part of his "due diligence" before purchase was informed by the dealer that the objects came from a 1960s collection in Israel - so one might ask whether to offset the accusations that he was collecting smuggled items he has provided his lawyers with Israeli export permits for those antiquities he believes were exported from Israel.

Moreover, defense counsel contends that prosecutors cannot prove that the items in questions were stolen. They highlight that there has been no assertion by Egypt that the items are in fact stolen. And if the prosecution argues that the incomplete provenance of the artifacts should have informed Lewis that the objects may have been stolen, defense lawyers cite journal articles to show that lack of provenance is common in the antiquities market and does not demonstrate that a cultural object is in fact stolen.

Well, motoring magazines rarely say where the model they are illustrating was bought, that does not mean that the BMW in Cletus Thugwit's garage for which he has absolutely no paperwork is not stolen.

Lewis’ lawyers conclude that the lack of evidence cannot sustain a conviction, warranting a dismissal of the government's criminal case. It is worth noting that the "no provenance does not mean illegal" argument is the same one used by the coineys - but despite that Salem Alshdaifat (Holyland Numismatics) and Morris Khouli were suspended from the ACCG before they'd even set foot in a courtroom.

More Antiquities Looted from Italy Leave the Hands of US Collectors and Dealers

2012-01-24T21:08:00.000-08:00

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There seem to be huge quantities of looted Classical antiquities in US hands. A January 20 press announcement by Italian authorities summarises recent results in the fight with unlawfully exported items in US hands. This time we learn of the return of more than 200 antiquities of various sizes from US museums, companies, collectors and dealers — all the product of illegal excavation or theft. The Chasing Aphrodite blog has a lengthy article on it.

The article discusses some of the returned objects. The two biggest items were statues relinquished by the health insurance provider Humana, which had stood apparently for over 20 years in the lobby of its Louisville headquarters. They illustrate very well the problem of stolen and looted artefacts being offered to uncritical buyers on the no-questions-asked market. The company had in good faith "acquired the statues in 1984 from a New York Gallery". It turns out on investigation that one of them, a first century marble statue, had been illegally excavated in Lazio, Italy and apparently had passed through the hands of the convicted antiquities trafficker Giacomo Medici. The other, a second century sculpture of Fortuna, had been stolen in October 1986 from an opera house in Rome.

The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s former antiquities curator Dietrich von Bothner was known to have a large private collection of antiquities. Some of the vase fragments in his possession reportedly match vases already returned by American museums. The next batch of items returned recently was a group of forty pieces which the Met had obtained as "the property of a deceased private collector" which it is being reported had been a small part of this collection. What happened to the rest?

Of potentially greater significance was the third batch. This was reportedly of 170 objects and fragments returned by the Princeton University Art Museum. According to the Chasing Aphrodite blog these included:

an askos-shaped talus; two statues of women, including one playing a tambourine and the other a lyre; a white pithos with red figures representing animals; and 166 fragments from vases and architectural elements. The returns appear to be related to the investigation of Edoardo Almagià, the Princeton alum and antiquities dealer who, along with Princeton antiquities curator Michael Padgett, are targets of an investigation by Italian authorities.

As the Chasing Aphrodite bloggers explain, the release states that these objects:

“were identified in previous surveys conducted by the [Carabinieri] of the possessions of an Italian-American citizen, resident of New York, who has been the subject of the seizure of numerous archaeological finds, in New York and Rome, and copious documentation with photographic material pertaining to sales and loans made by him.” These seized documents have allowed investigators to trace looted antiquities to prestigious American museums like the Met and Princeton, the release says, adding that the Carabinieri “have thus established, irrefutably, the origin of the objects from illicit excavations made in Italy.”

The authors go on to remark that works that have passed through Almagia's hands have according to researchers also been traced to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Toledo Museum of Art, the Tampa Museum of Art and the Indiana University Art Museum.

In addition, New York antiquities dealer Jerome Eisenberg (he of Royal-Athena Gallery) has reportedly returned to Italy a bronze statue being sold for $22,500 known as the Venus of St. John Perareto, which he had bought from an unnamed dealer in Freiburg, Germany in 1982. This on further investigation turns out to have been stolen from a museum in Rimini in 1962.

As the authors note, in the hands of Italian authorities are now a series of archives of individuals involved in the antiquities trade. The Almagia Archive joins the "trove of documents, photographs and objects that Italian investigators have seized from antiquities dealers Robin Symes, Robert Hecht, Gianfranco Becchina and Giacomo Medici". They raise the question of what to do with this vast amount of information about certain sectors of the antiquities trade.

Hat-Tip: David Gill

Vignette: The Pantheon and Pheonix, the badge of the Cultural Property Protection Carabinieri, Photo: Culture cop (nice uniform now I look at it, what's the hat-badge?)

PR Newswire: Renewal of Import Restrictions on Cypriot Coins Being Considered

2012-01-24T12:35:00.000-08:00

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The ACCG has issued this press release about the recent CPAC hearing about the potential renewal of the Cypriot MOU: Renewal of Import Restrictions on Cypriot Coins Being Considered

Gentle Reader, did you know that "such drastic measures as import restrictions can actually lessen the number of finds reported"? Apparently "evidence was presented on how ..." at the recent CPAC meeting. Somehow, I do not think that was what the coiney lobbyist was wanting to prove. Bangor's Raimund Karl said something quite different. In reality, England's PAS is nothing whatsoever to do with either the export process of import restriction. Also is preservation from looting anything to do with "the number of finds reported"? Chalk and Cheese.

Anyway, at the CPAC the academic numismatists gave the dealers lobby a run for their money, in the words of one person leaving the State Department that day, they (metaphorically) "kicked the dealers' butt". No wonder no summary has appeared on Cultural Property Observer or Wayne Sayles' blog.

The Youlus (Save-a-Torah) Fraud Case

2012-01-24T12:23:00.000-08:00

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The court case against Washington-based (Save a Torah) Rabbi Menachem Youlus has several times been postponed, the latest was due to expire 17th January. As yet, there is no news about what is happening.

Collectors' Solidarity

2012-01-24T08:56:00.000-08:00

Following the theft of ancient dugup silver coins from a British museum, PC Fingle, a coin collecting police officer in charge of the case might have said last night: "All I want is a sensible resolution to the whole situation. Please feel free to contact me. I am your friend not your enemy, I enjoy this hobby and do not want to see it needlessly tarnished!".

Coin Robbery in St Albans Museum

2012-01-24T07:26:00.000-08:00

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It is now being reported that over the weekend of 7th January there had been a break-in at the St Albans Museum in Hatfield Road. The thieves got away with finds from excavations in St Albans Abbey and the 1969 Abbey Orchard excavations by the St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society prior to the construction of Abbey Primary School.
The finds taken were a sixth or seventh century silver hand pin, and, from the same case a hoard of 30 Anglo-Saxon coins with an insurance value of £12000. The hoard had been buried towards the end of the ninth century and contained 29 pence and one half-pence coins. The latter is a coin of Alfred the Great of the Londonia monogram reverse type. The council says the pence coins are all of the Lunette type (so-called because the moneyer's name appears on and between the two half moon shaped ornaments on the reverse).

"The council has closed the upstairs gallery at the museum while police investigate the thefts. The council has also commissioned a security review of its museums".

Manisha Mistry, 'Saxon coins and silver pin worth £12,000 taken', St Albans Review, Tuesday 24th January 2012.

Focus on Metal Detecting: "Deutschland hat das gleiche Problem wie in Großbritannien"

2012-01-23T06:37:00.000-08:00

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Germany has the same problem as in the UK apparently, with TV companies rather uncritically glorifying artefact hunters running around hoiking things out of the ground with metal detectors. Here is a video of a "documentary" film by the TV company ZDF: "Auf der Jagd nach verlorenen Schätzen", broadcast on 17th January. Here is archaeologist Rainer Schreg doing a bit of fulminating about its wider implications: 'ZDF animiert Raubgräber'

"Es gibt noch viele Schätze in Deutschland, die darauf warten, gefunden zu werden". Mit keinem Wort wird erwähnt, dass damit das gemeinsame historische Erbe privater Neugier, Vergnügen - oder schlimmer noch - Gier geopfert wird. Fundumstände und -kontexte werden zerrissen und die Objekte sind allenfalls noch als schöne Andenken zu bewerten, aber nicht mehr als eine Quelle, aus der wir über die Menschen der Vergangenheit, ihre Sorgen und Nöte lernen können. Ein Raubgrabungsloch zerstört den Kontext der Funde. Nur ganz nebenbei wird zur Schatzsuche erwähnt, dass das "eigentlich" verboten sei.

As he points out, metal detector dealers no doubt are happy about it.

Hat-tip to Paul Zoetbrood for bringing this to my attention.
Vignette: © ZDF / André Götzmann

The Appropriate Authorities Have Been Informed

2012-01-23T05:17:00.001-08:00

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Answering my comment that the list of missing items has not been updated, apologist for the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Nicole Hanson says of the recovery on or before 9th January of the Bastet figure stolen from the museum on or about 28th January that "I have been told that the appropriate authorities have been informed". Have they? I have just stumbled across the official webpage of the Egyptian Ministry of Finance Egyptian Customs Authority. They have a list of the stolen items they are looking out for at the borders. All 54 of them. There's the Bastet which turned up two weeks ago, the bed, the wooden vase (the two items that were NOT stolen). Well, that seems to be one "authority" that has not got the foggiest idea what has and has not turned up. If Egyptian Customs do not know what they are looking for, how can they find it? At the top of the list is the harpooning figure. The one Zahi Hawass' employee found "in Shubra Station".

So if Egyptian Customs are not the "appropriate authorities" here, who are?

Alabama, A Lootier State?

2012-01-23T00:28:00.000-08:00

Sen. Cam Ward (R-Alabaster), has introduced a bill to amend the Alabama Cultural Resources Act; at the moment the underwater archaeological resources of the state are tendered much the same protection as those on land, in Ward's version, the law would allow treasure hunters to search state waters and keep what they find.

Ward said he found the wording of the current law ambiguous. He said he would be open to amendments that would be more protective of valuable historic sites. He doesn't want to lose valuable archeological sites, either. "That is not my intention at all," he said. At the same time, Ward said, it should be clearer what is permitted. Ward said he'd like to get suggestions from academics and Historic Commission representatives. "I'm glad to sit down and work with them," Ward said. "I don't want to give the divers carte blanche. I want to make the law better."

The current wording on permits for searching for artefacts underwater in Alabama is "ambiguous"? That's a laugh, what is ambiguous about it? What part of 'You need a permit to search for artefacts, whether or not they are associated with shipwrecks' does Senator Ward not understand? How does changing it to 'You do not need a permit to search for artefacts, unless they are associated with shipwrecks' help protect - for example the sort of battlefield finds which it seems Steve Philips (apparently one of the initiators of the amendment of the bill) is after? Or anything else that may have been deposited in the water in ancient or historic times?

If anything is AMBIGUOUS in what Sen. Ward suggests, it is "associated with/not associated with" shipwrecks. So how far upstream and downstream from a wreck site is and is not "
associated" - how will the permit system be applied if it is the finders say-so that they were "not near a wreck" that determines whether an activity is legal or not? I see no "clarification" of that point at all in Senator Ward's uninformed and cynical manipulation of the current wording. The CRUCIAL definition of "associated with" is wholly missing from this ill-conceived hatchet job.

It seems to me that this guy (see the 'Alabama can use the internet too' video) really is not the slightest bit interested in preserving Alabama's archaeological heritage. It seems to me that he is just counting on the support of "100 000 divers" in the state in return for handing them a large chunk of the archaeological heritage to take away and do what they want with. In fact he is so uninterested that when he decided to support this Treasure Hunters' bill, it never even crossed his mind for a second to consult it with archaeologists and people who know BEFORE proposing it. Now the media have picked it up, he declares "he'd like to get suggestions from academics and Historic Commission representatives" and "sit down and work with them". Now is a bit late, now he has declared himself. He's surely sensible enough to realise that one cannot try to "work with somebody" whose face you have just spat in.

Meanwhile (while he declares his willingness to listen), "A State Senator" (wonder who that could be) contacted Steve Philips by email "this week" (i.e., "this week" of 21st January):

Steve, another barrage of emails have gone out around the state today to legislators about our bill. I have had four committee members contact me and ask that we not even bring our bill up for a vote in committee because of such strong opposition they are hearing. We really need to get some people contacting their legislators to support this or I am afraid it will be soundly defeated in a committee vote.

"OUR" bill, "WE" really need? Senator+artefact hunters? What do "we need"? What this unnamed Senator thinks he "needs" is for artefact hunters, history grabbers and collectors to show "their legislators" that they are all behind the "state heritage up for grabs" amendment to the law? This is going to help Senator Cam Ward sit down with the "academics and Historic Commission representatives" is it? In what way?

When is the USA going to develop a national heritage agency (as required by article 10 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention) to look after the compilation of heritage policy and legislation on a country-wide scale rather than leaving it up to minor politicians sorting out local squabbles between artefact hunters and academics, seeing which side can shout the other down and secure them the most short-term political gains?

Egypt: More Details on the January "Bastet" Sting

2012-01-22T15:29:00.000-08:00

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I am grateful to Nicole Hanson for pointing out an article by Mahmoud Abdel-Radi on Youm 7, Monday, January 9, 2012 (but not as far as I can see reported anywhere else) which gives an account of the capture of five men and the retrieval of one of the objects stolen from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. This text is in Arabic. It says (as far as I can make it out) that police together with officials from the Ministry of the Interior arrested several known criminals who were in possession of "rare pieces stolen from the Egyptian Museum" during the "events of the revolution". One defendant "Imad T. M" was offering one of the "pieces" for sale, in the form of a statue of Bastet. A team of detectives was formed to arrest the accused and his partners, by pretending to be interested buyers and set up a sting. The accused was arrested along with four other men.

The article gives brief details of the five men, giving their names and initials. They are all aged between 31 and 35. Four of the men came from Ausin (a small town 12 km to the NW of Cairo) , and the newspaper is careful to report that two of them had previously been charged with "misdemeanours" (one in 1996, and the other several times, the latest in 2008).

One man arrested, Hossam, was a resident of Abnub, Assiut Governorate, 312 km to the south (and again reportedly had been convicted in 2010 down south). Interestingly, one of the Ausin men "Ashraf M. M" (31 years) is the son of

"prisoner, "Mr M.M." sentenced to 15 years in issue No. 360 east of Cairo military crimes for the year 2011, for possession of 5 pieces archaeological amount stolen from the Egyptian Museum".

The "five" objects to which this refers are presumably those retrieved from the 27/3/11 (Khan el Khalili) bust, and it is notable that these were was of five objects from Room 19 and no other. The only figure of Bastet on the list of missing items (JE 36598) also came from Room 19 on the first floor of the Museum. It would seem that "MM" was one of the gang that trashed and then robbed this part of the Museum. It would be VERY interesting to know what his place of work was. It is interesting to speculate that it was his capture that led to the recovery (May 2nd) of two other statues from room 19, which as will be recalled were found with two other statues from somewhere else (where was, I believe, never revealed). It looks therefore as if MM sold part of his haul to those who were somehow involved in the illegal antiquities trade, or perhaps he himself had been.

In that case, people in the trade should keep an eye out especially for the remaining three items from that room, which may already have been successfully sold, or may come on the market soon: JE 9080 Statue of Onuris, TR 10.11.21.3 bronze false beard, TR 10.11.21.8 bronze false beard.

Vignettes: Top, the best photo the Egyptian Museum could apparently come up with for the "figure of Bastet dedicated by Padiamun" JE 36598 (from the published missing objects list) and below a fuzzy photo of the five defendants from the article in Youm 7.

"Alabama Needs Our Help"

2012-01-22T06:58:00.001-08:00

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Steve, Forrest and Spencer Phillips (Southern Skin Diver Supply of Birmingham, Alabama) ask US metal detectorists to support an amendment they have proposed to Alabama's archaeological resource protection legislation ("Please Support SB-81. Save our lost history..." - "Save" it that is by taking it away and adding it to a private collection). Militant anti-preservationist Dick Stout of Texas reckons its a good idea to help out, "these folks need our help and they need it fast. It will involve emailing quite a few state reps, but you can easily do that by copying your letter, and simply pasting it when contacting them. Let's get on it...".

The background to this effort is that Steven Phillips is reportedly the only person to ever have been arrested under the Alabama Cultural Resources Act:

At trial, Phillips was found not guilty of felony theft of a cultural resource but was convicted of misdemeanor third-degree theft. The charge stemmed from Phillips' 2003 expedition in the Alabama River near Selma in search of Civil War relics, which ended with his arrest and the confiscation of a Civil War era rifle he'd found.

So, it looks like (Selma here for example) we have another case of somebody looking for collectables on a battlefield/site of conflict. And the metal detectorists of te US rallying behind such people asserting their "rights" (no mention of responsibilities) to plunder such sites of collectables such as rifles.

Steve, Forrest and Spence write that the new bill, SB-81, they have introduced in the Alabama Senate "will make the current law easier to understand". They have deleted three words from the definition of Cultural Resources. What in fact they intend doing is to remove any artefacts not part of a shipwreck from any form of protection in public-owned waterways. Note that in the new wording, Treasure trove which is not associated with a shipwreck is NOT protected from Treasure hunters working outside the permit system, hoiking it out and flogging it off would be legal under the amended law (Section 41-9-292 of the Code of Alabama 1975). The navigable waterways contain however much more than shipwrecks, artefacts lost, dropped, discarded, deposited for ritual purposes in antiquity or historical times. They may be traces of activities in the past using the rivers, they may be elements of sites on the river banks now submerged, there may be artefacts embedded in anthropogenic layers containing well-preserved organic materials which will be disturbed if divers start excavating for collectable items. they may be artefacts lying in situ from when they were dropped in the past during a documented event, such as an historic battle (like the battle of Selma for example). The proposed amendments to the bill aim to render the disturbance of these artefacts and their context legal and the artefacts themselves up for grabs by metal detectorists and unregulated divers. Permits would only be needed for removing collectables from (known) historic shipwrecks. (In any case what precisely does "associated with a shipwreck" mean in legal terms? Not defined in the proposed amendment)

Here are the amendments proposed to SB-81 (file 'aucrap')

Like Bangor's Raimund Karl discussed at the beginning of the month, and the other supporters of the PAS, Mr Philips thinks preservation is all about "finding things":

Divers should find isolated items and save as much of our lost history as possible, and we need them to not be afraid to tell what they find because they fear harassment. Significant finds will be made in the future and we all want to learn from these finds. Other states have friendly dive laws that encourage divers to search and share what they have found, and we don't want Alabama divers to feel they must keep their finds secret.

The finds-seeking divers are incensed that "some of the professional archaeologists and their cronies" have been "emailing and calling the Senators and Representatives asking them to kill our bill". The same tired old arguments are used to justify this: "These items are rusting and eroding away and need saving", "We are the public and the public waters are ours individually as much as theirs", "Items that are found are often placed in museums", "All reference books identifying relics and artifacts have been written by authors using collectors", "We don’t want grants or contracts as the professionals try to get for anything they do". Note how they shift from being "divers who find things" ("finders" in PAS-speak) to "collectors" between the beginning of the page and its middle.

As Thomas Spencer reports:

Teresa Paglione, president of the Alabama Archaeological Society, said without legal protections, artifacts from the Civil War, the settlement of the state, the age of European exploration and thousands of years of Native American history could be extracted, kept privately or sold, and lost to history. Those artifacts in state waters belong to all the people of the state, Paglione said. "(The changes to the law) would allow divers like Mr. Phillips to conduct little more than scavenger hunts for relics -- like a game of finders-keepers, except individuals get to keep what belongs to the state of Alabama and its citizenry," she said.

It seems gold-prospectors with metal detectors are about as bright as those who use them to hunt coins etc: "This affects gold prospecting as well" declares a poster on the Gold Prospectors Association of America Forum. He seems not to have actually read the proposed amendment and its definition of "artifact" as the subject of the legislation. So, no, no it does NOT. I expect gold prospectors will be writing in ignorant droves nevertheless, not having read the document either and thinking it through.

Note the name of the archaeology-insensitive proposer of the Alabama collectors' rights bill: Senator Cam Ward (R) [pictured above from his website]. He has apparently been told that there are "100 000" find-hungry divers in Alabama and obviously counting on their vote if he can get this archaeology wrecking bill through - hang the cost to the heritage.

Perhaps the resolution here is not to redefine archaeological artefacts to a much narrower field to allow their legal and unregulated harvesting for collection and sale by artefact hunters and collectors, but - as I pointed out in the case Raimund Karl was discussing - to make it easier - and broaden the scope of those eligible - for those whose real intent is to increase our knowledge of sites to obtain the requisite permits.

Sources:
Thomas Spencer, 'New Alabama law could mean finders-keepers for historic artifacts found underwater', The Birmingham News , January 16, 2012.

Public Lands and Waters, Southern Skin Divers Supply: Blog of the South's oldest dive store, 1/21/2012.

Another Object Back in the Cairo Museum?

2012-01-21T10:06:00.001-08:00

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Dr Zahi Hawass has recently published a new blog post (A Good Italian Family, and an Update on What I have been Doing Lately) to assure those who are interested that he is doing well and still writing:

My book on antiquities and the 2011 Revolution is almost finished. I have just finished chapter 13, and I still need to write two more chapters. These two chapters will be the most important ones in the book. I will publish this book first in English, and then in Arabic.

I hope I will be able to get hold of a copy of that, it will be interesting to see what will be said about the events in Cairo Museum on 28th Jan 2011, whether the story will be substantially different from what he said earlier. My own personal examination of the traces left in the Museum indicate an entirely different scenario.

Quite astounding is the reference almost en passant:

I also met not long ago with 14 members of the press from Germany and Korea. I talked to them about what happened at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo during the Revolution, and how the young people protected the Museum with their bodies [yawn - PMB]. Although one piece that was stolen, an 18.5 cm statuette of the cat-goddess Bastet, has been returned to the Museum recently, we are still missing around 28 objects. Most of them are bronze statuettes dated to the Late Period (about 500 B.C.).

What the....? The Bastet figure is still on the last version (28th March 2011) of the list of missing objects (though with a different measurement), if the Museum have found that too (returned, seized or simply found in a dark corner of the storeroom?), then why are they not telling anyone they can stop looking for it? Have these people ANY intention of at last updating that "missing objects" list (like with the two that turned up in August) and making it public? If not, is there a specific reason why they are not bothering? Totally incomprehensible behaviour from the museum professionals in Cairo.

Also quite interesting that this seems these days to be such non-news (when surely the Egyptian museum prfessionals should be keeping continuing the search for the missing items at the forefront of public attention) that the reporters he spoke to seem not to have made any use of this news-scoop (unless I missed something).

As for what is still missing, as we come up to the first anniversary of the thefts, perhaps it is time to attempt a recap. I make it that 24 items of those initially reported stolen are back (or were never removed from the Museum in the first place). The ('sting') recovery of 17/3/11 retrieved 7 objects from room 19 and 5 from room 6. The recovery of 27/3/11 (Khan el Khalili) was of five objects from Room 19 and no other. The next four (the bag in the station 12 April 2011) were from three areas of the Museum, gallery 40, 13 and 43 at the other end. The most recent recovery (May 2nd) was of two statues from room 19, which were found with two other statues from somewhere else (where was never revealed). Then it turned out embarrassingly that at least two were never missing (Youm 7: 'Two archeological pieces of Egyptian Museum found', Aug 2, 2011).

Despite these successes in retrieving these items, there are still a number of items missing. It is not at all true that "most of them are bronze statuettes dated to the Late Period (about 500 B.C.)".

TWO items from Tutankhamun tomb (P 40 and P 30 it says, but they were in the same case): JE 60716.1 the shrouded Tutankhamun from the Menkaret figure, JE 60713 Tutankhamun in Red Crown striding with staff and flail. [there has been talk that another Tutankhamun fan was taken from the case containing the fans and walking sticks in Room 13, but is not on any list - fan stock 62006 - see here].

NINE wooden shabtis of Yuya and Thuya, all missing from P 43 vit 13 or thereabouts. JE 68983 etc, JE 68984 etc, JE 68987 etc, JE 68989, JE 68992 etc, JE 68993 etc, JE 68994 etc, JE 68995 etc, JE 68998 etc, (JE 68984 was previously reported as recovered in the Shubra Metro Station "find" but that was a mistake).

A group of SEVEN Amarna figures from R8 centre Vit K on the ground floor: JE 44867 - Nefertiti offering bearer, JE 44873 - Amarna princess, JE 44874 - Amarna princess, JE 52976 - Seated man, JE 53250 - Steatite Bes, JE 59291 seated scribe and Thoth/baboon, JE 65040 - head of Amarna princess (The only object from the ground floor gallery retrieved to date was the Akhenaton statue found in mysterious circumstances "in the garbage" near Tahrir Square 16th February 2011).

A group of SIX (actually 15) small objects from P48 Vit 2 and two other cases in this room: JE 27326, limestone statue of woman, JE 39590 limestone shabti Tuna el-Gebel,JE55175 lapis lazuli beads Ahmose Merytamun TT358, JE 94481, ten faience amulets from Thebes (should be treated as ten items), JE 29357 - Greco-Roman Apis bull, JE 30204 Striding figure of Nakht, Meir.

FOUR (THREE?) items from P 19: JE 36598, Bastet (the one that is now back?), JE 9080 Statue of Onuris, TR 10.11.21.3 bronze false beard, TR 10.11.21.8 bronze false beard.

ONE item from P6 centre vit A JE 47906 gold and faience beads, Saqqara dyn 18.

I make it that 28 are missing plus the Bastet which is said to be back in the Museum. They fall into several distinct groups, mostly figurines and jewellery. More importantly, the objects which have been coming back in dribs and drabs were taken from several distinct areas of the museum (and that includes the unconfirmed return of the Bastet figure), and those that are still missing come from several distinct areas of the collection. I do not think this pattern is accidental.

So, this returned Bastet figure, where was it found, when, in what circumstances and who was arrested? Has anyone heard any more about this?

hat-tip to Kate Phizackerley for first spotting the original post

Artefact Hunter Digs Out Hidden "Roman prostitute's pendant"

2012-01-21T08:49:00.001-08:00

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On of the problems with the current status of artefact hunting in the UK is that these people hoik out archaeological finds willy nilly, and in many cases are in no position to identify what they have found as anything of any significance, and many such items do not get shown to the archaeological authorities, and either get tucked away and forgotten, or are simply discarded. A recent news article highlights this tendency. A man the press insists on calling an "amateur archaeologist" bought a metal detector about twenty years ago. He lived at the time in the village of Pylle, Somerset, "which is close to the Roman road known as Fosse Way and a former ancient settlement".

He spent two days scouring his garden in Pylle. Among several things he dug up was what seemed to be a risqué and raunchy Roman remnant. The pendant-style piece of jewellery clearly shows a man and woman engaged in an intimate sex act. Mr Dix thought it was a bit strange but pretty special and tucked it away in a box for safe keeping.

He only realised the pendant could be special (sic) after a similar brothel token appeared in the press earlier this month.

Mr Dix’s raunchy Roman jewellery shows a man and woman engaged in a sex act. He said: ‘I believe the piece I found is slightly different to the one in London - I think it was what the prostitutes would have worn round their necks and people would recognise what service they were willing to provide.’ Mr Dix, who now lives in Shepton Mallet, added: ‘I am eager to hear what the experts say.’

It perhaps comes as a surprise to this Roman-find-hunting-and-finding-member-of-the-British-public that there has long ben a thirteen million quid Portable Antiquities Scheme set up to do precisely that, it is a shame he did not consult it earlier. How many other metal detectorists have dug up stuff that they tucked away (or threw away) without bothering to show it to anyone?

It is worth noting that the actual name "Portable Antiquities Scheme" appears in neither of the two articles cited here.

Metro Reporter, 'Amateur archaeologist unearths 'Roman prostitute's pendant'...', Metro 20th January, 2012.

Shepton Mallet Journal, 'Roman remnant reveals risqué routines of our ancient invaders', January 19, 2012.

Vignette: Shepton Mallet Journal

Metal Detecting Battlefields: Some "Stout Defence" Required?

2012-01-21T08:04:00.000-08:00

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I wrote the other day about a US metal detectorist plundering a R evolutionary War battlefield and for my efforts earned a few ad hominem non-replies from the would-be-justifiers of artefact hunting over in the US. They hold that "the good that metal detetorists do" outweighs any problems. Two recent articles about metal-detector wielding collectors of militaria therefore caught my eye. More good guys, no doubt, who are victims of the loose conspiracy of "a few radical and/or politically motivated archaeologists and historians" in US academe who use the media to criticise the hobby. No doubt Dick Stout in Texas and the Task Force for Artefact Hunters Rights will be conducting a letter writing campaign to counter the "slur" of the hobby represented these recent articles.

The first one by this article concerning another US collector of militaria (Michael Buettner, 'Petersburg man pleads guilty to damaging battlefield The Progress-Index, December 8, 2011). It seems that a metal detectorist from Petersburg, near Richmond Virginia has pleaded guilty to federal charges of unlawfully taking Civil War relics from the Petersburg National Battlefield.

In U.S. District Court in Richmond, John Jeffrey Santo pleaded guilty on Tuesday to two counts of damaging archaeological resources, each of which carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, and one count of depredation of government property, with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Santo originally was charged with three counts of damaging archaeological resources and one count each of depredation of government property, theft of government property and unlawful possession of a firearm. He will remain in federal custody while awaiting sentencing at a date to be determined. According to court documents, Santo was accused of illegally excavating Civil War artifacts at the Petersburg park on several occasions between September 2007 and December 2010. On Feb. 10, 2011, federal officials including park rangers searched Santo's home in the 1800 block of Oakland Street in Petersburg. There, according to a court filing, they found "in excess of 9,000 war relics and artifacts including bullets, buckles and assorted ordnance."

About the same time, as reported on WAPT-TV, an Alabama man pleaded guilty to similar charges of digging for relics at Vicksburg [Mississippi]:

An Alabama man has been given three years’ probation and been told to stay out of national military parks after an unauthorized dig at the Vicksburg National Military Park.The Vicksburg Post reported that Ernest Taylor of Foley, Ala., pleaded guilty last month in federal court to altering or defacing an archaeological resource, a felony. He was sentenced on Nov. 28. Court documents show Taylor, his wife and son were arrested Sept. 3, 2010 using a metal detector and digging holes at the park for Civil War relics.

The "To the Sound of the Guns: Civil War Artillery, Battlefields and Historical Markers" blog discusses these two cases:

Those are lands set aside for protection – be that national, state, or local park; land held by a conservation/preservation organization (such as Civil War Trust); or even just under a conservation easement. And that protection extends to the artifacts in the ground, in my opinion.

The blog's author calls this "The Extreme Side of Relic Hunting", I'd call this kind of artefact hunting on protected sites theft.

As I said, alongside all the militant talk of "metal detectorists' rights", let us see attention paid to metal detectorists' responsibilities.

Vignette: TFMDRF logo.

PAS and the "Shafting" of the Archaeologists

2012-01-20T06:15:00.000-08:00

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Unable to answer the question about his views on disturbing battlefield archaeology by metal detecting, and the difference between artefact hunting and artefact hunting, US artefact hunter Dick Stout has decided to rely on his "bosom buddy from across the pond" (John Howland) to answer for him: "Note there will be nothing further to post on this subject. I hate wasting time, pissing in the wind, and talking with idiots". Well, I hope those following the debate about artefact hunting with metal detectors in the US note that Howland's ad personam "answer" does not really do much to address the concerns I raised either.

A little below that text Stout's protégé Howland also committed this text to print:

The word coming from inside academia’s US ivory towers according to one well-placed source is that a minority of radical and/or politically motivated archaeologists and historians have formed themselves into a loose confederation [ha! A Conspiracy! PMB]to monitor ALL aspects of the US media to search out features, programmes, and articles that portray the metal detecting/treasure hunting hobby in a favourable light. [...] Once a favourable piece is found, it’s a case of all hands to the bullshit pump in a concerted ‘highbrow’ hand-wringing propaganda effort with more than a little disinformation thrown in for good measure.

(Very John Hooker, no?) He reckons this is proof that what he calls "the war to outlaw the hobby" "is all but lost".

All of the foregoing is a mirror image of what occurred in the UK over thirty years ago. We in the UK shafted them royally, and now US hobbyists can do the same. You have the individuals well capable of destroying the archaeological propaganda machine and with guys of the calibre of Harold Lowenfels (Task Force for Metal Detecting Rights) and dare I say it, (yes, I will) Dick Stout. I see a great future for the US treasure hobby; collecting; and the buying and selling of legally found antiquities.

That's what it's all about, the legalisation of the buying and selling of dug up bits of history?
Howland reckons the US is currently "not far from a US-wide antiquities arrangement modelled on the UK’s brilliantly successful Portable Antiquities Scheme where thousands of artefacts are reported and recorded every week as more and more people flock into our hobby". He remarks:

Odd isn’t it, how the radicals are fighting to resist its implementation. Why?

Well, count me out. For wanting to protect the archaeological record from plunder as a mere source of collectables I have oft times been called a "radical" by those who know no better. As can be seen in repeated posts here I am all for discussions aiming to lead to an introduction of a Portable Antiquities Scheme in the USA, but no pale shadow of the UK one, a fully blown, singing-and-dancing PAS every bit as effective at getting as many public-found artefacts recorded a year as in the UK.

So Mr Stout, instead of moaning about what public parks are closed to artefact digging, or reminiscing about the "good old days" when he had hair, might consider concentrating on looking forward and on getting folk behind this idea. Instead of dodging discussion he could be justifying a budget expenditure of, at a conservative estimate, some 60 million dollars a year to set one up and run it. He and his fellows should join forces with another US-based "collectors' rights" organization, the Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild ("Preserving our freedom to collect") which has long advocated the setting up of PAS-clones in other countries, and obviously would be interested in one being set up in the States as a priority in this programme of cultural property leadership.

So the setting up of the PAS in the UK is according to UK detectorist Howland an expression of British archaeology getting - as he put it - "shafted"? Well, thank you Roger Bland! Howland is not the first to point out that instead of the expected instilling of conservation-aware "best practice" across the board as was the original intent of this dotty social experiment, all the PAS is achieving is encouraging more and more people to go out and buy metal detectors and come "flocking to the hobby of artefact hunting, and see nothing wrong with hoiking out anything that takes a collector's fancy - with all that means for the preservation of what is left of the archaeological record.

Buttock - Purveyor Arrested

2012-01-20T01:49:00.001-08:00

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This was one of the more bizarre "heritage" cases of 2011, but it is good to see that it was not just shrugged off. I explained the legal background in an earlier post, and it seems that I was not alone in thinking that what was happening was not right. Yesterday British police arrested somebody in Derbyshire alleging they were involved in the illegal removal of a fragment of a bronze statue of Saddam Hussein from Iraq. The suspect was not named but stated to be "66-year-old man", the press are suggesting that "the arrested man is connected to Derby-based war art relic company Trebletap".

He was held on suspicion of breaching the 2003 Iraq Sanctions Order, which bans the exportation of "illegally removed Iraqi cultural property," including items of archaeological, historical, cultural, or religious importance.

The arrested man has been released on bail pending further inquiries. The piece of the statue, and most newspaper articles do not fail to mention that it was from the "buttock" (some add "bronzed") of the person depicted, was about 0.6, tall and was removed from the statue by "a former soldier from Britain's elite SAS regiment, Nigel "Spud" Ely, 52, after he witnessed US Marines drag the statue down following the fall of the Iraqi leader". Ely had managed to extract the fragment from Iraq and imported it into Britain "and put it up for auction last year, although it failed to reach its reserve price of £250,000 ($390,000)".

Ely expressed shock at today's arrest, which is thought to be connected to a company trying to find a buyer for the souvenir, saying, "This is like having a chunk of the Berlin Wall - it's part of history but it's not cultural property." He said that US Marines gave it to him at a time when Baghdad was under US control, adding, "How can it be classed as cultural property when it was put up by the biggest tyrant since Attila the Hun?"

The "two wrongs make a right" claim, as we have ample opportunity to see, is a standard one of the cultural property takers worldwide. (I also think such rhetoric does poor justice to both Saddam and Attila, but that is by the by.) Certainly the US forces had no authority to "give" Mr Ely that object (and when it was taken, Baghdad was not yet formally "under US control"), Mr Ely did not have authorisation to export the item, and thus as illegally appropriated property, it presumably cannot legally be brought into or owned in the UK.

Guardian, 'Man arrested over importation of Saddam Hussein statue's buttock', Thursday 19 January 2012.

AFP, 'Man held over 'stolen' bronzed Saddam buttock', Herald Sun, January 20, 2012.

UPDATE 20.1.2012
Chuck Jones of ISAW - NYU has published the following information on the Iraq Crisis website:

Trebletap Ltd. is the organization founded by Nigel ’Spud’ Ely [to sell] the Saddam Hussein statue's buttock. [Their website] includes his "comment on the Iraqi demand for the return of Saddam's comment on the Iraqi demand for the return of Saddam's bum"

That text is a huge eye-opener into the mentality of the sort of person that joined George Bush's Smash-Baghdad escapade of 2003. Do also have a look at what "trebletap" means; these people are walking among us. Some of them even think they are "artists". The "Warfr relics art" company re refusing to surrender the stolen piece:

As far as Trebletap is concerned, the arse is designated for sale [...] The time, effort and cost that have gone into Trebletap will not be used to pay the pension for The Minister of Culture and Tin Cans in Iraq. As a safeguard, Trebletap have hidden the piece[...]

and of course hoping to cash in on the publicity the dispute over their fragment of bronze slab is generating. The seller claims

as a result of what Spud has done, the value of this piece of scrap has escalated out of all control and depending on who you talk to, it is now worth between £250,000 and £1,000,000. However, this value results from the story, from Spud himself and from the positioning that turned a piece of scrap metal into a piece of Art. Indeed, it is the very first in the new concept now known as War Relic Art and by definition it automatically assumed an enormous increase in value.

The guy is seemingly a megalomaniac, of course it is by no means the first occasion when war trophies have been turned into "art". The value is only the price a buyer will pay, the object failed to reach its reserve price earlier, now it turns out that by international law it cannot be possessed legally, he will not be finding a buyer soon.

Or he could try finding a cultural property lawyer of the calibre of Bailey and Ehernberg PLC's Peter Tompa. He sees no legal impediment to owning this piece ('Chasing Saddam's Butt. Apparently this lawyer considers that the fragment of statue is legally owned because it was "given to him by US Marines following the fall of Baghdad". Well, as far as I can see, Baghdad has not "fallen" and has an Iraqi government who say they did not "give" the statue to Mr Ely. He also questions whether such an item can be cultural property

The veteran has it right: Describing the furore surrounding the buttock as farcical, Ely questioned how a piece of metal from a statue put up by a dictator could be classified as national cultural property.[...] "American Marines gave it to me and at that time Baghdad was under American control," he added. "There wasn't even an Iraqi government and I have since turned it into a piece of war relic art. "This is like having a chunk of the Berlin Wall – it's part of history but it's not cultural property."

So, maybe Mr Ely can provide a document issued by the Americans in control on the date he took the fragment, confirming transfer of ownership. I wonder what Mr Tompa would consider as an adequate definition of cultural property to cover such cases. Are the rail spikes from Auschwitz (to take a recent case) cultural property, or up free for grabs to anyone who fancies taking a couple as souvenirs? Bloodstained fragments of the World Trade Centre recovered from the landfill and sold on eBay? That smuggled aeroplane.
I think we should hear from the commanding officer of the body of troops responsible for the area in question and which "gave" permission for an onlooker to remove this items from the country. Most of us in the civilised world agree to abide by the principles embodied in the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. At the time of the looting in Baghdad of course the US had not got around to ratifying this convention, they only managed to do that in March 2009.

In order to further boost publicity, I see "Spud" Ely now has on his website a poll "Vote on whether we should send Saddam's bum back to Iraq". We see that 85.4% of the visitors to the firm's website (70 voters) oppose the option "send it back" but support the option "keep it" (to sell). I wonder how many of them are British servicemen or ex-servicemen with their own stash of "liberated" property from the Iraq - or other - escapade which they hope one day to cash in on?

Frankly, whether it's called "cultural property" or not, theft is theft, whether or not you're an ex-soldier and whether or not some American soldier in a foreign country says you can have it. Suggest two wrongs make a right if you like, but theft is theft. Whether Peter Tompa recognises it or not, theft is theft. Call a bit of shrapnel on a stick "art" if you like, but theft is theft.

Coin Weekly Misinforms

2012-01-19T21:42:00.000-08:00

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Coin Weekly has a news item (19 Jan 2012) on "Seizure and Detention at the New York International" about the Weiss case. The magazine quotes a CNG press release dated January 19 (sixteen days after the event took place):

"On January 3, 2012 the New York County District Attorney’s Office seized two coins from a joint Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. (“CNG”) and Nomos AG auction that was to be conducted the next day. Dr. Peter Weiss, the Chairman of Nomos AG, was detained at the time for questioning. CNG is fully cooperating with the New York County District Attorney’s Office and is not a target in this investigation. CNG and its attorneys are conducting an internal review of CNG’s consignment policies and procedures in light of this event".

Yes, really? The article then notes, citing as its source the "Chasing Aphrodite" blog which includes a (leaked?) deposition:

Peter Weiss is accused of criminal possession of stolen property with a value in excess of $ 50,000 in the second degree with intent to benefit a person than an owner of the property and to impede recovery by an owner thereof. The affair got under way – according to the deponent – due to information of the Italian Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale. John Freck said that a “confidential informant” had recorded a conversation, in which Peter Weiss said about the tetradrachm of Catane: “there’s no paperwork, I know this is a fresh coin, this was dug up a few years ago ... This was dug up two years ago. I know where this came from.” The deponent claimed that Peter Weiss himself had informed him that he purchased the coin in 2010 for $ 250,000 in order to sell it for approximately $ 350,000.

This is old stuff, but I wanted to juxtapose what he had said with what he says next which illustrates part of the problem with coineys. Having said that, the writer of the article falls flat on his face by solemnly warning his readers:

The verdict will concern not only the defendant, but also all who collect ancient coins in the U.S., because this lawsuit will put forward a convincing case for all those, who want to include coins in all international agreements on cultural property known as MOU (Memorandum of Understanding). Here coins are concerned, which average collectors will never be able to afford. But as soon as a collector has to prove that his coins are legally in the U.S., all those collectors will be in trouble who collected cheap coins, which never were sold in auctions.

What on earth is this moron on about? The charges he cites above that unfortunate surmise have no connection with the MOU already signed with Italy. The paperwork concerning the manner how and when this coin left Italy (or wherever) are not mentioned in the deposition quoted above, they are apparently not part of the charges (we simply have no information about the export paperwork, only the assurance of Nomos that the coins "left Europe legally", I presume that in this context can only mean in the eyes of US law too). So, on what basis does this writer intend to contradict that? These people seem fixated by the issue of the CCPIA and do not recognise that there are other laws in existence in the US with which the collector is increasingly being called to comply. Here the journalist (the article is unsigned) is simply unaware of this, or - more likely - is intent on keeping his readership in the dark, as a greater awareness of these issues is not going to be good for business. Indeed, wider awareness of the issues currently emerging could have a catastrophic effect on the no-questions-asked business. That is why groups run by dealers such as the ACCG are keeping collectors in the dark, an action that it seems certain coiney trade publications are also tacitly engaged.

the problem for the collector/owner of lot 1009 in the "Cabinet W" sale is however set out by Mark Fox in another coiney trade magazine, Numismaster:

Italian law, namely the Code of the Cultural and Landscape Heritage, has vested absolute and true ownership of all antiquities found in Italy after 1909 in the Italian government. According to informant, who examined the coin after it was seized, the government of Italy is the true owner of the tetradrachm under catalogue number 1009, and the Italian government never gave defendant or anyone permission, consent, or authority to remove said coin from the ground or to remove it from Italy”.

It is on these grounds that lot 1009 is liable to treatment by US authorities as stolen property, just like if somebody nicks my car from the garage and sells in in New Jersey. The same applies to any other coin of origin in a country with this type of state-vesting legislation and for which there is lacking paperwork giving the original owner "permission, consent, or authority to remove said coin from the ground or to remove it from Italy". Collectors who have well-documented coins of legitimate origins and can show the paperwork which they took care to obtain from a responsible dealer handling such material have no such problems. Those who have not should be watching this case with much more attention than all this loose talk about what might or might not be in a future MOU.

The complaint states that “the defendant knew that coin 1009 was ‘freshly dug’ and that, therefore, it had to be the property of the Italian government.” The fact that the Katane tetradrachm was most likely discovered and already in the U.S. before the current Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Italy and the US went into effect (Jan. 19, 2011), unfortunately doesn’t mean such coins are free to stay in U.S. collections. Under the McClain doctrine, as confirmed by the Schultz decision and upheld by three U.S. District Courts of Appeal, any object that is covered by a source country national patrimony law (such as the 1909/1939 Italian laws) and can be proven to have been imported into the U.S. without an export certificate is considered stolen property under U.S. law, and anyone who knowingly trades in such objects is subject to prosecution.

caveat collector.

17 Archaeological Blogs on the Antiquities Trade and Looting That YOU Should Read.

2012-01-19T14:33:00.000-08:00

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Doug Rocks-Macqueen (University of Edinburgh) has an archaeology blog and yesterday featured on it "17 Great Archaeology Blogs on the Antiquities Trade and Looting That YOU Should Read.

Here is a list of 17 great blogs that you can follow on the antiquities trade and looting. They are the first category on my list of great archaeology-related blogs (more categories coming soon). This list is not meant to pigeonhole these blogs into a single category as they sometimes discuss other issues but they are a great resource on the topic of the antiquities trade and related topics.

The ones he listed are (in a different order from Doug's alphabetical):

UK
Conflict Antiquities- [Sam Hardy, "Samarkeolog", formerly University of Sussex]
Elginism - [Matthew Taylor, London (?), Friends of the British Committtee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles]
Looting Matters - [David Gill, Swansea/Ipswich Suffolk]
Property of an Anonymous Swiss Collector - [Donna Yates, Cambridge UK]
NEW ONE, a “Moderately learned commentary on looting, antiquities trafficking, and art crime” . Doug says "by far one of the best names for a blog ever" (agreed, though I also really envy David's "Looting Matters").

US
Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hilaire - [Rick St Hilaire, Plymouth State University]
Cultural Property & Archaeology Law - [Kimberly L. Alderman, University of Wisconsin Law School]
Culture in Peril - [Nicholas Merkelson, History Associates New York]
Illicit Cultural Property - [Derek Fincham, South Texas College of Law + ARCA]
Looting - [Nathan Craig Pennsylvania State College, and Margaret Brown Vega, postdoctoral researcher USA]
SAFECORNER- [Cindy Ho and Others - New York]
The Punching Bag - [Larry Rothfield - University of Chicago]
Whitewashed Tomb - Dr. Richard Rothaus, Trefoil Cultural and Environmental, Sauk Rapids, MN
Things You Can’t Take Back - [Meg Lambert - Bennington College, Vermont]

OTHERS
The Assemblage - [Will Anderson - University of Melbourne]
It Surfaced Down Under! - [Damien Huffer, Australian National University, Canberra]
Cultural Property Repatriation News and Issues - [That's one of mine]
Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues - [Barford, Warsaw Poland]

Four are from the UK, eight from the US, two from Australia and two from Poland. What is more notable that three are 'political' (SAFECORNER, PACHI and Elginism) but most of the rest are people writing from university archaeology and law departments.

Today's list is equally important: 13 Commercial Archaeology and CRM Blogs to Follow

Minelab Owner on Metal Detecting in Turkey

2012-01-19T05:24:00.001-08:00

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I mentioned earlier Peter Tompa's postulated future metal detecting escapades in the "unregulated" eastern Mediterranean. I also discussed the story of the theft of three hundred "site wrecker" depth advantage Minelab detectors which will most likely not be reaching metal detectorists in Turkey just yet. In connection with these two stories, a reader passed along to me a link to a metal detecting forum thread which reveals the realities of metal detecting in this region. One Minelab owner (looks from his shirt and haircut in his avatar photo to be a Star Trek fan) Yalniz Guvercin (may not be his real name) writes07-11-2011, 09:28 PM about:

What I found with Minelab explorer XS (from Turkey):
gold rings that I found on the beach,
silver rings. coins (garrett ace 250 and minelab explorer xs)
I found 250 to ace the gold rings
What I found was not limited to these alone. could not take many photo ... immediately because it usually jeweler selling gold
My English is less than for doing translations Transat google .. I apologize in advance for incorrect translations. (garrett ace 250)

Among the usual congratulatory chitchat, one "Bonesquat" ("Elite Member") observes:

Great stuff you found! You must not have any competition. Nice.

Yalniz adds:

very old history of Turkey. detector to search the ban on turkey. we are doing in secret and at night, call ...

Hmmm. Asked what happens if he gets caught, Yalniz tells fellow detectorists:

imprisonment. at least 48 days. and the detector will be confiscated. We would like to treasure the ban from future

On hearing that, one of the responsible law abiding detectorist - apparently a US citizen from Hawaii - comments:

Arrrrrrrrrrrrg, your a [pirate icon] Don't get caught man! Best of luck to you!

There's "responsible detecting" for you. It's illegal, don't get caught (going out at night), best of luck and welcome to our forum. After a little more halting explanation from the Turk, the Hawaiian adds to his previous comment:

I think I understand. You are able to say if asked you found your items on the beach. I look forward to seeing more of your finds in the future! If you stop posting here I will assume you are in prison.

Once again, no "responsible detectorist" on the metal detecting friendly forum reacted to the notion of "laundering" provenances to circumvent the law. Another "responsible" US detectorist, this one from Claremont, CA reveals the mindset of the milieu:

Too bad about the ban. I would love to be able to detect the grounds around Aya Sofya, or the Topkapı Sarayı. What treasures must be waiting there!

Yes, indeed they are World Heritage Sites precisely to stop greedy oiks going over them with their metal detectors and spades hoiking it all out for their own personal entertainment and profit.

Focus on Metal Detecting: Depth Advantage Detectors Nicked in Bradford

2012-01-19T02:05:00.001-08:00

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The British police are looking for a gang of thieves who have on their hands 300 stolen Minelab GPX 4500 metal detectors to get rid of. They were somehow stolen from the trailer of a red and white Renault heavy goods vehicle en route from Ireland to Istanbul in Turkey while it was parked overnight in Low Moor, Bradford. Presumably the thieves knew what was in the trailer as whoever took them must have done so using a large vehicle and it is highly likely there will have been more than one person involved. The combined value of the missing machines is said to be £400,000.

The stolen metal detectors are owned by Minelab, of County Cork, and were being transported from Ireland to Turkey by Turkish agents. The HGV had stopped at a Bradford warehouse but had been parked up overnight on the roadside, close to the Guide Post Hotel. It is understood the Turkish driver slept in his cab and discovered the theft the following morning.

Minelab general manager Sheila Kelleher "said that the metal detectors were a very specialist product, used at the higher end of the market to identify gold nuggets". Well, that's not quite true, is it, because Minelab have been busty advertising these machines with their "depth advantage" as relic hunting tools able to get the goodies out from deeper down. Why does Mr Kelleher pretend they are used exclusively for something else? Well, metal detecting on archaeological sites is not exactly legal in Turkey.

Mrs Kelleher said the theft was of tremendous concern.

It certainly is, it means three hundred artefact hunters somewhere will be having the chance to get themselves a site wrecker metal detector at cut price. If you or a metal detectorist near you knows anything about this theft contact the police, on the non-emergency number 101, or Crimestoppers, in confidence, on 0800 555 111. Save a site.

Steve Wright, 'Devices used to identify gold nuggets (sic) stolen from truck parked in Common Road, Low Moor', Bradford Telegraph and Argus, Wednesday 18th January 2012

Thread: 'Thieves take £400,000 of Minelabs from a truck', Minelab Owners Forum.

Photo: Apparently the lorry from which they were stolen - parked like that on a busy road? (Telegraph and Argus)

Chasing Aphrodite: The Weiss Case and the Getty Connection

2012-01-19T01:51:00.000-08:00

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The Chasing Aphrodite blog authors seem to be getting their teeth into the "Weiss" affair (Arnold Peter Weiss’ Coin Partner and The Getty Connection). They are digging up some of the details of some of coin dealing's better-known, not to say colourful, characters and their interconnections. Thus they mention Weiss's partner in "Nomos", Eric McFadden (he of CNG fame), and with especial relish note his Getty Museum connection. Then comes a mention of Arthur Houghton III, and how could they not mention Bruce McNall? That brings them to "his silent partner, the antiquities dealer Robert E. Hecht Jr". In a nice turn of phrase they allege: "Hecht had been selling recently looted antiquities since the 1950s, and his network of loyal suppliers reached deep into tombs across the Mediterranean" (sadly Mr Hecht's court case ended yesterday inconclusively, he had no opportunity to disprove these allegations as his lawyers ran out of time).

They interviewed McNall this week, they say he:

recalled McFadden as “a knowledgeable, nerdy kind of guy,” which was helpful. “You don’t want to be looking like a slick car sales man selling ancient art,” McNall said. McNall said that it was common knowledge that many of the coins he was getting in those days had been recently — and therefore illegally — excavated. “Fresh” coins were were more attractive to buyers. “Any time you find something brand new, it’s sexier,” he said. “Otherwise it’s been around, it’s been seen, and maybe there’s a reason someone else hasn’t bought it…Nobody wants some old broad that’s been around on the town for too long.”

This brings them back to McFadden who they note as

a vocal opponent of US import restrictions on ancient coins, submitting statements to the Cultural Property Advisory Committee in opposition to restrictions for Greece and Bulgaria, calling them “unworkable, ineffective, and ultimately counterproductive”.In his letter arguing against restrictions for Greek coins, McFadden wrote,” “…there is no simple way of determining either where or when a coin might have been found before being moved from its find spot.”

Leaving aside the question that this is actually totally irrelevant to the operation of the CCPIA, the authors note that the Weiss case may test that theory.

The Serbian Connection: The Art World Does Deals with "All-Singing, All-Dancing Criminals"

2012-01-19T00:52:00.000-08:00

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It emerges from an Art Newspaper article today that quite a few stolen art works from Western European collections are turning up in southeastern Europe. There seems to be an international network of connections between organized criminal groups in the Balkans along which illicitly obtained artworks and antiques (the Ashton Keynes lecturn) - and I would not mind betting antiquities - are moving. This article highlights one section of the activity, the Serbian connection.

European art recovery experts are increasingly concentrating on developing their businesses in the Balkans to track down stolen works of art circulating in the region’s criminal networks. Dick Ellis, the former head of the Metropolitan Police Art & Antiques Unit has, with four Serbians, including businessmen and private investigators, set up "Art Management", a specialist art recovery firm to focus on the Balkan region.

We understand that, in addition to Ellis’ firm, at least two other private investigators are active in the region, while the Art Loss Register (ALR) has launched a campaign targeting Balkan criminals. The ALR, whose representatives made around eight trips to the region last year, presented a briefing document at a conference in Barcelona last October, setting out options for recovery in a notoriously difficult region.

Since the break-up of Yugoslavia and the subsequent war, the authorities have largely focused on hunting war criminals and combating drug trafficking. However, the region has become an important transit point for art stolen from France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the former Czechoslovakia, Holland and Belgium by well-known gangs including the “Balkan Bandits” and the “Pink Panthers”. While Serbia is the main base for the gangs, many of the stolen works are emerging in surrounding Macedonia, Kosovo and Montenegro. Charlie Hill, another former Met Police detective, says that, despite the silly names, “these … are all-singing, all-dancing criminals. The problem with art crime in the Balkans is that it’s a fascinating nightmare—the criminals are a nightmare but the art turning up is fascinating.”

The rest of the Art Newspaper article discusses the ethical issues involved in paying ransoms to recover stolen artworks.

[The Serbian Connection, orange areas where art is stolen from, green, where it is ending up.

Who in the antiquities trade sells antiquities of likely Serbian, Montenegran, Kosovan and
Makedonian origins and where do they come from?]

Riah Pryor. 'Balkans targeted in hunt for stolen art', The Art Newspaper January 19, 2012.

Donna Bowater, 'Brass lectern stolen from Wiltshire church turns up at Romanian antique fair' Telegraph 08 Jan 2012 (Ornate brass lectern stolen from a church in Ashton Keynes in Wiltshire worth around £2,000 found on sale in Romania)

Looting Matters Asks Question of IAPN

2012-01-18T22:26:00.000-08:00

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Looting Matters points out in a post today ('Owner of IAPN member organisation charged?') that the firm Nomos AG, belonging to Peter A. Weiss is:

a member of the International Association of Professional Numismatists (IAPN) [see also here]. IAPN has apparently paid $100,000 over the last two years for lobbying services in the US. Will the IAPN clarify the situation about one of its apparent members? And have paid lobbyists in Washington received money from IAPN to oppose the inclusion of ancient coins in MOUs?

It seems to me that the questions raised about the US coin trade by the events of Jan 3rd will lead to a better understanding of what has been going on and help closer to define the boundaries between what is licit and illicit.

So, has the IAPN been funding the opposition to bilateral cultural agreements which regulate the import onto one of the largest sectors of the dugup antiquities market of fresh material without documentation of lawful export from a source country?

Antiquities Dealer Hecht's Italian Trial Comes to an End

2012-01-18T21:56:00.000-08:00

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The trial of the American antiquities dealer Robert Hecht has dragged on for six years and was a watershed event which has helped to alter collecting practices at American museums. Following the indictment, many museums adopted policies that banned the purchase of ancient artefacts whose provenance was not clear. Hecht was being tried for allegedly receiving artefacts obtained by illegal excavation in Italy and conspiring to deal in them. Italian prosecutors had also charged Marion True, the former curator of antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, along with Mr. Hecht. The 92-year old's courtroom drama however ended this week in Rome when a three-judge panel ruled that the statute of limitations on his alleged crimes - like that of True in October 2010 - had expired. The trial had began in November 2005. Another co-defendant, antiquities dealer Giacomo Medici, has been convicted for his role in the alleged conspiracy.

The judges did not express an opinion on [Hecht's] culpability or innocence. But they ruled that a series of objects that had been confiscated from Mr. Hecht’s homes should return to their “rightful owner,” which was identified as the Italian state.

Elisabetta Povoledo, 'Italian Trial of American Antiquities Dealer Comes to an End', New York Times 18th jan 2012.

Proposal for Peter Tompa

2012-01-18T21:23:00.005-08:00

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In his oral presentation before the CPAC on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 (which he subsequently published) concerning the proposed renewal of the cultural property MOU with Cyprus, Peter Tompa made a clear and unambiguous statement:

4. The CPIA requires less drastic remedies to be tried first before import restrictions are imposed, but Cyprus has no coherent regulatory scheme for metal detectors and even allows British tourists to bring them to the Island;

I happen to think that Peter Tompa is wrong here, have said so and Tompa ignores that. So I have a proposal for Peter Tompa, let's go together to Cyprus, with him with a metal detector in his luggage (I'll borrow one for him if he has not got one) and me with my video camera. Let him just first publish on his website: "I am going to Cyprus for a few days to do some metal detecting for ancient coins". He can go out metal detecting on some fields on the island and I will film him doing some "unregulated metal detecting". And when the police come to "unregulate" his metal detecting, I'll film that too. So that coineys can see that to the last, Peter Tompa was willing to back up the words he writes on their behalf with action.

Go on Mr Tompa, show us all that you really DO believe you are right.
The ACCG will pay the airfare I am sure.

Do please also dress as a British metal detectorist too, the 'squeaky nylon anorak' style I think would suit you - don't forget the gloves and kneelers. Or your probe and PAStexplorers membership card.

[By the way, builders use metal detectors to locate pipework and cables under plaster, when felling old trees its useful to check the trunks for embedded nails and wire before turning on the chainsaw. Metal detectors are used in a number of applications (and hobbies) which do not involve violating very specific antiquity laws. Mere possession of a metal detector is not a punishable offence in most countries, and in only one I know of is their movement across international borders controlled].

Metal Detectorist Involved in Auschwitz Documents Theft

2012-01-18T21:23:00.003-08:00

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We recall a Cheltenham artefact hunter who has very close relations with a group of Polish metal detectorists. For the past week or so there has been some talk in the Polish press and on the forums about another case of such international contact within the metal detecting community criminal activity. It concerns a Silesian artefact hunter, Mieczysław Bojko (quite well known in metal dethttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifecting circles) who, together with two German metal detectorists from the Black Forest region reportedly went to a place the German indicated and with the use of a mechanical excavator dug out three boxes of documents which the Germans immediately took out of the country. The documents reportedly were personal records of members of the staff of the Auschwitz concentration camp. It seems they were being transported out of occupied Poland in 1945 when the train got stuck at a station near Przełęcz Kowarska. Mr Bojko took 5000 euros for his help. Unauthorised removal of such documents from Poland is illegal, and Auschwitz Museum has filed a criminal complaint in this matter. There is speculation about what the Germans could have wanted the documents for, certainly war crimes have no statute of limitations, but since most of the people mentioned in the service documents are dead, I wonder whether their motivation is not the intention to blackmail members of the families of these men, not to reveal the late Granddad Helmut's war past. There are though some who caution that the whole affair may be a publicity stunt for the Polish searcher who is an author of several books on metal detecting. Time will tell.

Siobhan Dowling, 'Auschwitz documents surface, then vanish', Global Post 17th Jan 2012.

Two treasure hunters at Beit Shemesh, Israel

2012-01-18T16:44:00.001-08:00

Two treasure hunters were apprehended at an archaeological site near Beit Shemesh (a northern district of Jerusalem) in Israel which they trashed in their search for gold.

The robbers, both Bedouin residents of Dimona, brought digging equipment to the Be’er Limon site late last week, and proceeded to operate there for several nights. On Thursday, in the pouring rain, the pair smashed the walls of a 2,000-year-old well located under a structure from the Crusader Period. They dug deep holes in the ground, causing what the Israel Antiquities Authority deemed as “irreversible damage.” The suspects said during questioning that they were searching for a treasure. They claimed that a legend, passed on from generation to generation, asserted one of their forefathers buried gold in the old stones.

Do we ever see reports of Israeli looters looting sites in Israel? Or do they only report the Arabs in their newspapers? We certainly see sales by Israeli dealers of cultural property which has in all probability been looted somewhere in the region, whether on the Israeli side of the border or from outside it is never specified.

Omri Efraim, 'Gold diggers ravage archeological site', ynetnews 01.09.12

Baltimore Illegal Coin Import Stunt Case: Not Going at all Well for ACCG Coineys

2012-01-18T16:03:00.000-08:00

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Real Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hilaire has a very revealing text on his blog: Federal Attorneys File Appellate Brief in Baltimore Coin Case (January 18, 2012). Nicely coincident with the date of the public comments on the renewal of the Cyprus cultural property MOU which lies at the heart of the case. His post neatly explains the whole sorry saga of the court cases initiated on April 15, 2009 by the deliberately illegal import through Baltimore of Chinese and Cypriot coins sent by Spink's in London without the required documentation which would allow lawful passage through US borders (silly old Spink's eh?). Then, instead of providing that documentation (for which the CCPIA allows them as much as ninety days) the ACCG took the Gubn'mint to court. Goodness knows why. This case has been dragged through the courts ever since. In the latest round, the appellate brief filed by the ACCG on October 31, 2011 argues that (a) that the enactment and application of the import controls by the State Department and/or Customs and Border Protection (CPB) was unlawful (b) allegedly "China did not request the import restrictions" on coins and (c) allegedly "the CPIA’s import controls require federal officials to prove an ancient coin’s find spot before it can be seized".

Now it's the government's turn; on January 13, 2012, Attorneys for the United States have filed their brief in the matter of Ancient Coin Collectors Guild v. U.S. Customs and Border Protection; U.S. Department of State; Assistant Secretary of State, Educational and Cultural Affairs:

The United States’ brief rejects the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild’s (ACCG) interpretation and application of the Cultural Property Act (CPIA), writing that the ACCG “fundamentally misunderstands the CPIA’s statutory scheme.” Attorneys for the United States contend in their brief that its agencies followed the rules while the ACCG did not follow the process. The government's lawyers write that the ACCG should have followed the forfeiture process established by Congress. Instead, the ACCG filed a lawsuit.

In other words, there were appropriate measures in place by which the ACCG could have established their claim on the imported property, but it did not make use of them. A court case of the nature demanded by the ACCG is not an appropriate alternative to following the correct procedure established by law. There can be, the government says, judicial review of agency action only ‘for which there is no other adequate remedy in a court’ and the ACCG has not followed the procedure to establish that in this case this is the situation.

At the time of the attempted import of the coins in Baltimore, lawyers for the United States say that “Customs provided [the ACCG] with the opportunity to present a certification of lawful export or other evidence establishing a right to entry .... [but the ACCG] disclaimed any ability to present such evidence. [...] Had the ACCG challenged the seizure of the coins through the congressionally prescribed forfeiture proceeding, it would have confronted a defined standard of proof requiring the ACCG to show that the coins were legal to import. [...] the burden shifts to the claimant [ACCG] to show that the property is not subject to forfeiture, or to establish an applicable affirmative defense.” The United States rebukes the ACCG for short-circuiting the judicial forfeiture proceeding, avoiding its burden of proof, and claiming that the government acted beyond its authority (i.e. ultra vires).

The United States authorities also maintain that the ACCG has confused the meaning and requirements of the CPIA. Well, as I have pointed out in this blog many times, that is what it has seemed to me all along. As any fool can see, there is NO requirement for federal officials to "prove an ancient coin’s find spot before it can be seized". The CCPIA is very clear that to import the coins into the United States, the ACCG needed only to show that the items figuring on the Designated Lists were outside Cyprus or China before the effective dates of the relevant lists. The Act defines three different ways to do this, and allows ninety days to sort out which one they want to use.

Plaintiff declined to offer any declaration to that effect, claiming that it could not offer the evidence required by the statute because it did not know whether the coins had been ‘first found in the ground’ of either China or Cyprus. But the CPIA quite plainly does not require plaintiff to know where the coins were ‘first found in the ground’; all that was required was information as to the whereabouts of the Cypriot coins as of July 16, 2007 and of the Chinese coins as of January 16, 2009”.

Trying to talk sense to the coineys though is - as we have seen - an uphill battle.

As for the notion that China does not want the USA to restrict imports of unlawfully exported coins, and that China "never formally requested import restrictions on coins" , the Government claims this may be rejected because (as their lawyers have already pointed out to a previous court):

China’s request did, in fact, address ancient Chinese coins, as noted in the public summary of the request that is posted on the State Department’s website.”

Moreover as St Hilaire emphasises, the government's lawyers "pointedly draw attention to the fact that the President exercises his foreign affairs powers when acting pursuant to the CCPIA". The Act

provides the President with broad power to apply import restrictions pursuant to MOUs he enters into with foreign States in furtherance of the United States’s obligations under the Convention on Cultural Property and with the goal of ‘promoting U.S. leadership[] in the preservation of cultural treasures.’” The attorneys point out that “Congress recognized that allowing illicitly excavated and trafficked artifacts to enter into the United States, thereby permitting a market in such goods, threatened our relationships with other nations, and that this legislation was thus “‘important to our foreign relations.’”

This is the key point the coineys grouped around the ACCG fail to grasp, that by their actions they are jeopardising their country's ability to exercise an important part of their foreign policy. They are placing their own selfish interests ahead of those of the state. Something tells me the coineys are going to lose this case and end up looking Very, Very silly.

More Imaginary Bogeymen for the Coineys

2012-01-18T11:32:00.001-08:00

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In an apparent effort to show his "Cultural Property Observer" blog to be wholly irrelevant to the current situation on the US no-questions-asked antiquities market, the dealers' paid lobbyist breaks his silence to write about (in connection, his tag proclaims, with: "the Greek MOU") the fact that the Greeks might rent out the Athens Acropolis for commercial use (Tuesday, January 17, 2012, "Acropolis for Rent ). Wholly moronic is his opening line:

In a move that will no doubt leave archaeological purists aghast, [...]

Who are these mythological "archaeological purists"? Do they really exist, or are they another of those coiney made-up bogeymen with which the coiney lobbyists aim to scare childlike and uncritical collectors? Are these US "archaeological purists" or "Yuropeen" ones?

I would have thought the current situation threatening the whole US dugup coin market would be an ample reason for dealers' paid mouthpieces to stop talking of made-up problems, but addressing the real ones with which the US collector of dugup artefacts on his hands is likely to be faced in the coming year. It is not the "MOU" which is US dugup and undocumented coin collecting's greatest problem any more, when are the ACCG and its camp-followers going to admit that? Or do they believe that in this too, that an ignored problem will simply go away? Like toothache?

UPDATE 19.01.12
All right, I'll have to say this before Tompa does. It seems I was wrong; Tom Flyn says it is "sacrilege". Does that make him an "archaeological purist"? He is entitled to his opinion of course, but I really think he is over-reacting. We have many examples of films for examples involving real ancient monuments as settings. I have in mind for example "Death on the Nile" which (surely bits of it were) filmed at Karnak, and if I've got that wrong, then there is the classic "Night of the Counting of the years" (deserves to be better known) . I seem to recall a Doctor Who episode which was filmed at one of the megalithic monuments, many a BBC costume drama is filmed against a backdrop of some stately pile or another - which is cheaper than plasterboard and paint. A number of churches feature in films ("Four Weddings and a Funeral" for one, using a church near where I had the misfortune to live for a while). I really cannot see anything wrong with that if the incumbent and congregation do not. Then there was the comedy-drama series "Chasing mummies" ...

Anyway, as reported just now on Museum Security Network,

Greek Minister of Culture and Tourism, P. Yeroulanos, has stated that any claims by the press that the Acropolis will be rented out are false. (This was tweeted by the Minister himself, Pavlos Yeroulanos @P_Yeroulanos)

- which I suppose raises the question, why on earth not if its done properly?

UPDATE 19.01.12:
As Tom Flynn now reports:

The source of the almost instantly viral rumour that the Greeks were considering renting out the Acropolis and other archaeological sites to help pay off the country's sovereign debt seems to have been a Conservative former Greek Minister — Gerasimos Giakoumatos. ‎"It's better to rent the Acropolis to private companies than to cut wages and pensions," Giakoumatos told the press. "Rent the Parthenon, the Delphi, the Temple of Apollo, Knossos and let the money flow into the public funds.” That recommendation, which had cultural heritage experts choking into their cornflakes, was endorsed by another Greek MP, Nea Dimokratia.

Cyprus MOU Renewal Meeting Today

2012-01-18T02:52:00.000-08:00

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It is today, isn't it that the coineys will give their impassioned plea in a public hearing of the CPAC to be allowed to import coins unlawfully exported from Cyprus. I hear Wayne Sayles is going and the dealers' associations paid lobbyist will be popping over from his office in Connecticut Avenue. I wonder whether this will be an occasion for a summit meeting of the Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild elders over a pint or two in a back room of the Foggy Bottom Arms to discuss strategy now things seem to be going very much against the coineys rendering their focus on the CPIA rather pointless?

I am reliably informed that there are three academic numismatists scheduled to appear, supporting the renewal of import controls and in opposition to the so-called "professional numismatists" who merely want to sell them. Oh, I wish I could be there to watch.

"Kent Understand" the PAS in Kentucky

2012-01-18T00:10:00.000-08:00

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In a Jan 13th post on the Dick Stout anti-preservationist blog, we find a copy of a letter sent by Kentucky metal detector using artefact hunter Harold S. Lowenfels to US Senator Dan Seum (R). ("My family and I wish to thank you for advocating for those who enjoy recreational metal detecting, by sponsoring the bill, shortly to be voted on, that would open up state parks to this healthy and wholesome activity [...] I can't tell you how many quality family hours we spent together combing the great outdoors and discovering what those that came before us had left behind"). The usual claptrap, artefacts do not occur in any sort of pattern near the surface of the ground, they fell from the sky and were not deposited by any understandable human activity in the past (nay, this is "bogus information"). The Lowenfels family only searches and takes artefacts from "secondary and tertiary sites", not "primary" ones. Furthermore, "nobody is better equipped to find metal artifacts than the metal detectorist, and unlike the state Archaeologists, the detectorist does not cost the taxpayer one penny" - as if "finding metal artefacts" as a form of preservation of archaeological sites was all that State Archaeologists do.

If not threatened with exclusion from secondary and tertiary sites, the detectorist would be more than happy to partner with and cooperate with the Archaeologists. The prudent way to proceed would be to model a metal detecting policy after what has worked so well in Great Britain. Approximately 90% of the metal artifacts in British Museums have been discovered by metal detectorists. The finder, turns in the discovered artifact, where it is evaluated for it's uniqueness, and relevant information regarding its discovery is obtained. The artifact is then either returned to the finder, or purchased by the government for display. Fair market value is given if the artifact is purchased. This is a win/win situation.

Britain has no "policy" on metal detecting, it has an ad hoc resolution set up as the only way the Brits can think of for dealing with the absolutely crap legislation they in effect inherited from Victorian landowner lawmakers. It is not a (ugh) "win-win situation". the only people winning are the artefact hcollectors, the archaeological record is being trashed, eroded and lost at an alarming rate with MINIMAL mitigation. It is not "working so well", it is failing to cope with both the scale and the nature of the problem. Mr Lowenfels seems to think that every finder "turns in" ever recordable find. Nothing could be further from the truth, there is much that suggests that the PAS only sees a minority of the tens of thousands of pieces of archaeological evidence being taken from the fields of England (let along Wild West Wales). It's pretty extraordinary to read that "Approximately 90% of the metal artifacts in British Museums have been discovered by metal detectorists". Museums in Britain go back a long way before the (US was founded and) the metal detector was invented. The truth is that with the rise of metal detecting and the spread of private collecting this brought about, donations of archaeological artefacts to museums by members of the public have fallen drastically (I recommend for example reading the series of Colchester and Essex Museum's annual reports for an excellent demonstration of that mechanism in operation - where "donated by..." gives way to "purchased from..."). Evaluating a FIND "for it's (sic) uniqueness" is not at all what the PAS is about, I rather think Mr Lowenfels is confusing the PAS with the Treasure Valuation Committee. This impression is reinforced by the next bit: "The artifact is then either returned to the finder, or purchased by the government for display. Fair market value is given if the artifact is purchased". In legal terms, it should actually be returned to the landowner whose property it is. Treasure items are not "purchased by the government for display", they are purchased by museums, who have to raise the funds (often from public donations) to pay to avoid them ending up on the antiquities market.

So, here is Kentucky , shown at the same scale as PAS-land (minus the tip of Cornwall). They turn out to be land areas of the same sort of size. Obviously, then to set up a PAS in Kentucky to the same scale of effectiveness as in the UK, would need some 30-40 overworked FLOs as in England, and would need a minimum investment at the same level as in England and Wales (1.4 million GBP annually - that's approximately 2.15 million dollars annually). That's just for Kentucky(pop 4.3 million). Is that really a "prudent" way to approach the protection of the in situ remains of the historic heritage of the United States? Who is going to vote for that?

Wikiprotest and Heritage Blogging

2012-01-18T00:01:00.001-08:00

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There is some legislation being proposed by the U.S. Congress — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate which some claim would, if passed, "harm the free and open Internet". The Wikipedia community blacked out the English version of Wikipedia for 24 hours on January 18th - from midnight to midnight EST (05:00 UTC Wed to 05:00 UTC Thu) in order to raise awareness about this proposed legislation and to encourage their millions of readers to speak out against it.

Wikipedia reveals the ideology behind this action. Its editors claim that "although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence actually is not". (I am not sure that is actually true that Wikipedia is neutral - look at the coverage of metal-detecting related issues for example for a blatant example where they are NOT, what those articles reflect are the views of those willing and with the stamina to shout loudest longest.) Wikipedia explains:

Wikipedia's existence depends on a free, open and uncensored Internet. We are shutting Wikipedia down for you, our readers. We support your right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on a wide range of subjects, even if they can’t pay for it. We believe people should be able to share information without impediment. We believe that new proposed laws like SOPA and PIPA (and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States) don’t advance the interests of the general public. That's why we're doing this.

According to Wikipedia:

Among other serious problems in the current draft of the bills, the requirement exists for US-based sites to actively police links to purported infringing sites. These kinds of self-policing activities are non-sustainable for large, global sites - including ones like Wikipedia. The legislative language is ambiguous and overly broad, even though it touches on protected speech. Congress says it's trying to protect the rights of copyright owners, but the "cure" that SOPA and PIPA represent is worse than the disease. [...] SOPA and PIPA put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won't have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn't being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won't show up in major search engines. SOPA and PIPA build a framework for future restrictions and suppression. [...] the bill would give the U.S. government extraordinary and loosely-defined powers to take control over content and information on the free web.

Leaving aside the emotive "government microchip in my head controlling my thoughts" overtones, it is worth noting that in UK law internet resource providers already have much more responsibility for content than over in the UK. Surely the provider of a facility has some responsibility to make sure that they are not instrumental in immoral or illegal activity, it's like ebay claiming they have absolutely "no responsibility" for the sale of illicit or fake antiquities there. I think some of us would disagree.

My own personal interest in this is the way its opponents this system could lead to abuse of another kind. Readers may remember a scheme by moral midgets with metal detectors in the UK last year to attempt to close down this blog (just as much "free speech" as anything they write) by abuse of Google's existing policies. They reckoned that if enough of them spam-bombed Google with claims (necessarily false) of "copyright infringement" by the author discussing what they do by quoting actual examples, that Google would react by closing my blogging account rather than spending corporate time dealing with the complaints, still less actually investigating whether fair use was applicable in each of the claimed cases. As we know, the use of time-wasting tactics is a ploy frequently used by UK "metal detectorists" to avoid scrutiny of the issues surrounding their hobby, they managed to close down the PAS forum through such means a few years ago. Clearly therefore if metal detectors can hit upon such an idea, other groups too can use this type of tactic to block free exchange of information, opinions, ideas, criticism - especially if the laws currently being proposed by the US are instituted. There are potentially issues far more important than whether metal detecting is good for the world or not at stake here.

UPDATE 19.1.2012
Well, that was a bit of a fiasco. Indeed I found myself trying to access Wikipedia a surprising number of times yesterday, but in fact encountered no great problems in doing so. I tend to access Wikipedia in several languages anyway, and all you had to do to see the English ones was to use Google cache. So I am not sure how well others felt Wikipedia got the fundamental message across. There is an entertaining video explaining the issues (note the buried bones) here.

I thought one of yesterday's Guardian articles was a laugh. [It used to be one of my teenage dreams to own a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica and I was envious of my brother in law that he got one twenty years ago - no mean feat in Poland back then. Now a wry smile replaces the look of envy when I see the bookcase filled with unused but expensive volumes when I go to visit.]

Guardipedia – we answer your questions during Wikipedia blackout
Suffering from Wikipedia withdrawal? Patrick Kingsley and a stack of volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Who's Who tried to answer your questions.

Certainly though this is one way to get increased awareness about a problem with what for some may seem like an obscure legal point or two in US law. Now, how to achieve the same effect with heritage legislation?

Commercial Use of Iconic Sites in Greece

2012-01-17T23:03:00.000-08:00

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Just for once, a more "hertitagey" issue. Greece's culture ministry said on Tuesday that it will do more to facilitate access to the country's ancient Greek ruins by opening up some of the debt-stricken country's most-cherished archaeological sites to advertising firms and other ventures. Not insignificant also is the fact that the money generated would fund their upkeep and monitoring. The temporary leasing of ancient Greek sites for such purposes would be subject to strict conditions. The first site to be opened would be the iconic Acropolis. "Commercial use of Greece's archaeological sites has until now been the responsibility of the Central Council of Archaeology, which has been very choosy about who gains access. In recent decades, only a select few people, including Greek-Canadian filmmaker Nia Vardalos and the American director Francis Ford Coppola, have been able to use the Acropolis, while most filming and advertising requests have been refused".

Using a site for filming sounds relatively straightforward until the logistics of the operation are considered. Anyone who has seen such a film crew, even for a simple interview 'on site' will know that its not often just a presenter, actor or model and a bloke with a camera. There are a huge crew (with vehicles and caravans), generators, cables, heavy and hot lights, fencing needs erecting for crowd control and so on. People tramping around carrying heavy objects and so on. I once worked with a conservator of wall paintings on a text of the conditions for a foreign film team to film inside a Polish monastery which had Medieval mural decoration. It was a long text and I chastised her gently over that, until she pulled out a portfolio and showed me photos of examples (most not from Poland) where such conditions had not been drawn up and some quite (and some barely believably) thoughtless behaviour by film technicians and others had done serious damage on other sites. One can see therefore the reasoning behind the caution.

On the other hand, sponsorship of ancient monument repair and advertising have long gone hand in hand. All over Poland and former East Germany in the years after the collapse of Communism a huge legacy of sadly neglected historic buildings in urban centres was encountered and had to be dealt with. One resolution was to seek sponsorship from companies which then utilised the occasion to advertise their participation. The scaffolding erected outside such buildings inevitably had stretched over it netting printed with huge adverts for the firm financing the work. Since the restoration of these buildings often took several years, many companies had 'free' advertising (and in connection with a socially praiseworthy enterprise) for many years in prime town centre locations. Even today such work is still going on in Warsaw (but not so much in the city centre). In Britain, organizations such as English Heritage and the National Trust have made sites and buildings in their care available (under supervision) for events such as wedding receptions, conferences, integration meetings and so on. In Poland the Baroque and Neoclassical former palaces of Prussian grafs and Polish Szlachta have been saved from Communist period decline by being turned into hotels and conference centres or other such uses. Medieval banquets are a good money-spinner for castles with their roofs on, re-enacted tourneys for those without. We have our archaeological 'festivals' on some sites with shows of experimental archaeology and where you can buy craftwork and "regional delicacies". Archaeology itself of course has been closely integrated with the commercial world for several decades since Brian Hobley's pioneer efforts in the City of London and to a certain extent US experiences.

Perhaps in embarking on this path, Greece might benefit from some collaboration with other EU partners who have longer experience with the integration of the needs of cultural assets and the commercial sector. Just in case...

Stella Tsolakidou, 'Debt-Riddled Greece Will Lease Acropolis For Commercial Exploitation', Greek Reporter/AFP January 17, 2012.

Vignette: vintage Metaxa advert , not at all a problem, and let's hope it does not come to this (floridagold on 'Poster's paradise')

En lingerie au Musée d'Orsay

2012-01-17T21:47:00.000-08:00

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The video of three attractive young ladies walking through the Impressionist galleries of the Musee d'Orsay last month in their firm's lingerie has caused quite a bit of controversy in France. The main cause of the fuss is that (allegedly) the event was videorecorded without getting the museum's permission (the Museum does not allow photography of its collections).

As Art Info recounts:

The clip shows three women in trench coats standing in front of the Musée d'Orsay’s Impressionist collection. The women suddenly strip down to their underwear and strut in front of the stunned — but clearly amused — spectators before running for the exit. The stunt could have been a refreshing piece of guerrilla performance art if it hadn’t been constructed solely as a big-money advertising blitz. [...] The Musée d'Orsay administration didn’t find any humor in the happening. "I am in charge of filming [in the museum]; such a scenario could never have been accepted, it's unimaginable," Amélie Hardivillier, the museum's communications director, told Libération. According to Le Figaro, Musée d'Orsay president Guy Cogeval plans to write to Etam's C.E.O. to demand that the link to the video be removed from the company's Web site and all other platforms — or else the museum's legal department will take action. Etam's viral video has not been good for the museum's reputation, with many bloggers assuming that the shoot had the institution's seal of approval.

I have two questions, first of all the stunt is not exactly what one might term "indecent", the onlookers seem amused (bemused) rather than shocked, and it seems to have been filmed in natural light. So I cannot see why Ms Hardivillier would have refused permission - provided the requisite fee was paid (and here is the key to the issue perhaps). If no damage is done to the artworks themselves or their setting then why can they not figure in ephemeral advertising as just one of the social spheres in which they function in the consciousness of modern society? They are not holy relics.

Secondly, one might wonder how in a packed gallery somebody can pull out an unauthorised professional video camera (probably a relatively big one for that quality of photography) and calmly film the girls visiting the museum (dressed) and why when the whole team is parading and prancing around (undressed) and then running right through the museum, not a single security guard or gallery superintendent is in sight anywhere to even admonish them, let alone stop the unauthorised activities. This is a major museum, in the gallery containing a major collection of impressionist art, and nobody is there supervising the crowd? Incroyable.

Or is the Museum's pretended indignation part of the publicity stunt?

And what happened to the trench coats?

Vignette: edited screen capture from You Tube version of video produced by lingerie firm in question

Focus on Metal Detecting: 30 000 Hours

2012-01-17T10:16:00.000-08:00

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UK metal detectorist "Stephen" (apparently from somewhere within driving distance of Nottinghamshire) boasts on a metal detecting forum that he has done "30 000 hours metal detecting" (Tue Jan 17, 2012 10:14 am):

I have been metal detecting for 37 years and found some fantastic coins and artifacts. [...] I have found over 1000 hammered, thousands of roman, 3 treasure trove finds .[...]

then discusses his "technique":

if i get a iffy signal and it does not get any better after say 6 inches i will leave it,however if i am on a good site say roman or celtic i would dig dig dig as there are some good artifacts to be had.i had a roman horse shoe or hippo sandal as it is known in roman terms.some roman bukets have iron rims over bronze sides so it is very hard what to dig and not to dig it comes with expereince. i can tell you that if reject iron and go over a circle of iron it will give you a possitive sgnal that is good can be a bucket.

He later says that one of his Treasure items can be found by Googling "Anglo-Saxon gold cross". It is presumably this one: 'Treasure hunter finds £25K Anglo Saxon gold cross', Mirror.co.uk 7/08/2008 ("Brett Hammond, of TimeLine Originals, a coins and antiquity supplier, was approached by the delighted finder").

What is interesting is that 1000 hammered coins in 37 years is 27 a year of them alone, so already coming close to the Heritage Action Artefact Erosion Counter annual recordable artefact figures before we even take into account his "thousands" of Roman coins and anything else he may have found.

Also if one can find as many as three high-cash Treasure items in 37 years (one every twelve years), then certainly you have a much higher chance of "hitting the jackpot" with a metal detector than doing the lottery.

Mind you, to get 30 000 hours of detecting in within 37 years, you'd actually need to do more than two hours a day (or 15.6 hours a week) consistently for 37 years. Another one on unemployment or disability benefit?

The US "Task Force for Metal Detecting Rights"

2012-01-17T09:09:00.000-08:00

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The UK reportedly has its militant band of anti-preservationist "Minutemen", and the US artefact hunters have banded together to form a "Task Force (sic) for Metal Detecting Rights (sic)". They have a Facebook page and a website. This is what they say its all about:

The Task Force for Metal Detecting Rights Foundation (TFMDRF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to creating public awareness by promoting and defending the lawful hobby of recreational metal detecting on public use lands and waterways.In recent years our hobby has grown tremendously. Now there are hundreds of thousands of us across America who enjoy this wonderful hobby. Unfortunately many public areas are being "taken away" by local law makers who are clearly overreaching their authority and basing their decisions on misinformation.

So it sounds a bit like the dugup coin dealers' Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild. The Task Force was formed in 1996 in response to the City of New York shutting down all its public parks and beach areas to metal detecting. A primary sponsor is Minelab, the metal detector manufacturer. Other sponsors include "Gold Digger Metal Detectors", New Jersey and "S/W Shooters Supplies and Prospecting". Quelle surprise, eh?

So, how about that then, having public parks gutted of any historic metal artefacts that may be lying there? Why cant these people get permission from private landowners and not help themselves to buried artefacts lying in green spaces protected as public parks?

I think it telling that the group yatters on about collectors' "rights" but there is nothing on their website about collectors' responsibilities. For example, here (like the ACCG) is another group that surely should be actively campaigning for the setting up in the USA of an effective organization for the recording of finds made by members of the public - such as themselves - like Britain's PAS. Yet there is nothing about any kind of activity like that on their website (though I note a letter on the Stout blog from a Harold Lowenfels to Senator Dan Seum advocating such an approach). Surely if this "recreational" and legal hobby is to do "good", it is not by collectors finding things and keeping the objects and the information to themselves. Let us see the ACCG "Collectors' rights" organization join hands with the TFMDRF ("Collectors' rights" too) to get such a nationwide scheme set up.

Is there a TFMDRF Code of Ethics? A TFMDRF definition of responsible metal detecting? I could not see one on their website, just a series of demands that everybody else should accommodate their needs, all collector-typical 'take' and no 'give'.

I must say I am a bit puzzled by their attitude to the recent comments of Professor Matthew Zembo about metal detector users who'd been on the battle site at Battle Hill and taken away some items which sound (from what he was reportedly able to ascertain) like they came from burials. He reportedly likened this to "pot-hunting" (in other words mere artefact hunting for collection):

Zembo calls such people "pot hunters" - people who go through historic sites with metal detectors in hopes of finding an artifact to sell or add to a private collection.

Now if the artefacts taken by metal detector users from Battle Hill did not end up in a private collection of some artefact hunter or collector, in what public institution are they housed, and how did they get there?

On their facebook page however the TFMDRF (and on their website) call what he said "obscene and irresponsible accusations" and urge their supporters to

voic[e] your concerns regarding his irresponsible accusations, and request [that] Professor Zembo retract his statements in a followup article. You can contact him directly, Matthew Zembo Phone: [...] E-email: [...] and also copy the history department chairperson, Peter R. Sawyer, Ph.D. Phone: [...] E-mail: [...]

Now, we am told there are thousands of responsible metal detectorists in the UK who would never use their machines to hoover collectables out of a historic site of this nature leaving them unrecorded in the manner reported by Prof. Zembo's informant, still less dig into historic burials in the hope of finding collectable (or saleable) metal artefacts. Just as the TFMDRF are urging their metal detecting members to contact (harass) Professors Zembo and Sawyer, I wonder whether the responsible detectorists of the UK will be writing to express their support of the criticism of such irresponsible treatment of a historic site. Let's see.

I'm on Prof Zembo's side here. Let us call a spade a spade and "metal detecting" artefact hunting, and ask what is the difference between (metal) artefact hunting and collecting and (pot) artefact hunting and collecting? Let the TFMDRF explain that first.

Vignette: TFMDRF logo.

US Detectorist Moans

2012-01-17T05:15:00.000-08:00

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I mentioned here yesterday the blog of US metal detecting activist Dick Stout and very soon afterwards he replied (January 16, 2012, 'A New fan of Stout Standards').

Apparently I have a new follower for my website, and his purpose is to choose the topics that fit his need at the moment. Paul Barford is a British archaeologist, now living in Poland, and his recent updates indicate that he is apparently in need of visitors to his blog, or at best, something to bitch about.

I have a blog, and write there about what catches my eye and seems to me (yes, at a given moment) to be worth discussing. Sadly there is no need to seek far in the world of artefact collecting to find something entirely disagreeable. Note, however, the arrogance of the man who thinks that people will come to my blog now - and just because - I am discussing him. That aside, I am not a "new" follower of the US detecting scene, I have made reference to his blog before (John Howland's bit on the CBA for example). I do not find the Stout blog easy to navigate, it has some kind of antiquated Apollo 13 era template full of surplus HTML codes and no section divisions that means it takes ages to load (at least on my ISP), so I do not go there often. I find it also very boring, a repetition of the same tired old arguments about artefact hunting and how it is so "misunderstood". Thus it is we find Mr Stout moaning about my discussion of what he said that:

He, like so many others in the academic community, finds our pastime distasteful, and is quick to paint us as "thieves" and hell bent on destroying history, never taking the time to delve further into the subject, especially our contributions to so many museums, historical societies and communities. [...] Apparently Mr. Barford didn't care to read or write about the many entries I have posted over the years concerning what good we do...

Hmm. Hardly a novel defence is it? I think that one was coined back on the 1980s, if not before. Mr Stoat seems not to have noticed that the actual example of Battle Hill which I discussed (not therefore a glib generalisation) was not exactly a previously unknown site, so nobody was doing any "good" plundering it for collectables. That is precisely the point I was making, detectorists (like Mr Stout) claim one thing, but what detectorists do shows something quite different. We note however that Stout does not attempt to justify what he wrote to the journalist about artefact hunting on a known battlefield site, including what, from the reports, seems likely to have involved a bit of grave-robbing. Now, as I said, I do not see how one can defend that, so perhaps it is as well that Mr Stout did not try, but then why write it in the first place?

Also did I not point out that there is a methodology which has been developed for using metal detectors to produce information about battlefield sites? In that case, "doing good" would be endorsing and using such methods, not screeching in horror that somebody said that artefact hunting was like pot-digging (the substantial difference is?).

It is not these days just "academics" that have problems with mining archaeological assemblages for collectables for personal entertainment and profit. I hardly think anyone at all familiar with my interests would accuse me of not "taking the time to delve further into the subject". I do quite a lot of "delving" into a number of aspects of artefact hunting (yes, that's "metal detecting" too) and collecting. This blog reflects some of the results of that and what I take it to mean. Mr Stout may say he thinks I am "wrong", I do not think he is justified in assuming that my views differ from his simply because I have "not looked into it enough yet".

So, if I do not particularly "care" to "read or write about" what Mr Stout has produced "over the years concerning what good we do" it is mainly because I think it in the context of the whole picture of artefact hunting and collecting this is not the whole (or most relevant part of the) picture. But no reader should take my word for it, let them have a read right down through all Mr Stout's words and see for themselves the validity of the claims about what "good" artefact hunting does, and what "good" the "Task Force (sic) for Metal Detecting Rights(sic)" does, which is what the Stout blog seems to be mainly about these days.

It is wholly typical that the detectorist completely misses the point I was making writing:

I can most assuredly say that any finds that Mr. Barford finds distasteful in the photo were found on public land, and legally accessible by any detectorist. To assume otherwise is dishonest.

But that is not what I said, is it? So the accusation of "dishonesty" rather should not be addressed to me, but the person who claims I said something I quite clearly did not (and it was the furniture in the photo that made me feel ill looking at it, not the coins). The legality of metal detecting is not the point that concerns this blog, it is the archaeological effects. Now I am well aware that if "Archie" was digging all this stuff up in the USA, no real archaeology (as we would understand that over here) is being damaged, the coins are probably mostly Barbers and Wheaties and all the rest of the modern ("It's from the 1830s!!!!") geegaws that we see US collectors getting so extraordinarily excited about in the You Tube videos. The point was to show the amount of metal that these people ARE removing from archaeological sites when they can get their boots onto and digging tools into archaeological sites. This is in the context of those who pour scorn on the notion that artefact hunters find more than three old buttons a year metal detecting in the UK (vide the discussion over the Heritage Action Artefact Erosion Counter). Legal or not, when it occurs in countries where productive sites are archaeological sites, that is a depletion of the archaeological record. Mr Stout (wrongly) accuses me of not acquainting myself with his "website", it seems I can make the same accusation:

I suspect Mr. Barford would prefer Archie donate them all to the local archaeologist in his area so they can be stored in a drawer in a basement somewhere.

No, as should be clear from my blog, I would prefer the archaeological sites of the world not to be emptied of collectables by spade-wielding artefact hunters so some geegaw-seeking trophy hunter can pose for a picture with piles of them. The leitmotif here is protecting archaeological sites as a finite and fragile resource as opposed to treating them as collectable geegaw mines.

Interview with Egypt's Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim

2012-01-16T21:14:00.000-08:00

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Nevine El-Aref has an interesting and quite lengthy interview with Egypt's Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim ('Heritage at what cost?') in Al-Ahram. This comes some two months after his appointment by the National Rescue Government (NRG) led by Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri as the second Minister of State for Antiquities (succeeding Zahi Hawass). Mohamed Ibrahim was formerly chief of the 'Tourism Guide English Department' in the Faculty of Arts at Ain Shams University. He has however some impressive credentials for the job:

Since graduating in archaeology from Cairo University he served for eight years in the SCA, where he was an antiquities inspector for the Abu Simbel temples, chief inspector of Edfu, Kom Ombo and Aswan monuments in Upper Egypt, and general director of the Saqqara district south of Cairo. In 1987 Ibrahim abandoned archaeological field work and moved to France, where he earned a diploma and doctorate in Egyptology from Lyons University. He also received a certificate in museum management from the American Information Centre in the United States. In addition to his academic work at Alexandria and Ain Shams universities, Ibrahim supervised the museological work and interior design of the planned Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) overlooking the Giza Plateau.

He outlines some of his plans for reform and the future work of the antiquities department, some of which sound like brilliant ideas, others raise an eyebrow. There is no mention on the Ministry's future policies on repatriation of artefacts from outside the country, or the division of competence in the field of museums between this ministry and other government institutions concerning arts and culture. Predictably a lot of the article is about 'getting the tourists back' and 'how to employ thousands of archaeologists' rather than the actual projected directions of Egyptian archaeology. Still, these are early days.

Focus on Metal Detecting: Where are these Artefacts Now?

2012-01-16T01:16:00.001-08:00

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This is a photo of dreadful living room decor and heaps of metal detected artefacts from the "late 70's, early 80's". It shows US metal detectorist Archie Ray "with a few of his finds". The photo was recently posted on the Stout Standards anti-preservationist metal detecting blog of one Dick Stout who commented "Back then you had to have a photo like that taken. We all did". So if every metal detectorist in the late 1970s and 1980s had a comparable collection, and tens of thousands of metal detectorists since then have each been accumulating collections of similar sized for the last three decades, then it may be imagined the scale and rate at which the archaeological record is being eroded wherever this damaging hobby is practiced. As the older generation of artefact hunters pass away, where do all those finds end up? On ebay, in museums, or in a skip? Oddly enough I cannot see the big pile of notebooks or index cards or whatever Mr Ray would have needed to document the findspot of all those artefacts. Perhaps they are behind the photographer.

Fitting the Stereotype

2012-01-16T01:14:00.000-08:00

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Over on the Dick Stout anti-preservationist blog is a post about metal detecting on battlefields. It is in response to a newspaper article about metal detecting damage to a historic site on the western edge of New York state (Jamie Munks, 'Professor wants battle site protected from more damage', Post Star December 28, 2011).

Professor Matthew Zembo of Hudson Valley Community College has been working on the site of a Revolutionary War battlefield at Battle Hill at Fort Ann. He considers it doesn't have the necessary protection against people who might damage its historic value; he wants to see Battle Hill turned into a protected historical site. Among the threats to the site, because of the lack of historic protection, metal detectorists have been going through the site looking for collectable items. "The site deserves more respect than this," Zembo said.

He was involved with an archaeological dig at another historic site more than a decade ago, when a man approached him, saying he had been involved with metal-detecting at the Battle Hill site. The man mentioned that he had come across buttons and eye hooks, and described their formation in the ground, which likely means the man found bodies because of the way soldiers were buried during the Revolutionary War, Zembo said. "They were buried where they died - he found buttons (in one spot) but not anywhere else," Zembo said. "Either he or someone he knew probably found bodies, kept digging anyway and didn't tell anyone."There are likely others who have "raped that site," Zembo said. Zembo calls such people "pot hunters" - people who go through historic sites with metal detectors in hopes of finding an artifact to sell or add to a private collection.

In the States there are several organizations attempting to preserve "collectors' rights" and one of them is the Task Force for Metal Detecting Rights . This has taken exception to the idea that people should write disapprovingly of artefact hunting on historic sites like this and requests that people join in with their protest action. Dick Stout has joined in, saying: "It's another example of where we are being stereotyped without any basis in fact, and yes, once again labeled pot robbers". He suggests that if his readers "find this article offensive" they too will "take the time to respond to the author and share your thoughts". he then posts his own response:

Hi Ms. Munks,
My name is Dick Stout, and I have been involved with the metal detecting pastime now for over 30 years. I have worked for a major metal detector manufacturer, and have penned three related books. I also founded and was the first president of the Federation of Metal Detector and Archaeological Clubs, Inc..
The recent article concerning Mathew Zembo’s portrayal of the metal detecting community as “pot hunters” is presumptuous to the say the least. I can assure you that more archaeological sites have been discovered “because” of the metal detecting hobbyist, than those in the academic community who think they have the right to every inch of ground in the country because of their degree, or supposed higher education.
Of course every inch of ground may well hold historical treasures, but will they ever be found or will they simply decay and be lost forever? I encourage you to read the following, and then decide the merits of our pastime, and our right to enjoy it without being unfairly labeled as pot robbers.
http://www.johnwinter.net/jw/2011/11/metal-detecting-the-hobby-and-its-detractors-2/ Thank you for listening to our side,
Dick Stout/www.StoutStandards.com

I've given my response to the John Winter "detractors" article earlier. Note the chip on stout the shoulder about the "education" and the old trope about artefact hunters discovering sites. But then does a place called Battle Hill, and marked as such by a plaque in the wall by the road actually need "discovering" by metal detectorists? It seems to me rather not. This is another case of artefact hunters targeting a KNOWN site as it is likely to be productive of collectable artefacts. Thus it is, a metal detectorist stumbled on what sounds like a burial (could have been a British soldier) and looted it (" kept digging anyway and didn't tell anyone") for the metal collectables, but did not report it at the time. Now this is worse than "pot-hunting", and is sheer selfish destruction. I really cannot see why any right-0thinking metal detectorist would like to use this as a cause celebre to defend the reputation of artefact hunters, a far more effective strategy I would have thought would be for responsible detecting organization to join in with the criticism and condemn (whether sincerely or not) that sort of behaviour on a historic battlefield site. Instead Mr Stout and his Task Force for Metal Detecting Rights pals are objecting that anyone would write judgementally about such activities. Here's another group in the US that should be actively campaigning alongside the ACCG to get a PAS set up in the USA.

Let it be noted that there are now guidelines about the use of metal detectors on battlefield sites, published by the Battlefield Trust in the UK and it is a shame that metal detectorists elsewhere cannot take its recommendations to heart.

Vignette: metal detectorists discovered this plaque in the wall, so now we all know that at Battle Hill there waz this battle, see?

Focus on Metal Detecting: Midland Metal Detecting Club "Digs"

2012-01-16T00:51:00.001-08:00

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Mark Wilson from Doncaster is a member of the Midland Metal Detecting Club (MMDC) which prompted me to take a look at the sort of organization to which that sort of person belongs. The MMDC tries to organize regular commercial artefact hunting rallies for its members, in fact that seems to be its principle activity. These rallies may be anywhere in the West Midlands, Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Staffordshire. The landowner gets a fee to let history plunderers on the sites their land contains ("we guaranty (sic) the landowner a minimum payment of £100 for the day") and the person who persuaded the landowner to do so gets fifty quid. There is a set of rules, and these include:

All none (sic) treasure finds of value over £300 and All treasure finds must be shown to the landowner or submitted to the rally organiser / MMDC Committee member for photographing before leaving the dig.

Any find that may be over 300 years old should be shown to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, treasure items must be given into the coroner, which includes 2 or more items of more than 10% precious metal.

Note that there are no sanctions on finders who do not follow the advice "should be shown to the PAS". Note it is "should" and not "must". Also the definition of Treasure here falls short of what the Act actually says. No mention is made either of what happens to the photos taken of finds removed from the site, who has custody of them, whose property they are, what they are used for and who gets the money for them if any of them are ever used in a publication (see below). Why not?

Note that there is absolutely no mention here of the additional values the finder can generate from any of the finds he is allowed to take away by their actual owner, the landowner - these include the sale of photographs. It was recently revealed by one metal detectorist, that a detectorist can make five hundred pounds each for even a scrappy amateur digital shot of even a mundane artefact. So, by this measure, each artefact to which this applies is worth at least another £500 from the outset. That means each and every one of them should be declared to the landowner or rally organiser. Are they? Concealing information about potential sources of revenue like this from the landowner would surely indicate a desire to rip them off.

It seems to me that the majority of farmers are in any case not going to be fully appraised of the actual market value of the finds pouches full of artefacts these people are taking away from their land. Very few of them I suspect take magazines like "The Searcher" where there is a regular feature giving valuations - usually in the tens of pounds region individually - of even very common finds. Few of them can afford the time to sit on eBay to observe the prices reached for "British antiquities' in the final bidding which may take place in the final seconds before the end of the auction, thus increasing the price substantially from the bids that are seen in the days before. We have seen that some metal detectorists can make a tidy profit from selling off what they find (here for example). Who can the landowner approached by a finder of a handful of grubby bits of corroded metal turn to for help in saying how much they are worth, if not the metal detectorist who obviously benefits from downplaying the actual value of an individual item or group of them that they want to take away to add to their collection or otherwise profit from owning them? On what basis is ownership transferred? No mention is made of any kind of paperwork proving that an object was added to a collection of metal detected finds by legal and mutually agreed means. this becomes important when latter those finds are disposed of.

So, individual finds of value over 300 GBP (by whose valuation?) should be shown to the landowner and the rest can be carted off with nobody looking at it? Let us have a look at what they are reporting members found on previous rallies.

Sunday 7th August 2011 - Worcester MMDC Rally.
67 Acres of undetected farmland, 36 attendees: "Two small hammered coins Charles I, Two large pewter victorian medals, I saw three silver plated pocket watches!, lots of copper coins, lead tokens, gold plated buttons and a George III Shilling". See Video here.
Total market value of finds added to finder's collection or on eBay and sale of photos? Amount shared with landowner? Was the landowner ripped off?

Sunday 2nd October 2011 - MMDC Shrewsbury Severn Hospice Charity Rally. Raised £410 for charity, though the photo shows 43 attendees: "500+ Acres of Historic farmland, first ever club rally thats been allowed to detect this Roman / Anglo saxon site [...] I saw at least 10 Hammered coins, 1 Viccy Half Soverign, 1 Roman and a gold ring thats now going through the treasure process Roman Coins and brooches, Medieval Artifacts ect, ".
Total market value of finds added to finder's collection or on eBay and sale of photos? Amount shared with landowner? Was the landowner ripped off?

Sunday 13th November 2011 - Near Bridgnorth, MMDC Rally.
50+ Acres of stubble field, "I saw 2 Roman Brooches, 2 Hammered coins, Henry III Short cross and James I Sixpence, Lots of bag seals and Musket balls, We may have found an old battlefield, Some medieval buttons and buckles too, and to round the day off a nice Bronze age Axe head was found, Here's some of the finds we found."
Total market value of finds added to finder's collection or on eBay and sale of photos? Amount shared with landowner? Was the landowner ripped off?

Sunday 16th October 2011 - Stoke Prior, Bromsgrove MMDC Rally.
100+ Acres of farmland, "3 and 1/4 Hammered Coins, Lots of Tokens, Buckles, 4 Silver Viccys, Some of the best bronze coins i've seen from out the soil, [...] Here some of the Finds".
Total market value of finds added to finder's collection or on eBay and sale of photos? Amount shared with landowner? Was the landowner ripped off?

Sunday 8th January 2012 -Stoke Prior, Bromsgrove MMDC Rally.
100+ Acres of farmland , "Good idea to return to this site as it was quite productive. Here some of the Finds".
Total market value of finds added to finder's collection or on eBay and sale of photos? Amount shared with landowner? Was the landowner ripped off?

Members are asked to acquaint themselves with the Treasure Act, but nowhere is any mention made of the accompanying Code of Practice, apparently PAS outreach does not reach as far as Doncaster. So it is we find club rule number 19, about "digging out hoards":

19. We expect a certain amount of cooperation if a member starts to excavate a potential hoard, it's not a free for all! Help fence off the area, take photos and ask the finder if they need assistance. Call an Organiser / Committee member for help. The find belongs to him and the farmer alone. You would wish the same if you were the finder.

No mention there of leaving it for archaeological investigation. In fact, archaeology is not really featured at all on their website, not even in the links section, where there is instead a preponderance of information about how to identify Roman (and Greek!) coins.

Battlefields Trust: Statement on metal detecting

2012-01-16T00:44:00.000-08:00

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In the UK, the Battlefields Trust has issued a 'Statement on metal detecting' (Artefact hunting)

The Battlefields Trust is supportive of archaeological metal detecting on nationally important battlefields and their periphery provided it is conducted to current standards of best practice within the framework of an archaeological survey. Ad hoc metal detecting, whether or not recording is undertaken, can cause the loss of evidence. It thus jeopardises future advances in understanding of the nature of the fighting that can be gained from systematic archaeological survey by distorting the surviving distribution pattern. [...] For those who are planning to metal detect on unknown sites of conflict, the Trust endorses the Code of Practice for Responsible Metal Detecting produced by the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

Anything else is considered destructive of the fragile evidence these sites contain, even (especially) in the topsoil. To view the full Battlefields Trust statement on metal detecting, follow the link below: http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/page94.asp

Coin Looting in the Judean Desert

2012-01-15T23:05:00.000-08:00

Israel National News reports (1/15/2012,Antiquities Theft in Judean Desert Next to Tekoa) an incident of looting in the Judean desert. This was reported by guides of the Kefar Etzion Field School based in Kibbutz Kfar Etzion in the Judean Hills some 20 km. south of Jerusalem. They report that while on a field trip in the region, on Sunday, they "found minorities engaging in antiquities theft". Objects were being looted from:

the ancient community of Hurbath Umm Al-Amad between the Judean Jewish community of Tekoa and the Dead Sea. Among the antiquities being removed are coins from the Bar Cochba period. The guides said the robbers dug meters into the ground at the si[t]e, until they reached the huge water holes used by the ancient members of the community. The field school said [...] the robbers were sophisticated and would be hard to find.

One approach is of course to station soldiers and police on every ancient site in the Judean desert, another of course is to reduce the market for such items by making sellers reveal the origins and acquisition history of the material offered. V-Coins for example over in the USA has quite a few Bar Cochba war period coins on sale by various V-coins dealers, not a single one of which has any associated information which shows that it did not come from looting of this kind.

ZZ Antiquities in Jerusalem has bucket loads of them (" All of our antiquities and items of ancient art come with Export Approval legal documentation from the Israel Antiquities Authority"). So where in the "Holy land" do these coins actually come from?

hat-tip to MSN
Map showing area concerned

KV64 Announced

2012-01-15T21:09:00.001-08:00

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It has been announced today what the rumours were suggesting a while back, a KV64 has been found in the valley of Kings near the tomb of Siptah. It is Third Intermediate Period which is nice, as that was the date of the ones I excavated in Deir El Bahari in 2009. Let's hope this one is more intact than they were. It is a shame though that the geophysical anomaly found by the Amarna Tombs Project could not have got the number KV64. It will be interesting to see what happens there...

UPDATE 16th January
Can't get Thebes out of my mind. I decided not to take part in this season's projects at Deir el Bahari, but as the snow and ice take hold and I re-read Mirek Barwik's "The Twilight of Ramesside Egypt" with all those fascinating graffiti, I cannot help but dream of the desert valleys and a crazy woman Pharaoh's Temple of a Million Years nestling under the cliffs. It's a place I'd been fascinated by since I was seven; on my first visit I was surprised to find out I already knew (almost) every corner of it, never having been there. The fascination, perhaps obsession, remains and I am thrilled and privileged to be able to work there. Oddly enough, it is not the great monuments that excite me as much as the rocks around and in particular the fascination of the ancient graffiti on them, walking in the steps of Butahamon and all the others that scribbled away out in the remote valleys. It's a total contrast to the type of archaeology I specialise in normally, illiterate, anonymous makers of grotty, baggy pots who lived modest lives in holes in the ground (the Early Slavs liked swamps).

Doing Due Diligence but not Knowing the Law?

2012-01-15T01:46:00.000-08:00

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There is a revealing post over on the Forum coiney discussion list. The author is one "bpmurphy" (list status given as "Procurator Monetae", "Caesar") who invites members to "Visit my V-Coins store". This is clearly Barry Murphy, Willow Street, PA 17584-0496 one of the Moneta-L moderators. What he writes about the Weiss case is pretty astounding:

[...] I'm not up to date on stolen property laws, but if Mr. Weiss bought the coin in good faith, other than perhaps having to forfeit the coin, I wonder if he can be held criminally liable?
One aparently ovelooked comment in this complaint, at least not discussed here, is the fact that Italy is claiming title to anything that may have come out of Italy since 1909. This has nothing to do with the recent Mou's. This was an expensive coin so it brought a lot of attention on itself. Can we forsee a time in the near future where Italy starts to claim everything that may have come out of Italy that doesn't have a pre-1909 pedigree?

[Reply #80 on: January 12, 2012, 09:45:12 am] The 1909 reference is to the date when Italy established by law that dugup antiquities were state property, later reinforced in the 1939 legislation. It is rather odd to learn that somebody in the coin business does not know about this as the 1939 law is a favourite among coiney ideologues, who love to refer to it 9and thus by extension all like it) as a "Fascist Law". What is interesting is how a US dealer can go on a public forum and admit he does not know current stolen property laws (in his own country) or the relevant foreign legislation of a country producing some of the coins he regularly buys and sells. So if he does not know the law, how is this dealer doing due diligence to make sure the items he acquires were obtained in accordance with those laws? Can one imagine any other business involving commerce in objects produced in other countries where the dealer would not actually know very much about the laws concerning such commerce? Selling meat and dairy products for example.

What is also odd is that only now does it appear that US dealer Barry Murphy waking up to the fact that the problems of illicit artefacts go well beyond "the recent [CCPIA] MOUs" which is the sole topic that the ACCG is banging on about all the time.

Perhaps, in the light of his admission, Mr Murphy should do a bit more reading before he sells anyone else any more coins with insufficient knowledge of the legal background to what he is doing.

Vignette: I bet when seeing it in the context of their purchasing activities, the coineys interpret this coin design differently from the rest of us.

"Collectors" Guild Keeps US Collectors in the Dark

2012-01-15T01:20:00.001-08:00

The US organization run by some dugup artefact dealers which claims to be a "Guild" of and for "Collectors" of such items seems to be going about looking after US collectors' interests in a very strange way. It is becoming clear from events over the past few weeks that there are currently a number of ongoing changes in the context in which the no-questions-asked collecting of ancient artefacts has so far operated. These must be confusing and difficult times for that collecting milieu. Collectors wanting to know where they stand, and what the future will hold for them and their collections surely should have somewhere to turn for information and advice.

There are as we know a number of US-based coiney blogs and discussion lists, many of them propagating the ACCG point of view. Are collectors finding the information they need to understand the rapidly changing situation on places like Peter Tompa's "Cultural Property Obbserver" blog? Or the "News" section of the ACCG website? or on the Moneta-L discussion list?

Certainly collectors are being enlisted through these and other resources to join the ACCG-led fight against the CCPIA (implementing the 1970 UNESCO Convention) which places import controls on unlawfully exported artefacts and has provisions for the return of stolen artefacts. They have even brought these people into conflict with their own government over this matter, thus exposing them to the danger of being added to a watch-list in future.

But to what extent is the ACCG making the effort to acquaint collectors with the other problems the collector may face if not very careful about the legality of the purchases they make according to US law? I will set out below a few things that collectors will NOT find being discussed on the coiney blogs. The pattern is such that it is very tempting to see this as a deliberate suppression of information. Are collectors being wilfully misled?

A few weeks back I noted that the journalists who run the Chasing Aphrodite blog had drawn attention (Looted Antiquities at American Museums: An On-Going Crime, law professor argues) to an article of Stephen Urice about cultural property and US law which noted a serious problem for the owners of cultural property of less than clean origins: "Between Rocks and hard Places: Unprovenanced Antiquities and the national Stolen Property Act". This was not picked up by coiney bloggers, as I predicted at the time that it would not be, since it undermined the coiney premise that "provenance does not matter". It seems collectors have lost the chance to read the original article which was originally open access and is now subscription-only.

Then there have been developments in the SLAM mummy mask case which suggests some creative use of US legislation by the government (the first to pick this up was 'White Hat' cultural property lawyer Rick St Hilaire, it received very little attention in collecting circles). There have however since been three cases involving interpretations of US law on imports quite separate from the CCPIA which potentially have, I would say, far reaching consequences for those collecting ancient objects brought into America from other countries by less-than-legal means. There were some paintings going to auction, a painting loaned from a museum, and a whole historic warplane that somebody had managed to sneak through not-so-vigilant US Customs. Again, the possible implications of these cases, or rather the interpretation of law on which they are based, have been totally ignored on the coiney blogs. Why?

Dealers try to convince US collectors that current US law (but again, just the CCPIA) "discriminate" against American collectors because allegedly over here in Europe we can fill our homes with looted artefacts and art taken from neighbouring countries. It seems however that the stereotype of collectors over there of the meaning of a Europe without frontiers is maintained only by a refusal on coiney websites to inform collectors of cases which show that this is not the case. Such as the long-running saga in Switzerland about a coin sold there two years ago at auction which was looted from northern Greece. The collector who bought it without proof of legal origins has just lost it, a fact that coiney blogs are not sharing with their audience of collectors who buy stuff from US dealers without proof of legal origins.

Another myth they like to perpetuate is that non-white "Wiley Oriental Gentlemen" are not capable of looking after the cultural heritage of their countries, they are all corrupt and their museums are badly-run and full of thieves. The inference they draw from that is that the laws intended to get freshly-surfaced items into national collections are "bad" laws, and the stuff is "better off" being exported to teh US where private collectors there can look after the artefacts. In order to uphold this viewpoint, each and every case of damage occurring to objects in the museums of the "Wiley Orientals" and especially insider thefts. These are the staples of blogs like Peter Tompa's or Dave Welsh's "Unidroit-L' discussion list. The same "resources" however are totally silent about analogous events when they take place in the museums, archives and public collections of the USA. This is even more noticeable when they affect numismatic collections, such as the recent court case over thefts from the American Numismatic Association Money Museum. The total silence on the coiney blogs is all the more puzzling because there is an appeal for help (and from whom if not the international numismatic community?) to find the missing coins.

Then we have some more missing information on coins, it seems the American Numismatic Society (where our old friend Rick Witschonke is Curatorial Associate) is for some reason at this moment busily censoring the online records of donations from a certain individual, removing the information about where these particular coins came from. It seems to me that coin collectors thinking of donating research material to a US public collection ought to be aware of the fate that may await their own gifts of generosity if they choose the ANS, and this is something that collectors should have to go somewhere else to find out rather than Paul Barford's blog (and look how popular that post is, there seems to be quite a lot of interest in these behind-the-scenes-doings by the ANS). As readers will know, I make the point about the hypocrisy of dealers invoking the "presumption of innocence" in the case of transactions involving freshly-surfaced artefacts, but they do not apply it themselves to acquisitions from certain collectors the moment a grey cloud appears anywhere near their name. We saw this in the case of the ACCG's own treatment of two affiliated dealers (and benefit auction donors) the moment they seemed to be in trouble with the law (the case has not yet come to trial).

Then there is the raid on the New York International Numismatic Convention on 3rd January and the further developments in this case. There seems every reason to believe - including what appear to be a number of 'strategic leaks' - that this is going to be a watershed case. Yet the coiney blogs are silent, forum moderators are keeping discussions under a tight rein and deleting posts before other members see them. It seems to me that for far too long both US dealers and US collectors felt not only that they were above the law, entitled to do what they wanted in the name of their hobby, even to the extent of suing the US government and spreading all sorts of false information about government officials (and others who they saw as their opponents). Obviously if a group is going to accuse the government of illegal acts (which is what the coin dealers have been saying over the application of the CCPIA for years), they had better be 100% sure that they themselves are 100% inside the law. Otherwise they are opening themselves up to precisely the kind of investigation which it seems to me that coin and antiquity collecting are about to face in the USA over the next few months. The fact that it seems to have caught them all by surprise seems to be due to the fact that they as a milieu have been kept woefully poorly-appraised by their (self-appointed) leaders not only of the law itself, but also recent developments that should have been sending out signals that the status quo was not going to last for ever.

Meanwhile, as if to show the irrelevance of the ACCG, despite all that has been going on in and around the coineysphere, the last post on Tompa's blog is an old one about a guy who will not ship Sicilian coins to the USA (see here) and on Dealer Dave's how restrictions on importation of unlawfully exported coins is "destroying the coin market". Both so CCPIA and so old hat...

Vignette: Byron Reed, an early US coin collector (1870s-1890s), time for a change.

Focus on Metal Detecting: A Landowners’ Guide to “Finds Agreements”

2012-01-15T00:30:00.000-08:00

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One would have thought that the Portable Antiquities Scheme, a publicly funded body would be out there giving the public advice on the treatment of portable antiquities and giving them proper archeological outreach on issues connected with collecting and the antiquities trade. Of course as we know, the reality is different, they have their heads down concentrating in the task of building the biggest database they can of taken heritage so they can do their "wotta lotta stuff we got" press releases. Anything that detracts from that effort takes second place. So its a good job we have public spirited organizations like heritage Action to do their job for them (costing the public a lot less than the thirteen million they pay for the dubious privilege of the PAS passively documenting the plunder of the past).

In a post (Metal Detecting: A Landowners’ Guide to “Finds Agreements”) they annotate a typical example of the sort of agreement that arteffact hunters thrust under landowners' noses asking them to sign away the collectable elements of the archaeological record for them to take away and profit from. As they point out, the wording of these agreements "have big implications for both you and any hidden archaeology".

As there’s no official guidance available you’ll be reliant on the detectorist alone to explain it. You may feel that’s not ideal so here are some points to consider. (The most frequently used agreement is shown but our comments apply to most others).

A LANDOWNERS’ GUIDE TO METAL DETECTING FINDS AGREEMENTS

Note here once again the use of the NCMD Code of Practice, despite the existence since 2006 of one agreed with most of the relevant national bodies and totally ignored by the majority of artefact hunters as they are not willing to abide by its definition of responsible behaviour. The NCMD code contains no such definitions and is mainly about shutting gates and not scaring sheep, important, but hardly related to the preservation of archaeological information.

There is no mention here either of what "value" is being shared, the total value of artefacts removed from the farmer's property, those items that a collector keeps for himself, those he sells or swaps, as well as the metal he takes to be melted down for scrap? The conditions of the division of the spoils surely need further definition in a document of this type.

Who is to determine the value of non-treasure items taken away and added to the finder's personal artefact collection (thus increasing its value)? If the agreement is signed by an absentee landlord, is the tenant farmer qualified to negotiate the sum the detectorist should pay for each day's haul of non-Treasure collectables? On what basis?

No mention here is made of the obligation of the finder to declare to the landowner everything they find and take away to allow its full market value to be assessed, or what happens if the landowner finds they have not.

On what basis is ownership transferred? No mention is made of any kind of paperwork proving that an object was added to a collection of metal detected finds by legal and mutually agreed means. this becomes important when latter those finds are disposed of.

There is no mention here of the "value" of the photographic rights. As we have seen here, one detectorist has revealed what most of them try to keep quiet, that a detectorist can get five hundred pounds for each digital shot of even very common and mundane artefacts (with no scale even). Obviously if detectorists are taking away even half a dozen finds each time they visit, the revenues from such sources add up over a few seasons, so where is the mention of this in this agreement? Why is the farmer being kept in the dark over this? Despite metal detectorists' efforts to silence whistle-blowers, this certainly needs wider publicity to avoid landowners getting ripped off to the extent of lost earnings of several thousands of pounds yearly by these people.

A Different Magnitude

2012-01-14T23:54:00.004-08:00

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The gossip is flying around on the forums about the NYC coin bust. Most of it is as yet unconfirmed. An informant going under the obvious pseudonym "philmcraighin" reports (on the Forum discussion list January 13, 2012, 06:15:30 pm) that "It now turns out on good authority that Dr. Weiss had in his pocket a second decadrachm of Akragas when he was arrested !" (the original post has now been deleted for some reason from the list). A bit later on he supplied (Reply # 97, Jan 14th, at 07:15:49 pm) some more (as yet officially unconfirmed) information which at the moment it seems US coineys and their pals are refusing to accept:

In addition to the information out on the New York seizure three interpol arrest warrants have now been issued, one for an American dealer and two Italian dealers residing outside Italy. The case is far more serious than I had previously imagined and given the amounts of money paid grand larceny and conspiracy will be added to the charges. Not a good way to start the numismatic new year.

Meanwhile David Gill is doing his own teasing ("Coin talk on the sidewalk"):

"Word in Manhattan is that one of the seized coins may indeed be more interesting than first realized. The present proprietor and his partner will have to make some difficult decisions. More soon".

Yes, this case is indeed far more serious than the coineys preferred to believe at the beginning. This is not the end, either.

Vignette: The rare coin trade is no stranger to scandal, among others, readers may remember the 2006 Tom Noe case.

"Esmeralda's Cumbrian History" on a Second Object in a Crosby Garrett Hoard?

2012-01-14T12:20:00.000-08:00

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Diane McIlmoyle has an interesting blog post (The Crosby Garret Roman Helmet – The One That Got Away 10.01.2012) which presents a slightly different view of the whole sorry affair of the Crosby Garrett helmet. It contains one or two snippets not present in the previous published accounts. Are these based perhaps on local knowledge not otherwise available? I am a bit sceptical because part of the story she recounts reflects what should ideally have happened, rather than what actually did transpire back in May 2010 (I am however left wondering whether this is what the PAS is now putting out for local consumption?)

[...] realised that he might, in fact, have unearthed something quite special. So, like all good metal detectorists, he contacted the local Portable Antiquities team who met him at the Crosby Garrett site to see where the metal had been unearthed. The Finds Liaison Officers could then confirm that as the metal pieces were not a precious metal (they’re brass) and they were parts of a single item found on its own, they fell outside the legal definition of ‘treasure’ under the 1996 Treasure Act. This meant that the detectorist and the landowner were free to dispose of them as they saw fit. The metal pieces were then sent to the famous London auctioneers, Christie’s.

She draws attention to what the FLOs say about the findspot: "In fact, the FLOs (Stuart Noon and Dot Boughton) who visited the finds site at Crosby Garrett concluded that there were earthworks from an ancient, previously unknown, settlement nearby". (Earthworks, eh? Pasture then? That would fit with where I reconstructed the findspot on this blog which has clear earthworks visible on the aerial and satellite photos.)

The blogger has some interesting thoughts on the attempted negotiations with the landowner and finders before the sale, there seems to be more here too than meets the eye. The position of the landowner in particular always being here (as was noted at the time) a bit odd.

There is however one piece of information to which she draws attention which raises an enormous number of questions about the way this find was handled (and indeed should be examined carefully by those reforming the Treasure Act). Ms McIlmoyle reports:

The remaining mystery is that the conserved helmet was constructed from 67 of the 68 pieces of metal found. It was decided that the remaining piece was a patch, as there were traces of solder on it. There were, however, no matching traces of solder to be found on the rest of the helmet. If it had been possible to demonstrate that the 68th piece was part of a second object, then, according to the Treasure Act, the helmet would now be in public ownership.

Well, I suppose we might ask, why was it "not possible" to demonstrate that this piece was part of a second object? Much MORE TO THE POINT, where is this alleged second item in the PAS record of the find? Why was this second object (the patch from another object) not identified as such when the PAS specialists examined the object in Christie's? Why was a team of excavators not immediately assembled and sent out to examine the findspot and the area around it BEFORE the sale? If there is a second object still in the ground in the same ancient pit in which the helmet was buried, and we (allegedly) have the patch (and in fact there was also a metal rod- seen in the PAS photos) then the helmet was not buried as a single object. There therefore should be an inquest, and the objects (including the one already removed from the ground which was not previously the subject of an inquest) declared Treasure.

OR, is the landowner, anxious about precisely such an outcome, blocking access of any archaeological team to the findspot?

OR are the Portable Antiquities Scheme themselves rather wary of approaching this findspot knowing that if they uncover more pieces of bronze, they would be opening a can of worms?

I think the nation is owed the truth about this find, don't you?
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On Sale: Medieval Jewish Manuscripts Discovered in Afghanistan

2012-01-13T21:54:00.000-08:00

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It seems from what has already turned up scattered on the markets of three countries that a cache of rare, medieval Jewish manuscripts have been discovered somewhere in Afghanistan. There is only very vague information where ("along the fabled Silk Road") they were found, by whom and how they left the country and whether there are more to unearth. The 200 or so documents - some in good condition and others crumpled or in fragments - are in the hands of several dealers, in London, Geneva and Jerusalem. But scholars are eager to see them donated to libraries and museums. One story of the discovery of the manuscripts has them being found in a remote cave.

Many of the pages are torn from books and are in a variety of languages, including Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Persian, both written in Hebrew script. They include biblical commentaries, books of Jewish law, liturgical poems, previously unknown work by Saadia Gaon, one of the most influential thinkers of the Middle Ages, as well as business letters and trading documents, such as deeds of sale.[...] The documents describe a Jewish community that lived, permanently or temporarily, in a trading station between the Muslim conquest and the Mongol invasion. [...] It was a turbulent period, he says, when a sect known as the Karaite — which rejected the Talmudic or rabbinic tradition and accepted only the Torah as holy scripture — was active.

One thing is clear, subsistence farming peasants in remote districts of Afghanistan do not have the business contacts to get stuff like this across international borders and into London and Geneva antiquities dealers stockrooms. So, who does, and where did the money generated by these illicit transactions go?

UPDATE: Medievalists.net reports that the "150 fragments" were found "purportedly by shepherds looking for sheep, in the mountains of Samangan province".

Leslie Scrivener, 'Medieval Jewish manuscripts discovered in Afghanistan include an unknown work by Saadia Gaon', Toronto Star Jan 13 2012.

Paul J Baumeister, 'Ancient Book of Jeremiah Found in Mountains of Afghanistan', Apostolic perspective, Jan 4th, 2012.

Medievalists.net, 'Medieval Jewish manuscripts discovered in Afghanistan' January 3, 2012

Vignette, one of the manuscripts.

Quis Custodiet

2012-01-13T04:01:00.000-08:00

The American Numismatic Association Money Museum in Colorado Springs . This Museum opened in 1967, is the USA's largest museum dedicated exclusively to numismatics. Its collection of 275,000 numismatic objects includes money from its earliest uses 2,600 years ago to individual coins worth millions of dollars and modern issues, as well as paper money, coins, tokens and medals from throughout the world.

Wyatt Yeager, 33, was a collection manager at the Museum from January through March 2007. In October 2007 it was discovered that 300 historically significant coins and other numismatic objects, valued at $984,740, had been stolen. This was followed by an extensive FBI investigation, in which the museum staff worked with authorities and played a critical role in helping to uncover vital evidence in the case. The theft was kept confidential so as not to compromise the ongoing investigation. In this time it was found that Yeager relocated to Ireland, and it transpired that he sold numerous rare coins stolen from the museum in three different countries. The ANA retained Robert Wittman, Inc., a security and recovery consulting firm that specializes in recovering stolen art and collectibles, to investigate and recover the stolen coins. Robert K. Wittman, the company’s founder and chief investigator, was the founder of the FBI’s National Art Crime Team.

Yeager was caught and eventually charged with Theft of Major Artwork, violation of Title 18, United States, Section 668 (which has a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years imprisonment, a $250,000 fine and three years supervised release following any term of imprisonment). A few days ago he entered a guilty plea today in Federal District Court in Wilmington, DE, to the theft. Not all of the stolen coins have been recovered.

This was announced by ANA President Tom Hallenbeck, saying: “This is a terrible loss for the ANA, the hobby and for coin collectors everywhere, [...] The ANA is continuing this investigation and will diligently pursue the recovery of the stolen items.” A list of stolen items can be found here

As a result of the theft, the ANA has embarked on an upgrade to its security systems and further modified its internal security procedures. In addition, many of the ANA’s important coins are being encapsulated by NGC to allow better inventory control through modern bar coding technology, photography and other enhanced security procedures. “I want to reassure our members – and hobbyists everywhere – that the ANA is committed to improving the security of its collection, which is a true national treasure. As new technologies are developed, we will continually assess our security needs,” Hallenbeck said. “Unfortunately, about 90 percent of museum thefts have some insider component.”

As for the missing coins,

"Hallenbeck said owning those coins is a crime even if the buyers didn't know they were committing a crime. "Even if they bought them in good faith, because it is a museum, there are cultural laws about that they have to turn them in. It's actually a felony to own these coins," said Hallenbeck. To the ANA, the coins have more than just more monetary value. "It's history in your hands. These are primary documents of history," said Douglas Mudd, curator of the museum. "They're very important for us to be able to use to tell the story of money and our own history."

Is that not ironic when many US collectors of dugup ancient coins totally disregard those same cultural property laws to acquire such coins in the first place? We even saw them petitioning the State Department to stop restricting the import of unlawfully exported coins from a source country like Cyprus. It is also ironic that when they are stolen from America, they are ("our") important important cultural property, when they are stolen from browner-skinned people across the sea that is in the eyes of US collectors "cosmopolitan" culture-creating "cultural property internationalism" (sic).

Of course if people buying coins required better documentation of origins and collecting history for the items they are considering purchasing, it would have been impossible for this smug-faced thief to have sold anything. Once again, it seems that the solution to this problem too is increased transparency of the market.

Also it cannot fail to escape notice that when it is a museum which has security problem in the browner-skinned source countries, it is splashed all over the coiney blogs and forums, intended to prove that the foreigners can't be trusted to look after their own heritage and its better off stolen so American collectors can "look after it". There have been quite a few thefts for US museums and archives (including Presidental documents going missing from State Archives) in the past few months and they - like the ANA "insider" theft do not get a mention on the coiney blogs. Not a peep. that more than anything shows how they are not a reliable source of information or "observations' on cultural property matters, even as they affect coins and US coin collecting. I leave it up to the reader to work out why that might be.

Martinez Man Enters Guilty Plea – Admits Stealing Almost $1M Worth of Rare Coins

Lance Benzel, 'Insider pleads guilty in stealing 300 coins from money museum', The Colorado Springs Gazette January 12, 2012

Coin Week, 'Ex Collection Manager at ANA Money Museum Pleads Guilty to $1 Million Coin Theft', Jan 13th 2012.

Vignette: From Coin Week.

"They Can Freely Buy This Stuff in Europe": Can "They"?

2012-01-12T20:52:00.000-08:00

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One of the little fallacies collectors of dugup ancient coins in the US like to perpetuate is that allegedly in Europe collectors are not subject to the same restraints as US collectors over the purchase of unlawfully acquired or exported coins. The only reason they can maintain the fiction is not paying attention to reports like this one (which nota bene is not referenced on any of the main US coiney blogs to date). This is the followup to a story I have covered earlier, and David Giill also covered it, all the US coineys could do at the time was snipe at the use of the wrong stock photo as an image to illustrate the report in the foreign newspapers. Now it seems they are just ignoring it.

Associated Press, 'Greece secures Swiss confiscation of rare ancient coin that was allegedly illegally excavated', January 12 2012

A Swiss court has ordered the confiscation of a very rare ancient silver coin that was allegedly illegally excavated in northern Greece and sold at auction in Switzerland, Greek and Swiss officials say. The lawyer representing Greece in the case said Thursday that the ruling in October opens the way for the early 5th century B.C. coin’s return to Greece. The debt-crippled country’s rich cultural heritage has long suffered depredations from antiquities smugglers supplying a lucrative international market. “The coin was treated in the Swiss court ruling as a product of criminal activity that was illegally exported from our country and was then illegally offered (for sale) abroad,” Ilias Bisias told The Associated Press.

I think we all know of other potential examples of that sort of thing happening. US dugup coin collectors are currently petitioning their State Department to allow unlawfully exported coins through US Customs so they can be bought and sold in the US. The coin in question is a high-denomination octadrachm (8 drachma) issue of a little-known Thracian ruler named Mosses, king of the Basaltae, around 480 B.C., such coins are rather rare, so when (as is rumoured) somebody was touting round photos of one which apparently recently "surfaced" in northern Greece, it was noticed. "After allegedly changing hands through a number of offshore companies, according to Greek authorities", what was clearly the same coin then turned up on the market in Switzerland. The Hellenic Ministry of Culture tried to intervene before the sale but without success. The coin was sold in 2009 to an unidentified collector for 100,000 Swiss francs (US$106,000), but following a Greek request it was then provisionally seized by the Swiss with the help of Interpol before it was collected by the purchaser. The Swiss court decision did not identify the seller of the coin at the auction. Still lurking on the internet is a sales notice of just such a coin, sold by a Swiss auction house for a sum of 100k Swiss Francs. Is this the coin in question? (Numismatica Ars Classica NAC AG / Auction 52: Roman, Greek and Byzantine coins ).

So it is not really true that in Europe we go around selling off archaeological objects that have been illegally removed from the archaeological record of neighbouring states. Certainly a lot more of these investigations and court cases should be going on over here, but no-questions-asked dealing and collecting are not as risk-free as US no-questions-asked dealers and collectors would like to believe (we also recall some German seizures from collectors' homes about a year back - those were noted by the coineys who of course likened this to Nazi raids).

Map: Where the Bisaltai are thought more-or-less to have been situated in the past (Wikicommons, edited).

The Disappearing ANS Weiss Collection

2012-01-12T08:38:00.000-08:00

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I see, despite all his current worries, Arnold-Peter Weiss has been nominated for the Board of Trustees of the American Numismatic Society. Good for him.

"A donor to the Society, he is a generous contributor to the ANS collections, Gala, annual appeals, and is one of the founding members of the ANS’ Augustus B. Sage Society".

I am a bit puzzled though, did the ANS have as this Dec 3rd Google Cache suggests an Arnold-Peter Weiss collection? If so, where has it gone? Here's one of his coins in the ANS Collection. It still says: "Gift of Arnold-Peter Weiss". These are his too, according to Google cache (notably made on 3 Jan 2012 23:51:07 GMT), but look at the page NOW. They've already deleted his name. Oh, that is not very nice of the ANS is it? Nor, would I say very transparent or ethical. What does that mean? That only now the Trustees have some "reasonable doubts" about something? What and why? Or what? What's going on?

But they have not nobbled the 2007 story of ANS Trustee Dr. Arnold-Peter C. Weiss donating a (complete?) "Celtic" hacksilver hoard from Spain "dating circa the fourth to third century BC. It consists of 135 pieces of coins and cut jewelry used as money (Fig. 1). This exceedingly rare donation continues Dr. Weiss’s interest in adding to the ANS cabinet items related to alternative money and bullion sources used in early trade". Sadly the newsletter does not say where the object was found, by whom and how it left Spain and entered the USA (see now here). The link in the article now goes to a coin from a hacksilver hoard - without any mention of whose donation it was. There's gratitude for you.

There is slightly more information about the previous history of another of his donations though, this one in early 2005:

A donation of historical importance came from one of the ANS Trustees, Dr. Arnold-Peter C. Weiss: a group of 19 items comprising a fifth-century BC hoard from Egypt which includes a large silver cake ingot (fig. 1). The provenance of this group, which represents one of the few known examples in the United States, is a private collection (from Valais, Switzerland) purchased in the 1950s.

See also the account of a later 2005 donation by Dr Weiss which may be related, or the same. Despite the assurances that this is a pre-1970 UNESCO Convention export from Egypt, the links here too go to catalogue entries of items without (now) any public information who generously donated it to the ANS collection.

Then there is the "group of sixty-six Eastern European Celtic coins" Dr Weiss donated in 2006. If you click on the link in this article, you find the donor's name appears to have been removed by the ANS from the entry here too. Wallachia, Transylvania, and to some extent Banat are all in modern Romania - which has legislation making such coin finds state property, when did these 36 items leave southeastern Europe and how?

It seems the absence of Dr Weiss' name from the online records of the ANS collection is due to deletions which have taken place very recently (the dates of the Google caches) and it seems not unlikely that the ANS has been engaged in what they might see as "damage control", for example that they now have some kind of "reasonable doubts" about the propriety of accepting some of the objects donated in the past by this ANS member. If so it is notable that of less importance is the actual state of hygiene of their collections than the appearance that they are sqeaky-clean. But then, on the other hand, it is also worth drawing attention to the fact that as things stand today, Dr Weiss has not been convicted of any wrong-doing whatsoever.

Readers of this blog who have followed the links I give will be well aware of the frequency with which US coineys apply the notion of "innocent until proven guilty" to their collecting, saying it is up to the accusers to prove guilt. We have seen though that this principle is not always applied by their associations. In July 2011 Salem Alshdaifat (Holyland Numismatics) and Morris Khouli (Windsor Antiquities) were summarily removed from the list ("suspended") of sponsors and members of the Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild because they were in the news as accused of customs irregularities (the case has yet to come to trial). It seems the ANS is reacting in a similar way just days after vague and rather (at the moment) low-profile accusations about Dr Weiss' acquisition of two coins (actually only one of them) appeared in the press. Where is the justice in that? Dr Weiss has been an extremely generous donor to the ANS but the moment a grey cloud appears, they turn their backs on him? If the reason for the deletions is that the ANS is now having "reasonable doubts" about the origins of the coins he gave them, why were those doubts not expressed earlier, when the donations were accepted? This is down to due diligence. What has changed about what the ANS now knows about the origins of Dr Weiss' coins (as opposed to any other coins donated by other ANS members at the same time)?

If they are deleting his name from the acquisition records because of unproven allegations and an impending court case, I think the ANS reaction here is shabby and disgraceful. If I were an ANS member, I'd be cancelling my subscription right now and would be reconsidering any decision to donate them research material if that is the way they treat their sponsors to maintain a facade.

It is also quite interesting in the light of recent events to read Dr Weiss' Sept 2009 comments on the Art Newspaper article 'Hispanic Society to sell historic coin collection?'. He describes the intention to sell this "irreplaceable cultural collection of historical coins related to Spanish history" as "truly despicable" and an expression of "greed".

This type of asset for the US academic community and public can never be replaced. The arguments of context of cultural property are so powerful in this matter that to see the collection broken up and distributed is a sad remark on what a non-profit organization should stand for. Even if the Spanish government buys the collection intact, the issue of transferring legally acquired cultural material from the shores of the USA forever, is problematic. Is this country just going to continue to sell all our cultural assets and material abroad? We could learn some lessons from the British, Austrians, Germans and French in this regard.

Eh? and not the Italians and Greeks, who fight to keep their country's cultural property from going to foreign collectors and do not shrink from getting help from other states to get it back when it does?

Note how these coins, and in particular their arrangement into a collection, has become "our" (ie US) cultural assets. Note also how agitated the American gets here about them being "sold abroad", yet US collectors apparently have no compunction whatsoever about buying other peoples' cultural assets for their own personal entertainment and profit.

[Despite ANS opposition, the Hispanic Society's coins are now up for sale]

Vignette: ANS "un-person" Dr Weiss (after Chasing Aphrodite, edited)

ANS: "Within the World of Artifacts, Coins as a Class do, in fact, Stand Apart"

2012-01-12T06:49:00.001-08:00

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The Chasing Aphrodite blog draws attention to the "American Numismatic Society Statement on Cultural Property Concerns" approved by its board of trustees October 22, 2005. It might be worth looking at it again seven years later in the light of subsequent events. Well, of course what we find is the usual coiney moaning about how ensuring hygiene of collections measures like checking the lawful origins of potential purchases can in the words of the Trustees place "an undue burden on lawful collecting, legitimate numismatic trade, and scholarly research". The ANS therefore urges that in deliberations over the importation of artefacts, full attention should be given to the "exceptional factors that pertain to historical coins" in order to "ensure the continuance of legitimate collecting, the protection of the cultural heritage of countries negatively affected by the ongoing trade in illicit antiquities, and the preservation, analysis and dissemination of knowledge of the past". I suppose that really depends on how the ANS defined "lawful collecting" in 2005 and whether that term can be used in the same way for the same practices seven years on. I think that recent events in the US are beginning to suggest that by the end of this year, the collecting of dugup ancient coins in the US collecting may well be on a different footing than it was in 2005.

It is therefore worth looking again at those "exceptional factors that pertain to historical coins". These of course are the usual tired old coiney mantras:
1) "Historically, coins were produced by the millions and they survive by the hundreds of thousands".
2) "Since the Renaissance coins have been avidly collected and studied by princes, scholars, and historically-minded hobbyists alike".
3) "Collecting and dealing in coins that have been in private hands for many years does not contribute to the destruction of cultural heritage".
4) "Likewise, because most coins in private collections have been traded and held without any provenance, it is unreasonable to assume that a coin is stolen, illegally exported, or illegally imported merely because the holder cannot establish a chain of custody beyond receipt from a reputable source". This litany concludes:

Taken together, such considerations argue that within the world of artifacts, coins as a class do, in fact, stand apart.

Well, do they?
a) "Historically, ancient Greek pottery vessels were produced by the millions and they survive by the hundreds of thousands".
2) "Since the Renaissance, ancient Greek pottery vessels have been avidly collected and studied by princes, scholars, and historically-minded hobbyists alike".
3) "Collecting and dealing in ancient Greek pottery vessels that have been in private hands for many years does not contribute to the destruction of cultural heritage".
4) Likewise, because most ancient Greek pottery vessels in private collections have been traded and held without any provenance, it is unreasonable to assume that an ancient Greek pottery vessel is stolen, illegally exported, or illegally imported merely because the holder cannot establish a chain of custody beyond receipt from a reputable source.

In fact we could certainly say more or less the same about - for example - ancient Egyptian shabti figures, scarabs, faience eyes of Horus, and mummy cases and their fragments, Roman intaglios with and without their rings, glass lachrymatories, ancient Near Eastern seals, whole archives of cuneiform tablets, erotic samian (both whole vessels and their fragments), knocked off heads of various statues such as Tanagra figurines etc etc. I really do not accept the four arguments above as in any way differentiating coins from other artefact types.

The fourth deserves some attention and poses a question. It is wholly unclear in the context of US law (remember this is the American Numismatic Association) why, and in what context, an assumption is made that an ancient Greek pottery vessel (or coin) "is stolen, illegally exported, or illegally imported merely because the holder cannot establish a chain of custody beyond receipt from a reputable source". In US law, the main problem collectors have (the document addresses "cultural property deliberations over the importation of artifacts") is with the flow of fresh material onto the already massive US market from abroad (ancient coins are as a rule not dug up on North American soil). So this poses the question: what "chain of custody" is required for the passage of an item across US borders? Neither the CCPIA nor the various other pieces of unrelated legislation relating to lawful importation of goods into the USA require proving a chain of custody. They do however require documentation of a entirely different nature - documentation on which the "American Numismatic Society Statement on Cultural Property Concerns" for some reason maintains a complete silence - doesn't it?

The ANS has its own policy on the "Acquisition and Disposal of Numismatic and Library Material". There is nothing terribly remarkable in it, they of course assure us all that they support "the spirit and intent" of the 1970 UNESCO Convention (all of it?) and thus:

The Society will not purchase or exhibit numismatic objects or other items that the Society reasonably suspects to have been unlawfully removed from archeological sites, stolen from public or private collections, removed from their country of origin in contravention of that country's laws declaring them state property or otherwise imported in contravention of the laws of the United States.

These are fine words, but are they any more than that? What is "reasonable suspicion" if the absence of even a single piece of information on where an object came from (and by what chain of custody it left the ground, left the source country and came into the US) is not considered (above) in any way a hindrance to its acquisition on such grounds? Would an object have to have "I am stolen" written right across it before the ANS buyer's reasonable suspicion is aroused? Or is it enough to have enough soil and grot adhering to it that it is clear its not from an old collector's mahogany cabinet?

Since the ANS suggestion that lack of any kind of collecting history is not a hindrance to responsible acquisition (really?) is less than helpful, perhaps they would be so kind as to get the Trustees together in 2012 and actually provide a proper ANS definition of "reasonable suspicion" that an object could have been:
a) unlawfully removed from archeological sites (closer definition?),
b) stolen from public or private collections,
c) removed from their country of origin in contravention of that country's laws [actually export laws as per 1970 UNESCO Convention which the ANS "supports", as well as]
d) removed from their country of origin in contravention of that country's laws
declaring them state property
e) or otherwise imported in contravention of the laws of the United States.
It seems to me that creating such definitions is pretty near impossible while holding to the view that the purchaser does not need to know from the "holder" anything which would allow the establishment of "a chain of custody beyond receipt from a reputable source". But I could be wrong, it would be interesting to see what the ANS Board of Trustees could come up with if they put their coiney minds to it.

While they are at it, perhaps the ANS trustees could create a definition of what constitutes a "reputable source". Is it one that sells reasonably priced coins and dispatches them as soon as he gets the customer's money? Is it one who has never been caught selling fakes? Is it one who not only merely assures everyone of the legitimate sources of his material but can demonstrate that with documentation, or one who merely covers his tracks so well "they can't touch you for it"?

I think that if the ANS really want to show that within the world of dugup antiquities, coins as a class and those who trade in them and collect them, "do in fact, stand apart" will have a try a good deal harder now than in 2005. Are they up to the task? Or will they let matters slide and just stay with their original outdated wishy-washiness?

Farmer Giles is Confused about UK "conservation", as are we all

2012-01-12T02:14:00.001-08:00

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From a UK farming magazine's letters page:

Dear DEFRA,
I see from your Entry Level Stewardship handbook (in which you explain how you will pay farmers like me for looking after our land) that I must not "run free-range pigs on archaeological sites” (Section 1.5.4) whereas “metal detecting is allowed on land within an ELS agreement” (Section 1.5.5).

Can you please explain why that is, given that as we both know, pigs don't dig down half as far as detectorists or take any artefacts away? It seems to me your rules are anti-oink but pro-oik. Why do you take such an irrational stance? Are you trying to protect archaeology or not?
Sincerely
P.I. Giles, Priory Farm, Porkton, Nr Cheltenham, UK.

I think he has a point and DEFRA should make the distinction clearer.

Vignette: puzzled pig.

Coiney Talk on the New York Coin Bust

2012-01-12T01:15:00.001-08:00

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Just to get an insight into the mindset of some of these collectors, take a look here, bearing in mind the actual reasons why under US law a coin might be seized for further investigation by law enforcement officials. Quite remarkably the discussion on the Forum coiney discussion list goes on largely in the same, 'fourth amendment' etc vein.* It seems to me that the US is not doing a terribly good job in educating its own citizens about these matters (1970 UNESCO Convention: Article 10b, Article 5 f - the lack of attention to the first part of article 5 by the US may have something to do with that).

* It is quite amazing isn't it that many coiney Americans obviously think that theirs is the ONLY country in the world where the principle "innocent until proven guilty" exists (indeed they seem to think the US invented it). News for you guys, it goes back to Roman Law (Digest of Justinian) and even Revolutionary France and communist Poland had the same legal principle.

"It's Your own Fault": Chasing Aphrodite on the Significance of the Weiss Investigation for Militant US Coineyism

2012-01-12T00:48:00.000-08:00

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The "Chasing Aphrodite" blog has some details of the allegations against Arnold-Peter C. Weiss in relation to transactions involving two Greek coins from Sicily. After noting that the investigation was in its early stages, the blog authors surmise that "given Weiss’ prominence in the numismatic community" (the former treasurer of the American Numismatic Society, chairman of the board at Rhode Island School of Design’s art museum and on the collecting committee of the Harvard Arts Museums), the case:

bears some early similarities to the criminal case against Fred Schultz, the head of the national antiquities dealers association, who was convicted in 2002 of knowingly trafficking in looted antiquities from Egypt. The Schultz case proved a watershed in the art world, underscoring the fact that trafficking in looted antiquities was a violation of American law.

The blog's authors also note the "on-going battles over whether coins should be included in bilateral agreements between the US and foreign nations aimed at preventing the traffic in looted antiquities" and suggest that if brought to court, this case could potentially have a profound effect on the US discussions on this topic. As they note:

Numismatists have long argued that coins should be exempted from import restrictions. As the American Numismatic Society states on its website, “…Because most coins in private collections have been traded and held without any provenance, it is unreasonable to assume that a coin is stolen, illegally exported, or illegally imported merely because the holder cannot establish a chain of custody beyond receipt from a reputable source.” That position may be more difficult to maintain in the face of a criminal case against Weiss, who was treasurer of the ANS from 2005 – 2009.

There is as yet no mention of this series of events in the "News" section of the Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild website, which is a bit odd, isn't it? Certainly, given the intransigence of the ancient coin collecting (scil. dealing) community led by lobbyists employed by the PNG, IAPN and ACCG to attempts to clean up the US numismatic and antiquities market, and their blatant and damaging opposition to US policies on the matter (including an attempt to sue their own government), a high profile arrest or two were on the cards. I guess collectors will be left waiting to know whether there will be any more, and who is next. Who could be on the watch list?

There is an interesting coincidence in the timing of this event. As all coineys will know, midnight of January 3rd was the deadline on the Regulations.gov website for the final public comments to existing laws on import controls on unlawfully exported artefacts from Cyprus (including coins like those many of the people expressing their objections themselves collect). I suppose conspiracy theorists might wonder whether there was a connection between this and the rather late intervention of Federal law enforcement authorities in this matter - also on 3rd January (but at two in the afternoon, rather late for the news to reach all those planning to voice their support for the import of unlawfully exported coins on the last day). Could there have been an ulterior motive for the delaying of the intervention? That might give some coiney conspiracy theorists pause for thought, I guess.

Coiney Problems Joining the Dots

2012-01-11T12:47:00.000-08:00

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Bangor's Professor Raimund Karl may have had problems convincing (continental) colleagues to his views on the alleged archaeological benefits of liberalising artefact hunting, but he has become the poster boy among artefact collectors across the sea. Cross-posting the dealers' paid lobbyist's blog post "Metal Detectorists Preserve Artifacts Archaeologists Often Destroy or Ignore!" Californian coin-dealer-guy writes:

Here we have evidence from a respected archaeologist, that a rational examination of what "artifact hunters" [to use an emotionally charged pejorative term invented by anticollecting ideologues] are actually doing must conclude that they are preserving artifacts from the destructive activities of archaeologists.

In artefact collecting circles, an archaeologist only gains the label "respected" when he or she writes something that supports artefact collecting, when they don't they are "taxi-drivers", or "radicals" or "anticollecting ideologues". What Raimund Karl wrote was that artefact hunters take collectables from the topsoil of excavatable sites which tends to be machined away if sites are excavated. Readers might remember the Californian dealer arguing until he was blue in the face that the things that artefact hunters find, and artefact dealers buy from them "do not come from archaeological sites", that they are for the most part from "hoards buried at the edges of battlefields". It seems the dealer has a short memory, or an inability to join the dots of what he himself is saying.

By the way, in America they call the hobby "relic hunting" (likewise "meteorite hunting" is not treated as a pejorative term over there). Fox hunters hunt foxes, caribou hunters hunt caribou, house hunters hunt for houses and artefact hunters hunt for artefacts. Why is calling a spade a spade in any way a problem?

Vignette: Connecting the dots from Sociopath world.

What do These Collectables from Munich Have in Common?

2012-01-11T11:18:00.000-08:00

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The coin dealers' paid lobbyist perhaps unwittingly draws attention to a bit too much when he tries on his blog to score political points from a V-Coins dealer's caution. He writes:

The practical impact of import restrictions should be made crystal clear with these words, "No Shipment to the USA." This German dealer will no longer ship this Syracusian Tetradrachm to the USA, presumably because of import restrictions on "coins of Italian type."

Is that the reason? Oddly enough if you search through the entire stock list of the dealer highlighted by Tompa D. F. Grotjohann, you will find a number of coins of types related to the Italian MOU (like for example here, here, here, here and here), but only in the case of five - mostly quite high value - coins is it indicated that they will not be shipped to the US. Interestingly they all come from Sicily. Like the two coins seized in New York the other day. One might legitimately ask whether the caution of the dealer noted on the website is related to the MOU or the seizure? For example, does the Munich dealer know something about the earlier collecting history of the two "Cabinet W" coins seized and the five he has on offer (including several of dates not far removed from the 409-403 date range of the two currently safely stored in the New York District Attorney's office)? Just a thought.

The one coin from among these five with a "provenance" (sic) is "Gorny & Mosch [Munich] Sale 200, #1235I". In other words, surfaced on the market before, or about Mon 10 October 2011. That is hardly what anybody with an ounce of intelligence would call a collecting history is it? (but it disproves Tompa's assertion that the reason why these coins cannot be imported to the USA is because they are "not figured in auction catalogues" because this one is, though rather too late to be any help getting it through US customs). The rest are being sold like potatoes with the only reference cited being other coins that look like the one being sold.

In answer to Peter Tompa, if there is something potentially dodgy, or the Munich dealer simply cannot account for where these coins come from, then the practical implications of the MOU are clear. It is doing what it is intended to do, to keep certain types of dodgy or potentially dodgy coins of unknown origin off the US market. Why would that concern a responsible US collector?

UPDATE 12.01.12: This keeping potentially dodgy material of unknown origins off the US market is what dealers over there call "destroying the market". Frankly, if that really is what the US market thrives on, it is surely better all round not being preserved in its current form. Maybe 2012 will see the beginnings of responsible US collectors and dealers working to clean up the US dugup antiquities market. Is that too much to ask? Really?

Illustration: [edited] Screenshot from V-Coins search page.

Rewriting History on the Twinstead Hoard Theft: It Never Happened?

2012-01-11T06:43:00.001-08:00

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The events on last year's Twinstead commercial artefact hunting rally where a whole load of people made of with gold coins some of which seem to have been offered on eBay within hours of coming out of the ground give some insight into what goes on in UK metal detecting. Thus a considerable effort was put, by metal detectorists and their partners the Portable Antiquities Scheme, into playing down these events. It seems with some success, the residents of the village obviously have no idea at all that this thievery was going on under their very noses. A local newspaper boasts that Twinstead has one of the best track records when it comes to low crime rates.

According to the latest Home Office crime statistics, Twinstead suffered no crime or anti-social whatsoever in November and October. Since December 2010, the village has suffered just three crimes along with one incident of anti-social behaviour. In July last year, there was a burglary and in September there were two thefts, which could have been either a stolen bicycle or theft from a person. Parish councillor David Holland of Church Road said: “It’s delightful living here."

I guess we can bet quite safely that it was not the commercial artefact hunting rally either that was counted as the "anti-social" behaviour. It is not known if Councillor David Holland is a metal detector user. Now why did metal-detecting police constable "Eagle 1" dealing with this case not report a crime in the village? Does he think he has all the coins back? Is he sure? How many coins were recovered within the 14 days, and what is the status of the investigation?

Halstead Gazette, 'Is Twinstead the county's safest area?', Wednesday 11th January 2012.

Raimund Karl and the "Graue Schafe"

2012-01-11T02:15:00.000-08:00

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Nigel Swift drew my attention to the old thread on the HAPPAH forum about a conference held on 1st September 2011 in Mauerbach, Austria. This was called: ""Graue Schafe" – zur fachlichen Relevanz unautorisiert geborgener (Prospektions-) Funde". Hmmm "salvaged? Prospection? finds - artefact hunting and collecting they mean. I do not know if a publication is planned (or has appeared) of the proceedings, it would be interesting to know.

According to a report sent by a contributor (5th September 2011) who had been present, there were some 40 archaeologists and others from Austria and Germany present and a lot of discussion about the "black" and "grey" sheep (artefact hunters) and how to classify them into different groups. In contrast to the picture presented by Raimund Karl in a recent paper, it appears that at this meeting several cases of collaboration between users of metal detectors and Austrian archaeologists (especially in the Tyrol and Styria) were presented, and mention was made of attempts in Austria (Tyrol) to contact and "educate" detector users. Some detectorists in Austria are reported to bring their finds to archaeologists with the GPS coordinates of the place of discovery and the material analyzed and important pieces are sent to museums. In Styria, archaeologists have sought to channel the detector users by defining a search area where they can explore, and the finds are then analysed by archaeologists.

The local police on the other hand were found not to be treating looting of the archaeological heritage at all seriuously, and the need for more training of law enforcement officers was discussed (it was also mentioned that two policemen in the area of "Upper Austria" were known to be users of detectors themselves). Mention was made of public participation in protection of sites from looting, such as a local association that watches over a site at Braunberg (an important Celtic oppidum, the subject of several publications), the local police make daily rounds on the hill and a local association was set up to denounce anyone seen with a detector at the site, noting car number plates and calling the police. Several speakers spoke in favour of a tougher law on illegal artefact hunting in Austria (imprisonment as in Turkey).

Interestingly:

Le dernier intervenant était un autrichien enseignant aux pays de Galles qui a défendu la loi anglaise à l'aide de graphiques montrant que l'année dernière environ 47000 sites de trouvaille avaient été signalés par des utilisateurs de détecteurs contre 5000 en Autriche (où la loi est plus ou moins la même qu'en France). Il a défendu la thèse selon laquelle l'archéologie n'appartenait pas qu'aux archéologues. Son intervention s’est fini par un débat assez houleux...

Sadly we are not informed about the directions and results of that "debate". Well, no-questions-asked dug up antiquity collectors and British archaeologists may be swayed by PAS-driven arguments. The French at least have a rather more informed take on affairs. As HAPPAH forum member "Archéologue en Colère" remarked:

Ah il a eu de la chance de ne pas m'avoir eu en face de lui l'animal (je crois bien savoir qui c'est en plus...)!!

47000 est le nombre de découvertes déclarées or la majorité de ces découvertes a été faite sur des sites archéologiques déjà connus et publiés (information non chiffrable car le PAS se refuse à la donner, évidemment!). Comme seuls les sites classés sont protégés (18300), les autres sont librement utilisés par les détecteux pour récolter légalement ce qu'ils veulent. De très nombreuses cartes archéologiques sont diffusées dans le milieu détecteux anglo-gallois, ils ne s'en cachent même pas!

Nous savons aussi qu'il y a très peu de fouilles faites à la suite des déclarations de trésors, l'immense majorité des trésors ne sont pas suivis d'une fouille par des gens compétents... alors l'avancée de la connaissance des sites archéologiques grâce aux détecteux...

Si c'est le chiffre de 47000 déclarations qui est mis en avant, le killer argument reste tout de même qu'on trouve nettement plus d'artéfacts sur un "site archéologique" qu'en dehors... si on ne veut pas comparer des choux et des carottes il faut prendre en compte ce biais incontournable! Dénombrons seulement le nombre de fragments de poteries sur un atelier de potier ou d'éclats de silex dans un site de débitage et les 47 000 déclarations deviennent subitement ridicules.

The same writer then found (Jan 10th 2012) Karl's published article. It seems he has the same opinion of it as the present writer:

Voici un article de ce Raimund Karl, on y retrouve exactement les mêmes débilités d'un Délestrée (les détecteux sont des archéologues amateurs), d'un Bland (de gros chiffres de déclaration c'est bien) ou d'un Feugère (il faut alimenter les bases de données). Avec en plus quelques originalités...

'Nuff said I think. No-questions-asked dug up antiquity collectors and British archaeologists may be swayed by such arguments...

Details of New York Coin Bust

2012-01-10T22:09:00.002-08:00

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Readers might be interested in the article in the new Coin World magazine about the investigations of the sales of two ancient Greek coins of Sicily (Jeff Starck, 'Officials seize two ancient coins at NYINC, Detain owner of coin with $2.5 million opening bid', Coin World online Jan. 09, 2012). The coins were scheduled to be sold at auction in New York City on Jan. 4 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan scheduled in conjunction with the New York International Numismatic Convention. The previous day (Jan. 3) however, officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the New York County District Attorney’s Office seized two coins and reportedly detained their owner and seller, Dr. Arnold-Peter Weiss.

The coins were a silver decadrachm of Akragas, and a silver tetradrachm from Katane (lots 1008 and 1009). Both coins are rare types, of the 12 examples of the Acragas coin, six are in museums. In addition to the piece discussed here, the other five include those offered in 1998 by CNG in a 1998 Triton auction ("a dreadful example"). An example in better condition was part of the famous Nelson Bunker Hunt Collection sold in 1990. Two other examples are privately held in the United States, and one “apparently in Switzerland,” according to CNG. It was stated in the catalogue that the example that has been seized has been "in unnamed collections in the United States and Switzerland after being part of an English collection in London in the 1960s". It is worth noting that of the six in private hands, five are or have been in the United States, showing the predominance of the US in the global market in these kinds of objects.

Dr. Arnold-Peter Weiss is a world renowned hand surgeon, a professor of orthopedics at Brown University School of Medicine and Rhode Island Hospital, both in Providence, R.I. He is also a partner in the Swiss-based coin dealing group Nomos AG, and a trustee of the American Numismatic Society.

Alan Walker, director of Nomos, said: “All the coins are in the U.S. legally. All of the coins left Europe legally. It was all handled 100 percent by the law, as far as we know.” Later, Walker added, “He [Weiss] has very good legal counsel and is 100 percent innocent.” [...] Victor England Jr., senior director of CNG, [...] declined to answer any more questions about the situation, saying, “Until we have talked to our attorney, we have no comment.”

This is a bit of a blow to the confidence of the coin market, CNG officials had anticipated the Akragas coin would become the most expensive coin of ancient Greece ever sold.

The high visibility of both of the coins — which received widespread press (including a story in the British media) — and the seller, altered the mood of the show. Discussions about the seizure of the coins quickly spread on coin collector chat forums.

At the moment, very few details of the seizure of the coins and the detention of Weiss are public, they will no doubt be published as they become available.

UPDATE 11.01.12:
In an exclusive article on the Chasing Aphrodite blog (rapidly becoming a key go-to resource) we read the following information concerning one of the recently-seized coins:

"According to a criminal complaint filed with the NYC District Attorney’s office, Weiss was secretly recorded telling a confidential informant that he knew one of the coins he was selling had been recently looted: “There’s no paperwork, I know this is a fresh coin, this was dug up a few years ago,” the complaint quotes Weiss telling the informant. “This was dug up two years ago. I know where this came from.” Weiss also allegedly told DA investigator John Freck that he knew the coin had been recently looted and belonged to the government of Italy, the complaint alleges. Under Italian law, all antiquities in the ground belong to the Italian state. [...] Weiss has been accused of one count of criminal possession of stolen property, a felony. He is due in court on March 21 for “possible grand jury action,” said NYC DA’s spokeswoman Diem Tran. (Case number 1299081) We’ve posted a copy of the complaint here.

This however refers only to one coin, the one which has the non-provenance of "bought in 2010", what is less clear is why the other coin (said to have a collecting history going back to the 1960s) was seized. Unsubstantiated comments on the Forum coin discussion list (philmcraighin January 08, 2012, 02:09:32 pm) has it that:

Further to what has been mentioned in postings, I have been told that Dr Wiess was arrested by homeland security and held for 48 hours at the Fed building in New York and an Italian dealer has now been questioned concerning the origin of the famous Akragas.

Rick St. Hilaire also has an informative text on the subject, setting out the legal background.

Conspiracy Theory in New York

2012-01-10T22:09:00.001-08:00

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(Continued from the post above) But how could the coineys discuss anything without involving a muddle-headed conspiracy theory? So let us look again at the article of Jeff Starck about the NY coin seizure ('Officials seize two ancient coins at NYINC, Detain owner of coin with $2.5 million opening bid', Coin World online Jan. 09, 2012), looking for the inserted creepy stuff.

Three times we hear of "individuals identifying themselves as law enforcement officials". The writer is presumably invited to think that they might not have been. The article goes on:

"exactly who seized the coins, and why they targeted Weiss (who is a partner in Nomos AG), is unclear. Despite multiple telephone calls to law enforcement agencies in the New York City area, Coin World has been unable to confirm the identities of the authorities making the seizures and detaining Weiss".

Did they arrive in black helicopters? The article does not say. The plot deepens, because officials at New York County District Attorney's office would not confirm or deny what eyewitnesses report, and the spokesperson for the New York Customs and Border Protection office did not return Coin World’s telephone call. At the time of printing, they had also unable to reach anyone at Dr Weiss's office to determine his "status", as if they had all just "vanished".

[I think, if what I am hearing is correct, they should have recognised one of the arresting officers, he's quite famous in antiquities crime fighting circles.]

The author of the article stresses that the seizure was just one day before the sale, just two highly visible coins were taken. He depicts it in the broader context of "the ongoing fight over cultural property as it affects coins" [he forgot to say "unlawfully exported"]. He tells his readers that this has been "the most visible action"...

since the recent announcement of broader import restrictions of ancient Greek coins, which was made Dec. 1 in the Federal Register.

Federal Register Vol. 76, No. 231 / December 1, 2011 to be exact, referring to coins issued at places that lie within the boundaries of the modern Greek state. Coins struck in Sicily (which the US coiney authors of the article should know is actually in Italy these days) are not covered by the MOU to which the article refers. This is scare-mongering of the highest degree with minimal respect for the intelligence of the reader.

Vignette: Black helicopter over the Waldorf Astoria hotel (after a photo by Digital Flowers)

PAS Treasure Show Comes to Florida

2012-01-10T17:38:00.000-08:00

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Jennifer Edwards, 'Crews to dig up backyards for TV show, raising objections from city archaeologist' St Augustine Record January 6, 2012.

It's catching, the PAS were reportedly involved last year in the filming of a programme about "Britain's Hidden Treasures" (thankfully yet to be screened) now the same sort of escapade is being planned for the States. In St Augustine the announced arrival of a casting producer for a planned 13-episode reality TV series tentatively titled “The Recovery Project” has raised concerns. Reportedly she was seeking "property on which to dig for clues to the past". Film crews would also be going to 13 different cities, including Boston, Tombstone, Ariz., and Chicago. when made the show would probably find a market "on one of three major networks: The History Channel, Spike or the Discovery Channel".

Desiree Mandelbaum* says the digs are essentially treasure hunting, a search for objects like bullets or buttons that will tell a story of the past. [...] Mandelbaum said it’s a fun way to learn something about history and that producers would make sure “not to disrupt anything that’s been put into place in St. Augustine.” “We are definitely going to stay away from archaeological zones,” she said. “And the host of our show has been digging up artifacts for 20 years, so he’s not some random digger. I know they want to ... show that St. Augustine isn’t an area where you should just go dig.”

by doing just that? Eh? During the filming, hosts will dig into people’s yards, parking lots, basements — “anywhere objects might be buried,” the producer said, adding that "the show is a chance to learn more about the country". (“There’s so much American history that we don’t know,” Mandelbaum said.)

City of St. Augustine Archaeologist Carl Halbirt, quite apart from the fact that random digging disturbs archaeological deposits, says this sort of thing sends the wrong message to the residents of St. Augustine.

“As a resident, you are a steward to the city’s heritage. Digging for artifacts is not preserving the city’s heritage.”

Tell that to PAS supporters like Raimund Karl and Peter Tompa.

*"Mandelbaum’s other projects have included episodes of the reality TV shows “The Biggest Loser,” “Super Nanny,” and other TV series such as 2010’s “Parental Control” and 2009’s “Reality Hell,” according to the Internet Movie Database. “I’ve worked on a lot of different shows,” she said. “It’s really, really fun.”..."

Gainesville archaeologist takes issue with treasure hunters

2012-01-10T12:40:00.000-08:00

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Kathy Deagan (Distinguished Research Curator Emerita, Lockwood Professor of Florida and Caribbean Archaeology, University of Florida) does what it seems far too few archaeologists are doing these days. Upon viewing the media coverage in the St. Augustine Record on Saturday and Sunday about history, archaeology and treasure hunting, recounts that she feels "both dismayed and depressed" and decided to speak out [Kathleen Deagan, 'Guest column: Veteran archaeologist takes issue with treasure hunters', St. Augustine Record January 9, 2012].
The first article to which she refers was by Jennifer Edwards, 'Crews to dig up backyards for TV show, raising objections from city archaeologist' St. Augustine Record , January 6, 2012 (see post above) ;
The second was by Sheldon Gardner, 'Metal detectorist finds rare treasures under sands
Techniques draw praise from diggers, scorn from archaeologists', St. Augustine Record January 8, 2012 (both articles have interesting comments from members of the public expressing what they feel about artefact hunting). Kathy Deagan wrote:

In the past two days, two programs that are extremely destructive of St. Augustine’s historical integrity have been featured. One is the supposed reality TV show based on people digging up artifacts in their yards for TV and TV producers’ fun and profit. The other is the celebration of treasure hunters’ destruction of important archaeological sites for their own personal fun and profit. Neither of those programs seems to have any clue about how history is revealed and acknowledged

and that is in a country without a PAS mixing up in the public's mind what is what.

Nobody involved in these programs seems to understand what City Archaeologist Carl Halbirt has repeatedly but gently pointed out (and what most fourth graders in Florida already understand) — neither archaeology nor history is about artifacts. And history is not “brought to light” by artifacts.

Ooops, heresy (at least in certain archaeological circles).
After some examples of what stratigraphy can tell us, she goes on:

What troubled me particularly about Sunday’s article on metal detector treasure hunters Bob Spratley and John Powell was the clear statement that “It gets in your blood, and once it gets in your blood….,” he (Spratley) said, a Spanish silver piece of eight worth $35,000 hanging from his neck, “if you want a collection like this, you dig everything.” And you destroy everything that would allow those pieces to be historically meaningful and understood.

In the programme it was claimed that metal detectorists had found the Matanzas massacre site. If so, Deagan says,

it will never be part of St. Augustine’s historical landscape unless the evidence can be assessed independently by the St. Augustine historical communities, and for that matter, the nation’s historical communities. Spratley makes it clear that this will never happen, since he keeps his finds a secret from all. And meanwhile, holes dug into the site based on metal detector hits will destroy any possibility of anyone ever being able to confidently identify what might be one of Florida’s most important places. This seems almost unthinkably selfish.[...] St. Augustine is an extraordinarily unique and special historical place, and it has been my experience that the great majority of St. Augustine citizens are eager to protect and contribute to our real history, and to share the revelations about history that are contained in their property with the whole community, rather than keeping the information secret and wearing it around their necks.

St. Augustine’s economy depends to a great extent on its history. Yet these articles seem to imply a certain eagerness to toss aside what make artifacts into history, and instead embrace what reduces them to fun and profit for a few individuals. This would be a national disgrace in Jamestown, Plymouth or Williamsburg. Come on, St. Augustine, we are better than that!

It goes on all the time in the UK. So what next, set up a Portable Antiquities Scheme in the US?

Full Circle: PAS Report in Treasure Hunting Magazine

2012-01-10T06:55:00.000-08:00

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The February edition of Treasure Hunting Magazine is fatter than usual as it contains The PAS Annual Report 2009 & 2010, "Printed with the generous support of Treasure Hunting magazine". Nice and glossy, all 32 pages of it. A while ago the PAS said they would be giving up producing a printed version as an economy measure. So they've gone down the private sponsorship route. And not by an archaeological body. Quite the reverse. We've come a long way since the PAS was touted as "archaeological outreach" the "partnership" has now come full circle. Of course there are those that say, if this becomes a regular thing then he who pays the piper will of course call the tune.

Debating Denkmals and Denkmal"schutz", Illegal Artefact Hunting and the UK's Portable Antiquities Scheme

2012-01-10T01:06:00.002-08:00

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A few days ago I posted up my comments on the recent article of Bangor Professor of Heritage Studies Raimund Karl about illegal artefact hunting in Austria and England's Portable Antiquities Scheme. Since it had taken me so long to get around to it, and knowing he's not exactly a fan of this blog, so he might have missed it, I thought it only courteous to inform the original author that there has been a discussion of his views over here. I also assured him that he'd have unrestricted right of reply here should he so wish. He wrote back yesterday evening saying that he was unsure that he'd have time to read and respond to it over the next few days but:

"if not, well, I think many of the more important things have been said already, so it shouldn't be much of a problem (at least from my perspective) if it remains as is".

[The "important thing" I guess being his demonstration that if you make artefact hunting illegal, people will do it "underground".]

Well, it seems to be the way of things that people quite happily write lots and lots about how wonderful the jolly old PAS is and "how wonderful those nice chappies with metal detectorists all are" ("except the black sheep minority of nighthawks that get the hobby a bad name"). The moment anyone proposes an alternative view, backing it up with reasoned (reasonable?) arguments, these same people tend to try and pass it over with silence. The PAS itself does it all the time of course, for example, they declined participation in the recent PIA forum around David Gill's recent comments on preservation, another of their advocates Derek Fincham also refuses to discuss the details.

It's remarkably easy it seems easy to come out with glib and politically-correct, "look wotta lotta stuff we got" - "never mind the quality look at the sheer numbers" fluff. Anybody can do it. Its the deeper reflection on what it means, and what is NOT being said that tends not to be being done.

Yet, "heritage" surely is about open and public debate. That is, at least, what the British say in all their "heritage policy" documents. So when are we going to see some proper, informed, multi-aspectual, public debate about current British policies on artefact hunting, "portable antiquity" collecting and the no-questions-asked antiquities trade? The PAS and the universities surely should be at the centre of such a debate, but it seems they are simply dodging it for as long as they can. And how long can the archaeological record afford them to do that?

No, it is far from the case that it is "no problem [...] if it [what Professor Karl said] remains as is". The problem is that texts like his get picked up by people lobbying for the no-questions-asked trade (et cetera) and are then used to weaken resolve to deal with the illicit antiquities trade, "after all, it has been shown that...".

In the meanwhile, the tracking software suggests that apart from that guy down Cardiff way (a metal detectorist), nobody in the whole of Wales has looked at these texts - so I guess Professor Karl's "heritage studies" Bangor students do not read this blog either.

Vignette: Bangor University, metal detector-friendly UK academic institution.

Logic Never Was their Strong Point

2012-01-09T21:06:00.000-08:00

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Antiquities dealers' paid lobbyist Peter Tompa seems only now to have noticed Raimund Karl's text "http://www.ngoe.at/publikationen/HEN_Karl.pdf">On the Highway to Hell: Thoughts on the Unintended Consequences for Portable Antiquities of Section 11 (1) Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz". He does not indicate what drew his attention to it.

He notes that Karl "concludes that a change in Austrian law has led metal detectorists to stop reporting finds they would otherwise report" before adding a comment of his own:

After reading his article, one might conclude that Professor Karl seems to be blessed with common sense that has detoured him away from the "highway to hell" that has been taken by some of his more ideological colleagues in the archaeological community.

Yet, not so long ago Tompa was advocating, was he not, that in order to fight looting and illicit antiquities, instead of the dealers and collectors it was precisely "metal detectorists" that should be "regulated" (here for example, here too - where metal detecting is equated with lax control due to government "corruption"). This is what he was telling coineys to write to the CPAC too. So if Tompa now agrees with Professor Karl that this regulation of detectorists is in some way a "Highway to Hell", it seems to me that he should be staying by the original concept of cleaning up the antiquities market and encourage responsible and transparent collecting. What is "ideological" in that?

It seems to me however that to get his pay cheque from the dealers' associations, writing what is internally logical is not a requirement, the idea is apparently to write just any old stuff to keep the dealers' clients from asking too many questions of the dealers. Create a fog-screen, and for that purpose the more confusing his own position is, the better. After all, the intention is not to engage in debate and dialogue, but avoid that at all costs.

As for getting information from those in a given country who are carrying out an activity illegally, I rather think that is a matter for the police.

Another US Collector Loses Property Without Documentation of Lawful Import

2012-01-08T23:33:00.001-08:00

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Claude Hendrickson, president of Dixie Equipment in Woodstock, Ala., bought himself a Douglas AD-4N Skyraider aircraft with full equipment (log books, four 20mm M3 aircraft cannons and assorted aircraft parts) abroad. It is one of relatively few [airworthy] machines of this type still in existence. He then had it flown into the US in August 2008:

without the required authorization from the U.S. Department of State. The pilot, who was hired by Hendrickson to fly the plane from France into the United States, provided false information to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the Port of Buffalo, N.Y., to gain admittance into the country.

Nevertheless it seems even a small warplane can be smuggled through the barrier of bubbles that is the US border security. Hendrickson kept it at the Bessemer Airport, Jefferson County, Alabama. The collector had a few problems with getting the cannons through the border though.

The 20mm cannons arrived at the Port of Savannah, Ga., on Oct. 8, 2008, inside two 40-foot shipping containers being imported by Dixie Equipment. CBP officers discovered the cannons concealed in a wooden box, hidden under aircraft parts in the nose of one of the containers, although the cannons were not listed on the entry form, bill of lading, invoice or any other documentation submitted by Dixie Equipment.

It was only after the discovery and seizure of the cannons on Oct. 15, 2008 that Customs and Border Patrol officers noticed the plane. An ICE HSI investigation revealed that the Skyraider aircraft had entered the United States illegally, and as a result the following year ICE HSI agents seized the plane (through a court order of April 24, 2009). As a result, on Dec. 21, 2011, Judge William M. Acker, Jr., U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama, ordered that the aircraft, log books, four 20mm M3 aircraft cannons and assorted aircraft parts be forfeited to the government as property brought into the United States in violation of U.S. law.

"The Skyraider aircraft, its cannons and parts are all subject to import licensing requirements as ‘defense articles' under the Arms Export Control Act. Federal law prohibits the importation of defense articles without a license or permit," said Raymond R. Parmer, Jr., special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in New Orleans. "ICE aggressively investigates these cases in order to deter this type of illegal activity and protect those who abide by our nation's laws."[...] Neither the State Department nor the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had granted a permit, license or other written authorization for the importation of the Skyraider, the cannons or the aircraft parts at the time they entered the United States.

It is now reported that the ICE HSI is currently

working to transfer the Skyraider aircraft, cannons, and assorted aircraft parts, including three Wright engines, to the U.S. Department of the Navy, National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida, for the purpose of preserving the aircraft's value as a significant and lasting part of our nation's Naval aviation history.

Once again, we see another example of US collectors losing their property due to the failure to document lawful passage across international borders. I don't know how much Hendrickson paid for his plane, but suspect he is quite a bit out of pocket through the failure to get the required bits of paper to bring this piece of cultural property into the United States. Again, the CCPIA was not involved at all in this affair, and it seems to me that dealers' lobbyists who claim to be working "in the interests of collectors" really ought to be drawing collectors' attention to the dangers of ignoring acquiring artefacts without paying attention to securing documentation of lawful export and import. They could well find people "coming for their coins" and it is nobody's fault but their own.

Source: Jim Douglas, 'Illegally Smuggled (sic) Military Aircraft, AD-4N Skyraider To End Up At Naval Museum', AvStop Online Magazine January 8, 2012

Vignette: I am not sure if this is the actual plane, but it flies.

The Intellectual Consequences of Knocked-off Nok "Art"

2012-01-08T21:10:00.000-08:00

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There is a brief article in New Scientist about an excavated terracotta Nok Culture head which is "one of the best-preserved examples of its kind ever discovered". I think it means in an archaeological investigation, museums and galleries are full of them. The terracottas (especially the knocked-off heads) are eagerly acquired no-questions-asked by collectors as they are among the earliest figurative art in sub-Saharan Africa. The excavated head was found (some 60 cm down, the article insists on telling us), by archaeologists Peter Breunig and Nicole Rupp of the Goethe-University Frankfurt during the 2010 field season at Kushe, a small village about 150 kilometres north of the capital Abuja. The Nok culture flourished in the region of modern Nigeria from about 1000 BC to AD 500 ("when it mysteriously died out").

The Nok terracottas are a mystery. No one knows for sure what they were used for. They may represent dead members of the Nok community and could have been a votive offering at a shrine. Alternatively, the figurines may have been grave goods. Africa has seen a resurgence of archaeological activity to investigate Nok culture. Part of this has to do with interest in Iron Age societies in Africa, which is surging as anthropologists consider how technologies - especially those based on iron - spread. The Nok are considered to be one of the earliest, if not the earliest, people to smelt iron on the African continent. However, the research is under threat. Over the past half-century countless Nok terracotta specimens have been looted from hundreds of sites in central Nigeria. The booty has found its way onto the international art and antiquities market, ending up in the hands of private art collectors.

Of course from an archaeological point of view of less importance than the fact that the objects are disappearing into private collections is the fact that so they can "surface" onto the market, the sites which hold them are riddled with holes dug blindly by looters hoping to find saleable items. Any area of the site producing them will be the focus of renewed digging hoping to find others in the vicinity. The potential for the destruction of any and all archaeological context is clear.

Once out of the ground, and country, the potential for these loose artefacts to tell us anything much of use for the real research questions the modern discipline would like to pose of Nok sites (about social structure, economic regimes etc.) simply cannot be addressed by an "art-history" approach to the decontextualised collectable geegaws on the "art" market. Indeed the possibility of even that being contaminated by skilful forgeries made to look old is very high indeed in the case of Nok "art" in particular. There is no possibility of there being a "Good Collector" of such items.

Source: Curtis Abraham, "Look into the eyes of a rare ancient African sculpture", New Scientist (Short, sharp science), 6 January 2012.

Photo: Archaeological artefact, not Knocked-off "art" on a dodgy market (Image: Nicole Rupp/Institute of Archaeological Sciences, Goethe-University Frankfurt).

Bye-Bye CulturalGrrl? Say it Ain't So

2012-01-08T05:35:00.001-08:00

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This is sad news, Lee Rosenbaum has announced ('Valedictory Post: Thanks from CultureGrrl!) that she is planning to "take a break (possibly a permanent one) from blogging" under the name "CultureGrrl", effective from Jan 9th, adding "I don't know yet whether I'll relapse in February. But my month's hiatus isn't an empty threat; it's a promise".

My month's sabbatical may become a permanent one. I just don't know yet whether I can do without the instant gratification of telling stories that need to be told and expressing views that I feel need to be aired. But I've become a slave to the blog, and I'm eager to see what else may be out there for me---something I couldn't do while blogging, because I'm too much of a perfectionist. I labored much too long and hard every day, researching my posts and crafting my prose. If I'm going to continue doing this kind of work, I really should get paid.[...] But no one "exploited" me. I freely (perhaps foolishly) chose to do this, and it did bring me a some speaking gigs and broadcast exposure that I would not otherwise have enjoyed. It raised my profile and made me semi-famous to a niche group of art aficionados. What's more, for the most part, I enoyed doing it. [...] It's going to be hard going back to being mild-mannered mortal Lee Rosenbaum, writing about a few things, after being caped crusader CultureGrrl, opinionating on everything.

I am sure Culturegrrl will be sorely missed, and her readers will join me in wishing Lee every success in her new ventures.

Professor Karl, The PAS and the Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz (I): Introduction

2012-01-08T05:34:00.002-08:00

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Professor Raimund Karl of Bangor University has published an article in 'The Historic Environment, Vol. 2 No. 2, October, 2011, 111–33 called "On the Highway to Hell: Thoughts on the Unintended Consequences for Portable Antiquities of § 11(1) Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz" which certainly seems to have set the cat among the pigeons. It has received notice in British Archaeology magazine, on Tom King's blog as well as Derek Fincham's. It has apparently figured also on coiney forums and thence, recommended as an approach by dealers' lobbyist Peter Tompa (as I showed in earlier posts on the topic) played a major part in public submissions to the CPAC over the renewal of the Cyprus MOU.

Professor Karl argues among other things that Austria's system of licenses for archaeological ﬁeldwork has had unintended consequences:

"the number of ﬁnds reported by members of the public has declined dramatically".

(He makes another point [pp 127-8] that "conditions issued by the Bundesdenkmalamt on excavation licenses only affect archaeologists, who have no means to fullﬁl them, rather than owners of ﬁnds and documentation, who would have", which I do not intend discussing here as the disposal of the project archive is a separate issue). Both of these situations he suggests though having good intentions behind them

"turn out to be the pavement (sic) for a highway to archaeological heritage hell".

Both Dr Karl’s text and my own are a lot of words, so to summarise down to the bare minimum. Karl’s “road to heritage hell” basically consists of the fact that artefact hunters cannot get permits to hoik artefacts out of the ground legally, so they are reduced to doing it illegally. Not surprisingly they are not reporting their own illegal activities, but in Britain where there are no such constraints, lots of finds are known from these activities. That's basically it.

The Bangor Professor's text has been seized upon by no-questions-asked artefact collectors who then use his conclusions, taken out of context, as an excuse for opposing measures intended to clean up the international antiquities trade. They argue in effect that since Karl has shown in this paper that the issue of excavation permits “drives artefact hunting underground” and in countries which allow looting (like England and Wales with its voluntary Plundered Artefacts Recording Scheme), it is openly carried out, they do not see why they should not buy looted and smuggled artefacts. In addition, their line of reasoning reveals that they do not see the difference between the PAS-type recording system and the issue of export permits (in reality the PAS is absolutely unrelated to the export permit system of the UK).

Dr Karl himself seems to have remained aloof from these wider discussions, restricting himself to pointing out, in comments to my own initial text on a summary of his views published in the magazine British Archaeology, that I am “wrong”. Nobody else seems in a hurry to discuss the paper and its implications. Derek Fincham moans:

“I thought about posting a longer response and discussion, but sadly I've given up hope that the heritage advocacy sites on the interwebs (sic) can offer any useful forum for discussion”.

Well, that may be, but that is no reason to ignore the issues raised and not to attempt to discuss them openly from different points of view. I gave an initial reaction at the beginning of December, and have twice sat down to try and address the paper more fully and twice been sidetracked by other considerations. Time has come to set aside enough time to do it justice and grasp the nettle.

Dr Karl’s text, while at first sight seeming straightforward is written from a certain viewpoint. That viewpoint when looked at in detail differs fundamentally from my own, so in order to address it properly, those differences have to be explained. So the length of the text has suffered, which is why it has to be split into several parts (which I will post in reverse order so they can be read from top-down rather than bottom up). They are still too long, but I have no time to shorten them.

Let us be clear, Professor Karl was writing about the situation in Austria. My interest in it is about what he writes about (and deduces from) his notion of what is happening in England, Wales and (to a lesser degree) Scotland. In this discussion, I will also ignore the aspect of the transatlantic collectors’ claptrap about the use of Karl’s conclusions in the opposing of US legislation on lawful imports and exports of antiquities. Simply put, the situation discussed by Karl cannot be used in the simplistic manner which they do. As I mentioned above, I will also not discuss here the question he raises [pp 127-8] in his attack on “Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz § 11(1)", of the disposal of project archives.

First of all, I must begin by stating that I would be very surprised to find a country which has an antiquities/heritage protection law which was anything like adequate to the task, let alone perfect. When I worked in the Ministry of Culture here I was involved in a minor way with the drafting of (a previous version) of the current law here in Poland, and while we have one of the strongest laws in Europe (and what was eventually passed by those who came after us diverges quite markedly from we had wanted), it still does not work. Having sat through some of the meetings with various interest groups (and in my case this also included metal detectorists) and state employed cultural property lawyers, I can see why these situations not only arise but are unavoidable, quite a thought-provoking experience. The Austrian system is very much like the Polish one (with one very significant difference which I'll mention at the end) and I can sympathise both with those who wrote it, and with Professor Karl's frustrations.

Professor Karl concludes [p. 124] rather dramatically:

if ever a law written with the best of intentions has backfired spectacularly, this must be it. Rather than achieving what it set out to, rather than offering the best possible protection for the archaeological heritage, it has achieved the precise opposite: it does not prevent members of the public searching for archaeological finds, but it is exceptionally successful in preventing members of the public from reporting them, and from collaborating with the archaeologists who essentially need exactly the information that people are in practice forced to conceal by a useless law.

I think we should differentiate more clearly than Karl has done in his paper between the underlying principles and the effects of individual elements of a law on certain interest groups.

It is not my intent to explore, still less defend, the Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz, but it strikes me that the case for it being “useless” has been vastly overstated in his text on the basis that it prevents artefact hunters hunting for collectables in Austria’s archaeological record which is a fragile and finite resource just the same as it is everywhere else. The question of whether this artefact hunting is desirable or not is swept aside by the paper's author by the uncritical application of the same glib non-arguments that we see in the British Portable Antiquities non-debate. Here we see the PAS’ own current lack (out of self-interest and probably apathy) of deeper reflection and discussion on some of these aspects is continuing to have a damaging effect which goes far beyond its local context. This is my main interest in Professor Karl's recent paper.
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Professor Karl, The PAS and the Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz (II): Preservation of the Archaeological Record

2012-01-08T05:32:00.002-08:00

A fundamental problem of Professor Raimund Karl’s "On the Highway to Hell: Thoughts on the Unintended Consequences for Portable Antiquities of § 11(1) Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz" is the manner in which it defines the issue of preservation of the “archaeological heritage”. I assume that it is only unintentional that it is presented solely as a matter of making sure that finds (individual objects) are treated in a certain way. One can search the text in vain for any indications hinting that the scope of archaeological protection is much wider than that. Thus it is that the law which (in the view of the author) prevents loose finds being reported are “useless” (p. 124) for preservation of the archaeological heritage, whatever else they achieve. I find this attitude extremely puzzling and can only put it down to a surfeit of contact with the views of collectors like John Hooker and Peter Tompa and supporters of the PAS. It is quite thought provoking when one of the few articles to emerge from a British university on this topic differs not an iota from the ideas about “preservation” expressed on the “Cultural property Observer” blog of the paid lobbyist of the international dugup antiquities dealers, suggesting how deep the effects of British archaeological “partnership” with collectors extends.

It is my opinion that the recording of finds made by members of the public is of importance, but certainly, despite the impression created by Raimund Karl’s text, the complexities of the issues of preservation of archaeological information for use for various purposes now and by future generations go FAR beyond this single issue.

Karl goes on to say - as Gabriel Moshenska in London - that "it does not matter" (p. 115):

And who are we kidding? Let us not fall for an archaeological fantasy: a find which has already been made, which has already been dug up, can no longer be protected from its removal from its subsoil context, whether that removal is legal or not. From the point of view of scholarship or heritage management, once it has been removed it is entirely irrelevant whether it would have been better not removed; whatever damage its removal may have caused, it has been done and cannot be reversed, however much we would like that.

Well, from the point of "heritage management" (which it seems Professor Karl TEACHES over in Wales, this seems a very odd Unitedkingdomian understanding of the idea of "heritage management") it certainly is NOT "irrelevant" whether or not random collectable items should be being removed from archaeological assemblages. Archaeological sites have more in them - both physically and metaphorically - than a few collectable brooches and other geegaws, don't they? Protecting the archaeological record means protecting the archaeological record, not merely collecting up fragments of the information when destruction has not been prevented.

So here we have the UK "better than nothing" model of heritage protection; this says in effect, its too difficult for us to actually do anything to reduce the problem, let alone tackle it head on, but we can try and paper over the cracks by smiling and putting a brave face on the failure. Maybe nobody will notice.

Karl goes on about his fibulae hoovered-up and hoiked out of archaeological assemblages:

what certainly is not irrelevant in such circumstances is whether we learn of the existence of a find or not. If we do, it remains available to scholarship, even if perhaps with somewhat reduced potential for gaining scholarly knowledge from it. If we do not, however, we lose not just the information that we could have learnt from its context (from both the finder and an investigation of the find’s spot), but also whatever information remains in the find itself. It is as if the object had never been made, deposited and excavated. And that cannot be desirable.

Again artefactocentrism, it is the information about the artefact which for Karl is "somewhat reduced" rather than the context of discovery which is lost.

What is desirable is to stop people hoiking them out willy nilly in the first place, just the same as stopping developers bulldoze a site to make a skatepark without mitigation, stopping gravel quarries quarrying them away without record, or toxic waste dumpers making it into a storage area for chemical slurry with no record of what is underneath. Anything else is not "management", it is shoulder-shrugging. Isn't it?

Like Moshenka, Karl reportedly thinks that the views of "extremists" like me should be ignored. The PAS ignores these questions too, very convenient of course, but the questions are fundamental ones about the nature of the archaeological record and about archaeology itself. They will not go away.

Vignette: not about artefacts, but their assemblages and spatial patterns and relationships with pother evidence - the Corona site.
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Professor Karl, The PAS and the Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz (III): The “Jolly Good Collector” Model

2012-01-08T05:31:00.000-08:00

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The basic problem discussed in Raimund Karl’s "On the Highway to Hell: Thoughts on the Unintended Consequences for Portable Antiquities of § 11(1) Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz" which interests me here is the issue he discusses of the use of metal detectors for artefact hunting and the fact that this can only legally be undertaken with a permit (rather than a licence) and the current law states that the latter can only be awarded to archaeology graduates. This means that people finding stuff cannot come forward to report it because (unless they lie about simply "stumbling upon it while walking the dog") that would involve to admitting illegal activity, so they keep quiet about it.

I really must express my disagreement with his approach to these issues. After setting out the fundamental bits of the law he is discussing (pp 111-3) [and for the coineys and suchlike who cannot be bothered to read it for themselves, the reward system], he then discusses: "The public and the prohibition against digging for ﬁnds" (pp 114-5). Dr Karl treats artefact hunters with metal detectors not as collectors, but

"amateur historians or amateur archaeologists who have, over the past forty years, increasingly started to use modern technology — metal detectors — in the search for archaeological objects [...], the overwhelming majority of amateur archaeologists walk the fields, meadows and forests of Austria with a metal detector in their hands".

Instead of artefact hunting and collecting, he talks of artefact hunters being involved in "metal detector surveys" (sic). This is pure PAS-prompted wishy-washyness. There is a great difference between a big game hunter and an ecologist, in the same way as there is a big difference between artefact collectors and what normally would be considered to be archaeologists (see below - the discussion of "fibulology"). The PAS does not (want to) see that, and that is what they tell the public. It seems from what he writes here that Dr Karl has uncritically swallowed this hook line and sinker.

So, on that premise Dr Karl passes lightly over the next issue

"these members of the public continue not just to search for but also to find and dig up archaeological objects, even if they are legally prohibited from doing so".

There he stops.

"the majority of offenders will not necessarily stop their (now) outlawed activities just because they have been forbidden, but may rather choose to continue with them and simply keep them concealed from the authorities".

Ah, they are "forced" to go underground. Arguing for the preservation of the archaeological record from this sort of exploitation is dismissed by this British-based academic as ivory-tower nastiness: “It is high time to stop preaching against the evils of the uneducated and uncooperative public”. (Should we should go out with arms outstretched in friendliness to every artefact hunter in the world, pat them on the head and say “welcome friend, see you are interested in archaeological finds too, wonderful!”?). Hmmm.

The paper makes no mention of whether stopping artefact hunters from digging out collectables is desirable or not, what the author depicts as undesirable is that in Austria these people who "of course" carry on plundering sites are "forced” by the law to do it in secret. We simply lose sight of the whole issue of preserving archaeological sites from this kind of plunder. Since Dr Karl is writing in Wales, I place the blame for this on the shoulders of the PAS which has for thirteen years been steadily rooting out from the consciousness of the public and the profession that artefact hunting for collectables is nothing more than plunder of the archaeological record.

Naming looters and collectors "amateur archaeologists" (ie perverting the meaning of the word archaeologist to become mere artefactology) may be one way out of dealing with the problem, except it merely sidesteps it. So, when for professor Karl is a looter a looter? Why are the people who go out with metal detectors on archaeological sites in the Austrian countryside with no permits and no ability to report the finds they collect (or those they dig up and discard) not looters plain and simple? What is in a name?

I am a bit puzzled by the comment further down the paper (p. 126):

This is of course not to say that there are no ‘black sheep’, no ‘nighthawks’ among Austrian metal detectorists.

The British euphemism for illegal artefact hunting is stupid and vague from the outset, Karl introduces a different meaning in defining these “black sheep” as:

“some that do search for archaeological objects for material gains; and who will dig as deep as necessary to get at the golden treasures that they are seeking, destroying undisturbed stratigraphy in the process”.

This is NOT what the average British metal detectorist would regard as “nighthawking”. Here Professor Karl is confusing illegal activity (because all who go out metal detecting for relics in Austria without a permit are by definition illegally detecting – in other words “nighthawking”) with best practice (“fill in yer ‘oles”?). British metal detectorists who would not consider themselves nighthawks regularly sell their finds and dig out the vast majority of their Treasure finds (for which they get their head patted in PAS press releases and lots of public money rewards) from below plough level. Professor Karl's switching of the definition here is just plain dotty and dodging the issue – I wonder how he would have written that paragraph in his native German, without the intellectual prop of the English weasel-word “nighthawk”?

I’d also like to ask how “responsible” is it in fact to carry out a destructive activity on the archaeological record when (a) it is illegal and (b) because of this there is no possibility of arranging proper curation of the project archive and dissemination of the results? Is that real archaeology or is that merely ersatz, pretend, archaeology? Is it not irresponsible destruction, pure and simple?

Professor Karl, The PAS and the Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz (IV): Unreported Finds by “Members of the Public”, i.e., Artefact Hunters

2012-01-08T05:25:00.000-08:00

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In Professor Raimund Karl’s polemic text ("On the Highway to Hell: Thoughts on the Un intended Consequences for Portable Antiquities of § 11(1) Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz" he says (p. 114), gratuitously misquoting Georg Dehio out of context in the process, that it is important that finds made by artefact hunters are reported, for:

"if the BDA is to know what archaeological heritage needs to be protected, it first needs to know where it exists. And for that, it needs the information that only the public can provide".

Yet how can it "protect" that which it cannot protect from looting, because to get finds reported (I understand Karl is arguing) we need to lift the restrictions on looting?

Is this really "information that only the public can provide"? Absolutely not, an alternative solution, applied successfully elsewhere, is for the Historic Environment Record not to be based on ad hoc and random measures like the public reporting this and that, but a systematic survey of the country by trained personnel as we have in Poland. Then the archaeological community does not need to be reliant on pandering to the plunderers and can concentrate on keeping them off archaeological sites. The Bangor Professor completely ignores this manner of resolving the issue he raises. Why?

There is then some artefact-fetishist stuff (see the posts below) page 115 before the author attempts to show "that this is not just more grey theory" ("Finds reporting and metal detectorists in Austria" pp 115-124).

The author has conducted several partially related studies into finds reporting and metal detectorist practices in Austria [...], is currently carrying out a questionnaire survey among metal detectorists in Austria.

While stressing that this is still in progress, Karl suggests that "sufficient data have been collected to discuss the preliminary results of the surveys". In fact Dr Karl has been gathering data to an extent that should shame the thirteen million pound PAS who has not been able to gather the same kind of data from their liaison with and "partnership" of the metal detecting artefact hunters for coming up to a decade and a half (I want to highlight some of these data in a post below this as it is useful comparative material).

Dr Karl's awareness that "there might be a problem only came through a very rough comparison of reporting numbers of finds by members of the public" in England and Wales, Scotland and the figures from Austria. Dr Karl's figure1 "Comparison of numbers of compulsory ﬁnds reports in England and Wales, Scotland and Austria" shows the number of English and even Welsh Treasure cases skyrocketing, while Scotland and Austria both show a tendency to drop in 2001-2 (in Great Britain the foot and mouth years). In both Scotland (pop. c. 5,222,100) and Austria (pop. c. 8,414,638) the numbers of both reported accidental, artefact-hunted finds and official excavations hover around the 300-500 per annum mark, while England and Wales (pop. c. 54,452,000) the number of Treasure finds alone shoots up to 800 per annum after 2003, reaching a peak in 2007-8.

Dr Karl's Figure 2 presents a "comparison of total number of ﬁnds reports (including compulsorily and voluntarily reportable ﬁnds) in Austria and England and Wales" (note this: "statistically extrapolated from PAS annual reports values for 2005 and 2007 highlighted as darker symbols are ﬁgures actually reported in PAS annual reports"). Mercifully, these seem to be finds records, rather than the more commonly spun "number of finds reported" figures. As I said earlier, the "annual numbers of reported Treasure in England and Wales" which "hovered around 20 per year, and have since multiplied by a factor of around 40" is a spurious figure as it reflects a change in the law and the manner it was applied.

Karl claims that his statistics show that the "willingness of the public to report archaeological finds has dramatically increased in England and Wales since the inception of the PAS", while "in Austria and Scotland, on the other hand, where all finds must be reported, the willingness of the public to report finds seems to have stagnated or even considerably declined". What he does not mention is the fundamental difference between the three systems. In England and Wales there are FIFTY members of staff (equivalent to about a tenth of the entire archaeological workforce of Austria) going out and actively seeking items from artefact hunters to boost the size of the database. A fundamental element of this are their frequent visits to several hundred metal detecting clubs (which are not present in any numbers in either Austria or Scotland) and dozens of high-density finds producing commercial artefact hunting rallies every year (likewise not present in either Scotland or Austria). If the true figures were ever known, it would be seen that these two types of activity account for a substantial number of the records added to the PAS records annually. This is quite a different thing from members of the artefact hunting community coming forward with their finds. [I would urge the PAS to come clean over these figures for the benefit of people like Dr Karl interested in these issues (they will not of course)].

Dr Karl suggests that "it is impossible to give accurate or even reasonably extrapolated figures for voluntary finds reporting in England and Wales before the introduction of the PAS, since this information was not consistently recorded". It is unclear whether he has looked at the report of Denison and Dobinson (1995, Metal detecting and archaeology in England) which (Appendix I, Tables IX-XI and Figs 7-18) considered just this point. There are figures for museums which answered a questionnaire. When extrapolated to museums countrywide (Barford and Swift forthcoming Chapter 12), the results are quite surprising when compared with the pro-PAS spin. It turns out that reporting of finds by artefact hunters may not have been all that far below current levels, which are simply (because many PAS staff are based in the same museums) continuing a well-established pattern.

Incidentally there seems to be a problem getting Austrian archaeologists reporting finds too, with 435 of them, only 195 professional archaeologists reported finds in 2008. "In 1987 [before the restricting legislation], 481 finds reports were included in the FÖ, of which 371 came from amateur archaeologists [...] In total, 131 amateur archaeologists reported finds, of which 48 reported on their own and 83 reported together with professional archaeologists", (p. 118)

Professor Karl, The PAS and the Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz (V): The Rhinoceros in the Room, Statistics and Facts

2012-01-08T05:22:00.002-08:00

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One aspect of the issues covered in Profesor Raimund Karl’s polemic text ("On the Highway to Hell: Thoughts on the Unintended Consequences for Portable Antiquities of § 11(1) Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz") is wholly absent. This is what the PAS “statistics” represent. We may have some very encouraging results from increasing customs vigilance at international airports, we may be getting twice as many rhino horns confiscated from smugglers than five years ago. Wonderful, eh? But tell that to the rhinos. The fact is the rhino horn industry is not lucrative because of the pointy bits of keratin seized, but the ones that are not detected and seized. The slaughter of rhinos to supply the needs is not related to the number of seizures and convictions. On the contrary, the more smuggling we stop, the more rhinos the traders have to shoot to keep up with demand. Furthermore, as in the case of the PAS, we can find out a lot about the age groups, state of health and (through DNA) family relationships of the rhinos shot (thus providing details which might conceivably benefit the rhinos) by examining the captured horns before they disappear into the incinerator. In fact some of these data might be more easily obtained from material supplied by poachers than professional going out in the field to collect them themselves. Is this then a reason to not stop rhino poaching? Extending the model Professor Karl seems to be proposing in his paper to this issue, the way to benefit from this is to lift restrictions.

I say the analogy with the PAS is a good one (think about it). It seems to me that in the paper under discussion, like most collectors do too, Professor Karl sees this as an issue of (legal) access to and ownership of antiquities, rather than a conservation issue.

The British public who fund it has long been conditioned by the “archaeological outreach” of the PAS to believe that what the PAS database statistics represent is a great “success’ in heritage management, a solution to the “metal detecting problem”. Is it? Are the rhinos being saved by counting the horns stored in customs warehouses and incinerated? Is that conservation? I would say not, I don’t know what the PAS think, they never venture that far into explaining why they do what they do and what they think they are achieving. “Look at the numbers” they say. Professor Karl looks at the numbers, and nods his head in approval.

Professor Karl has at least once in his life looked at this blog. Reportedly he was “shocked” – so he cannot be unaware that there are those out here who insist that the PAS statistics are just the tip of an iceberg of unrecorded artefact hunting of (I say) massive proportions. In my case, I’ve been saying the same very openly for 12 years now. Others say the same thing (usually quieter). So Dr Karl, as a lecturer in heritage management, really cannot pretend he is unaware of this controversy. Where is that reflected in his paper? OK, he may think I am utterly wrong, but that is no reason to pretend that all is sweetness and light and Britain has the answer to the “artefact hunting problem” and places like Austria should be copying its approach – which is what basically his paper seems to be saying (and it is not just me who reads it in that manner).

To recap, I think there are good reasons to believe that four out of five metal detected artefacts in England and Wales (PAS country) are going unreported, and unrecorded. Four out of five simply disappear somewhere. Now, too bad that in Austria it might be 4.8 out of five metal detected finds disappearing, but IS there really such a difference?

(And before Professor Karl says again that I am "wrong" about this, let him think very carefully how he is going to prove it - maybe another questionnaire? This time among the detectorists in his own country - Wales? The country where their Minister says the PAS has been a great "success" - has it? By how much would he say I have to be wrong for the situation to be OK, and am I really that far wrong?)

Vignette: Rhino (photo by Steve Bloom)

Professor Karl, The PAS and the Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz (VI): Artefact Fetishism

2012-01-08T05:20:00.002-08:00

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Continuing my comments on Professor Raimund Karl's text "On the Highway to Hell: Thoughts on the Unintended Consequences for Portable Antiquities of § 11(1) Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz" and how "unfair" this law is to all those "blameless amateur archaeologists" who want to use their metal detectors in the fields over there, I'd like to comment on the author's clear focus in that text on artefacts rather than sites.

I think this is part of the problem with a lot that is written about "partnerships" with artefact hunters, a lot of archaeologists are focussing on the artefacts which it brings to light. In the process, where they come from and what is lost when they are removed from their original context of discovery seems to me almost to be of secondary importance to them. Some of the rudest comments made about me by my "professional" colleagues (both to my face and behind my back) are from finds specialists. This is quite ironic really, as this is primarily how I myself was employed in my younger days in British archaeology in the 1980s, and still dabble nowadays too. I have a lot of colleagues over here who spend their working life fussing about things like "fibulae of Group A.233a var x with an inverted foot knob and their relation to the Marcomannic wars" [one of the archaeologists I used to work with also reputedly has a collection of them, but he'd not be so stupid as to show it to anyone]. A lot of continental archaeology between about the last few centuries BC right through to the seventh/eighth century AD when mercifully they (except 'the Vikings') stopped wearing them is basically "applied fibulology". If you study Polish archaeology of the "Period of Roman Influences" you have to know every nuance of the typology by heart or you don't pass the exams. You don't need to know anything about archaeology, just a lot about fibulae and the way their catchplates and footknobs twist and turn through the subphases of the Eggers-Godłowski chronological scheme and other such stuff.

Dr Karl seems to like fibulae too. So, on pp 122-3 of his text, one of the factors mitigating the erosion of the surface archaeological record by artefact hunters with metal detectors is that they:

"on a number of occasions have produced spectacularly good records of their finds and those of others. Two respondents, for instance, have been spending several hours per day for several years producing a database of brooches collected by several metal detectorists in one part of Austria. This database, which currently contains c. 600 brooches from an area of c. 10 by 15 km, contains many data. Aside from solid locational and contextual data (where possible), it also contains a proper typological description of each find, including all required measurements and relevant references to secondary literature; a photograph of each brooch; and a high-quality technical drawing showing at least front, top and side view of each brooch (Figure 9). The quality of this documentation is clearly of a standard equal to any professional archaeological finds catalogue; and in its sheer numbers it clearly exceeds anything comparable produced by professional archaeologists for the same or comparable regions of Austria.

Karl's "Figure 9 Sample page from the finds database created by the Austrian metal detectorists Christoph Baumgartner and Norbert Achleitner. The database currently contains descriptions of c. 800 brooches, mostly of finds recovered by now retired metal detectorists. Of these, c. 600 are from the main research area of Baumgartner and Achleitner, an area of c. 10 by 15 km. Locational data (FO) is being suppressed (only shown as code number) to prevent nighthawks identifying the location of sites. Reproduced with the kind permission of Christoph Baumgartner"

Since this example is used to justify the notion of calling artefact hunters and collectors “amateur archaeologists” it is odd that a question which remains unanswered is “what for”? What is the use of such a “database”, and do the unspecified uses to which it can be put justify the trashing of sites, hoovering up the more collectable bits of archaeological metalwork with no publishable locational data and discarding the rest? What research questions can Baumgartner and Achleitner now address on the basis of these “data” (in the absence of the other data not recorded when these finds were hoiked out by themselves and fellow detectorists)? Also the degree to which one is justified in calling the milieu as a whole “amateur archaeologists” doing “metal detecting surveys” is the quality of the cataloguing and research not of just two guys in a total of 1-2000, is it? Where is the evidence that the case Karl highlights is the rule rather than the exception in Austrian artefact hunting (“metal-detecting”)?

Vignette: Fetish artefact; Figure from the paper by Raimund Karl disussed here.