Israel Accuses U.S. Man of Antiquities Trafficking

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Judge Waddoups says looting and disrespectful treatment of archaeological sites, including 'injun' burial sites is OK in Utah, so it need not surprise us that when some Utahans go abroad, they see nothing wrong with supporting destructive local looting and grave robbing. The Israel Antiquities Authority said Tuesday that they had arrested a U.S. tour guide, 'educator' and author from Utah on suspicion of trafficking antiquities stolen from Israel and attempting to smuggle antiques valued at tens of thousands of dollars out of the country. John Lund, is accused of selling stolen artifacts to tour groups he led in Israel, and was detained on Monday night at Israel’s international airport as he was trying to leave the country as a result of a joint Israeli Antiquities Authority and customs operation.

The antiquities authority said in a statement that he had stolen ancient coins in his possession and checks totaling more than $20,000 believed to be from the illegal sales of ancient coins, clay oil lamps, and glass and pottery vessels. Lund was allowed to leave after posting a $7,500 bond meant to guarantee he will return to stand trial, said Shai Bar Tura, deputy director of the authority’s theft prevention unit. Bar Tura said formal charges are expected.

The joint operation began two weeks ago when the Antiquities Authority theft prevention unit inspectors discovered that Lund had been selling ancient artefacts at a lecture he had given in a Jerusalem hotel to tour groups visiting Israel from the US. He was detained, the artefacts were seized, and the authorities searched Lund and his hotel room, where they apparently found and seized hundreds of artefacts which it was suspected had been dug up and stolen from various archaeological sites throughout the country by thieves. At the time it was thought appropriate to let Lund off with a warning. Sadly it seems he acquired a new stock of goods and carried on doing what he had been told not to. Trading antiquities without a licence is illegal in Israel.

As a result of surveillance of a tour group he was leading recently, officials at the Israeli border with Egypt at the Taba crossing in Eilat halted the tourists at the crossing and examined the bags of members and discovered 50 stolen items - alerting them to the fact they were suspected for involvement in illegal trade and export. Among the artefacts found in the tourists' suitcases were ancient silver and bronze coins from the Second Temple period (2,000 years old), ceramic lamps from the Roman and Byzantine period and various glass and ceramic utensils. The tourists said that Lund had sold the items to them. An arrest warrant was issued and Lund was arrested at Ben Gurion Airport where he was trying to leave Israel. When his bags were opened, in his possession officials reportedly found ancient coins and 70 cheques written to him by tourists (70 cheques for $20 000 - that is $260 average each customer). According to a statement by the Authority Lund admitted the offences attributed to him Lund could face up to three years in jail if convicted. He was released and allowed to fly back to the USA on bail of $7500. He is scheduled to be leading more "Funforless" tours in the near future.

The head of the theft prevention unit at the Antiquities Authority Amir Ganor said at the conclusion of the operation that "those who purchase artifacts from unauthorized sources at exorbitant prices are endangering themselves, their money and encouraging artifact theft and robbing the country of its history.

.The source of the coins with description cards should be traceable, the "widow's mite" (I assume it is, they do Pontius Pilat prutahs too) in an olive wood case is a well-known antiqui-geegaw, sold in huge quantities to the gullible collector or believer on the Internet, the source and packaging seems to be Israeli (Moriah, North of Ayalon, Israel 99785)


Dr. Lund [...] is described as having a unique combination of gospel knowledge, deep spirituality, and has a delightful sense of humor. I guess 'thou shalt not deal in stolen goods' simply is not in the book of Mormon. Are we taking bets on whether he goes back to Israel to face the consequences or decides to forfeit the seven and a half thousand from the profits he has made from selling this stuff? Or will he go back and defend himself by showing that its "OK" because the objects were looted outside Israel and he has the receipts to prove it? So how many looted and illegally sold artefacts have entered the US over the years with tourists that went on a tour with Dr Lund? Let us note there were seventy cheques in his bag, but only 50 artefacts recovered this time (not all of the group left Israel through Eilat), and what about previous trips?

Jerusalem - Israel Accuses U.S. Man of Antiquities Trafficking AP - 18th May 2011.
(getting a lot of coverage, "Israel accuses US man of antiquities trafficking" 5700 hits for this article title alone).

Zvi Lavi, 'US professor suspected of selling stolen artifacts', Israel News, 18.05.11

Photo, display by Eilat customs of coins lamps and pots found in Lund's possession.

Peru Gets Stolen Antiquities Back from US

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Peru has a 1997 cultural property MOU with the US referring to pre-Columbian archaeological artifacts and colonial ethnological materials from all areas of Peru. On that basis it got back from the US a mixed load of seized cultural goodies on May 12th. The artefacts were discovered as part of three separate investigations by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in New York and Denver. There was a book found in the bagage of a passenger to Houston who was on an ICE stop-list, but also some archaeological material from other seizures, including a pot with a feline on one side and standing feline, A.D. 300-360, handmade textile and two headbands all of cotton, most likely excavated from graves along the Pacific coast of Peru, and a stone jaguar-human sculpture, 1200-1500 years old, likely Chavín or Moche in origin. The artefacts repatriated are valued at more than $43,000. Not bad for a group of old pots and rags, which shows clearly how the value placed on them by collectors is the motor for digging them up and smuggling them out of the country.

Apparently "this is the second repatriation of items to Peru. In April 2010, ICE and CBP returned 12 pre-Columbian human skulls, circa A.D. 640-890". That's collectors of "ancient art" for you, I suppose if they pay grave robbers to give them textiles taken from tombs to display as trophies in living room showcases, there's not much human decency left to stop them from buying human remains from them too to decorate the bathroom.

The usual speeches were delivered.

The press release goes on to say:

ICE HSI plays a leading role in investigating crimes involving the illicit importation and distribution of cultural property. ICE HSI uses its investigative authority to seize cultural property items if they were illegally imported into the United States. It also investigates the illegal trafficking of artwork, especially works that have been reported lost or stolen. ICE's Office of International Affairs, through its 69 attaché offices in 47 countries, works closely with foreign governments to conduct joint investigations, when possible.

ICE's specially trained investigators and foreign attachés partner with governments, agencies and experts to protect cultural antiquities as well as train investigators from other nations and agencies on how to find and authenticate cultural property, and how to best enforce the law to recover these items when they emerge in the marketplace.

More than 2,400 artifacts have been returned to 19 countries since 2007 including paintings from France, Germany and Austria; an 18th century manuscript from Italy; and a bookmark belonging to Hitler as well as cultural artifacts from Iraq including Babylonian, Sumerian and neo-Assyrian items.[...]

CBP is the nation's lead border security agency and is charged with enforcing hundreds of laws at and between our nation's 327 international ports of entry. As part of that mission, CBP enforces bi-lateral agreements and import restrictions on certain foreign cultural property and archaeological materials. CBP works closely with ICE and other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to prevent the illegal trade and trafficking of cultural antiquities. CBP partners with ICE to ensure that illegally traded and trafficked antiquities are returned to their rightful owners.

These hundreds of laws include the ones the ACCG, PNG and IAPN are trying to have overturned to allow the free importation into the United States of illegally exported items from countries with cultural property MOUs with the US.

Vignette: Smuggled Jaguar thingy repatriated.

Le trafic des biens culturels dans le monde s'intensifie

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Tunisia, Egypt, Libya… The traffickers of stolen cultural goods dream of countries like this where instability reigns, but it is not only they that fall victim to this trade. In the era of the Internet, this illicit commerce, estimated by some to be worth as much as 6 billion dollars is accelerating. UNESCO raises the alarm (Martine Robert, 'Le trafic des biens culturels dans le monde s'intensifie', Les Echoes, 15th march 2011).

Il n'y a pas que le marché de l'art qui est prospère. Le trafic des biens culturels se porte bien, lui aussi. Selon Interpol, il représente annuellement 6 milliards de dollars. «La situation est alarmante, particulièrement dans les pays en proie à l'instabilité comme la Tunisie, la Lybie, et surtout l'Egypte», a déclaré, hier, Irina Bokova, directeur général de l'Unesco, à l'occasion du colloque que l'organisation internationale tient jusqu'à ce soir à Paris, dans le cadre du quarantième anniversaire de la convention, signée par 120 Etats, visant à lutter contre ce phénomène. Il s'agit, avec l'aide de l'Organisation mondiale des douanes, d'Interpol, de maisons de ventes aux enchères ou de musées, de tenter d'apporter de nouvelles réponses. Car, ces dernières années, Internet a accéléré le trafic, la Toile étant devenue le support d'un commerce très lucratif dans le trafic des biens culturels.

La convention adoptée il y a quarante ans établit les mesures à prendre pour interdire et empêcher l'importation, l'exportation et le transfert de propriété illicites des biens culturels. Elle évoque aussi la question des restitutions et offre un cadre de coopération international pour mieux combattre le trafic. Mais il revient à chaque pays de mettre en oeuvre la législation permettant de l'appliquer. De plus, cette convention traite surtout des relations entre Etats: elle a dû être complétée en 1995 par la convention Unidroit, plus stricte, qui implique également les acteurs privés. Malheureusement, celle-ci n'a été ratifiée quasiment par aucun des pays où les marchés de l'art sont les plus actifs.

Like the USA for example, which applies the 1970 UNESCO Convention in a highly selective manner (to a degree that one might legitimately ask whether they have actually implemented it at all). The application of the sort of measures envisaged by the UNIDROIT document is vehemently opposed by US dealers in dugup antiquities (such as in their Unidroit-L discussion list which is a mouthpiece for the naysayers). One might wonder why a supposedly legitimate business is concerned with measures intending to prevent the commerce in illicitly-obtained items. The answer to that question might tell the objective observer a lot about the current state of the antiquities market, might it not?

Existing measures are not as effective at stopping the haemorrhage of illicitly obtained artefacts onto the international market in its current form:

Plusieurs pays africains ont ainsi perdu plus de la moitié de leur patrimoine, aujourd'hui dispersé. Des centaines de statues du temple d'Angkor, au Cambodge, ont été arrachées. En Amérique centrale, les fouilles illégales se traduisent chaque mois par l'extraction d'au moins 1.000 pièces de céramique maya, d'une valeur de 10 millions de dollars. Et en Irak, 15.000 pièces du musée national de Bagdad ont été dérobées lors du dernier conflit, plus de la moitié étant toujours manquantes.

The question is are we just going to continue to shrug our shoulders and say with the British archaeological establishment that "looting is here to stay, if we can't beat them, let's make them our partners"? Is this something we can wait until somebody else does the work for the archaeological establishment (volunteer grassroots organizations like SAFE over in the US, and Heritage Action in the UK, or HAPAH in France)? Or are we going to try and alert public opinion to the problem and its scale and significance and try to curb this kind of erosive and destructive commercial exploitation of the archaeological record by making dealers and collectors socially accountable?

What part should Britain's PAS play in all this? What part can they play in all this while considering artefact hunters and collectors their "partners"? They rather have allowed themselves to a situation where they have their hands tied, haven't they? Listen, you can hear the pigeons cooing from the roof and gables of the British Museum. The Portable Antiquities Scheme is silent on this matter too. It is annoying that its the Bloomsbury pigeons which are making a more audible public comment on certain portable antiquity issues than the multi-million pound organization set up at public expense to deal with portable antiquity issues.

Is "coo coo" the best argument the British archaeological establishment can muster these days?

Vignette: Bloomsbury Pete (national representative of the NGO, the Avian Concern for Cultural Heritage, British Museum, Bloomsbury WC1), currently Britain's most vociferous spokesman on portable antiquity issues.

'How To' Guide to US Law on Dealing with Suspected Trafficked Egyptian Cultural Objects

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Cultural heritage lawyer Ricardo St. Hilaire has a post on his blog on 'Reclaiming Trafficked Egyptian Cultural Objects: US Seizure Laws and How to Make a Report to Customs and Border Protection' well worth a read, as it provides an insight into how US laws can be used in parallel to the US CCPIA to protect the global cultural heritage. Note though that the old cultural patrimony law 117 of 1983 was amended by Law N.3 of 2010 promulgating the Antiquities Protection Law, though presumably this does not affect what St Hilaire calls the "Schultz doctrine". I really still do not understand how the ARPA applies, but it has been used in the past and they got away with it. Odd.

This is a very useful text, not least in that it can form a basis for discussions on how the system can be made more watertight in the case of freshly excavated archaeological material.

Another Blanding resident avoids prison in artefacts looting case

Erin Alberty, 'Another defendant in a federal artifacts-trafficking case has avoided prison time', The Salt Lake Tribune 7th July 2010:

Dale Lyman, 76, of Blanding, was sentenced to 60 months probation for trafficking in stolen artifacts, a felony worth up to two years in prison. He is the fourth defendant to be sentenced of 26 people charged in an alleged artifacts-trafficking ring. Seven have pleaded guilty. So far, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups has sentenced none of the trafficking defendants to prison time.

Mr Lyman of course did not know that it was any kind of offence to dig up archaeological artefacts from sites protected by Federal law and sell them. Judge Waddoups apparently sees nothing wrong in it, everybody's doing it down Blanding way he says which makes it OK. The collectors' rights lobbyists are beside themselves with joy that their mates the 'Injun' artifact collectors are getting off more or less scott-free in the US of A. What hope is there that American collectors and dealers are going to respect the archaeological heritage of other countries while they cannot even respect the laws referring to that of their own? What does the AIA say about all this?

Meanwhile on the same day, has-been starlet Lindsay Lohan, who as far as I know has never destroyed a protected archaeological site in her life, got ninety days in prison for missing alcohol counselling sessions in violation of her probation. But that was not in Utah.

Photo: Judge Waddoups, who thinks looting of archaeological sites is "justified".

An odd Definition of "Anti-Collecting"

On my pointing out for the three hundred and forty fourth time this year that to label me as "anticollecting" is false, coin dealer Dave Welsh in the comments here says:

"Your positions, if implemented in law would in my opinion, and that of other advocates of collectors' rights, have catastrophic effects upon collecting".

The collection of material from verifiably known legitimate origin ( thus not from the fresh and continued looting of archaeological sites) which is what I urge would not be a "catastrophe" to the ethical collecting of material from verifiably known legitimate origin though would it?

I hardly think that somebody who supports changes to make it harder for corrupt policemen, for example, to abuse the system can be described as "anti-police", or those who support changes to remove possibilities of abuse and corruption in the medical profession could be described as "anti-healthcare".

Let us call a spade a spade. The truly ethical and responsible collecting of artefacts will not be rendered impossible by measures taken to ensure that the position of the truly ethical and responsible collection of artefacts is strengthened. Such measures would however be "catastrophic" to another type of trade and collecting though - but the question is whether those standing out for the "rights" of those other collectors really are doing themselves, or the rest of the collecting milieu any favours.

DePaul's Art and Cultural Heritage Law Society Blog

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The DePaul's Art and Cultural Heritage Law Society blog seems to have started up about March 11th and has a series of posts made by person or persons unknown (the profile does not reveal) called "ACHLS Executive Board" who have made upwards of 30 posts to their "blog" (which seems a misnomer in this case). I find to my surprise a goodly number of them are lifted straight from this blog and cut and pasted into theirs without so much as a word that this is what has happened, or a word of commentary from the "authors" of the ACHLS blog.

True, there is a link somewhere embedded in these texts which leads the reader back to the original source. But those links do not show up when the post on the "ACHLS Blog" is referenced elsewhere - such as reposted on the Museum Security Network by a third person - sourced of course to the ACHLS blog and not the original location where the text was published. By this means, we just end up with lots of duplicate but orphaned texts floating around the Internet producing confusion about who wrote what and who thinks what about it.

Like this morning's Google Web Alert for "looted antiquities":

DePaul's Art and Cultural Heritage Legal Society: Renfrew ...The decision opens the way for Iran to recover the looted antiquities held by the Barakat Galleries which were subject to dispute. ...achls.blogspot.com/2010/03/renfrew-summarises-two-significant.html

It would be at least good manners for the ACHLS to actually state more explicitly who is the author of the text they have copied and pasted verbatim to their "own blog" (without asking or informing the author one might add).

There are a number of posts of mine I have found duplicated on the ACHLS blog, and I note at least one pinched from the SAFECorner blog, again in that case the author's name does not appear in the text ACHLS have reposted.

Neither does a search of their blog or associated profile reveal who actually are in the "ACHLS Executive board". Now, if they want to use my words from my blog as words of their own, then I would have no objection to accepting honorary nomination to the ACHLS Executive board and any privileges that go with that. If however they do not accept this proposition, I suggest they either actually say more explicitly whose words they are borrowing, or they could say briefly that "over on ABC's blog is an article on XYZ" and just give the link (and then maybe something like: "we think this author is right/utterly mistaken because....").

Or, and it is just a suggestion, these academics could even find their own stuff to write about instead of reposting other people's material and thoughts to bulk out their page. After all is that not what blogs are for?

US dealings in art and cultural heritage - both their own and that of other countries - is a pretty wide field, it strikes me a bit odd that the academics of De Paul's ACHLS have to bulk out their "blog" by copying into it bits of other people's with scant acknowledgement. At the least, it does not create a very good impression of the vitality of the institution it represents.

UPDATE 7th April 2010.
This has appeared on the "blog":

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

It has been brought to our attention that the attribution in our posts is insufficient. It was never our intention to claim this material as our own. We apologize for this mistake. As a new student organization, we wanted to start creating a place where students could find links to the important issues in the field by centralizing the blogs we follow and enjoy. We have deleted all this material and will work on a better policy to make attribution more apparent in the future. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to contact us at achls.depaul AT gmail DOT com. Posted by ACHLS Executive Board at 3:42 PM <

Of course one might consider the merits or otherwise of the creation of a heap of poorly-sourced stuff in one place for lazy students to find on their laptops without even getting out of bed, and encouraging them to search for it themselves from various sources.

US Customs' "Vigilance"

In the CNN report In the CNN report ('US returns cultural treasures to Iraq', Feb. 25th 2010) quoted above while handing over a handfull of confiscated Iraqi cultural property to a representative of that country, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Assistant Secretary John Morton is quoted as saying that the items being returned to Iraq are:

"precisely the types of treasures that ICE's Cultural Property, Art and Antiquities unit was established to identify, investigate and return to their rightful owners [...] We will continue to be vigilant about finding and prosecuting those who would rob a nation for personal gain."

One really wonders about the "vigilance" of US authorities which allow huge shipments of, for example, uncleaned coins metal- detected from archaeological sites in the Balkans and Near East to pass through US borders on their way to eBay sellers in the States. Each year some hundreds of thousands of (perhaps , according to Nathan Elkins who has done a lot of work on this, even a million) ancient dug-up coins many with the earth still on them may be sold through eBay and V-Coins by US sellers.

This prompts the question: how many such coins have US customs stopped at the borders this year? The 27 coins which the ACCG themselves informed Baltimore customs officers they were illegally imported? OK, but how many more? How many people in the US or abroad have been put in jail or heavily fined for involvement in antiquities smuggling into the US as a result of ICE investigations? That actually is a serious question. I presume the ICE actually have some kind of figures on this. Can we see them? How do we measure the "vigilance" of the current system in fighting the illicit movement of decontextuaalised archaeological material across international borders?

One gets the impression that showy 'handovers' like this under the eye of the press are intended mainly to create the impression in Washington that 'progress' is being made. Rarely however is any mention made of what happened to the people who were caught importing illegally exported material, whether investigations were able to trace back the chain of law-breaking to its origin. In fact, as in this case, I get the impression that the artefacts in question were impounded due to an accidental dicovery in a random spot-check (or like the coin mentioned the guilt-ridden owner handed them in themselves) rather than as the result of any concerted effort or detailed investigations intended to catch cultural criminals shielded by the no-questions-asked market in antiquities which currently prevails in the USA and which groups like the ACCG are engaging coin collectors in headlong conflict with the US government in order to maintain. I suspect I am not alone in hoping that when the current "Baltimore" case is over, the ICE and related organs will turn their attention to the stockrooms and documentation of ACCG-affiliated dealers; just where are they getting all those artefacts? I think, given the fuss they've been creating, we all have the right to know.
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Mr Ehrenberg, I Believe You Have Missed Something Very Important

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The ACCG, a no-profit organization, has nevertheless raised some 80000$ to engage Jason Ehrenberg, an employment law specialist to fight a case which is in effect indefensible. Interestingly Mr Ehrenberg is a partner in the same legal firm as one of the ACCG board members (and former President). Furthermore the complaint which Ehrenberg has submitted to Maryland District Court is in essence composed mostly of material clearly taken from Peter Tompa's personal Cultural property Observer blog , a blog the author has all along insisted has been based on "research" conducted in his own time and not connected with his work in Ehrenberg and Bailey. That as may be (though one might wonder then where the ACCG's members' 80 000 dollars have gone - certainly not on the research for the writing of the body of this whingeing complaint). Kimberly ("I see an elephant") Alderman has already set out her critique of this rambling text and her reasons for predicting that the suit will ultimately fail.

What is more interesting to me however is a very intriguing omission from the 80 000$ complaint. Although some 37 pages long, it omits mention of a fundamental legal definition which would underpin the assertion that the imposition of regulations in the case discussed was "arbitrary and capricious". I suspect that this was an oversight rather than deliberate, since if their employment law lawyer had thought to use this argument it would clearly have substantially bolstered (if not actually won) the ACCG case. For this reason I'm not going to discuss it further here until the ACCG have lost the case and decided it's time to stop ruining the already tarnished reputation of the trade which it represents.

Watch this space, this omission is really funny. What clowns. It's almost poetic justice:
Are they sure they covered everything, is it all on the list?
Really, I don't think they have, what a disgrace.
Perhaps they should've asked an archaeologist.
Although the answer is staring them in the face !
..... eat your heart out McGonegall !

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No-Questions-Asked-Antique-Torah Seller has Questions to Answer

A while back I wrote a post here about a story about the apparently dodgy origins of a Torah scroll in the New York Central Synagogue in Lexington Avenue allegedly coming from Poland (see here and here for the background of this post). To recap, the finder claims the object concerned was dug up in a place where a permit would have been needed to dig, and no such permit was sought or issued, and the finder would have needed an export licence to take out of the countr and no such licence seems to have been sought or issued. Now I see from Peter Tompa's blog that two Washington Post journalists also thought this story was fishy and looked into it in more detail than was able to at the time. They have recently published an article detailing their findings ( Washington Post article). This is ironic as it was Tompa who was criticising me not so long ago for opposing the reported removal of the Iraq scroll by the Save a Torah Foundation (which is a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization with its base of operations in the Washington, DC metropolitan area).

The Washington Post article treats the subject carefully and falls short of accusing the Foundation's members of fraud, though other commentators have not been so careful:

James Fanelli in the New York Post: Torah trouble for 'Rabbi Indiana Jones' (“A Baltimore rabbi could be turning a false profit”);
Ben Harris Is the Holocaust Torah rabbi a fraud?

There is obviously big money involved in peddling Jewish memoribilia - the black and not so black markets in central Europe are full of it, much of it fake - and Youlos is one of a number of merchants selling the stuff. What however is so characteristic here is the way that buyers have been parting with cash without asking the right questions about their origins. Like those ones Youlos admits "smuggling out of the [source] country in false bottomed suitcases", or under hs coat. By what RIGHT do the people who buy this stuff knowing the manner in which it was removed (because it is part of the sales patter) imagine they have to buy it? We are talking about illegally exported cultural property. The dealers' lobbyists have a whole set of arguments to justify their claim they have more "right" to keep in their homeland illegally exported cultural property than those from whose territory they were surreptitiously removed. Nevertheless the bottom line is illegal IS illegal. Whether or not the scroll in question in New York's Central Synagogue actually came from Auschwitz is debatable, what is not debatable is that the object seems to have been bought and presented to the congregation without anyone asking for proof that the items ad been legally acquired. That is what is so disturbing here. If they were stung, then (frankly) I am of the opinion that it serves them right.

Meanwhile the Save a Torah website carries this front page "Rabbi Youlus has been performing an enormous service for the Jewish community in rescuing Torahs that have survived the Holocaust and restoring them for use in Jewish communities around the world. We request that the public not be misled by innuendo in one published report, and reserve judgment until after Rabbi Youlus is given a fair opportunity to respond. Save A Torah is turning to independent experts in the field to verify the origin of donated Torahs". It is a shame that the scrolls in question seem to have (all?) been sold without any means of the buyers verifying for themselves their origins. But such is the nature of the no-questions asked market in cultural objects. The independent experts could ask of course to see the export licences as a first step to determining the origin of the Torahs the foundation has sold since 2004.

UPDATE 4/2/12
Martha Wexler and Jeff Lunden, "Maryland Rabbi Pleads Guilty to Fraud in Torah Scheme", Washington Post, February 3, 2012.

Appearing before Judge Colleen McMahon, Youlus said that “between 2004 and 2010, I falsely represented that I personally obtained vintage Torah scrolls from Europe and Israel,” including sacred fragments in a metal box buried in Auschwitz. He admitted to defrauding more than 50 victims — many in the Washington area, including private equity billionaire David Rubenstein. “I knew what I did was wrong and I deeply regret my conduct,” the frail-looking Orthodox rabbi said in a quiet voice. [...] Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement that the guilty plea is “a fitting conclusion to his story, and he will now be punished for his brazen fraud.” Each of the two counts carries a maximum of 20 years, although sentencing guidelines call for between four and five years for each. McMahon scheduled sentencing for June 21. Youlus will also be required to pay restitution to his victims. He admitted to defrauding the charity and its donors of more than $862,000. Prosecutors said he used donations for personal expenses and investments.

Egypt Antiquities Bill Approved

After a controversy which became at times rather heated, the People's Assembly (the lower House of Egypt's parliament yesterday approved the new Antiquities Bill. Part of the controversy focussed on the definition of the term "antiquity" (which has now been defined as anything older than 100 years and is so considered due to artistic and historical value).

Another point of contention was Article 8 which bans the trade, or anty other
form of disposal of antiquities unless there is a written consent from the
Supreme Council of Antiquities, it also states that the Council has the right to
take the antiquity away from its owner for a reasonable compensation in return".
(Egyptian Mail, Tuesday Feb. 2, 2010).

The new law has now to be passed by the Upper House. The"no-questions asked antiquities dealers support group" like to represent the "retentive" laws of the source countries from which they want to import fresh dugups as "unreasonable" and pretend the finder of artefacts is not rewarded - let us see whether they give the creators of this new law (including Zahi Hawass in the picture) due credit.

US Dugup Coin Collectors: Raising the Standard, or Lowering the Bar?

The Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild based in the United States of America is highly active among collectors, trying to create a position for the collection of ancient dugup coins from foreign lands in modern society. It is one of the most vociferous of the lobbies supporting the collecting of portable antiquities in the English-speaking world, and for that reason, it deserves attention and scrutiny.

Surely an organization such as this should be striving to instill among its membership impeccable standards of ethics in the acquisition and disposal of the portable antiquities they collect. Only by these means can the hobby as a whole escape the opprobrium which attaches to the no-questions-asked market which shields the illegal digger and exporter of freshly dugup antiquities of illegal origin. Such an organization should be at the forefront of raising standards.

This is not however what this organization is doing. It has, it is true, a weasel-worded code of ethics of no real worth, but everything the ACCG and the public statements of its officers aim to achieve is a lowering of standards of 'due diligence' and ethical dealing in archaeological objects in the trade as a whole. This is the aim of the Freedom of Information request, to ascertain the background of the recent imposition of temporary import restrictions on undocumented archaeological objects from Cyprus and China. This is the background of their recent provocative coin stunt. They say they are preserving the "freedom to collect", but forget to add the words, "in the couldn't-care-less ways we've always done".

That is simply no longer good enough. The current status quo is damaging and one wonders at the motives of all those so concerned to maintain it, and to so strenuously deny the self evident truth that the current form of the antiquities market is an ally of the looters and smugglers.

Let us have a look at who the ACCG benefactors are, let us look who supports their efforts to maintain the no-questions-asked trading of archaeological objects in the US and worldwide, let us see who supports a lowering of the bar.

U.S. settles with family of scholar

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The U.S. government has agreed to pay $880,000 to the estate of the late Roxanna Brown, the 62-year-old Southeast Asia scholar who died in federal custody in Seattle last year. Brown, a US citizen, directed the Southeast Asian Ceramics Museum at Bangkok University, in Thailand. She was arrested on a single charge of 'wire fraud' on May 9th 2008 in Seattle, where she was scheduled to speak at the University of Washington. During her imprisonment in a detention center at the SeaTac detention centre (a multi-story, maximum-security facility that serves the Northwest region) where she was awaiting transfer to Los Angeles to face the charge there, she complained of being ill and missed a court date. Four days later (May 14th) she died in her cell from a perforated ulcer for which no medical assistance had been supplied by federal authorities.

Ms Brown's arrest was part of last year's investigations into the donation of allegedly looted artefacts to US museums and related tax offences in a case which got a lot of media coverage at the time. In January 2008, hundreds of federal agents had raided the Bowers Museum in Orange County, the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, the Mingei Museum in San Diego and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, along with nine other locations in California and Illinois. Brown was expected to play a key role in the case as an expert witness and informant to government investigators. Her death in federal custody has been a setback to investigators; since it, there have been no public moves in the case.

In a paradoxical turn of events, Brown had become a target of the same investigators who she had earlier been aiding. She was arrested because her name was allegedly associated with the appraisal of objects for Jonathan and Cari Markell, Los Angeles gallery owners. Authorities said they had found her electronic signature on the appraisal forms that inflated the value of artwork. It is alleged that the gallery's clients then donated objects to local museums for inflated tax write-offs.

More disturbingly it was also alleged that Ms Brown had been involved in the sale of Thai antiquities to Robert Olson, an alleged smuggler from Cerritos (see the letter published in the LA Times which if genuine certainly raises some questions). The settlement therefore leaves unanswered broader questions about Brown's role in the alleged scheme.

The Los Angeles Times produced a lengthy three part portrait of the deceased and account of this case which made interesting reading:
Part 1: a passion for art, a perilous pursuit,
Part 2: Her career revived, scholar turns tipster,
Part 3: Once an aid in a federal probe, antiquities scholar becomes a key target .

Photo: Roxanna Brown during her years covering the Vietnam War (Fred Leo Brown)

More on Utah's "Action Cerberus"

The hooha about the Blanding ARPA arrests continues (Nate Carlisle, „BLM agents pulled guns on artifacts suspects, sheriff says” Salt lake Tribune 2nd July 2009) "All this could have been handled by summonses or [federal agents] could have come talk to me," [Sherrif] Lacy said. "I could have gone into any of these homes and not needed a gun". His brother was one of the accused. Had Sherrif Lacy ever wondered where the artifacts in his brother’s house were coming from? Where were the upright citizens of Blanding when apparently the law was being broken under their noses.

Also reported today, facing seven felonies, Jeanne Redd, the wife of the deceased doctor James Redd, may have reached a deal with prosecutors and has been scheduled to appear in court Monday to change her "not guilty" plea. (Patty Henetz, “Artifact-theft suspect to change plea” Salt lake Tribune 2nd July 2009).

Photo: San Juan County Sheriff Mike Lacy

US Laws Inadequate to Protect Archaeological Heritage

In contrast to the „dig-em-up and sell-em-off” attitudes of the pro-collecting lobby, independent filmmaker Gray Warriner writes that in the United States “Current laws are inadequate to protect antiquities” (Salt Lake Tribune 26th June 2009). In a well-written essay he argues that “demand powers the antiquities market; driven by auctioneers, wealthy collectors and a global clientele”. He points out that “we are about the only civilized nation in the world that allows this unrestricted, unrepentant erasure of history. Inadequate laws have created a thriving business in backhoe archeology and looting on both public and private lands”. [It must be added that they are behind the attitude of total disregard for the erasure of the archaeological record of other regions by commercial artefact mining that we see in the words of US collectors and especially dealers]. Warriner points out that “Some may not feel archeological preservation laws are important, but like all laws it is not our personal liberty to pick and choose which we obey or ignore”, but that is exactly what collectors do.

Describing the pulic/private land loophole in the current law, Warriner asks:

Why is it consistently so hard to muster a little public backbone and say enough? We've done it before. In the early 1900s, songbirds were being slaughtered to provide colorful feathers for women's hats and feather boas. Entire species teetered on the edge of extinction. At that time, we the people said no to fashions that kill because we could see the eventual outcome. If we can save songbirds and eagles by enacting clear, unambiguous laws that just say no, we can certainly do the same thing for prehistoric artifacts. Artifacts and ruins are finite, and the story they tell is in danger of being lost and gone forever. The overarching truth is that our antiquities laws are political compromises and doomed to fail. It is time to declare artifacts off-limits for private possession, period. This century-old cat-and-mouse game (requiring expensive law enforcement, sting operations, and prosecution dollars) won't slow down until the money flow diminishes or until all of our artifacts and history are stolen. At present, the laws are almost unenforceable in the vast canyon country of Utah and the Southwest. Professional diggers systematically work this giant loophole for treasure, buying and exploiting properties and then moving on to the next ruin. Call it what it is; legalized theft. It needs to be addressed, once and for all, or we will never be able to protect our past from ourselves.

Let us hope that other voices will be found to address this problem. By all means let us also hear the collectors argue their case for their position that this kind of exploitation of the archaeological record should be totally legalised and bring the collectors' "dig-em-up-regardless-and-sell-them-to-me" attitude into public scrutiny in the US.

"Why are ancient coins from Cyprus featured in a suit against the US Department of State?"

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The destruction of archaeological sites and assemblages in the search for collectable artefacts, which is accompanied by a huge loss of knowledge is a global problem of increasing severity that few people aware of it would deny. In recent years there has been a move away from the nineteenth century collecting ethos which in effect lasted until the middle of the last century, now many public institutions like museums adopted effective ethical codes and together with them more stringent acquisitions policies. By this means they intend to reduce the role that their acquisitions of recently surfaced antiquities had been playing in this destructive process.

Unfortunately outside these circles there remain a minority (composed mainly of private collectors and especially dealers who make their money from comercialising decontextualised archaeological artefacts) who refuse to recognise the need to change the ethics of the way they handle archaeological materal. These naysayers pretend looting is not a problem and nothing to do with the antiquities trade. They assert that neither dealers or private collectors should not be held to or practice any due diligence standards. It goes without saying that this obstructive mentality is a stumbling block to any progress in reducing the damage done year in and year out by the digging for artefacts to supply the no-questions-asked market. In the maintenance of the detrimental status quo, dealers and collectors of the United States are especially vociferous, and there is clarly a massive drain of the global historical heritage to the hungry markets of that country.

In the past few years the United States has come to an agreement with a number of neighbouring countries that it will apply import controls on antiquities deriving from those countries. This means that import of such objects into the United States will only be considered lawful if they are accompanied by documentation which shows they had been legitmately exported from them.

One would have thought that collectors from that country would have welcomed such moves, after all, who would want to buy illicitly exported items? While these restrictions affected material like pre-Columbian ceramics and textiles, collected only by a minority of specialist US collectors, there was relative calm. Things changed dramatically in 2007 when one of these import restrictions affcted ancient coins. Collectors of ancient coins in the US for some reason do not regard the objects they covet as archaeological artefacts (the logic of this escapes everyone except coin dealers). They also regard themselves as some kind of cultural elite whic they represent as somehow spreading enlightenment in a world of declining standards by their altruistic collecting activities. These "benefits" are enough - they say - to counter all the arguments of the preservationists (who they accuse of ulterior motives, malevolence and incompetence).

So it is that US (and Belgian *) coin collectors decided to overturn the decision of the Bush government of the United States of America. they want a court to be caused to rule that it was "unlawful" to declare coins archaeological artefacts in the was that was done in the case of Cyprus and China.

David Gill has now produced a brief introduction to this topic which should reach a wider public than the blogs and other discussions we take part in over this issue. His post to the PR Newswire "Why are ancient coins from Cyprus featured in a suit against the US Department of State?" links to his cleverly-titled and informative blog"Looting Matters" from which the interested reader can explore the issue themselves. Of course the "coiney" lobby is unlikely to be best pleased by this. I think Dr Gill can expect some more of the name calling and unpleasantness which seems to be all that the US coin collecting lobby is capable of these days.

* who knows where they came into the equation, but how ironic it is in the light of a certain commentator's misgivings about "foreign organizations" allegedly interefering in the doings of the US no-questions-asked antiquities market.

Coiney Klan Keeps up the Smokescreen: Collectors fail to Question

The misinformation process about the ACCG illegal import coin stunt is still in full swing among the US collectors of decontextualised numismata. Over on Moneta-L the ACCG position is being reiterated (again) for the benefit of those whose confidence that they were being told the whole truth about the stunt was being swayed (as well it might). Heaven forbid that collectors might question why they were being dragged into this confrontatiuon by dealers and what's in it for them.

I pointed out ten days ago that the CPIA has a handy loophole for all those people who want to import antiquities from countries with an MOU about import restrictions. It applies to those who somehow have not had the opportunity to organize their legal import with an export licence. It’s really quite simple, just a piece of paper with a statement and a signature on it. Apparently speaking on behalf of the ACCG, John Hooker however ignores that totally and announces on the Moneta-L coiney forum: “Apparently, Paul Barford really does not understand what I wrote”. Quite right, I do not understand why he insists on writing about “export licences” when its not now about export licences, I do not understand why Dave Welsh and John Hooker refuse to admit to monetan collectors that there is in fact another way around the lack of export licence embodied in the CPIA. The only reason I can see for this is that to do that would reveal that the system currently in place for the import of coins from source countries which have asked the USA to control this is not so “unreasonable” after all.

To avoid talking about that, Mr Hooker patronisingly explains to his readers what a “test case” is and ventures that “all of his [that’s mine] advice on getting the right paperwork together really misses the whole point”. Well, it is not “advice” so much. What I am saying is that the collectors whose money is being used to finance this stunt (for that IS what it is) and who are ultimately going to be affected when it fails, really ought to be aware of what is going on, who is to blame for the path of confrontation that has been forced upon them by the dealers' lobby and what alternatives there are/were.

We therefore come back to the statement that “It is about changing unreasonable and restrictive laws”. Are these laws really so unreasonable when there’s a whopping big loophole in the CCPIA just waiting to be used? Are they unreasonable to collectors? The only unreasonable thing here is the attitudes of certain 'don't-ask-me-any-questions' dealers who are intent on divisive confrontation between exploiters and conservers, who form a sort of Ku Klux Klan of collecting united in their hatred of “archaeologists” and “archaeology” and its concerns which comes through very clearly in the writings of the ACCG members.

Another rather startling fact has just come to light and I am not sure what to make of it. Not only was the strategy of this Baltimore illegal import stunt not presented to the ACCG’s own members (“collectors”) for consideration as one of a number of alternatives to be democratically discussed, Dave Welsh revealed in a private letter in answer to my questions, that not even he, a member of the ACCG Board of Directors, knows where the coins were bought, and to whom the seized package was addressed in the US. So does this mean that fundamental decisions like this were taken without even consultation within the ACCG’s Board of Directors?

If so, it would mean that this whole affair is not the doing of the estimated "50 000" ancient coin collectors in the USA, not the estimated "5000" collector-members affiliated with the ACCG, not the cabal of a dozen or so members of the Board of Directors of the ACCG itself, but the doings of [a secret core] of maybe one or two people working within and ostensibly on behalf of all those people - but without it seems asking them first whether they agree that this confrontation is necessary or the right way to go. They will all however be required to suffer any consequences of it going badly wrong. Good, serves them right for not standing up to the unreasonable bully boys that are the source of all the trouble here.

Washington Collectors' Rights Lawyer: Stolen Articles a "strange case"

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Over on the blog of Cultural Property Observer (Bailey and Ehrenberg lawyer Peter Tompa) is a post made on Tuesday (so apparently a day after my own) called “The Strange Case of the Sisto Collection”. Personally, as my own account of the topic indicates, I see nothing "strange" about it at all; it was another example of a US private collection of portable antiquities, antiques and art objects containing items of questionable provenance and exported from the source country in dubious circumstances, like probably countless others.

The former president of the ACCG however puts a collectors’ spin on the tale:

Mr. Sisto's heirs apparently did not know what to do with
the trove. They called the police, who were only too happy to turn it over to Italian cultural authorities.

Reference to the material I quoted makes it clear that Mr Sisto’s son Joseph was far from ignorant in these matters and was quite certain two years earlier what his father should have done with the objects illegally obtained by the grandfather. This is the reason the police were involved after the collector’s death, and why I think Joseph Sisto should be commended.

Not so Cultural Property Observer, who continues “It is unclear why exactly why the FBI concluded that 1,600 items of some 3,500 found in the home were "stolen."….” [the inverted commas are Cultural Property Observer's ]. It seems he has not given adequate attention to the FBI press release of June 8th. There he would have learnt:

Members of the FBI’s Art Crime Team (ACT) then took possession of over 3,500 items and began the exhaustive process of trying to identify and authenticate each one. Investigators worked closely with the Italian Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage and the Italian Ministry for Cultural Assets and Activities, whose assistance was invaluable to this process.

The objects were apparently laboriously checked against records of previous art thefts in Italy, as a result of which FBI investigators came to believe “that the elder Sisto obtained the artifacts by various means, primarily from third parties who would loot private collections for personal gain”. The articles that are being sent back to Italy had been stolen from other collections.

So this has nothing to do with Italian export licencing legislation (the 2000 objects not identified as resulting from thefts in Italy were not returned to Italy, even though they too it seems had been illegally exported). Cultural Property Observer asks rhetorically:

Is this really a case of "stolen property" or more of one of Italian authorities "cherry picking" artifacts of cultural interest for repatriation? Without more information, we will never know whether the FBI acceded to Italy's "guilty until proven innocent" mentality or whether some real evidence was provided that the material was actually "stolen."

Well, in fact the information is available, and Cultural Property Observer's remarks are no less than an unjustied slight on the FBI and the Italian authorities. The allegation is thus another in the series of conspiracy theories from the Tompa/ACCG stable about "innocent" collectors being the "victims" of oppressive and ignoble authorities.

At the end of his blog post, Cultural Property Observer sneers:

Hopefully, at a minimum, Mr. Sisto's son will keep tabs on what Italian authorities actually do with his deceased father's beloved collection. Wouldn't it be a shame if the trove just ended up in storage somewhere or, even worse, if it was displayed as a "trophy" in Italy's ongoing campaign to repatriate artifacts?

Instead, it seems that the search will be on for the collectors from whom the objects were initially stolen, or the heirs of the victims.

The codes of ethics of even coin dealers do not condone hanging on to, still less trading in, artifacts from anyone’s "beloved collection" if it turns out that they had been acquired as a result of theft from other owners and collections. It is odd to witness a US collector (and a lawyer to boot) who seems uneasy about these items going back from a US private collection to where they were stolen from. Question: in the eyes of US collectors, do “collectors rights” somehow not apply when the owner of cultural property is a foreign one and it is a US citizen who has got his hands on it? Cultural Property Observer's treatment of the Sisto collection investigation as a "strange case" implies he sees US law enforcement agencies colluding like the undercover agents of "foreign governments" which Mr Tompa apparently imagines exist.

Photo: FBI black helicopter - if you are a portable antiquity collector and not yet a member of the ACCG, they could be coming after YOU next!

A Controversial Coin from California

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Artifact hunters searching grass road verges at the junction of South Beverly Drive and West Pico Boulevard in Beverly Hills, CA 90212 made a lucky discovery a few weeks ago; a very large coin bigger than even a Morgan dollar, apparently Roman in very nice condition. The object is now being offered for sale by Ira & Larry Goldberg in their pre-Long Beach sale which starts tomorrow and is described in their online catalogue thusly:

Lot 1931 Valentinian I, AD 364-375. Silver Multiple of 24 Miliaresia (48 Siliquae) 104.3 g. 66 mm., minted at Antioch, AD 369. Diademed, cuirassed and draped bust right of Valentinian. Reverse: Legend in four lines within laurel wreath; below, "AN" (mintmark for Antioch). Unpublished, and apparently unique […] Some light porosity and displaying stray marks. Minimal wear results in the net grade of Extremely Fine. This, the largest silver coin known of the Roman Empire, is a silver multiple weighing one-third of a Roman pound of silver. Remarkably thick in comparison to contemporary silver coins, it was struck at a time when silver, as a metal, was scarce. […] This gargantuan gift was no doubt presented to a high-ranking Roman officer or dignitary. One theory that has been advanced is the possibility that Count Theodosius himself, peacemaker of Britain at the time, was the recipient of the medallion. A likely occasion for this honor was Valentinian's quinquennial celebration, held on 25 February AD 369. Estimated Value $300,000 - 400,000. Provenance: With supporting certificates of authenticity from David R. Sear and Frank L. Kovacs.

The finder Mr Ivor Tecta is reported as saying “me and my man Bazza was jus’ ‘tecting this piece of grass by the side of the road, like, we had all the proper permission and all that. But we was like finding nothing but ring pulls, spent PD bullet cases and a few wheaties and a Barber dime; and I was like saying that we should give up and go back to the trailer park when I jus' got this really loud signal, like, and I bent down and picked it up. You should’a seen the look on Bazza’s face !” Mr Tecta who lives in a Santa Monica mobile home park went on. “It’s kinda nice researching the history of this part of Beverly Hills, all the things the Old Timers left behind, it makes history come to life, like, an' gives you a funny feeling to hold in yer hand what somebody held in their hands all that time ago".

David Classic, local antiquities dealer was the first to see the find. He too was amazed by the size and condition of this coin: “I immediately recognized the importance of this coin when Ivor brought it to me. Its not surprising to find it here, after all Parthian coins are found in Spain, so why not Roman coins in California? Roman soldiers used to bury their savings by the sides of old roads on their way to battle, and sadly, not all made it back to retrieve them. This is what it must have been, there must have been a big battle near here two thousand years ago”.

The decision to sell the coin has roused the anger of local residents and educators in the Beverly Hills area. They argue that an object of this importance and appeal should not find its way to some private collection, but should be displayed in a local or national collection (such as that of the American Numismatic Society) so that it can be appreciated by all members of the public and contribute to their knowledge of the rich cultural heritage of the classical world and its contribution to the rich cultural mosaic of the land they live in.

Mr Phil E. Stein, a spokesman for the US Ministry of Culture says that he understands the critical voices of those citizens, but says however: “We believe this object should be sold to the highest bidder and if it ends up in the private collection of a foreign businessman or dictator, well that is just too bad. We cannot be seen to be putting the cultural needs of people of this country before those of other people”. Mr Stein added that although some have argued that this piece is clearly of exceptional artistic, archaeological, historical and numismatic importance and is of great importance to the local culture of Beverly Hills, the Ministry of Culture will not be withholding the issue of an export licence for it. “my government feels that such retentive policies are nationalistic in their origin, and the American people are not nationalistic”. In any case, he added, even if a licence was refused, the new owners could easily take it out of the country at any time they wanted without one; “we all know our borders are as leaky as a sieve” he candidly remarked. There was always somebody who would turn a blind eye outside the country who would be willing to trade with artefact smugglers and buy it. "In fact, if someone just concealed it about (or within) their person and took it through airport checkin, it would save us a lot of boring old red tape".

Juanez Juno (author of the best-selling book "You Can Own Their Past") the newly appointed government advisor on cultural policy agrees: "Displaying this object in a foreign universal museum alongside other similarly shaped objects from different cultures such as those quaint native sculptures and lip-plugs and the artistic products of cargo-cults will allow the place of the ancient cultures of our land to be seen in its pluralistic global context and be another way of expressing American cultural supremacy through the ages".

Sayne Wales of the Ancient Coin Dependency Group (ACDG) based in Tompa Florida however has expressed outrage at such ideas and the short-sighted cultural policies by the current administration. “This nation does not deserve a Ministry of Culture", he fumed. "If this item is exported from the US as a result of the short sighted cultural policies of this Administration, my organization will immediately be making a Freedom of Information request to find out what back door dealings lie behind such a decision”. Wales suggested that there was a huge government conspiracy to deprive the American people of their cultural heritage. “This is unconstitutional and we will defend the right of our members to have access to such material for study in this country. It is unacceptable that our members would have to go to collections and museums in other parts of the world to see objects that have been taken from our soil”.

There are other controversies connected with this sale. Washington lawyer Pietro de Hamlyn represents the American Committee for the Ethical Trade in Antiquities (ACETIA) and is an avid observer of cultural property issues. He is very sceptical of the account concerning the findspot.

“Although the trade is keeping very quiet about the whole business, in reality it is highly unlikely to have been found in the State of California or the United States at all. I seriously doubt the story of the finding of this coin by Mr Ivor Tecta in California, indeed, I think it entirely possible that the man himself does not even exist. Rumours however are circulating that this was part of a hoard which also contained coins of Priscus Attalus (Emperor of the West in 409-10) found abroad. As such, it was almost certainly illegally exported from the source country (I cannot seriously imagine any other country – apart form the US –  which would issue an export licence for such a unique item found on their soil). As such its import into the US cannot have been ethical or in accord with international legislation. We have signed international treaties you know, and the UNESCO one obliges our law enforcement agencies to stop any process likely to lead to illegal transfer of ownership. Not that this makes much of a difference, action is all to rarely taken in this country against those that flaunt these laws. More disturbingly, all too often the foreigners smuggling items like this to our shores are mixed up in all sorts of other illegal business such as drugs and human trafficking, and our border personnel and homeland security officials should be doing more to investigate these connections and break the smuggling rings. That in a civilised country like ours they do not is unacceptable. Our Committee is committed to drawing attention to this problem and goading the administration into taking action".

de Hamlyn noted that if US border personnel were unable to stop the import of 100 grammes of illegally exported ancient silver coin into the country, what confidence can US citizens have that they are stopping 100 grammes or more of illegally exported Strontium 90 powder for dirty bombs or 100 grammes of military-grade anthrax spores?

North Carolina coin dealer and trade watchdog Olin Von Arksdahl is of a different opinion on the lack of firm information on provenance. "It's a fake isn't it?" he asks rhetorically. "That is why they cannot say where it really comes from ! Just look at it, coins of Valentinian I have broad flat areas like this one, but are generally chunkier. This coin is too flat, the lettering too spindly and all over the place, the style is wrong. Look at that portrait, it has the appearance of a laboriously studious copy. Generally the relief is too flat, has no 'body' to it. The wreath looks like something on nineteenth century European coins and not like the wreaths on Roman coins and medallions. In any case, whoever heard of a hand-struck silver coin with a diameter of 66 mm? To strike this would need a coin press like those used by Chinese and Lebanese forgers - and isn't it interesting that the mintmark is "Antioch" - is somebody trying to tell us something? Where did it REALLY come from?". Our interview was cut short by Mr von Arksdahl complaining of a severe headache. The no-questions asked US trade in portable antiquities seems full of them.

Photo: The 'Goldberg' medallion, work out for yourselves what in the above is true and what is allegory.

"If there is no reason to suspect ..." the coin elves again

Over on the Moneta-L discussion list, Ross Glanfield asks: "Are you saying that it is legal to import coins into the U.S. that have been illegally exported from Bulgaria (or anywhere else)?" Now there's a leading question. Quick as a flash, Californian coin dealer and "collectors' rights" activist Dave Welsh of Classical Coins answered:

The law on this is complicated and in significant areas it rests upon rulings that have not been tested. Basically, it is unlawful to knowingly transport stolen property (or to conspire to do so) into the USA. The issue is what constitutes "stolen property." If there is no reason to suspect that a particular coin or group of coins has been smuggled out of a source state that controls exports, then bringing it into the USA in most cases would not be unlawful. My own personal standard is to avoid any situation involving importation of coins unless I know the source, and am confident that there is no reason to suspect that they have been smuggled.

The law is perfectly clear about "what constitutes stolen property". If the law says it belongs to somebody else and somebody takes it, it is stolen. A stolen car does not become an unstolen car just by driving it to another country. What Mr Welsh means is that he does not recognise the right of foreign countries (such as Poland by virtue of the 1928 and subsequent laws on the protection of the historical and cultural heritage) to declare certain resources the property of the state to be used for the benefit of all citizens. He wants to sell these very same types of items in California and questions whether any foreign government should have the right to want to see them put to another use. That is the whole rationale behind Mr Welsh's activism.

There is nothing wrong with Mr Welsh and his fellow antiquity dealers selling antiquities and antiques in the USA which can be documented as having left the source country legally. That is what we call the legitimate trade, and in reality nobody at all is concerned to put a stop to that (conflicting claims only derive from antiquity dealers' scare-mongering). The problem is however that dealers and collectors do not see any clear boundary between that legitimate market in items with secure legitimate provenances and the shady dealings of items without. It is here that all the self-justificatory arguments about "collectors' rights" and "irrational laws" and weasel-worded codes of practice come into play. They are the means by which collectors of portable antiquities are asked to engage in a game of self-justificatory self-deception to cover for the fact that part of this market is far from legitimate.

As for "If there is no reason to suspect that a particular coin or group of coins has been smuggled out of a source state that controls exports, then bringing it into the USA in most cases would not be unlawful". Well, that is nonsense. Each of those "source countries" that controls exports (which is what the 1970 UNESCO Convention [Article 6] requires of all states party anyway)issues export licences. Given the known extent of the illicit trade, any portable antiquity being offered on the market unaccompanied by an export licence or verifiable provenance placing its removal from the source country before introduction of export controls is indeed suspect. It is not buying "in good faith" to ignore that suspicion, it is simply self-deception.

The UNESCO 1970 treaty has an Article 13. It would be worth dealers and collectors in denial reading it (also they might note Art. 8) and considering what that actually means countries like the US and UK who are party to it should be doing . Should be, but are not (yet). Britain has its 'Dealing in Cultural Property (Offences) Act of 2003, the US has... well, what? The illicit trade in antiquities however does not exist in a vacuum, which suggests that the policy of the turning of a blind eye by unconcerned officialdom may well be due for revision.

Mr Welsh states that the policy of Classical Coins is; "to avoid any situation involving importation of coins unless I know the source, and am confident that there is no reason to suspect that they have been smuggled". I have on this blog (and before that on at least one forum) asked Mr Welsh about the bulk lots of coins of apparent Balkan origin he is currently offering for sale on his website. Now personally, I would think that anyone knowing what is going on in the Balkans would have very good reason to suspect that job lots of uncleaned coins recently (post 1990) offered on the market and apparently (mintmarks etc) coming from the region had been smuggled to wherever it was he bought them. In the current situation, that would seem to be an unavoidable suspicion. Only if the seller had a valid export licence for those particular coins could there be "confidence" that this was not the case. Mr Welsh however has several times declined to reveal the source of his "confidence" in this regard. Neither has he said anything which would suggest he knows their "source", indeed, he has several times explicitly stated that he believes that the great bulk of the coins on the market come from hoards "buried on the edges of battlefields" and are found by specialist hoard seekers searching with metal detectors well away from any known sites. These notions are pure fantasy and may be placed among such fairy stories as the coins coming from leprachauns and elves instead of site-trashing artefact hunters.

I have also asked about the Parthian coins being offered by the same "collectors' rights" activist-dealer on his website. No straight answer was forthcoming, merely an intimation that they had come "from Spain". Hmmm.

I would say that since Classical Coins is run by a vociferous "collectors' rights" activist intent on whitewashing the antiquities trade (at least that part of it that involves the coins he and fellow ACCG dealers sell), it is perfectly justifiable to ask for some explanation of the business practices behind the objects we see. So why is Mr Welsh so coy about stating the basis of his "confidence" that the removal of these items from the ground and the source country was in full accord with the law? For from a "collectors' rights" activist representing the hobby as a whole, we should surely be asked to expect nothing less.

But actually its not only the Law which should concern us. It is the broader ethical issues that we should not lose sight of here, and by bthis I mean an approach rather than weasel-worded dealers' "codes of ethics" which actually mean nothing.