British Archaeology, Outreach and "Little Green PAS-Men"

Volunteers arrive in mismatched camoflage

The secrecy surrounding the Heritage Lottery-funded PAStExplorers recording scheme to be manned by mysterious 'volunteers' has aroused much speculation in recent months. The PAS is refusing to say where these volunteers will be recruited, who they will be, what milieus they will be they are coming from and what interests they have in strengthening the PAS hold on archaeological outreach. In particular, there has been total silence on the all-important question of the security of findspot data in the hands of these 500 unknown individuals scattered in ten regional centres, or indeed to what data and resources these people will have access. A PACHI reporter was in Bloomsbury Square this morning as the first volunteers arrived for briefing at 41 Russell Square, Camden Town:

As a column of muddy cars arrived outside number 41 on Monday morning, a pirate flag fluttered from one of its windows. As the volunteers clambered out, locals crowded around them in the square. There was rampant speculation about who these men in mismatched camouflage were. The men themselves were reluctant to talk to journalists about their identity or intentions, though it was clear that there were definitely green men among them. From their demeanour it appeared that the bulk of them were not  professional finds specialists. Several people peered nervously into the back of one of the cars, there were long packages there, which could have contained metal detectors or weapons, but onlookers were quickly ushered away and the men filed silently into the building.

The whole idea of the PAS was so that members of the public who'd found archaeological artefacts would be able to take them directly to an archaeologist who would then 'liaise' with them and thus provide public outreach and where necessary guidance and encouragement on 'best practice'. That concept quickly became bowdlerised to 'best practice=going to the PAS'.

Now it seems the core element of the Scheme is being scrapped, members of the public apparently will not be coming into direct contact with real archaeologists, but volunteers 'trained' to fulfil the role of pretend archaeologists (who very well may then 'liaise' with the archaeologists they are working under). The whole concept of liaison has all-too-clearly been subsumed under the overall aim of "getting as much stuff in the database, no matter what" which is simply a perversion of the reasons why the Portable Antiquities Scheme was set up. The database was a tool and not the aim in its own right it has now become.

Meanwhile there are justified grounds to believe that many of these 'volunteer ersatz-liaison officers' will in fact be coming from artefact hunting and collecting circles, and not in any way representing to the public the aims and concepts of archaeology, but an object-centred approach to the past (PASt). This is exactly the equivalent of the un-unifoirmed and unacknowledged "little Green men" who are presently an instrument in the attempt to wrest Crimea and the Donbas from the Ukrainians through clandestine infiltration through poorly-defended borders.

PAS, when will you inform us, who - specifically - ARE your little Green Men going to be? 

Lack of Respect for Ancient Monuments in Today's Britain

Referring to recent "additions" to the Uffington White Horse and the moustache added to the Cerne Abbas Giant, Heritage Action ask: "Stunts at monuments: is there a policy on the subject?" 27/11/2013. They argue that such modifications hardly foster any respect for ancient sites and monuments (what's new in dig it all up Great Britain?) and whether such stunts "carry a risk of damaging copycatting elsewhere".

One thinks in this context in particular of the vandalism of an 1844 equestrian monument to the Duke of Wellington by the important nineteenth century sculptor Carlo Marochetti in Glasgow. Pranksters continually clamber up to place a traffic rod cone on the head of the person commemorated and/or his horse damaging the fragile bronze cast and its patina:

According to Gary Nesbit, a leading expert on Glasgow's public statues, damage is being done to the duke by decades of being climbed upon [...] He said: "His sword is damaged, the plinth is scuffed, it's covered with stickers and biological growth and how we treat a monument to a symbol of all that is wonderful about the British military is a disgrace [...] What's needed is illumination and cameras".

Earlier pleas have gone unheeded (Stephanie Todd, 'Council in road cone statue plea' BBC News Scotland, Wednesday, 16 February, 2005): "The Duke has lost his spurs and half his sword as a result of pranksters trying to scale the structure", one of course not meant to be climbed on. Recently moves were afoot by those entrusted with care of the monument to restrict access of vandals to the monument, but they were opposed by a campaign led by a Leverhulme fellow at Glasgow’s Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, a member of the Glasgow "Trafficking Culture" project. Personally, I think this raises a number of questions which need discussing.* If this was a stele in the Central American jungle getting its glyphs scuffed and knobs knocked off by drunken local businessmen, foresters and farmers continually climbing onto it to place an empty tequila bottle comically on top of it, would it be so "funny"? Does the fact that its in 'everything goes' Britain make it any the more acceptable? What attitudes lie behind encouraging such acts? Cultural expression or lack-of-culture? Use of a public monument or misuse? Respect for historical sites and monuments or disrespect? Do we look after the remains of the past, or let people clamber all over it doing what they feel like doing at the time? Is today's drunken dumb-down disrespect for a work of art which has come down from the past a substitute for respect for (and understanding of) the artist's original message and the intentions of those who paid for the creation of the monument? When we talk of preservation, what is it we are trying to conserve and pass on to our children and why?

* Not least because the act itself is an offence.

Vignette: The White Heritage Hero of Uffington  ("Detectorist Stunt 'A Desecration' Say Residents", Saturday, 10 March 2012

Ordinary People Caring for Extraordinary Places

.
While many in Britain are pissing on the past and generally using it up in disregard for the needs of others, not everybody is so self-centred. Heritage Action ('Ordinary People Caring for Extraordinary Places') will be celebrating its ninth anniversary soon, here is a potted history of the organization: Heritage Action – A Brief History.

Bangor Gives up on Discussion, Goes Pagan

.
Almost daily somebody from Bangor, probably one or more of his "Heritage studies" students, has been logging on to see if Prof Karl is going to comment on my January discussion of his ideas about why the PAS is superior to preservation. It seems that - though persistent - they've given up and instead now looking at some other stuff on here (good for you), including finding something I'd forgotten about mentioning. One of my other research interests is the Slavs and I've been toying with the idea of writing something commercially on Slavic neo-paganism, instead of getting on with what I am supposed to be researching about them. Here's a video I came across related to this and mentioned briefly earlier and the Bangor folk apparently looked up - so I thought I'd share the link ("...and Heritage Issues"). I think it's cheating though that she's not singing in Old Slavic... but maybe that'd not go with the electric guitars.

Probably more fun than discussing the PAS... I think she is putting a curse on foreign collectors who dig up and buy and sell the things buried with and by the ancestors... (There is a big thing about the unquiet spirits of the dead in Slavic mythology, definitely something to use against collectors.)

Commercial Use of Iconic Sites in Greece

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

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

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

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

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

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

Heritage Action: Beyond the mumbo jumbo – Part 1

Another must-read and must-re-read from Heritage Action for both supporters and detractors of so-called "metal detecting" in the UK ('Beyond the mumbo jumbo – Part 1'). To be honest I am helpless to identify the best "soundbites" to cut and paste here. This is vintage Swift and cannot be sipped, and to do it justice would involve cut and pasting the whole lot here, so instead of that, please take the time to get to grips with the ideas behind the whole text on the HA webpage. Powerful arguments - let us see how long we have to wait for an answer from those who would deny that its reflects the truth about artefact hunting and collecting in Britain. Don't hold your breath.

EXPERIMENT: (1) Pretend to be a UK metal detectorist [see below how], (2) Register with a national (UK) metal detecting forum of your choice, (3) Write: "Hello, I am new hear. Hiya. I wuz reeding wot that Nigel Swift bloke writ about how the PAS our going to chenge the lawz about Traesure and make are hobby impossible to do, innit? Wot do yuz gys think about it, will it appen? LOL", (4) post it and go and make a sandwich, (5) come back and read the denial immediately sent to the forum by a member of staff of the PAS stating authoritatively that anything of the type is being considered and that "people like Nigel Swift" can be safely ignored by metal detectorist. And yet Heritage Action and any other member of the non-collecting public will wait until the cows come home before the PAS will do any proper "outreach" to them and engage in any discussion with their concerns. Try it and see if I am right.

The fate of the UK Draft Heritage Bill 2008

Heritage Journal has a cogent comment on the new UK Minister of Culture's answer to a question about the fate of the Draft Heritage Bill 2008 which had so many nearly-innovative (though in the event castrated) initiatives on artefact hunting - among other beneficial things of course. John Penrose the new Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport; (Weston-Super-Mare, Conservative) stated:

I am currently evaluating which elements of the draft Bill have already been implemented through other mechanisms, and which might potentially still be desirable in future.

To my mind he has not really answered the question, there is a little fun thing on the "They work for You" site to click to tell him so, please click it if you agree with me.

"Bloomsbury Jones and the Finding of the Lost Emperor"

.

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...

Heritage action: Five years on, Where's the change?

.
In a thought-provoking and colourfully illustrated post on the Heritage Action blog, the question is raised how far liaison has got us since the diasterous 2005 "Near Avebury" commercial metal detecting rally ("a crass and vulgar grabfest dedicated to “self” and a denial of the existence of “society”...").

HA asks what has changed in Britain since that much-criticised event.

"After all, everyone was assured at the time that things would change. Both detectorists and PAS explained over and over that all that was needed was patience. Everyone needed to stop complaining about the damage, jump on the train to Liaisonville (as PAS put it) and trust PAS to offer detectorists understanding and education and outreach and liaison – and some more understanding – and definitely no criticism – as a result of which, very soon, more and more and more of them would see the light and become “responsible” rational citizens that recognised that their interests were as nothing compared with the interests of society and would start to regulate their own behaviour accordingly. In other words, they’d start to act like other people.

HA points out that five years on there are no fewer commercial metal detecting rallies in North Wiltshire. Those five years have seen the publication of a Code of Responsible Detecting.

Trouble is, although it’s centrepiece is the assertion that to be responsible you have to report all your finds to PAS, PAS’s own statistics clearly indicate most detectorists still don’t – despite PAS regularly re-jigging the basis of calculation to make things look better than they are. No change there then – after five years most detectorists are still not responsible as defined, they are still knowledge thieves, plain and simple.

HA points out that some Guidance on Rallies has been published, a belated acknowledgement that these events are extremely damaging

The problem is, the guidance doesn’t say what it should – don’t hold rallies, they are vandalism writ large – it merely offers some obvious suggestions that no-one with a conscience wouldn’t be doing already. Worse, some less-than-archaeology-friendly rally organisers are using guidance compliance as a marketing ploy. Crude bellicosity towards archaeologists and an endless succession of adverts for scores of rallies effectively saying “meet at the layby on the A1 and we’ll pilot you to the unpublished venue” hardly instills confidence in such rallies does it?

One other thing that has certainly happened over the past five years is that PAS staff

have spent 1800 days outreaching, educating and persuading detectorists so some of that must have rubbed off. Or has it? This very day, a few minutes drive from the place where the Near Avebury detecting disaster took place the Colchester detecting society is holding the Foxham Rally – which is depressing enough since it shows no progress has been made, but worse, they are holding it on pasture that has remained undisturbed for 100 years, this being in direct defiance of both the Code of Responsible Detecting and the Guidance on Rallies. Why? Because they haven’t heard it’s not acceptable? Hardly. The hapless taxpayer has spent millions of pounds and more than a decade trying to get that message through their skulls. Presumably then, simply because they want to and they can.

HA identify the profound flaw in the “persuasion, education and liaison strategy” that Britain alone has adopted, which they gracefully admit "might not have been obvious at the start" (hmmm)but forcefully point out "it certainly is now". Like all antiquity collectors, "You can inform the majority of detectorists what’s right till you’re blue in the face, but you can’t get them to do what’s right if they find it more self-fulfilling to do what’s wrong". The PAS database statistics, or looking in on collectors forums or talking with collectors clearly show the correctness of what HA are saying. An objective look at this evidence will show that attempts to deny this by labelling HA as "ignorant amateurs" by artefact hunters and collectors and their supporters in the archaeological world in Britain are just name-calling.

So is that it? Nothing has really changed over the past five years? PAS still liaising, most detectorists still helping themselves and North Wiltshire still subject to a self-serving pestilence? Pretty much. Except for one thing. Detectorists have used the extra five years provided by the liaison policy to lift another 1.44 million artefacts from the record, mostly without reporting them. How many is that? Well think of Wembley’s pitch. It wouldn’t be big enough to lay them all out. Britain is utterly barmy say know-nowt amateurs.

.
.
Vignette: commercial artefact hunters' base camp between a field of rape and a White Horse, says it all really.

The Welsh Rosetta Stone? "Y Gymuned Ffyliaid Ebrill" and Repatriation

Just to show that it is not just third world "source countries" which may be accused of "cultural property nationalism" David Gill ("Call for Bluestones to return to Pembrokeshire") draws attention to a breaking news story that seems analagous to the controversy currently being whipped up over the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon Marbles, activists from the aptly-named "Y Gymuned Ffyliaid Ebrill" has called for the symbolic return of one of the bluestones from Salisbury Plain and is sending a delegate to the upcoming Cairo conference on the restitution of cultural property removed from its country of origin. Meanwhile a group of Dolmen enthusiasts is opposing the move and argues that now the stones are removed from their original context, they should stay in their new home where they can be appreciated in the context of the other elements gathered together at this spot in the past. It is this new assemblage which, they argue, is important - rather than the place from which the objects were removed. This story seems worth watching for the drama played out within what is still a United Kingdom may well give insights into the battle over the movement of cultural property across national borders about which there is so much ongoing debate these days. Thanks David for bringing our attention to this weighty (pun intended) issue.

Suspicion of Arson at Ugandan Heritage Site Fuels Deadly Clashes

Riots erupted at venerated burial grounds in Uganda on Wednesday after a suspicious fire on Tuesday engulfed the Tombs of the Buganda Kings at Kasubi. The violence is a symptom of continuing troubles between the Ugandan government and members of the Buganda traditional kingdom who want more local power. The tombs were built in 1882 and later converted into a royal burial ground for the Buganda kingdom and are now a World Heritage site. In the fire the main tomb, made of wood, thatch, reed and wattle, burnt to the ground. Supporters of the kabaka, the Buganda king, blamed arson as the cause of the disaster, and Kingdom officials called for a week of mourning.

By Wednesday evening, hundreds of members of the Buganda community were streaming toward the remains of the tomb, camping out by their remains. Protests erupted when Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, visited the scene of the fire and protesters tried to prevent him from approaching the tombs. Witnesses said that police officers shot and killed three protesters.

Jeffrey Gettleman and Josh Kron Suspicion of Arson at Royal Tombs Fuels Deadly Clashes in Uganda, New York Times March 17, 2010.

Video here

The site can be 'visited' virtually here .

This situation is another example of the embedding of cultural property (in this case a place, a powerful place, a place of memory) in identity which universalist collectors' lobbyists simplify under their "Nationalist" label. The situation with 'identity' and 'heritage' is of course far more complicated than the Cunos of this world would like their readers to think.

"Cultural Preservation, A Growing Imperative": Would this be "Nationalism" or "Internationalism"?

.
Just as I was ploughing through the turgid disorganized verbosity of the latest intellectual products of a bunch of US homegrown "scholars" on the subject of so-called "cultural property nationalism", I came across the comments of another American, Smithsonian Institution's Richard Kurin: "Cultural Preservation: A Growing Imperative". I wondered which of the two groups defined by their wholly inadequate terminology ("Nationalists" versus "Internationalists") the ACCG would place Mr Kurin. Now, what I would really like to see is "professional numismatists" Sayles and Welsh in debate with a few real scholars from institutions like the Smithsonian on the issues they dismiss so glibly in their "Coin Collectors and Cultural Property Nationalism".
.

Auschwitz thieves, "no trial please"

In the article "Oskarżeni ws. tablicy z Auschwitz chcą wyroku bez procesu" we learn that three men accused of stealing the Arbeit Macht Frei inscription above the gate at Auschwitz I camp have pleaded guilty to the charges against them, and agreed to submit to sentencing without a trial. The state procurator has accused Radosław M., Łukasz M. and Paweł S. of the "theft and damage to the inscription, being a cultural property of especial significance to culture and an historical monument". The men face up to ten years in prison for stealing the item and cutting it nto three parts. Two other men are also accused and a decision will be taken about their fate after the completion of the questioning of Anders Hoegstroem.

Two New Heritage Blogs

A reader drew my attention to another new blog on heritage issues, "Culture in Peril". This is written by Nicholas Merkelson (graduate student on the MA Cultural Heritage Studies program at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London).

"Culture in Peril will point followers towards the latest reports of heritage issues in the world today and provide insight into why and how these issues are--and must be--a concern to every individual. Irrespective of age, gender, race, religion, or beliefs, human beings are linked by a common heritage and cultural legacy. The aim of Culture in Peril is thus to explain why damage to and destruction of cultural property (both tangible and intangible) affects us all. It is an underlying premise of Culture in Peril that the loss of this shared heritage is, ultimately, a serious hindrance to the mutual understanding and acceptance of world cultures. A Kenyan Proverb goes: "Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children." In much the same way, cultural heritage is not only about showing respect for the present; we must respect the past as well so that it is available in the future."

The new blog considers ("subjectively") a pleasingly broader scope of "heritage" than my rather more narrow anti-antiquitist approach here, so worth a look to see what is happening in other areas of the debate.

I note though a somewhat controversial (from an archaeological point of view) text entitled
Subsistence Digging Is (Not) Looting? which seems a rather naive attempt to place the blame for looting on the archaeologists waging some kind of a class war. What's that all about? I can see the ACCG bloggers being frequent visitors over on Mr Merkelson's site.... [Meanwhile I will hold off on putting a link in the sidebars, I'm not sure whether Mr Merkelson will be going into the list of good guys at the top, in the middle or in my bottom list].

Another new arrival is Nora Mattern's classy looking "Loot" blogspot started in January this year, devoted as the name suggests to the artefactual side of the issue, apparently mainly those in museum collections and with a fairly obvious US focus. So far she has mainly been posting news items culled from the press, but I was gratified to see the Amber Room, one of my 'treasure hunting conspiracy theory' favourites discussed.
.

Antiquity Collecting and International Cultural Exchange

The ACCG press release which argues that ripping off other nations' archaeological heritage so it can be sold to North American collectors is a form of "grassroots cultural excange" prompted me to quote here a portion of the 1970 UNESCO Convention the US dealers and collectors all fear and hate:

"Recalling the importance of the provisions contained in the Declaration of the Principles of International Cultural Co-operation[...] Considering that the interchange of cultural property among nations for scientific, cultural and educational purposes increases the knowledge of the civilization of Man, enriches the cultural life of all peoples and inspires mutual respect and appreciation among nations, Considering that cultural property constitutes one of the basic elements of civilization and national culture, and that its true value can be appreciated only in relation to the fullest possible information regarding is origin, history and traditional setting [...] Considering that the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property is an obstacle to that understanding between nations [...] Article 2 1. The States Parties to this Convention recognize that the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property is one of the main causes of the impoverishment of the cultural heritage of the countries of origin of such property and that international co-operation constitutes one of the most efficient means of protecting each country's cultural property against all the dangers resulting there from. 2. To this end, the States Parties undertake to oppose such practices with the means at their disposal, and particularly by removing their causes, putting a stop to current practices, and by helping to make the necessary reparations.

Now it seems to me that groups promoting the prolongation of the no-questions-asked antiquities trade should be addressing those sentiments. Through exploitation of the tactic of manipulation of the Convention's Article 1 (which they present as an inclusive categorisation, rather than the exclusive one it in reality is)* dealer-lobbyists present the UNESCO 1970 Convention as in some way "nationalist". To label that manipulation a "misunderstanding" would be an understatement. Those who have actually read the whole text and are aware of its background will know that this is far from the case. Instead, from the perspective of the Convention the type of "grassroots cultural exchange" which the no-questions-asked dealers of ancient dugups propose is damaging to international understanding. It would be difficult to explain their notion of one-way "grassroots cultural exchange" in terms of article VIII of the "Declaration of the Principles of International Cultural Co-operation". Probably they would just reject it out of hand. But that would mean rejecting too its article IV.4 which no doubt they would support. "Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive...".

* Best illustrated by an example. The new Egyptian antiquities law would make possession of unauthorised photographs of certain monuments also cultural property which is thereby declared some form of "national patrimony" (and so I guess taking this to extremes might mean in theory at least you could have trouble at the airport if you are found trying to take them out of the country in the memory card of your camera). Egypt cannot however demand under the terms of the Convention such ("stolen") photos be "repatriated" once taken to another country, because they do not fit into the criteria laid down by article 1 of the Convention defining to what kind of cultural property the document refers. The dealer-lobbyists would have collectors believe something else and many of the latter - much to their shame - are unable to check themselves (perhaps due to a too short attention span to get that far down the convention to read Article 1 themselves), and gullible enough to believe them.

A question and Two Answers

I think I mentioned earlier Robyn’s question to Peter Tompa:

Given the scale of damage done by commercial diggers to ancient Native American burial, sacred, and other sites which are protected by law, would you also oppose an MOU between the US and another country that restricts the import of Anasazi pots (such as the ones in the Blanding case) into another country? Or would you welcome their help in enforcing our own cultural property laws? After all, it's not illegal to own Anasazi pots in Egypt. Would you support their "right to collect" them, even though they were illegally dug up here?

The Washington lawyer chickened out of giving a straight answer “Robyn - If you fully identify yourself, I will be happy to answer that question. Regards, Peter Tompa”. I think Robyn is sufficiently identifiable, a collector that asked Mr Tompa a question he is not prepared to answer.

Coin collector Bill Donovan had no such qualms, his long comment goes over some of what he has garnered from the writings of the “sages of collecting”, none of which has any relevance, philosophical or otherwise, to the question posed in the main post. He does however answer it. What a revealing answer it is, it speaks volumes for the mentality of these collectors and their failure to connect elements of the wider picture.

[...] I personally would not have a problem with someone in Egypt owning an Anasazi pot, because that object would bring that person a little closer to a global awareness. That Native American pot in a foreign country might build a little bridge of friendship, empathy, and optimism. I am so proud of my country that I am willing to share its identity objects. In fact, I would much rather have a person who would identify with, look it, and study an artifact be able to purchase and own it over a state. [...]

Jeepers, he’s so “proud of his country” that he’s willing to give away illegally excavated pots from Anasazi graves to “build a little bridge of friendship, empathy and optimism”. (In other words, use it in international diplomacy – is that not what the ACCG is criticising the Cyprus MOU for?) As Robyn quite rightly observes, what kind of "bridge" is built on the proceeds of illegal activity? It would appear from this that Mr Donovan basically is not against the looting of archaeological sites in the USA since some of the loot can go to collectors and build empathy. With what?

Why would Mr Donovan use ancient Native American grave goods to "build empathy" between a nation that came into being in 1776 and others? Isn't that what the ACCG is criticising nations like Italy, Greece and Turkey for doing, because there is "no continuity" (they say, I'd dispute that) between the ancient people that made the stuff they covet and the modern nation? Why for a collector is it American heritage when old stuff is dug up in Utah, but a "global heritage up for grabs by US collectors whose heritage it is too" when not.


Vignettes: Oedipus and the sphinx ; chicken; vulture - Getty Images

"Heritage" is the biggest danger.

A Canadian collector has a a somewhat outspoken opinion of cultural heritage:

The biggest danger right now is the growing concerns over "heritage". This is an anti-intellectual movement, obviously of great use in the promotion of nationalisms. I entertain the hope that it is merely the last dying gasp of an outmoded and elitist xenophobia which fears true globalization. Its association with history is an insidious scam as it only ever attempts to create current myths about the past. Heritage sees no differences in Julius Caesar, King Arthur and Bugs Bunny -- it doesn't matter if one is real, one is legendary and the other is a cartoon character. All that is important is how they can be used to affect minds.

Discuss. No prizes for guessing which nation claims Bugs Bunny as its "national heritage" (it's the one that cannot legimately claim the other two).

The author of this text being based in north America seems to think "globalisation" is a positive phenomenon, I think there are a goodly few over the other side of the Atlantic and Pacific that might not share that view, for whom cultural diversity is as desirable as global cultural homgeneity seems to be for the North Americans. ["What has Canada done for us?" seems here a totally valid question.] The actual material culture of globalism however does not consist of material from the ancient civilisations of the Mediterranean basin, even when they formed the centres of geographically extensive and culturallly relatively homogeneous empires. They are of an entirely different nature, among them are: rifles, barbed wire, telegraph insulators, steam locomotives, blue jeans, McDonalds happy meal toys, airline ephemera, Michael Jackson CDs, manga and so on.

Perhaps the problem here is that there are some new nations (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc) which do not in fact treat the ancient ("native") cultural heritage of their territories as their own but as that of an "other" to which they were opposed at least at the time of the creation of their statehood. This, as Roger Bland noted reviewing Cuno's "Who Owns Antiquity?", is inevitably going to colour the thinking of at least some of their citizens on such matters. I really however do not see the logical basis of the negationism expressed by Hooker, nor why the rest of the world (where perceived links with an ancient landscape are much more alive in the social consciousness) is expected to follow suit.

The collectors of foreign ancient atefacts in the countries divorced from the native ancient culture justify what they are doing by claiming the artefacts of ALL ancient cultures as their "heritage". So physical objects from far-off lands such as dugup coins from ancient Greek city states are the "cultural heritage" of the owner of a hamburger bar in Punxsutawney, whose "constitutional rights" in some mysterious way override any other considerations. The collecting of antiquities from the "Old World" clearly has however as much a political and social context in the New World as anything the no-questions-asked-collecting activists criticise in the "heritage movement" in the source countries. These objects are used to create and reaffirm identities which do not come from a continuity of population of a territory or a region. They are the medium of the transplantation of an identity, the material confirmation of an origo gentis myth and an expression of domination and identity which are necessary for individual groups withing a self-consciously "global" community, seeking some form of little homeland in an imagined past.

In order to provide backup for his views on "heritage" John Hooker announced he's going to write a "review for ACCG soon" of Lowenthal's "The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History", real cutting edge scholarship, it only came out in 1998 - but I guess the problem for the kitchen-table-scholar is that the Google Books version appeared online only recently.

Photo: somebody else's "heritage" according to Hooker.

UPDATE 2.12.12
The threatened review never appeared. More empty words from the milieu.