Coin Looting in the Judean Desert

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

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

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

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

hat-tip to MSN
Map showing area concerned

Whatever Happened to.... John Lund?

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Readers might remember the case of John Lund from Utah who was reportedly arrestedin May this year as a result of investigations by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and Israeli customs officials as he attempted to leave Israel:

with ancient coins, lamps and scores of checks totaling $20,000. The IAA claims Lund obtained the money by illegally offering ancient artifacts for sale to tourists. After paying a $7,500 bond, Lund was allowed to leave Israel, although he will have to return to face charges later this year for illegally offering ancient artifacts for sale. If convicted, Lund could face up to three years in prison in Israel for illegally offering ancient antiquities for sale.

I covered this case here Utah Man Denies Antiquity Smuggling Accusation and here Israel Accuses U.S. Man of Antiquities Trafficking, also here: Shekels, Shekels, get yer Shekels Here! while I tried - unsuccessfully to get some help working out just what it was he was selling (my thought was that maybe not all of these goods had been acquired in Israel): Coineys- What's This, Please? Sadly the coineys did not want to help a fellow collector in need by venturing the information. Neither did any US "Collectors' Rights" organization offer any help (ACCG Lund Defence Fund) which is really shabby.

The internet is silent on whether a date of a hearing has been set, whether Dr Lund has returned to Israel to face his accusers and clear his name, or whether he has made much progress on that book.

Larry Rothfield Challenges Collectors of Dugup Ancient Coins

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Larry Rothfield on his "Punching Bag" blog asks the right questions:

Calling All Coin Collectors: Please Explain Again Why the Findspots of Coins Don't Matter Much...
http://news.yahoo.com/old-coins-force-think-jerusalems-western-wall-121242557.html

Let us just add to that a piece of news from the same part of the world, a coin dealer sold 14.5 kilogrammes of loose coins from the Holy Land not long ago. Just think what the potential for the destruction of archaeological evidence is there.

Is anyone from the ancient coin COLLECTING community going to answer Larry's question sensibly and thoughtfully without parroting what the dealers tell them to say? Don't hold your breath.

Morag Kersel on the Trade in Illicit Antiquities in Israel

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Morag Kersel has a piece (concentrating on the James Ossuary) in 'The Bible and Interpretation', called "Who Owns the Biblical Past? We all Can" in which she talks of how illegally excavated and stolen material was entering and being laundered by the Israeli legal antiquities market at a regular rate. Required reading for all who think an Israeli export licence means anything much without verified documentation of the actual origins of the individual objects concerned.

Vignette: not all "legal antiquities from the Holy Land" are what they seem.

A Few comments on the Aleppo Codex

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The new kid on the block, one Alexander (fresh member on Blogger, no information about real identity, two views) refers to Peter Tompa's post on the Aleppo Codex, reportedly damaged by fire in the Aleppo pogrom of 1947, taken ("smuggled") by the keepers of what was left of it out of Syria in 1958 (Tompa links to the Wikipedia article explaining what the document is for those who do not know). As Tompa himself notes, "the Codex left Syria well before academic archaeologists [sic] began to press for repatriation" and "well before the 1970 UNESCO Convention was promulgated". But asks whether in "the archaeological blogosphere" there would be "calls for the return of the Aleppo Codex".

There are two issues here aren't there? Firstly Tompa misleads when he labels all those urging repatriation of stolen or out-of-place items "archaeologists". These calls come from a variety of milieux connected with culture. Art historians too, for example (casus Parthenon bits) ethnologists/graphers (African sculptures and masks), musicians (the Prussian State Library collection), religious scholars/churchmen, and historians. It seems to me that the Aleppo Codex is not a piece of dugup sculpture, pot, metalwork. It is a document and therefore not a direct concern of those "archaeologists" Tompa obviously cannot get out of his head. If there were calls for it to be returned to Syria, they would not be coming just from "archaeologists".

Secondly, this is a "repatriation" issue and not a recently looted item. It was taken to Israel in 1958, so before Syria and Israel became party to international treaties on the movement of such material. This was precisely the same period as a lot of artefacts were leaving the Middle East to enter western collections, both public and private. It is precisely these artefacts, on the market before 1970 that constitute the items which are generally agreed by all to be legitimately on the market for that very reason.

Now I have not looked into the legality of the export, this seems likely to be a complicated issue. But generally if it was moved before 1970, what eventually happens to it would have to be decided on different grounds from a situation which arose after both Israel and Syria became states party to the 1970 UNESCO Convention.

Personally I am more interested in what this "Alexander" suggests, he says Tompa's "archaeological friends, including Mr. Barford" would be suggesting that "that the Codex was taken illegally from its source country, and it should be returned forthwith". As I have said the law is the law, and it remains to be seen if a case can be made and defended that there is a legal case to answer in the case of Syria. I do not know if that is what Alexander thinks is an example of:

Unless Mr. Barford finds some ridiculous and laughable way to squiggle in the other direction. He is very good at that.

He then makes some crass personal comment which is a bit of a puzzler to me, because I have never met "Alexander", I have no idea who he is or what he collects.

Holy Land Antiquities Robbers Caught Red Handed

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In the Elah Valley near Beit Shemesh, antiquities robbers were reportedly caught red-handed by the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Theft in the Israeli Antiquities Authority while digging at an archaeological site, where they were attempting to plunder archaeological finds for sale. It is aleged that the three men had dug a pit 3 m deep through archaeological layers. They were reportedly equipped with various digging implements and a metal detector with which they hoped to locate and steal ancient coins and other saleable items.

According to archaeologist Alon Klein, who commanded the operation, the gang had been digging in at least three other sites that all contain Jewish artifacts from the 2nd Temple, up to 70 C.E. and Bar-Kochba Rebellion, ca. 132 C.E. periods. These criminals had specialized in identifying and discovering these sites. "They came on foot from a distance of many kilometers and remained in Israeli sovereign territory illegally, then fell upon the antiquities sites without mercy and caused terrible damage," according to Klein. "I am pleased that we managed to catch this gang and stop the vandalizing of our historical heritage. The robbers don't care at all about history, they are merely searching for the findings in order to sell them to the highest bidder on the market."

Hebrew site, 'Antiquities Robbers Caught Red Handed' Arutz Sheva, 06/14/2011 - which is also the source of the upper vignette (if that is their hole, where is the spoil heap?).

Shekels, Shekels, get yer Shekels Here!

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Utah tour guide John Lund acknowledges that in the course of his work leading a trip of US tourists to Israel earlier on this month, he

facilitated the $2,000 purchase of a silver Tyre shekel, also known as a Judas coin, for one of the tour participants.

Lund claims to be writing a book on "Biblical coins of interest to Christians" but seems not to know enough about these coins to be able to tell a tour party member to save his money because he can buy a decent example of that shekel back in the states for about a quarter of the price.

V-Coins search Results For: Shekel (or siglos or siklos or tetrashekel) (Tyre) Including a rather interesting number from Sayles and Lavender

The Temple Tax “30 Pieces of Silver” Shekel of Tyre
Prices around 400 - 500 dollars for a decent one. Half decent ones much cheaper.
No wonder some of his firm's clients were running out of money if he was failing to give them advice on the most effective way to shop. After all this gentleman is called a "Fun for Less Educator".

Vignette: a Coin Replicas, Inc. (Charles Doyle http://www.coinreplicas.com/), replica shekel, gentler on the pocket and the archaeological heritage than the real thing.

Coineys- What's This, Please?

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I know that from time to time some coineys drop in to see what I am writing about, and I'd like to invite them to help sort out the background to an event I discussed. I bet some among you recognise the description cards (COAs?) with these coins reportedly found in Dr Lund's baggage, sorry for the quality of the picture. If you do, can you drop me a line saying whose cards they are, where they would have been packaged, and what the coin is likely to be? Is it in fact another way to present the "widow's mite" coins with a picture of the widow in the Temple on the upper right? Would I be right in suspecting they are commercial products that would otherwise be legally exportable from Israel, like the prutahs in the olive-wood box on the right hand side of the photo of seized items in the previous post?

Thanks.

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.

What happened to the metal codices?

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The Christian Science Monitor has an article by Taylor Luck, ('What happened to the metal codices that promised Christian revelations?', May 5, 2011). This warns

"the tiny books have stirred debate over the Christian 'secrets' they could contain and who can sell them. Now, they may never be decoded".

Not one word in the article that there may not be anything there to be 'decoded' because many scholars have concluded they are silly fakes. The problems, apparently, are being caused by that intransigent source country from which, by all accounts, these objects were taken (illegally if they are genuine antiquities). The very idea ! How can a country ask that illegally exported items are returned? What spoilsports! Now:

the looming legal battle may prevent the books from ever reaching a museum. With mounting pressure from the Jordanian government and the media exposure generated by the claims, Elkington and Mr. Saad say Saeda is looking to make a quick and easy sale. "If these books are sold to private collectors, the world will never see them," says Elkington.

Make a quick and easy sale of what? Fake antiquities sold to a lorry driver by Jordanian con-man, or illegally exported antiquities? It seems to me neither is particularly saleable, well - not at least without kicking up a bit of media hype...

I suppose also they have a greater value as "mysterious books yet to be decoded" than "obvious fakes once you start to look at them" which I think may explain why the owner has reportedly stopped showing them around.

UPDATE: Please see David Gill's comment below and follow the link for some useful discussion of the objects.

Vignette: Israeli transport company and lead codices owner Hassan Saeda wants (you) to believe the objects are authentic antiquities.

Loony Antiquitism: "These are The Nails", No they are Not

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Some people just do not give up... Simcha Jacobovici, "the naked archaeologist" apparently has now made a film about two nails which he says are The Nails used in a crucifixion, indeed The Crucifixion of Christ (Reuters, Film claims discovery of nails from Jesus's cross, Jerusalem Post 12th April 2011). Along with about thirty other 'serious' competitors for that title. But no, these are very likely the real, genuine absolutely authentic nails from Christ's Cross, because.... they were found in the tomb (thought to be) of the Caiaphas family (you know, the High Priest who handed Jesus over to the Roman occupiers). The logic is twisted:

"If you look at the whole story, historical, textual, archaeological, they all seem to point at these two nails being involved in a crucifixion," he said. "And since Caiaphas is only associated with Jesus's crucifixion, you put two and two together and they seem to imply that these are the nails".

Eh? "Caiaphas is only associated with Jesus's crucifixion"? Well, I presume he did one or two other things in his life too. Also quite a few other people around Jerusalem at the time were "associated with Jesus's crucifixion", some much more directly than the Jewish High Priest. Would a crucifixion nail or two have been considered a suitable grave offering for such a person? I am also at a real loss to understand what the woolly-hatted-one means by the "historical and textual" evidence associated with these two nails shows that they were "involved in a crucifixion", let alone the "archaeological evidence".


The photo accompanying the Jerusalem Post article shows two corroded handmade nails, we are told they are "two inches long" (5 cm to you and me) and they have different corrosion products on them, which at once begs the question whether they were deposited in the/a tomb together. That is by-the-by. They are bent over, what we in the trade call clenched. Let us say it is the length of the shank between the head and the point at which it was clenched over which is five centimetres long. That's far too short for a crucifixion nail. I'm pretty slender build, maybe Jesus was too. The place where a nail would be driven in my wrist to crucify me (lots of published experiments on this from the devotees of the Turin Shroud) is about 38mm thick. But then the shroudies point out that a body would tear a hole if the nail did not have a very broad head (the Jacobovici ones do not) or there was not something used as a "washer" - like a piece of wood through which the nail was driven (see the Givat Hamivtar burial). Even without this though, it means that the piece of wood to which the hypothetical victim was nailed was 50-38mm = 12mm thick.

OK, the True Cross of Christ might have been twelve milimetres thick - makes it easier to carry. The point is though that a 70mm nail, with a shank maybe 5 or 6 mm diameter would be pretty difficult to clench over to that degree (90 degrees as it seems) stuck through a piece of wood 12mm thick (the human flesh on the other side of the wood has no resistance to bending). I've not seen the film, and am unlikely to, but I bet the naked archaeologist does not do carpentry and does nail a bit of t-bone steak to one side of a twelve milimetre thick plank and bend the other short end over with a lump hammer to show it can be done. I do not think it can.

The other point is of course that to get the body off the Cross (which the "texts" to which Jacobovici refers tell use was done in the case of Jesus) the burial party would (unless they cut the victim's hands off) have to unbend the nails (or cut the ends of the nails off with a cold chisel) to get them out of the wood. These nails were buried still clenching whatever it was they clenched when they were used. There is no evidence whatsoever from the form of the artefacts that the something they were used to secure was a human being nailed alive to a cross, and it beats me why anyone who's ever banged a nail into a piece of wood would say anything different.

The form of these nails is typical of those used for light timberwork throughout the ancient world, and they got into the tomb either incidentally or were parts of timber elements of the grave furniture, chests, or maybe biers (or a door used as a bier). I'm not buying the DVD, even for a laugh.

Here's somebody who makes Crucifixion nails.

Ancient Near East Placemarks for Google Earth

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I had this installed earlier, but somehow managed to delete it, and on finding it again thought others might like to know (it was Chuck Jones who originally put me on to it some while back, thanks). ANE Placemarks for Google Earth by Olof Pedersén Professor in Assyriology at Uppsala University.


When you have it installed, preservation-minded people can zoom in on individual sites and have a look at the number of looters' holes in some regions. All you collectors out there who thinks every one of those sites should have a 24/7 guard squad on them as the 'only way' to stop illicit material appearing on a market near you, zoom in and look at each of them and think of the logistics and costs.

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"Lead Codices" Saga continues: the Jordanian Response

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On Sunday, the Jordanian government announced that it was beginning moves to retrieve dozens of artefacts believed to have been stolen from sites in north Jordan and smuggled to Israel by an Israeli merchant.

"The Jordanian government has obtained data and documents from a British expert which prove that an Israeli merchant has illegally smuggled important artefacts from northern Jordan to Israel,” Director of the Antiquities Department Ziyad Saad told a press conference. He said that the stolen antiquities included 70 lead codices, scrolls and copper plates, all of them date back to the early Christian era of the 1st century A.C. The artifacts are believed to have been stolen from Jordan between 2005 and 2007, officials said.

The identity of the "British expert" was not revealed. Thus the sorry saga of the so-called "Lead codices" which have been in the news recently gets even more complicated. The current owner Hassan Saida, an illiterate Israeli Bedouin truck company owner from the northern Israeli village of Um-al-Ghanam (now) claims that the artefacts were originally found about five years ago in a cave in the village of Saham in Jordan, close to where Israel, Jordan and Syria’s Golan Heights converge and near to the site at Umm Qais (ancient Gadara/ Antiochia Semiramis), a popular tourist destination. Allegedly

a flash flood scoured away the dusty mountain soil to reveal what looked like a large capstone. When this was levered aside, a cave was discovered with a large number of small niches set into the walls. Each of these niches contained a booklet. There were also other objects, including some metal plates and rolled lead scrolls.

So, a story like many which account for the appearance of decontextualised artefacts on the global antiquities market. Accidental discovery not reported to the authorities, objects smuggled out of the country, various attempts to authenticate them and market them. A writer David Ellington has got involved in attempting to prove their authenticity as ancient objects. His efforts are hindered by the appearance of the codices themselves. Already in March, as news was breaking about what the press was hailing as a momentous discovery, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), dismissed the books as a forgery and as being a "mixture of incompatible periods and styles … without any connection or logic. Such forged motifs can be found in their thousands in the antiquities markets of Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East". So they are, many of the images that can be seen on the photos released to date look as if they are drawn from coins and pictures in books of antiquities (including a garbled legend obviously miscopied from the tombstone of a certain Abgar [note the name] in Amman Museum).

Photo: a comedy codex (Yahoo news)


Photo: Some of the imagery on a copper plate apparently part of the cache being studied by David Elkington: (Elkington via Palaeojudaica)

Of course none of these doubts would exist if the objects had been reported to the authorities upon discovery as Jordanian law requires and the alleged findspot immediately examined by archaeologists, and the objects subjected to proper study. Instead they were smuggled out of the country and now apparently are on the market with various scholar being approached to offer opinions on selected aspects of the objects. Those that do so obviously have no scruples about dealing with smuggled antiquities.

According to the Telegraph, Saida's Bedouin business partner:

met a villager in Jordan who said he had some ancient artefacts to sell. The business partner was apparently shown two very small metal books. He brought them back over the border to Israel and Saida became entranced by them, coming to believe they had magical properties and that it was his fate to collect as many as he could. The arid, mountainous area where they were found is both militarily sensitive and agriculturally poor. The local people have for generations supplemented their income by hoarding and selling archeological artefacts found in caves. More of the booklets were clandestinely smuggled across the border by drivers working for Saida – the smaller ones were typically worn openly as charms hanging from chains around the drivers’ necks, the larger concealed behind car and lorry dashboards. In order to finance the purchase of booklets from the Jordanians who had initially discovered them, Saida allegedly went into partnership with a number of other people – including his lawyer from Haifa, Israel. [...] The artefacts have been seen by multi-millionaire collectors of antiquities in both Israel and Europe – and Saida has been offered tens of millions of pounds for just a few of them, but has declined to sell any.

when David Ellington's book comes out maybe Saida (photo right from Daily Mail) was planning on changing his mind.

If we follow the recent Telegraph and Mail stories, we may attempt a reconstruction of events. Is it the case that a truck driver working for Saida saw a business opportunity when approached by a dodgy dealer in Jordan who proffered what he took to be ancient artefacts with the story about them being discovered in a cave (the cave somebody showed a journalist and is pictured in a Daily Mail photo looks to be artificial, perhaps a tomb) and there being more available for purchase? Did he then take them across the border where his employer agreed that there was an opportunity to make money from 'liberating' what they took to be genuine artefacts from getting into the hands of Jordanian archaeologists? Is it the case therefore that over a period of time these objects were bought from the Jordanian - unaware that the man was in fact peddling fake artefacts recently made in Jordan probably with an eye to the tourist market? Were they then smuggled piecemeal across the border in the normal manner in which small illicitly obtained ancient artefacts are removed from their country - either hidden about the person of the smuggler, or hidden away in a place hard for customs and border officials to locate and search? Then the new owner would presumably have started looking about for a buyer, Sotheby's approached in 2007 was reportedly not interested due to the problems of the origins and nature of the objects and the owner's title to them. Then writer David Ellington became interested and after a while there was an initial flurry of international interest. Then when the nature of the objects became clear, questions started to be raised. Meanwhile is it not the case that a Jordanian artefact faker is counting the money he got from two Israeli truckers, and Mr Saida is going to find himself with some unsaleable lead scrap on his hands? If these things had been bought from a "reputable dealer", at least the buyer could sue for his money back when the fraud came to light.

The only people who have not yet had a chance to examine this material thoroughly are precisely the people who should have been the first, the Jordanians on whose territory these objects were allegedly found. They are now forced to attempt to get full access to them by legal means, which would be difficult enough if they were real, I suspect there could be serious legal problems when the verdict is out that they are not necessarily so, and so in point of fact no offence would necessarily have been committed in moving them across a border. I hope if they have been recently smuggled out of Jordan, the Jordanians do get the artefacts back. I hope they publish photos of them all and the results of the examination which I am confident will show they are a modern pastiche and act as a warning to all who try to pull a fast one and attempt to invest in illicit antiquities. (Let Mr Ellington go ahead by all means and publish his reasons for deducing they are not, though bearing in mind that he is describing what seem likely to be illicitly obtained artefacts). Let the Jordanians question the truck driver(s) mentioned by the Telegraph, who reportedly illegally failed to declare what he had bought as dug-up antiquities, and let everybody learn that the no-questions-asked buying and selling and transporting of dugup artefacts across international borders carries a multitude of risks of many types, of which falsification of history is one.

See:
Rogue Classicism (David Meadows): Lead Codices Silliness (March 30th 2011) and Lead Codices – Once More into the ‘Reach’ (April 3rd 2011)

Palaeojudaica (Jim Davila): Hebrew-inscribed-metal-codices watch, a fake (April 1st 2011), quoting a letter by Peter Thonemann.

Olga Craig: 'Could this couple's Bible 'codices' tell the true story of Christ's life?', Telegraph 3rd April 2011.

Nick Pryer, 'Is this the first ever portrait of Jesus? The incredible story of 70 ancient books hidden in a cave for nearly 2,000 years', Daily Mail 3rd April 2011.

Abdul Jalil Mustafa, 'Jordan in bid to regain artifacts stolen by Israeli merchant', Arab News Apr 3, 2011.

ADDENDUM:
See now Tom Verenna, 'New Roundup on Lead Codices and Additional Information', April 3, 2011,

Robert Deutsch: "A Follow up by Robert Deutsch on the ‘Lead Codices’" on the 'Zwinglius Redivivus' blog, 5 April 2011

and Peter Thonemann, "The Messiah codex decoded", Times Literary Supplement, 6 April 2011.


Vignette at top:Ziad al-Saad at an April 3 conference about the bid to retrieve the artefacts (India Times).

"Looting the Holy Land" or Pillaging the Truth?

There are two articles on the Bible and Interpretation website run by Paul V.M. Flesher (University of Wyoming, Program in Religious Studies) and J.E. Wright (University of Arizona, Center for Judaic Studies) discussing the Al-Jazeeera film "Looting the Holy Land" which I noted here earlier, and like it are an interesting example of the use of the heritage debate in modern politics. It is however notable that here those who are addressing the claims of "propaganda" and "misrepresentation" are actually engaging with the text and addressing its arguments with verifiable counter-arguments (unlike, as we have seen, the supporters of the damaging no-questions-asked market in antiquities who fail every time to step up to the plate).

Israel Finkelstein (Tel Aviv University) '"Looting the Holy Land" or Pillaging the Truth?')and labels the film "a piece of political propaganda, aimed – as the bon ton goes today (sic) – at de-legitimizing Israel" and therefore sets out to demonstrate point by point "why this is a worthless film, ridden with manipulations, political propaganda, incorrect facts and even lies". Finkelstein points out that "most of the looting in the West Bank (as well as in Israel!) has been carried out by Palestinians" and not Israelis. He corrects statements made in the film about Hisham's palace near Jericho, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Moshe Dayan and disputed sites in Jerusalem, and claims that the film contains several false allegations.

Finkelstein concludes:

With all criticism that one (once in a while by this author, too) may have concerning the Israel Antiquities Authority, the organization administers archaeology in Israel in an efficient, orderly and professional way. [...] In the end, archaeology – as every other science – is decided by the level of education and scholarly work, not by politics and propaganda.

I was quite interested in this quarrel:

The narrator complains that only Jewish antiquities are being sold in the Arab markets of east Jerusalem and that Islamic antiquities have no value in these markets. Now, the value of antiquities rises and falls in accordance with the interest of foreign tourists and possible (mainly foreign) collectors. If there were genuine interest by Arab collectors in their heritage, the price would go up overnight.

An odd argument that if more collectors bought looted items they would be more highly valued. Hooray.

Joe Zias (formerly Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem) also has a piece on this film ("Looting the Holy Land") which says much the same. In fact it is the same text as has already appeared elsewhere. He adds one piece of information:

The segment where the Israel Antiquities Authority decided to thoroughly search the area between Jericho and Qumran, which was being given back to the Palestinians, is unfortunately accurate, and, aside from me (I personally refused to cooperate in such an endeavor), all my colleagues in the IAA cooperated. The director was not happy with my refusal. This “militarily run” operation cost the IL taxpayer an enormous amount of money and aside from one find, the so-called “Cave of the Warrior,” produced nothing of any scientific value. Local Palestinians looking for more Dead Sea Scrolls had looted all the caves years earlier. It was a total waste of money and an affront to the Palestinians.

He also touches upon the role of the failure of the legislation of the laws which govern the Israeli antiquities market to stem the flow of antiquities looted outside Israel through the country's dealers (a topic discussed here before):

Looting in the region, which the IAA has largely prevented, is relatively benign when compared to the eastern side of the Dead Sea where it’s almost a cottage industry. Two vast cemeteries immediately come to mind, Kh. Qazone from the Nabatean period and Bab edh-Drah from the Early Bronze period, the former containing 3,500 or more graves is practically devoid of any untouched graves due to looting. Since Jordanian law, unlike Israeli law, does not permit the sale of antiquities nor their transport abroad, then where are these looted objects sold? One has to travel to London, England where there are large rail containers filled with these antiquities looted from the eastern borders of the ancient Holy Land. According to Israeli law, their final destination, the importation of antiquities via antiquity dealers in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, is not against the law.

Some of this material may well be what is being sold through discussion lists such as Tim Haines' "Yahoo AncientArtifacts" discussion list, as it is unexplained where dealers advertising there obtain the quantities of freshly-excavated material they have on offer from within the borders of Israel.

Joe Zias on ‘Looting the Holy Land’

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A few days ago I posted here a link to a video "Looting the Holy Land" and some people let me know off-blog that they were concerned (thanks guys) that I may not have spotted that it presented what one can call delicately a "one-sided view" of the issue. Actually, while I am sure that I miss much, in this case I was quite aware of that, which is why I posed the question of the position it places the so-called "internationalist" arguments of antiquity collectors. That of course received no answer (how could it?). So since they are not interested in any discussion, to show the other side, here's a link to a review of the video, from the other (Jerusalem) perspective: Joe Zias on ‘Looting the Holy Land’ from the Zwinglius Redivivus (Bible, Theology, Church History, and Modern Culture) blog (see the coverage of the video there).

These cultural heritage issues are of course a very tangled web of arguments and counter arguments all based in various assumptions and motives. While this is understandable (it is connected with identities and much else) and forgiveable, less tolerable is the way that these arguments are twisted to their own (commercial) convenience by foreign no-questions-asked collectors and dealers uninvolved in the issues directly but exerting their own destructive influence.
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Looting the Holy Land

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Al Jazeera has the following video about the conflict over the archaeological heritage of one region of the world, and as it is presented here, the problem is not just the looters with their spades and metal detectors:



10th October 2010: "Since 1967 countless artifacts have been unearthed and removed from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Many are displayed in Israeli museums and private collections, while others are sold to tourists. Al Jazeera searches through the evidence, unearthing the facts and exposing a power struggle in which every stone has meaning".

It would be interesting to see the "cultural property internationalist" reaction to this video and its rhetoric. On the one hand those dastardly archaeologists are cast as the villains, which is right up their street, but at the heart of it is the issue which is what they label "cultural property nationalism" - of which they as collectors and dealers disapprove. But I expect the two most keen to write on the topic (Wayne Syles and Peter Tompa) are ironing their shirts and practicing their lines for tomorrow's big CPAC meeting in Washington.
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Antiquities Authority raid yields lorry loads of Stolen Artefacts

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Inspectors from the Israeal Antiquities Authority's unit for the prevention of theft believe the owner of a business that deals in garden ornaments from a moshav (collective farm) near Hod Hasharon was selling stolen artefacts and has seized an extraordinarily large quantity of ancient artefacts from his premises (photo). Guy Fitoussi, an archeologist and an inspector in the unit inspected the site and then issued a search warrant and sent a team there equipped with a crane to load the items onto trucks. Three truckloads of artefacts were removed altogether, weighing several tons. The seized items included parts of olive presses; capitals and bases of stone pillars; lintels; a magnificent stone gate; and two carved stone sarcophagi.

"I don't recall ever seeing this many pieces," Fitoussi said. "It is certainly one of the largest hauls. We can't recall confiscating such an amount from any one person in the past decade." It is presumed that the suspect bought some of the items in the West Bank, while others were stolen from archeological sites inside Israel. It is not yet clear whether he was responsible for the thefts himself, or if he acquired the artifacts from others.

"The suspect said during the investigation that this was his private collection, and he denied trading in antiquities," Fitoussi said. The suspect also reportedly told his interrogators that he had planned to place the artifacts in public gardens.

Officials from the Antiquities Authority believe the man brought archeological items from the Palestinian territories into Israel in contravention of the law, that he dealt in antiquities without holding a license to do so, and that he damaged archeological sites in Israel by removing objects from them at his own initiative.

"It seems as if this business has been operating for several years," Fitoussi added. "We suspect the artifacts were brought into Israel via Qalqilyah and there is a reasonable basis to believe that some were stolen inside Israel."

"The damage done to archeological sites by removing objects of this kind is tremendous," he continued. "It irreparably harms our ability to learn about various historical eras and to pass on to the next generations the information and historical knowledge embodied in archeological sites."

Noah Kosharek, 'Antiquities Authority raid yields 2,000-year-old stolen artifacts' Haaretz, September 14.

Photo: tidying up the suspected antiquity dealer's yard.

Resistance Looting and "Cosmopolitan" Collecting

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The buyers of decontextualised archaeological material claim that by doing so they are combatting what they (incorrectly) call "cultural nationalism" (about which I will write later as it is a key element in the coineys' Baltimore Coin Stunt case papers) and engaging in the dissemination of cosmopolitan attitudes. I personally think this is just another word for "greed", but there is another aspect to this. The looted objects themselves might be the product of looting driven by nationalist agendas. Morag Kersel’s research in the so-called Holy Land has revealed the existence of some examples of this insidious process. This so-called "resistance looting" comprises people pulling sites and monuments apart to try and remove evidence of the existence of a former alien presence on their land. Kersel found evidence for this happening in the West Bank, though there was no evidence that it was being carried out in an organized way. So far she has not identified examples in Israel or Jordan. “People looted to find and destroy any evidence of occupation on their land [...] Anything with a Jewish motif or anything with a Christian motif… it just so happens that those things are (worth hundreds) of dollars on the market”, she says. So the market is encouraging this process rather than "saving" its "products".

Probably many more examples can be found of this sort of process, raising the question of to what extent the no-questions-asked market in contextless antiquities can be claimed to be "combatting" (sic) "cultural nationalism" (sic) of one kind when it may be intimately related to a cultural nationalism of another kind? What kind of cosmopolitanism is it to become involved in the process of cultural cleansing?

[Morag Kersel by the way is one of the editors of the Journal of Field Archaeology so vilified the other day by Peter Tompa for publishing an article about the antiquities trade].

Get into the Antiquities Business, Almost as Good as Porn or Gambling

I found this on a "money makers" forum:

We are antiquities exporters in Jerusalem, Israel. We [...] offer genuine, legitimate money-making opportunities to serious business people. We are "antiquities dealers to antiquities dealers" and specialize in export of individual fine ancient art, as well as bulk antiquities from the HolyLand. 90% of our clients are dealer-distributors in USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan, and 10% being private collectors. For those who are looking for serious opportunities to establish genuine work-from-home businesses, antiquities distribution can provide a very good income for those who work hard, and are willing to invest their time and money in building and developing their new business. FYI - Antiquities is the 3rd largest online industry after pornography and gambling. Please visit our web sites detailed in our user signature. We look forward to hearing from serious business people.
Kindest regards, B. Leon
Z.Z. Ancient Art Ltd, Z.Z. Antiquities Ltd, http://www.zzancientcoins.com/

Sounds tempting doesn't it? Work from home, instant social cachet - second only to pornography and gambling, easy access to bulk items direct from Jerusalem.

ZZAntiquities claims "We have over 20,000+ items (not including bulk ancient coins available in their thousands and on regular basis) in inventory in our privatecollections available for sale/export". Twenty thousand individual artefacts and bucketloads of ancient coins. Where did they all come from, whee does he keep them all? This is just one antiquity dealer in one small country.

He has heaps of the stuff on the floor: You Tube film "Bulk Ancient Bronze Coins, Egyptian and Canaanite Scarab Seals, Mesopotamian Cylinder Seals" which we see him tossing about like so many pebles on a beach. This is the followup to that . Lots of "Judean coins" in this one. There are curently 11 films on You Tube from this guy all showing heaps of mixed and unprovenanced ancient coins in various states of preservation but mostly looking uncleaned (so not really believable as "from an old collection"). A few months back there were a similar number of videos of scarabs and scaraboids that he was selling - similarly in heaps on the same tile floor and being similarly manhandled. I mentioned them in previous posts here, but see that they have now been withdrawn. This is a pity because it probably means that they have been bought by those dealers in the USA, Canada, Europe and Japan and are in the process of being scattered even further among ephemeral private collections.

Presumably they went in their "Special Annual Liquidation of Inventory" when the goal is to "clear out inventory to our global client-dealer/distributors & collectors in order to receive new inventory early next year", so the commodity is obviously flooding in (these "old collectors" must be dropping like flies!). Just look what business opportunities this antiquities exporter now offers, such as:

"Uncleaned"/unattributed mixed varieties in hoards[...] mostly Romans, Byzantines, Greeks, Seleucids, Ptolemies, Judeans, Phoenicians, Nabateans, Persians, etc. i.e. all the cultures and peoples and empires that minted coins and traded and/or controlled this one-of-a-kind unique land bridge of Asia, Europe, and Africa that is the HolyLand. Currently 12,000 premiums available, and 14 kilograms low/avg-quality. Premiums available per-coin; Low/avg-quality are available per kilogram, approx. 500 coins per kilogram, buyer is responsible to pull out coins from the coin chips + ancient artifacts + other junk/artifacts that remain in these hoards of low/avg-quality along with the coins and coin-chips. APPROX. 500 coins per kg = approx. 1.00 USD /coin for normal price of 500 USD /kg. SALE PRICE: 450 USD /kg, minimum purchase 5kg, = approx. 0.90 USD /coin.PREMIUM Q - Price List:500 coins - SALE PRICE: 3.80 USD /coin1000 coins - SALE PRICE: 3.40 USD /coin2000 coins - SALE PRICE: 3.20 USD /coin3000 coins - SALE PRICE: 3.00 USD /coin4000 coins - SALE PRICE: 2.80 USD /coin5000 coins - SALE PRICE: 2.60 USD /coin. These coins sell for incredibly high profit margins when attributed, identified, and resold individually. Coins purchased for 2.60 USD /coin, and then sold EVEN IN WORST-CASE SCENARIO for 5 or 10 USD /coin liquidation price, this is 100 - 200% profit margin. The vast majority of coins are sold at average price of 20-40-60 USD /coin, and often are found and sold by our distributors very special treasure "cherries" of coins for much more (e.g. 400 USD). The only reason we don't do this ourselves is b[ecause]of the strict requirement of Export Approval for each export, so to do so for individual coins burns up the profit in gas + time + complementary express shipping costs - we export ancient coins only in bulk, i.e. hoards or small lots.

Wow. So Israeli export legislation promotes the selling of unprovenanced material in bulk lots like this but not the selling of individual coins? Odd. I am puzzled by the loose use of the word "hoards", who hoarded them? Alternatively another business opportunity could be:

Ancient Oil Lamps: in several types, Available in bulk. Collections of 10 Herodian for 70 USD /lamp (= 700 USD) is popular as personal, individual imports to decorate a house walkway or poolside or jacuzzi. Very simple to use: simply soak a fabric or wick in olive oil, fill the lamps with olive oil, place the wick/rolled-fabric and light. Provides light just as the ancients would have had it.

That's a really ethical way for a collector to treat an ancient artefact, at least we can be hopeful that he does not suggest lighting the lavatory with them too. He adds in case the would-be antiquities dealer does not know: "Herodian (Time of Jesus)". Or a would-be dealer might be tempted of course by the

Mesopotamian Cylinder Seals. Approx. 10-20 currently available.

Will there be any "new inventory" of these coming through the Jerusalem market this year too now the old new inventory has been cleared?

Metal Detector user arrested in Palestine

The west Bank contains at least 2,000 major archaeological sites. The fact that the area is subdivided into a patchwork of enclaves, some controlled by Israel, some by the Palestinian Authority, and some jointly mean that there are many legal and physical obstacles which hamper the authorities’ ability to protect these sites, leaving them vulnerable to artefact-hunting looters. This looting was described in a recent (Dec 2008) National Geographic article by Karen Lange ("The Stolen Past - West Bank Looting"):

in many places the scale of the destruction is almost industrial. Looters attack ancient sites with backhoes and small bulldozers, scraping away the top layer of earth across areas the size of several football fields. Then, guided by metal detectors—coins often give away the location of other goods—they sink shafts to extract anything of value. Among the rock-hewn tombs that honeycomb the hills around Jenin, Nablus, Bethlehem, and Hebron, grave robbers methodically clean out each centuries-old chamber, dumping the bones and hauling off the limestone ossuaries. […] Some looted artifacts are bought by middlemen who supply shops in Israel, where tourists and pilgrims eager to take home a piece of the Holy Land unwittingly underwrite the trade. Other artifacts are smuggled into Jordan, then on to big-time dealers elsewhere in the Middle East, especially the Persian Gulf states of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Dealers in those countries, in turn, sell the artifacts to outlets in Israel without revealing their provenance.

Many of these items then are exported from Israel with Israeli export licences to dealers in western markets who then represent them to their clients as “legitimate” goods. They are nevertheless looted. Both dealers and clients need to ask themselves where the bucketloads of ancient coins openly being offered by some Jerusalem dealers actually come from. These bulk lots for example being sold by a Jerusalem dealer discussed on this blog earlier.

On Friday, Palestinian tourism and antiques police arrested a man from Bethlehem and seized advanced metal detecting equipment which they say was used to unearth priceless artifacts in the Bethlehem area. The machines were seized following a home raid conducted by police following long-term investigations of the accused. His file has been handed over to local prosecution, police said.