When is "Citizen Archaeology" archaeology?

Citizen Archaeologist Denny Erikson, a Tottenham plumber, has identified an object in the collections of the British Museum as clear evidence of ancient space travel. "The so-called experts in the Museum will not admit it", he says smugly, "but I think we've heard enough from experts".  This is one of a number of objects in the museum which are evidence of the unwritten cosmic history of the world.

Denny says the images in the top part of the sculpture represents a space ship, which is proven by the fact that it is shown flying next to the moon, so outside its orbit. "In the foreground are two figures obviously wearing some kind of space suits with close-fitting round helmets and there is some kind of breathing apparatus between them" observes Denny. He is scathing of the museum's explanation of the sculpture as some kind of "ritual" scene when it quite clearly shows the parting of two astronauts and the clinching evidence is in the inscription which mentions an "Anunnaki".  Citizen archaeologist Denny disagrees with the museum's scholars about its interpretation. "The evidence is there staring them in the face", laments Denny, who is a keen collector of space memorabilia, "this must refer to Annekin who as we all know was one of the Jedi but as the myths tell us then turned to the dark Side. The sculpture shows the young Annekin".

Hanna Boltox, Head of Ideology, Tourism and Public Outreach  of the British Museum comments, "this is a really exciting development, more and more citizens are just looking at old things and coming up with all sorts of new interpretations untrammelled by stuffy notions of methodology and analysis, and can imagine all sorts of amazing information about the past. This is true citizen archaeology at its very best". Ms Boltox said that the British Museum will be soon redoing some of the downstairs galleries in the spirit of the new citizen interpretation of history.
 

Focus on Metal Detecting: Site-Wrecker Depth Detectors, Shh, Pretend You're not Interested

A while ago the metal detecting forums were all agog with details of the tests of the Blisstool LTC64 V3 and how powerful it seems to be. It apparently reaches depths that other machines cannot, while being cheaper than the equivalent Minelab GPX 5000 machines. Nowadays when most of the more accessible "productive" sites have been "hammered" depth has become even more of an obsession amongst detectorists, the easiest way to accumulate a personal collection or artefacts now is to get them from deeper and deeper layers of the searched site (Readers may remember that this is an issue that both this writer and heritage action have been urging that the PAS raise with policy makers, there is no sign that they actually have so). Anyhow Heritage Action have again raised the alarm about the proliferation of cheaper "depth advantage" machines ('A second open letter to the Heritage Forum'). No reaction from the heritage "professionals" but an interesting one from the metal detectorists. Over on the Detecting Wales forum the thread “Blisstool LTC64 V3 The Worlds Deepest Detector?” suddenly disappeared. It turns out that the thread had been  hidden by the site administrator and details can only be exchanged through the forum's private mail system. Just in case somebody's looking eh? Just in case somebody's looking and reach a conclusion about the way artefact hunting is going these days which detectorists would rather keep unsaid. 

Historic Discovery by the PAS, An Unknown Pope

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In their search for objects made of more precious metal, most treasure hunters tend to ignore archaeological artefacts made of lead discovered. Metal detectorist Alun Tussle from Gaer Diffymawr, Gwent was only prevented from putting a small disc of lead in his scrap pouch when he saw two faces peering out of the mud while metal detecting a Roman site in Caerleon near his home. When he got it home and washed it, he realised that it had writing on it and to find out whether he had found something valuable, he took it to his good friends, amateur historians Baran Blackheart and Callan Titwit (world-famous authors of "Britain's True History from Authentic Documents" and discoverers of the Holy Grail, grave of King Arthur and the Ark of the Covenant all within walking distance of their little town in South Wales). Realising at once the true significance of the object and where it was found, the two instructed him to take it to the Potable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) to claim his reward.

 The region's Finds Liaison Officer Fionella Sloan-Squarre says "when Mr Tussle showed me what he'd got in his trouser pocket, I was flabbergasted. It is not every day that you see such a valuable item - historically, that is. I immediately phoned my bosses in London to inform them". Mr Tussle was disappointed to learn that despite the value of the find, which is purely historical, because the find is not gold or silver nor a hoard, he is not entitled to a reward. "It's not a about the money", he smiled wryly.

What Mr Tussle had found metal detecting in the southwest corner of the walled Roman town at Caerleon is what is known as a "papal bull". It is a lead seal that was placed on documents issued by the Papal Chancellery in and sent to dignitaries of the early Church. The representations on one side of two saints show St Paul and St Peter with the inscription SPA[ul] SPE[eter]. The reverse bearing the name of the issuer is what excited Blackheart and Titwit . It bears the name of ELEVTHERIVS, followed by the numeral "I" and the title PP [pontifex].

 As Ms Sloan-Squarre explained, reliable historians such as Geoffrey of Monmouth make reference to an early mission to England sent by a Pope Eleutherus to King Lucius of Britain. William of Malmesbury records that he sent SS. Fugatius and Damianus (rather Dumianus or Duvianus) over to Britain. These missionaries baptized King Lucius and many others, and "the Britons enjoyed the light of faith in peace till the reign of Diocletian". Lucius therefore was the first Christian king in Europe.

 The problem is Bede (Hist. l. 1. c. 4) dates the mission to 167 when there was no Pope Eleutherus in Rome. The pontif in that year was Anicetus (150-167) and foreign historians say he was followed by Soter whose short pontificate was followed by that of Saint Eleuterus (Greek: Ελευθέριος), much later than the historical date of the conversion of Lucius. On these grounds, professional historians have attacked the validity of these earliest records of The True British History. Now, this new discovery rewrites history. It seems there were in fact two Popes called Eleutherius, the first of which was the one to whom Lucius had sent his embassy in 167, but he had later been written out of history in an effort to hide The True British History which made Britain the earliest Christian nation in Europe.

What is more, Blackheart and Titwit explain, the findspot shows that the Pope was sending letters to the bishops of Lucius in Caerleon, not London - so probably during the Roman occupation of the eastern parts of the Island, this small town now in Wales was the capital of all of Britain at the time.

Ms Sloan Squarre stresses that it seems once again, in partnership with the PAS, the discovery of an amateur proves the so-called "experts" totally wrong. "In a year when we’re all celebrating what it means to be British, finds like this made by amateur searchers show how they can reveal the hidden events that have shaped our past and made our great nation what we are today".

It is interesting to note that coins or medals of King Lucius were recorded by early collectors, such as one mentioned by Archbishop Usher (Antiq. Britain, c. 3, p. 22. Guthrie, Hist. of England, b. 1. ), and one by the French connoisseur Bouterue. They had been disregarded as fakes by professional historians but the discovery of the Caerleon Eletherius I bull suggests we should look at the issue of their authenticity again. The problem is nobody knows what has happened to these privately-owned items, they never made it down the ages to a public collection. No bulls of (Saint) Eleutherius II have so far been discovered, Mr Tussle is out in the fields of South Wales looking for them now.

UPDATE:
to better understand the context of this text, note that it was posted on April 1st (April Fool's Day). OK, too long and involved to be funny - better luck next year.

Photo: Potable Antiquities Scheme

London's Burning

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A few weeks ago Zahi Hawass was saying if the police lost control of the streets in places like London and New York museums would end up getting looted there too. The Egyptian riots (called a revolution by some) started off with somebody dying as a result of police brutality. in London there has been a third night of looting and mayhem as a result of the shooting by police of a young coloured man Mark Duggan in northern London. For the third night the police have struggled to maintain order against the rising violence and civil disorder caused by groups of young people (like in the Egyptian case suspected to be using social media to communicate about where to regroup). The following two screenshots from the Guardian's interractive guide to the riots show that the British Museum (red in the second) is right in the centre of the mayhem. Let us hope we do not get to see what security measures it employs.

Central London, showing sites of incidents; the area shown is 34 km across, the BM is roughly in the centre of the picture

Incidents within about 2km of the British Museum

The British Museum is not the only cultural object out there potentially threatened, there are many smaller museums and art collections scattered across London. In Tottenham High Street a 1930s Art Deco building which was a local landmark (photo top left - BBC) was gutted by fire yesterday.

Just as a reminder how vulnerable artefacts are even in a place as secure (we hope) as the British Museum, this famous "Google Earth Easter Egg" (visible on the guardian site too) reminds us how potentially disastrous a terrorist attack on the BM could be:


The building with the roof like a balloon at the bottom is the BM and the plane is headed more or less right at the PAS offices.

Tom Flynn on the Colonial Disembodiment of Voices

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Tom Flynn speaks of the colonial disembodiment of voices as represented by the British Museum's collections. Worth a read.

A Must-Read: Fugitive Ink reflects on Archaeological Heritage Under the Hammer

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Barendina Smedley on her 'Fugitive Ink' blog has another beautifully written piece. This one ('Heritage under the hammer: the Crosby Garrett Helmet (re)visited'), is about the context of yesterday's sale of a heavily restored metal detected cavalry helmet within the broader experience of buying art at auctions and collecting in general. This is a fantastic piece of writing; she has captured so much of great import in her words. Please read her whole piece which has much food for thought about antiquity collecting in general (note the comments on the "necklaces"). It is interesting to note that the collectors of dugup antiquities themselves are seldom so able to articulate this type of reflection on the 'experience of collecting'.

After describing her own approach to art buying in the past the author then takes us through her thoughts on visiting Christie's yesterday morning to see the object she had earlier discussed so cogently on her blog.

[T]hese auction-house background assumptions surely played their part in engendering the strange sensation I experienced, standing in front of the Crosby Garrett helmet itself, just after 9 am on a rainy Monday morning, in the dimness of that eerily unpeopled gallery.[...]

One point in particular started to trouble me with increasing urgency. The Crosby Garrett helmet, like so much else in that antiquities sale, looks as fresh and flawless as if it had been made yesterday. Unfortunately, in the case of the Crosby Garret helmet, this may well be because it was, in fact, made yesterday — or at any rate, a few months ago. For all its present perfection, and despite the air of mystery surrounding aspects of its discovery and origins, we know at least that it put together by the staff of Christie’s from 33 large fragments and 34 small fragments of metal — fragments recovered from pastureland in Cumbria by an unemployed metal detector[ist]. [...] In suggesting that the Crosby Garrett helmet was made yesterday, I should perhaps emphasise that I am not trying to say that it’s a fake, exactly. After all, two British Museum experts have authenticated it, and who am I to disagree with them? But what I am saying is this — that when it comes to whatever the ‘restorers’ at Christie’s did in piecing together 67 scraps of old metal, [...] the resulting object unarguably owes its appearance, its overall shape and its surface patina, even whatever aesthetic merit it possesses more or less entirely to their efforts.[...] [I]s the charisma of this work not in fact entirely attributable to the creative efforts and aesthetic judgement of the ‘restorers’? [...]

Leaving aside right now all the serious ethical questions regarding the way in which the Crosby Garrett helmet has been treated from the moment it was found right up until the moment the hammer comes down at Christie’s [...] what is the eventual buyer of the Crosby Garrett actually getting for his or her money? And what is are all those very well-intentioned people who want to keep this item in Cumbria — as, in fact, despite it all, I do myself — actually trying to ‘save’?

These are very good questions. I will admit that this was not really an aspect which (from that point of view) had occurred to me. As an archaeologist, and one with some training in this particular field, I was more disturbed by the restoration because it should have been conservation, informed by prior investigative analysis, to not only help preserve what is left of this object (what textile remains of any linings and bindings are/were there inside?) but also to generate knowledge of and information on it. Part of that may well be fitting the pieces together (like a shattered pot before drawing). The fact that the 67 pieces were reconstructed as far as possible into a whole did not particularly worry me. I hope though that there IS somewhere accessible documentation of the whole process and that it is fully reversible in accord with the ethics and methodology of modern conservation.

But yes, Barendina Smedley is right, what was sold yesterday was a pastiche, based on current knowledge. And like the Sutton Hoo helmet we may decide after a while, in the light of new knowledge, that the old reconstruction is faulty and take it apart and redo it. Maybe ad infinitum (within the limits of the durability of the original material) as analytical techniques and our understanding of the object develop. Here obviously there is a difference between an object held in a public collection like a museum (like the BM) with the access to the technical resources on site to do the research and analysis to achieve this without endangering the object, and some collector's Malibu home. If our knowledge of the Sutton Hoo helmet was limited to a one-page PAS database description and a few photos of the hasty reconstruction done soon after the bits came out of wartime storage before it disappeared into some foreign private collection to rarely be seen in public again, we and our knowledge of many aspects of the Anglo-Saxon world (at first sight at least, a pretty important bit of the common heritage for a part of the English speaking world one would have thought) would all be the poorer. In her comments, the author writes:

[...] when one compares this whole ‘gathering’ business to proper, transparent, accessible documentation of the excavation history, conservation methods and presentation strategy available for other archaeological finds of real importance — well, I still think this could have been handled much better.

It would be difficult not to agree with that.

I'd also like to draw attention to the point she made: "two British Museum experts have authenticated it". This I think is an aspect of this whole affair that has received far too little attention. At what stage did they get called in, and from whom did this initiative stem? The finder, or Christie's? Roger Bland told us that the finder had not previously had the urge to show things to the PAS - why now? One obvious reason is that without the PAS being involved, no museum in Britain would really have been too keen to bid for it (OK, more accurately a lot of us would feel that no UK museum should be bidding for it). Christie's at least is savvy enough to realise that, so was it their idea to use the British Museum in this way? (Just as a point of accuracy, the BM 'authenticated' the object while still in pieces, we do not know if they "authenticated" the reconstruction - I hope not).

I am in total agreement over another of her points made in the comments:

It would be nice to think that l’affaire Crosby Garrett might focus enough light on some murky practices regarding metal detecting, the Portable Antiquities Scheme, Christie’s and possibly the Treasure Act of 1996 to make everyone clean up their act. Alas, though, the mainstream media don’t seem interested in moving beyond that well-worn ‘save it for the nation’ script[...]

The media coverage of this is a disgrace, its time we had some proper investigative journalism of what is happening in several huge sectors of British archaeology, and the interaction with artefact collecting is one that in particular cries out for it. Where is it?

Photos: Old and new reconstruction of Sutton Hoo helmet, there are many differences, the most obvious is in the proportions which affects the aesthetic aspect. The old one looks "fiftyish".

Will Iran lay claim to Cyrus Cylinder?

The Guardian has an alarmist article [Ian Black and Saeed Kamali Dehghan"Iran lays claim to British Museum's Cyrus Cylinder" Guardian, 15 September 2010] which suggests that having borrowed the Cyrus Cylinder from the British Museum, Iran "might not" give it back. This seems however another bit of journalistic "Iran Bashing" that the western media are dishing out to the public these days rather than a concrete story.

The 6th century BC Babylonian object, arrived in Iran at the weekend on a four month loan to the national museum.

In a ceremony on Sunday President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad draped a Palestinian-style keffiyeh scarf worn by Basij militiamen over the shoulders of a bowing actor dressed as Cyrus. He also described Cyrus reverentially as "King of the World" – a striking phrase in a country where pride in Iran's pre-Islamic past, encouraged by the shah, has been downplayed since the 1979 revolution. For Ahmadinejad's domestic enemies, this was another glaring example both of his self-promotion and a religious-nationalist agenda that arouses their deepest suspicions.

"Isn't it correct that the Cyrus Cylinder belongs to Iran?" asked the Keyhan newspaper, mouthpiece of hardline conservatives. "Isn't it true that the British government stole this valuable and ancient object of ours? If the answer to these questions is positive, which it is, why should we return [it] … to the party which stole it."

[...] it seems destined to be the centre of controversy for as long as it stays in Tehran. Elyas Naderan, a fundamentalist MP, criticised the government for inviting British ambassador Simon Gass to Sunday's reception.

Ayatollah Makarem-e-Shirazi, an influential cleric, denied rumours that he wanted to see the cylinder. "He never visits any exhibition apart from Qur'anic ones," a statement said.

Critics on the left point to the irony of the president's celebration of the cylinder as "a charter against injustice and oppression" as he oversees unprecedented human rights abuses. The opposition Jaras website called the object "a stranger in its own home". Cyrus would have been shocked to hear Ahmadinejad invoke his name, it said.

The Cyrus Cylinder was not found in Iran, but excavated in Babylon, which was part of Cyrus' realm back in the sixth century BC.

British Museum to Lend Iran the Cyrus Cylinder for Four Months

Farah Nayeri, British Museum to Lend Iran the Cyrus Cylinder for Four Months, Bloomberg Sep 10, 2010.
The British Museum has agreed to lend the ancient artefact known as the Cyrus Cylinder to the National Museum of Iran for a period of four months, which will allow it to be featured in an exhibition opening September 12. The loan reciprocates those made by Iran's national museum to the successful Forgotten Empire and Shah Abbas exhibitions at the British Museum. The Cylinder dates to the reign of Cyrus the Great (539-530 B.C.) and is inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform with a text that has been described as the world’s earliest charter of human rights. A replica is kept at UN headquarters in New York City.

In a British Museum press release Neil MacGregor, director of the BM says:
“You could almost say that the Cyrus Cylinder is a history of the Middle East in one object, [...] “Objects are uniquely able to speak across time and space, and this object must be shared as widely as possible”. It was not an easy decision for the British Museum to lend one of its most treasured artefacts to a country which has a prickly relationship with the UK. Relations between London and Tehran have been strained to breaking point with the expulsion of British Council staff from Iran, the launch of the BBC Persian TV channel, and the violent and repressive aftermath of last summer's disputed presidential election. A museum spokesperson says: "This [loan] is part of our ongoing relationship with the National Museum of Iran which both institutions value as a cultural dialogue independent of political difficulties".

The Cylinder has been at the core of a dispute with Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Organization, which cut ties with the museum in February for delaying the loan. The British Museum originally promised to loan the Cylinder to Iran after its 2005-6 exhibition, “Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia.” In October 2009, following widespread protests in June 2009 against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the museum said that it was monitoring the Iranian political situation to make sure the loan was made in the best possible circumstances. The loan was further delayed in January 2010 when the British Museum said it discovered, in its own collections, inscriptions similar to the Cylinder’s on two pieces of cuneiform tablets from Babylonia.

The Cyrus Cylinder was excavated in Babylon, Iraq in 1879. It arrived there after Cyrus (king of Persia from 559-530 BC) had conquered Babylon (539 BC) and deposed and imprisoned the last Babylonian king Nabonidus. This cylinder, written in Babylonian cuneiform, was a piece of propaganda in favour of the new ruler, praising Cyrus's kingly virtues, listing his genealogy as a king from a line of kings, describes how he had restored shrines dedicated to different gods and repatriated deported peoples who had been brought to Babylon. (It was this that allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem after their expulsion by Nebuchadnezzar II and rebuild their temple.)

The cylinder had been loaned to Iran before when Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi arranged to borrow it in 1971 for the celebration of the 2,500th anniversary of the monarchy at Persepolis. The cylinder is due back in Bloomsbury in January.

(updated using Ian Black and Saeed Kamali Dehghan's alarmist text: Iran lays claim to British Museum's Cyrus Cylinder)

Photo: The 'Cyrus Cylinder').

PAS stops Sale of Antiquities in the BRITISH MUSEUM

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Here's a rare post for me, I'm able to praise the PAS for speaking out.

According to the Telegraph, contemporary jewellery [earrings, cuff links or necklaces] designed by Yorkshire artist Peter Leathers was "selling like hot cakes" at the British Museum shop in the prestigious Grenville Room, for prices between £50 and £350 each. The trouble is that this jewellery incorporated metal-detected relics (such as Roman casket hinges, English Civil War musket balls, and medieval girdle rings). One wonders who gave them the contract to sell these items in the Museum in the first place. After they had been on sale for three months (and virtually every example was sold), the PAS stepped in, “If the museum was seen to be selling antiquities, it would open a whole can of worms,” wrote an official from the PAS. “If they sell British objects, where do they stop? Museums cannot be tainted by dealing in antiquities.” At the beginning of August "English Relics", the company that markets the jewellery, was informed that it could no longer sell its products at the shop.

Leathers entered the "antiques business" in London's Soho and Kensington High Street in the 1980s.

He bought his antiquities by the shoe box, priced according to weight, either direct from metal-detector finds or from dealers. “It’s the flotsam and jetsam of the antiquities market,” he says of his stock in trade – buttons from cloaks, hooks, or handmade Tudor nails. “They are mundane, but very beautiful.” His experience in the antiques business helps him to identify their date and their function.

According to the Telegraph journalist, Leathers "believes he is the only artist producing work of this kind", oh no he is not, you can get many ancient objects made into wearable jewellery at David Welsh's classical Coins sister company ("Classical Creations") and many other sites.

The Telegraph journalist's later "reflections" rather spoilt the rest of the article for me, he does not seem to understand what the issues were (and that, of course, IS the remit of the PAS outreach) and the end is rather disappointing: "The PAS had no objection to Leathers selling his work outside the museum, so long as provenance details and valid export licences could be provided". Not in My Backyard eh? How many provenances does the PAS expect to resurrect from stuff bought as the "flotsam and jetsam of the antiquities market" in shoebox loads or sold by weight like so many potatoes? So, these shoebox loads, they are probably not items on the PAS database are they? This is the fate of just some of the four million metal detector finds that seem likely to have slipped through the PAS "system".

REFERENCES
Colin Gleadell, 'Jewellery that 'tainted' British Museum shop', Telegraph, 31st August 2010.

"English relics" - "Beautiful handcrafted jewellery and fashion accessories made with genuine Roman, Viking, Medieval and Tudor antiquities found in Britain. Necklaces, handbags, cuffs, belts and cufflinks giving a modern twist to recycling historical artefacts". [Those shoebox lots definitely did not contain any looted Balkan items did they? Are you sure?]

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Vignette: from the English Relics website.

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British Museum 'gas incident' Explained

The British Museum was evacuated on Saturday after visitors complained of an odd smell along with irritated eyes and throats. Visitors were escorted out of the building shortly after 1pm and the museum remained closed while investigators attempted to determine the cause of the scare. A spokeswoman for the museum said 8,000 people were inside the premises at the time of the evacuation.

Well, it is obvious what it was isn't it? The British Museum houses the portable AntiquitiesScheme, dealing with hundreds of thousands of metal detected finds from all over the country. On this blog I have observed that collectors of corroded dugup metal objects like coins exhibit strange symptoms of clogged synapses fogging cognition and logical thought and have hypothesised that there might be something in the metal corrosion products (perhaps a fungus, or maybe a toxic corrosion inhibitor added to them in the source country) which is causing this effect. In the case of the British Museum we see a huge accumulation of such objects, and the concentration of the harmful substance revealed itself over the weekend in sufficiently high concentrations to be noticed. Collecting of dugup antiquities corrosion products therefore is not only damaging to the archaeological heritage, it could also be damaging to the health.

:>)
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Trophy Relics: Rosetta Stone

Number one on the "Shopping List", is the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum actually anything more than a trophy? Quite literally as it was indeed war-booty, taken from the French who themselves had removed it from Egypt (OK, they found it in construction work, and secured it instead of cementing it into the fort's foundations). So this object symbolises another step on the way to Britain consolidating its imperialist hold on far off exotic lands, the cosmopolitan interests of the citizens of the capital in the centre of the empire on which the sun never set. Is that why people get so up tight about surrendering it when it is suggested?

Question: In what way would the British Museum's presentation of the culture of Ancient Egypt actually "suffer" by not having the Rosetta stone in the gallery? Are the BM short of stones with hieroglyphs on them? Do they not have any other items that illustrate the story of the "development of egyptology" for example? Why actually does that very object have to be in the galleries?

The "Freeman Institute Black History Collection" has gathered materials about the story of the Stone and can put on a nice display without having the object itself, so why in fact does the British museum not have this ability? Maybe it needs to buy more stuff, like a copy of the first published illustration of the hieroglyphics actually in a penny magazine (showing popular interest). Have any of the original paper squeezes or rubbings made before Champollion survived?

This is the Rosetta Stone as I remember it displayed once (note the inscription: "presented by King George III" now scrubbed off). You could actually touch it [and I remember as an eleven year old boy visiting the Museum with great aunt Ethel doing so - ooops]. You cannot even get near it now.

So why can't the BM give the original back now and replace it by an epoxy cast with the same tactile qualities (silica gel dust in the resin) as the original and allow people to touch it? With a little box of pieces of paper next to it and soft crayons for making rubbings of the cartouches, and then getting kids to wander the galleries with their rubbings looking for other examples of the same piece of inscription?
On the wall a touch screen version of the stone where touching the words retrieves that word read out loud by the computer and flicking a switch moves from one language to another? It seems to me that this text could also serve as the basis of a really spectacular multi-media presentation to 'bring it to life'. These can be produced in a saleable DVD form which visitors on a whistle-stop tour of the Museum (and who is not?) can buy at the sales desk to play with at home, or give as presents. All of this can be done today here and now without having the Stone in the London gallery. So why is it still there?

Would people stop visiting the BM if the 'Real Genuwine' Rosetta stone was not there? Would they stop coming to London? I think not. What purpose does hanging on to it actually serve?

This "How the Rosetta Stone works" page is fun. I could not resist the image of people looking at the stone.

Photo at top of page: Delegates of the Congress of orientalists study the stone (Illustrated London News 1874) Below: or was the stone in this frame when I first saw it? note the pedestal has changed, but then it seems to have been dchanged back again.


(Getty images)
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The 1939 Welsh Looting of the British Museum

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Phyllis Doovah, a London-based journalist for the antiquities collectors' magazine "Minerva" announced in a recent post ('The Looting of The British Museum') on her "Phyl Doovah DoggieAntiks" blog and on The Cultural Property Conspiracy website that she has evidence concerning the involvement of a prominent Welsh museum director in the looting of the British Museum in the chaos that ensued soon after the declaration of War on September 3rd 1939.

Doovah relates that in the course of a taped interview with Cardiff museum boss David Davids-Jones, he admitted being party to the secret packing of material from the London based museum, their clandestine transport across the Welsh border and their covert hiding in secret underground caves deep below Cardiff. Deputy Librarian Gildas Tibbot is also accused by Doovah of being involved in this "looting", and his son admitted that he would visit the underground stash to look at it nightly.

Doovah is quoted as saying she is surprised by the reaction that her accusations have aroused, calling them a "storm in a teacup". She says that the involvement of the Welsh museum staff in the movement of the material from the English museums at the outbreak of war is "old news", and all she has done is given it a new spin by calling it "looting" and accusing specific people of involvement in it. She also says that the Cardiff Museum boss was responsible for thefts of valuable objects from English private collections at the same time. She patronisingly asserts:

Davids-Jones' life is not whiter than white, but then again whose is? man is not perfect, but he was just obeying orders, and sometimes that's the only option people feel they have".

Mr Davids-Jones' widow Helena calls Doovah's accusations "irresponsible" and has instructed her lawyer Tomo Shlomper of Blumstein and Goldberg PLC to begin proceedings.

Photo: Phyl Doovah not quite sure what she wanted to say, but Mr Schlomper will sort her out if she cannot see the way to doing it herself.

"Bloomsbury Jones and the Finding of the Lost Emperor"

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Gosh, exciting times we live in, Roger Bland announced in the Daily Mail yesterday that a UK metal detectorist had found one of "our lost emperors". This will come as a great relief to scholars who have been unable since the days of Stukely to work out who all those coins that were being found with CARAV... [etc] legends had belonged to. Some brave souls were suggesting that they might be related to certain scribblings of an Aurelius Victor and another bloke called Eutropius who mention in passing such a guy, who seems to be the same lost emperor who is also found in some of the panegyric literature of the period. It would also make sense of the hitherto completely mysterious inscription on the milestone (RIB 2192) from Old Penrith (?) pictured here, it now turns out this is the SAME lost emperor. Mysteriouser and mysteriouser, by a strange coincidence a man with a really rather similar sounding name is mentioned by the Anglian historian Bede in the eighth century and the Welsh (?) historian Nennius in the ninth (?). But they were writing in Latin, so not really surprising that nobody has linked the references to a Lost Emperor there written in a lost language with the other bits and bobs of Lost Emporism. Now we have Roger Bland's announcement that like some Bloomsbury Indiana Jones, he has found the Lost Emperor, these make sense as perhaps the same Lost Emperor. Gosh ! But it gets even more exciting, buried deep in the dusty recesses of an old bookcase here at Chateau Barford unused since the days of Grandpa Moses Z. Barford, I found a copy of an old book, a book as old as the United States (gee !!). It's by this stuffy old bloke called Gibbon, rambling on and on (its a big book, which is probably why nobody reads it maybe, even though this one is in English) about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. In it, I made a really interesting discovery; this Gibbon bloke whoever he was actually mentions this guy "Carausius" there !!!! Wow. Who'd a' believed it, eh? Three hundred years ago somebody wrote all this stuff down, and it was then forgotten, lost in the mysts of time, only to be found by Roger Bland and myself. Why was it forgotten then? What horrendous conspiracy lies behind this erasure of a whole chunk of ancient history from social memory? Has it anything to do with Leonardo Da Vinci, Pope Joan and the real Tomb of Christ? Well, whoopee for the PAS who alone of all the branches of scholarship is able to recover for us all the information that there was this bloke Carausius and put him on the map. Now if only the study of the coins would give us his wife's name...

A History of the World in 100 Collected Objects

Tom Flynn started the debate on this winter's BBC cultural blockbuster, A History of the World in 100 Objects, narrated by British Museum director Neil MacGregor:

The most remarkable thing about the British Museum's forthcoming collaboration with the BBC — A History of the World in 100 Objects — is the almost total lack of critical response to the project from any quarter save for a few lonely voices of indignation echoing from the African subcontinent. Instead we've witnessed a nauseating media hagiography of British Museum director Neil MacGregor in which he single-handedly educates the world from the comfort of his beautiful Bloomsbury office.

Followers of cultural heritage issues will not be surprised that foremost among those "few lonely voices" is that of prolific writer Kwame Opoku. On 6 February 2010He published a text called A History of the World with 100 Looted Objects of Others: Global Intoxiation? which was reprinted on Feb 25th as Africa: History Through a Hundred Looted Objects. Either is well worth reading containing as they do the same consistent arguments we have come to expect from this author.
There is an odd thing about this whole affair... 100 objects is a radio programme. McGregor does not even need the objects in front of him to tell his story, the viewer is led to imagine the picture he paints with his words. So why "things"? Why not "places"? A history of the World in 100 places could be made every bit as interesting (100 places which the viewer can visit on Google Earth maybe while listening). Why do we need these isolated "things" at all?

"Stop sneering at Metal Detectorists": British Museum

British Museum curator Gareth Williams has written in defence of the artefact hunter and collector. His text is a reply to a comment by Alexander Chancellor in the Guardian newspaper a few days ago on the potentially damaging effects on the archaeological record of the publicity given to the discovery of the so-called "Staffordshire Hoard". Dr Williams writes of Mr Chancellor's views that "in complaining that the Staffordshire find will "inevitably bring metal-detecting in from the cold and lead to a modern gold rush", he harks back to a cold war mentality between metal detectorists and archaeologists that is now long out of date". Quite apart from Williams (deliberately or by inattention) entirely missing the point made by Mr Chancellor, this is a typical ploy of the pro-collecting lobby. They claim that those individuals who express concern about preserving the archaeological record from being exploited by artefact hunters as a mere source of collectables are somehow "dinosaurs" out of touch with modern thought on how the archaeological resource should be used. Personally I rather think that those who wish to condone nineteenth century elginistic trophy-seeking modes of exploitation of that record that are the ones left behind.

Mr Williams continues that despite being based in central London he can "work regularly with metal detectorists", now who would have thought there'd be so many of them in Bloomsbury? He chants the obligatory mantra: ""Detector-finds" have been "fundamental in changing our understanding of the past". So actually have roadworks, urban redevelopment and new airports. Second World War bombs on our historic cities and ancient sites too.

He then comes out with the same old "Noble Seeker" model that has become de rigeur in recent British discussion about artefact hunting. With misty-eyed sentimentality he assures us that "the vast majority of finds bring little or no pecuniary reward to the finders, nor are they expected to". (I wonder if he has seen the finds valuation pages of British detecting magazines like "The Searcher", let alone "Treasure Hunting magazine"?) Metal detector users (apparently) search for archaeological artefacts "not in the hope of financial gain, but because they are genuinely interested in history and want to find out more" and collecting artefacts from archaeological sites is the only way they can think of "finding out more about history". A lot of people are genuinely interested in history and do NOT collect in a back room or shed archaeological artefacts taken from archaeological sites.

Museum employee Williams assures us that many of them "have donated items to museum collections without reward, because they wish to make those finds available to the public". In that case, it would be useful if instead of coming out with glib statements like that he could supply some statistics on that from his own museum (indeed his own department), how many recent British metal-detector-made finds have actually been donated to the British Museum since 1999 [and how much they would be worth on the open market] as opposed to how many recent finds the BM has acquired which they've had to buy in the same period.

Williams produces his next trite justification, it is not the bona fide "metal detectorists" that are causing the damage to the archaeological record but ""nighthawks" – who detect without permission, and primarily for financial gain. They do real damage, both to farmland and to the archaeological record, and fully deserve Chancellor's criticisms". Hmm. At least he did not use the other de rigeur words here "minority of".

I really cannot accept this strange argument that metal detecting which is not "nighthawking" is not causing any damage to the archaeological record. That is simply nonsense. With or without the landowner's permission, if items are taken from archaeological sites, they are gone together with any information their position in the ground relative to other evidence may have held if observed properly, finito. The quality of the record determines to what extent any information lost when the finds are removed from context (even if it is a pattern across the surface of a ploughed field) can be recovered. This has nothing to do with whether farmer Bloggs knows who the two guys in combat fatigues in his field are and whether they give him a cut of the proceeds of any sales, or whether the sun is high in the sky or not. It's about the actual mechanism by which the collectable archaeological finds leaves the ground for the collector's pocket, and what information is collected with them, and what subsequently happens to both. To argue otherwise is as simplistic and misleading as it is false logic.

Williams gets even more misty-eyed about the knocks his artefact hunting "partners" have taken from life:

Some, like Mr Herbert, are unemployed, or in low-income jobs. Many (but by no means all) have limited formal education. Rather than assuming that such people must necessarily be greedy and uninterested in history, we should welcome the fact that metal-detecting has generated an interest in history in social groups which have not traditionally engaged with museums.

Come, Mr Williams, you are making our hearts bleed. Note the words "formal education". There is not much of that being provided these days by the British school system, so the trend is to pretend it is somehow not important. Now, what I do not understand is how a museum employee can seriously propose that all the material (many hundreds of thousands of items a decade) that is being taken out of the archaeological record by ill-educated, poorly-resourced individuals is best curated in the personal collections of people in "social groups which have not traditionally engaged with museums".

The views Dr Williams expresses in the Guardian as his own are of course the stock mantras of the pro-collecting crowd, trotted out by the supporters of private collectors of assorted portable antiquities on every occasion when there is a reporter or microphone in sight. Goodness knows why, surely museums in particular (and the British Museum especially) should be educating people NOT to encourage the elginistic exploitation of the archaeological record as a source of collectables. Which brings us back to the point made by Mr Chancellor. Has Dr Williams answered it? Well, not really, he has gone to the other extreme, saying it does not matter because...

I should have pointed out at the beginning that in the British Museum Gareth Williams is curator of Early Medieval coins. I think that is perhaps not without significance.

"A Vulgar Quest for Pretty Objects". Is this the best British Archaeology can do?

I owe one of my readers a sincere apology. This morning when, bleary-eyed, I turned on my computer I found a rather nasty comment had been sent by somebody appearing to be a metal detectorist (?) from Hungary referring to a video posted on the Internet about the excavation of the "Staffordshire Hoard". The comment looked like the typical anti-archaeologist stuff certain artefact collecting forums are full of at the moment. Opening the link revealed the offending film had been posted by IT guru and generally decent bloke Dan Pett, of the BM. It was a dreadful video. After watching it, the only explanation that came to mind was that Dan had been offered a day trip out of London to see the site, had taken his cell phone and captured a few candid shots. Even on the best run sites there are days when one would prefer there not to be cameras around. I assumed this was an unauthorised video a visitor (Dan) to the site had made and posted. In which case the Hungarian reader's comments were a little unfair and biased - though the video did seem to show some strange things happening, at 13 seconds the girl clunks a piece of garnet inlaid gold with her trowel, objects being yanked out of what is clearly very stiff clay for example.

Staffordshire hoard excavation from Dan Pett on Vimeo.

After thinking about it and reviewing what I had to do this morning, I regret to say I rejected the comment, not having time to explain all that to the person who'd sent it. I also sent a remonstratory email (OK, I'm grumpy early in the morning) to Dan Pett, suggesting that putting his none-too-flattering home movies of other people's excavations on the internet might get him into hot water and it was not creating a very good impression of the project or archaeology.

Then later on after the coffee kicked in, I found fragments of this video were part of the online coverage given by the Telegraph and the BBC, which would be odd if they were Dan Pett's home movies. Then I realised that these scenes were actually credited to Birmingham Archaeology, Birmingham University's Archaeology Unit which apparently received part (?) of 25000 pounds from English Heritage to conduct this excavation. This is an official film of the investigations (which Dan confirmed when he replied to my early morning mail - he has not been to the site). This I find astounding. Apart from anything else, it shows an extraordinary lack of professionalism to release such a film to the national media.

So, here belatedly is the original comment I too hastily rejected this morning:

Karikásostor has left a new comment on your post "Huge Anglo-Saxon Gold Hoard Dug up by Finder":

Dear Paul,Theoretically I'm 100% agree with your post, however in the practice I was rather shocked after watching this video: http://vimeo.com/6737518 It's the so called professional fieldwork of the Birmingham archaeology team. I can't see too much difference between this and digging of some benevolent amateur detectorists. What can we see in this video?- People walking to the field with some larger GPS and possibly geophysical instruments.- We can see some wooden sticks, most likely grid points and some people digging in the most likely disturbed topsoil, with IRON trowels.- When they are finding some interesting find they are instantly removing each pieces and proudly showing to the camera. Frankly speaking, I had the chance to take part at several scientific archaeological field walking in my country (Hungary), when we discovered hoards, but this is not way shown in this video how some can gain valuable ARCHAEOLOGICAL information about such a spectacular find. I'm still hoping that I just misunderstood something about this film.

Well, so am I but I have a sneaking suspicion that your comments might not have been so far off the mark after all, sorry for rejecting it out of hand. Now, I suspect what we are not seeing is that before the filming each of those metal objects may have been pinpointed by metal detector (and or magnetometer) beforehand. So the slightly cavalier style of digging almost certainly is guided by the thought that they know pretty exactly where all the metal objects are. The video clearly shows that all these objects at this stage of the excavation are coming from the ploughsoil. While I would not see in such circumstances the use of trowels so much of a problem myself (you can see this is really awful stuff to dig), there certainly seems to be no record being made of the objects in the soil, we see objects exposed and immediately yanked out, and the cleaned off (the earth in the bent strip at 50 seconds could have contained organic material from the original burial environment). The site is a mess, the diggers are trampling over the spoil lying in the bottom of the trenches, the excavation units are highly irregular in shape. None of this produces the impression of a disciplined investigation. Two scenes show that one face of the artefact-bearing layer has been shaved off with a spade which in one case has passed extremely close to an object lying in situ. The objects are being yanked or levered out of the soil. What's going on? What happened to those lumps of clay - wet sieving? What kind of records were kept? This is Birmingham by the way where master excavator Phil Barker taught. Was there any kind of EH inspection to see how their 25k was being spent here?

Then I found a webpage with photos of the dig - really quite a small hole for 25000 quid - more to the point, unfenced. So what, a five by five metre trench? A thousand quid per square metre of topsoil sieving? But at least we see some wet-something (sieving? Where are the screens?) was going on of something. There is a petrie dish of three pieces of gold obviously recovered from this washing, one quite big.


Literally just as I was in the middle of drafting this post, I had an email from the French heritage group HAPPAH with a link to their newsletter. There we read some none-too-complimentary comments on British archaeology and the PAS (the latter I'll leave aside here). They judge British archaeology rather poorly from what they saw on BBC news of this what-should-have-been-a-flagship-project:

Ce sont les archéologues de Birmingham Archaeology, branche commerciale de l'université de Birmingham sur financement d'English Heritage, qui ont achevé « la fouille ». Mais peut-on vraiment parler de fouille ? D’après les films amateurs diffusés sur Internet, il s’agit plutôt d’une vulgaire quête au bel objet. Les prélèvements ne paraissent pas plus sérieux que ceux qui ont été effectués par le chasseur de trésors. Dans l’un de ces films on voit une personne prélever tous azimuts les objets, les arrachant de leur contexte stratigraphique avec une truelle trois fois trop grosse pour s’empresser de les présenter à la caméra. Les méthodes employées sont dignes des fouilles du XIXème siècle où seuls comptent les objets, leurs qualités artistiques, typologiques et symboliques. Les archéologues jugeront par eux mêmes si l’archéologie moderne est ici présentée sous son meilleur jour : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8272856.stm

As one metal detectorist noted on seeing this, "If I as a metal detectorist did this with my spade and trowel would you be horrified and judge me by a 2 minute video?". Yes we would, and I think we are doubly justified in asking what is going on in this cringeworthy video when its not metal detectorists but archaeologists. Now (unusual though it may be it for me to defend the PAS), it should be pointed out that these excavations are nothing to do with the PAS, the Treasure Unit or the British Museum. The Treasure Unit, oddly, has no fieldwork team of their own or even a separate budget for such excavations, so when investigations of any Treasure findspot needs to be carried out, they are reliant on the local archaeologists. In the case of the Staffordshire hoard, one wonders looking at this video and the international criticism (Poland, Hungary and France) whether a team from the British Museum with experience of dealing with finds like this may not have done a better job than we see being done in this video. This looks like a typical example of British fudgery and make-do.
Now I hope I am entirely wrong and next week we will see soon some decent photos of a site that does not look like the amateur fossickings of the Barsettshire Amateur Archaeology Group in 1961, that we will see some decent site plans and a decent description of the site methodology. Whether or not these do appear, there can only be one conclusion here.
To make the Treasure Act any kind of archaeological (and not just treasure-hunting) success, there not only has to be a way of getting to the find before it has all been taken out of the ground by artefact hunters. There also clearly has to be the resources and ability to undertake a proper archaeological investigation of the findspot. A hole 2 x 2m as we have seen on other sites dug by one bloke with the assistance of the metal detectorist in a single day is not an adequate archaeological response to one of these finds. THere is a reason why this hoard was buried at precisely this spot, a 5 x 5 m trench is not necessarily going to find that reason, the area needs a proper topographical survey and field research to put it in context. Clearly there is a need for a well-equipped and well-resourced Treasure Unit Archaeological Flying Squad ready to go out at a minute's notice and co-ordinate the work of local teams. There needs to be resources set aside for providing proper security for such sites during excavation, the full conservation, study and publication of these nationally important (so we are told) finds. This should be financed to no less a degree than the money the UK is forking out to get the artefacts. And that is the true cost of the Treasure Act to the British people.
Photo: From the Birmingham Archaeology webpage.

The Universal Museum as a Rogues Gallery

Oscar White Muscarella's review of Michael Gross's Rogues' Gallery makes depressing reading for a number of reasons. The first is obvious. This institution was promoting itself for so long as an elite cultural institution, a Universal Museum spreading intercultural understanding. This "justified" almost everything that went on around the acquisition of stunning trophy objects - some of which turned out to have been less legitimate purchases and donations than others. Gross's book depicts the place as a swamp. Fair enough, those of us who have worked for big institutions know that "stuff happens". Nasty stuff. Muscarella's review however clearly shows that Gross wasn't telling half the story. His text was conceived more as a somewhat personal addendum, somewhat difficult to follow without the original book in front of you (I've not bought it). The material which interested me most about the purchase of apparently looted finds and the media coverup that Muscarella alleges is at the end of a long involved text which reads like a "catalogue of errors" (of both the Met as well as the books author). A terrible terrible indictment of the Metropolitan Museum. I'd like to see Muscarella write his independent account of his days at the Met, rather than his notes on something somebody else wrote. It is clear he still has lots to say, and apparently not now afraid to say it.

So, the next Universal Museum on the list is the British Museum, lots of gossip and colourful characters there. Who is going to brave the lawyers and write the companion volume: "Gallery of Rogues", "Museum of.... "? Hmmm.

Detectorist’s Treasure is wrongly valued by BM and fails to meet minimum

There was a bit of media fuss in past weeks over the upcoming auction of a 15th century gold plaque found by a former pub cook in a field at Great Gaddesden, near Ashridge. The 57-year old housewife was for a while the talk of the metal detecting blogs (frivolous bloggers noted the alliteration Mary Hannaby, housewife from Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire and one even wrote a song about it). There is a You Tube video of her detecting in grassland, and a number of online news stories, such as this one which gives a totally odd view of the Treasure process, despite eleven years of outreach by you-know-who.

But then there is much in this story as reported which is unclear. For example, I was unable to find any mention in any of the news reports of the date when this object was actually found. It was presumably reported as Treasure and therefore valued “by the British Museum” as worth 4000 GBP. But, according to the news reports, the BM did not have that much cash in the office desk drawers which (it was said ) was the reason Mrs Hannaby took it to Sotheby’s where it was examined by a specialist (Carolyn Miner – we’ve seen her before) who pronounced it was very valuable, something like 150-250 000 GBP. So it was put up for auction on July 9th. A curiosity is that the landowner said he only wanted 30% of the proceeds instead of the more conventional 50% which treasure hunters usually agree with the owners of productive sites so they can empty them of collectable and saleable artifacts. It is interesting to note that the new valuation was based on it reputedly being one of “only three of the kind” and it was compared to that of the Middleham Jewel, which sold at auction for £1.3million in 1986 and was later resold to the Yorkshire Museum for £2.5million (actually, the Gt Gaddesden object is nothing like the Middleham one in date, function or quality of workmanship).

Two points emerge, Sotheby’s treated the object as a great treasure, but the fact that it came on the market suggests that the British Museum did not. The British Museum valuation of its market value quoted in the media is well below the estimate that Sothebys placed on it.

In the end, both were wrong, bidding opened at 30 000 pounds and closed at 38 000, the minimum having not been reached. But that is still 34 thousand pounds more than the BM is reported to have said it was worth on the market.

Obviously the more and more "metal detecting" finds come to the market the argument that “only three are known” of something wears a bit thin. A few years ago there were “only two”, next decade there might be “thirty two” known, therefore prices for this type of dugup based on (current) "rarity" are devoid of sense. Perhaps this was behind the BM's questionable valuation of the object?
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In any case, who sees the Holy Trinity on this plaque? Where is the Holy Spirit?

Photo: Top, Mary Hannaby (from the Daily Mail's "the beep that made me leap"(sic);

bottom, gold plaque no collector really wants to pay 250 000 quid for (Sothebys)

UK Public opinion poll: It is time to return the Parthenon Marbles

The Greek Minister of Culture claims that public opinion in the UK favours the return of the Parthenon Marbles. The Guardian conducted an opinion poll among its readers... it turns out he was indeed right. Only six percent of Brits think that their country has a "right" (or reason) to hang on to the bits of an iconic building that Elgin shipped from Athens, 94% think they should now be united with the rest of the remains of the complex back in Athens. A parallel poll conducted by the London Daily News found that almost 79% agreed that the British Government should return these fragments to Greece.

If this is representative of public opinion in the UK as a whole, it looks like the British Museum has some thinking to do. Maybe there should be a referendum.

This equally important, although different story about ancient Athens' place, in world cultures

Hannah Bolton, the British Museum's spokesperson does not have an enviable job these days. It is bad enough that she has to speak up in favour of the Portable Antiquity Scheme's disturbing "partnership" with portable antiquity collectors in the UK. Now the poor lady even has to side with James Cuno over universalism in collecting. The opening of the Parthenon Museum in Athens of course puts the BM in extremely bad light and they are going to have to do a lot more nifty PR work now to escape increasing international condemnation (for example, listen to David Gill waxing poetical on Looting Matters). Elena Becatoros (New Acropolis Museum seeks missing frieze return, Associated Press Sat. Jun. 20th 2009) quotes Culture Minister Antonis Samaras at the opening ceremony on Friday night as saying:

"We cannot dedicate this magnificent new museum with full hearts [...] We cannot illuminate fully the artistic achievement created in 5th Century (B.C.) Athens, because almost half of the sculptures from the Parthenon were taken from here 207 years ago to reside in enforced exile 4,000 kilometers away [...] The abduction of these sculptures is not only an injustice to us Greeks but to everyone in the world [...] They were made to be seen in sequence and in total, something that cannot happen as long as half of them are held hostage in the British Museum".

In reply Ms Bolton could only lamely reply:

"I think they belong to all of us. We are all global citizens these days [...] here in the British Museum, they can tell this equally important, although different story about ancient Athens' place, in world cultures".

What nonsense. Half of the marbles tells a very fragmentary story, when instead the "global citizens" can hop on a plane, train or coach to Athens to see the whole frieze telling the story it was meant to tell, and not the one modern collectors want to impose on it. The British Museum could equally "tell that story" about fifth century Athens with other "things" it has in its huge storerooms, including other items from Periclean Athens no doubt (vases, or any bits knocked or pried off other monuments they may have knocking about in the British public collections from over two centuries of Grand Tour collecting).

In any case, the only "story" these torn off, sawn off, dragged-away, overcleaned battered fragments of marble arranged around the inside walls of a cramped London museum gallery currently tell the viewer is a sad one. Only one of the greed of a small minority of British collectors and souvenir hunters in the past. The act is one that characterises the centuries before 'last minute' flights and cheap weekend breaks in almost any capital of Europe make the new museum accessible to all (to the same group of people at least that can afford the train fare to the British capital and a night in a London hotel, which is what the "Marbles" cost most people that see the "Elgin" marbles today).

OK, so let us hear this "this equally important, although different story " the British Museum feels it can tell us "all" about "about ancient Athens' place in world cultures" which London claims can be told better in a 1930s gallery tacked onto the side of the Greek rooms in London than a new museum in Athens right by the buildings concerned. I think we'd "all" like to hear it.