Coiney Total Nonsense

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ACCG ideologist John Hooker, addressing thinking numismatist Reid Goldsborough, attempts to explain archaeology to him based on his correspondence with some people on internet forums and gleanings from Wikipedia. Hooker attempts to show why archaeology and coin collecting are "different subjects with different emphases":

Contextual archaeology focuses on incidents of abandonment -- a site frozen in various times as determined from the strata (including cuts into that strata as is shown using the Harris Matrix). Numismatics deals more with incidents of creation -- blanks, and the creation and use of dies -- weight standards, alloys etc. Perhaps, if you read more qualified archaeologists than Paul Barford you would not make such silly mistakes.[...] many current "field archaeologists" confuse archaeology with the specific theory of contextual archaeology, as does Barford, but they are not very hot on theory. [...] I think [Barford] made it as far as assistant lecturer (the one who arranges the chairs and sets up the overheads? I don't know.)

Apparently in Canada, archaeology students are not expected to be able to find their own place to sit. In my classes they were able to work that out for themselves, the good ones sat at the front, the time-wasters at the back.

The reader can think what they want, but I personally find Hooker's attempt to explain that in reality Barford knows nothing about archaeology somewhat puzzling in the circumstances. Hooker apparently does not understand what Hodder and other post-processualists considered as "Contextual Archaeology"; he accuses others as "not very hot on theory" (unlike Hooker, I taught it at university) but he himself only cites Wikipedia.

As for site formation processes (the name should give a clue), archaeological stratification, like geological stratification (not caused by the "abandonment of the earth", after all), is created by a range of processes. Despite what Hooker affirms, these include deliberate creation (roads and streets, ramparts, graves, walls, postholes for example) not just "abandonment". Perhaps coin collectors like to think they are examining just "creation" (of beautiful tactile objects) but of course circulation (and for example the damage - wear - done to coins in the process) and deposition are studied by REAL numismatists. There is a whole body of numismatic theory about that which I've never seen an ACCG coiney refer to - and it is difficult to escape the conclusion that most of them apparently just heap loose coins on a table and look at the pictures on them and try to put them in some sort of order on that basis (Mr Hooker's book on the Gaulish coin hoards for example). I have asked the ACCG coineys many times to point us to the textbook of the methodology of heap-of-coins-on-a-table "numismatics", but have never met one who could impart even such basic information about this side of the coin-collecting 'discipline' as the title of even a single work in the genre.

If by "contextual archaeology" (of the "field archaeologists"), Hooker means stratigraphy, it is not a "theory" but a methodology.

Archaeology is a proper discipline and as such has an explicit methodology (or may even have several), so where is the methodology of heap-of-coins-on-a-table "numismatics" explicitly formulated and taught? What about a theory of the same brand of touchy-feely numismatics? There is no end to the number of books, even if we restrict the search to those written in English, on the methodology and theory or archaeology, written from a wide diversity of methodological, theoretical and ideological positions. There is therefore no excuse whatsoever for the enquiring coiney (or dugup antiquity collector) not to know what archaeology is about. Let them follow the lead and produce the textbooks allowing us to understand what we have been asking for years about just what it is they imagine they are doing with all those accumulations of dugup ancient coins.

So far, the sum total of the coiney 'critique' of archaeology looks no different than that of Erich Von Daniken (who also took a great interest in contextless archaeological artefacts, on the basis of which he wove his own story about the past).

Vignette: Pirates' idea of debate

Coiney Prophets of Doom and Gloom

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The world looks different from inside a coin collector's mind. Over on the (closed access, you have to register or know a computer hacker to see it) the signing of an US-Greece cultural property agreement is being pictured by the doomandgloom mongers as a terrible Sword of Damocles which will bring awful tribulations upon the nation and lead to the downfall of the Obama government. Jorg Lueke started it:

Between the recent arrests and the increased number of MOU's including coins causing more and more dealers to avoid bringing coins into US, the marketplace seems posied for a change.

He predicts that the demand will not diminish which means that "the increased risks will be taken by less scruplous and law abiding dealers increasing prices". Oh dear, so coins will no longer be imported with the customs declarations saying "ancient coins from Greece, value $5200", but "painted wooden box value $3,00"? Well, we know where that is likely to lead don't we? So the exclusion of coins illegally exported from Greece and Italy may lead to shortages on the market (really?) but then if that is compensated for by the future jailing of cheating dealers misrepresenting items on customs declarations, then an equilibrium will be reached, n'est ce pas?

ACCG's paid mouthpiece John Hooker concurs. He reckons that if coins are included among the items whose import will be restricted pending proof of legal export:

about the only certainty is that the illicit search for coin hoards in source countries will increase exponentially. Merely smuggling European coin dealer's stock would not give the needed profit to risk ratio.

That is the sort of statement that only looks logical after more than a few beers and being a coin collector. The rest of us might have trouble following the argument. Why on earth would legitimate stock from other European countries have to be "smuggled" into the US to make the coins saleable? It is notable that to neither of these gentlemen has occurred the option that US coin dealers could stop (I'm sure they'd prefer me to say "not start") importing smuggled coins illegally exported from the source countries. Like Lueke, Mr Hooker also sees a Darwinian resolution to the problem.

Larger honest U.S. dealers would simply move out of the country and compete in the European market.

But warns darkly: "The main loser would be Greece". That remark remains unexplained. He then adds:

I dare say that the most dedicated of U.S. Greek coin collectors would move elsewhere as Greek coins in the U.S. would become expensive while the loss of the U.S. market to European dealers should reduce the prices in Europe -- then, a larger volume of sales would be required.

Good grief, collecting Greek coins sounds almost like an affliction like drug abuse ("can't getta fix here, gotta move house to go where I can"). Then another disconnected dark warning of what will ensue:

Restrictions of any sort are always good news for organized crime -- history has confirmed this. Interesting times might be ahead.

Funnily enough some of us connect the illicit transport of illicitly obtained items with organized crime. Cleaning up the market will make this trade more difficult for criminal gangs.

Perhaps buying coins from criminals is what Lueke and Hooker see as driving prices up. There is no other reason for it, all the CCPIA requires is a piece of paper to accompany coin imports of certain types from certain places. Why should a piece of paper cost more than a piece of paper costs? And is that extra cost not worth it for the peace of mind that a responsible collector has legally acquired coins in their collection?

But it gets worse. Hooker (a Canadian resident) says this is going to bring down the US government. Yessiree. You see:

With a 70% public disapproval rate for the MOU including coins[...] it would be somewhat risky for the Obama administration to do so -- it gives a strong message that the people's wishes are being ignored -- I dare say a number of politicians will jump on this in the next election.

Well, a few thousand coin fondling US citizens conducted a fax-bombing campaign to show they wanted to continue collecting dugup archaeological artefacts without worrying about where they came from and whether or not they were legally exported. Yet 163 million US citizens did not support them. And that is going to lose Obama votes? I suppose to anyone who'd see moving to another country to be able to collect coins of a particular type as the actions of a rational man, might well indeed believe that the US electorate gives a hoot about their geekish coin fondling hobby. Especially as they all shut themselves off from interaction with the real world by closing public access to their discussion forums and blogs. That really does make it look as if behind the public façade, they have a great deal to hide. Oh yessiree.


Vignette: Harold Camping, prophet of doom.

That Last Post ("The PAS database: What people collect in the UK")

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Last night after I'd posted the original of the post below this, Blogger had an "issue" and the whole site was "down" (meaning it was "read only", bloggers could not edit anything). We'll be back online "soon" we were told, continually, for a whole night and the best part of the next day. Then somewhere along the line we were told that posts made in the few hours before the "maintenance" started would be temporarily removed until blogger was "stable" again, but then they would be reinstated. I was worried about some drafts I'd created yesterday, but when the thing came back online they were there, but the post I'd made on the PAS statistics has gone - vanished into cyber-Hades. Fortunately I have the whole blog backed-up, just in case.

I mention this because of a rather puzzling post made on the forum Moneta-L where coineys hang out in private. It was made by ACCG-lackey John Hooker:

Hi all, I rarely refer people to Paul Barford's blog, and I never quote an entry in full, but today is an exception! I am copying the entire post, just in case someone tells him what he has done and he removes it. Statistics are a funny thing, sometimes, what they show is not exactly the point that is made of them. In this example, it shows very clearly that most of what is being recovered from metal detectoring are accidental losses -- not from any archaeological site and utterly free from "archaeological context". However, if one is in the midst of an /idée fixe/, then this might not be apparent:

[ there then follows a cut-and-paste with a LINK no less of my text of Thursday, 12 May 2011: "The PAS database: What people collect in the UK"]

Unfortunately, Mr Hooker, his thinking being coin-addled, does not see fit to explain in what way the information I summarised and presented there "shows very clearly that most of what is being recovered from metal detectoring (sic) are accidental losses -- not from any archaeological site and utterly free from "archaeological context". That's like saying the Parthenon Marbles cannot possibly be from any Greek building as there are no column bases or worn thresholds in the collection. Lord Elgin's men ripped off what they thought interesting, collectable and displayable, and smashed their way through what they did not want to cart off, leaving a mess of the rest. That is exactly what we have in the metal detecting finds reported to the PAS (have a look at the UKDFD dataset for exactly the same picture).

Certainly I do not consider Mr Hooker has made his point about what I "have done". I think what I wrote reveals nothing other than what it reveals, which is that the mess collectors make of the productive sites they take things from is not in any way mitigated by a record such as the Portable Antiquities Scheme Database. Contrary to Mr Hooker, I hold that the "record" we have of the results of the activity which produced it is insufficient to say anything much about the sites and assemblages the material comes from.

Mr Hooker and fellow Monetans would do well to do some reading about how UK detectorists find 'productive sites' to collect from. There are plenty of 'how to' texts available now. (I know, they find reading real books about anything but old coins a bind, maybe they can find a GoogleBooks version).

Certainly, Monetans can be assured that the temporary disappearance of this post was a problem with blogger in general and was NOT in any way connected with any "realisation" that the data could be read another way.

[As for the"statistics", the post in question was to be one of two - there is something very "interesting" indeed about the figures I quoted, and I am surprised that Mr Hooker of all people did not spot it, but I'll finish writing that one later UPDATE 17/5/11: I see a few people are looking in at this post, so supply the link of the further text on the subject of the PAS database].

"The archaeological record is the imaginings of people with a mental disorder"

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There is another priceless contribution to antiquitist insanity on the Moneta-L forum by ACCG's new employee, John Hooker. This one really takes the biscuit, it is too long and rambling to copy here, so anyone wanting to see what coin collectors are writing about archaeologists these days will just have to register and follow this link and the next two Hooker posts and follow the subsequent desultory discussion. There they will find a curious mix of half-understood Internet derived post-modernist mumbo-jumbo fuddled with 'eighties thinking and served up in a sauce of neo-Kossinnist Celtic coineyism. The obfuscation is intended to lure the uncritical reader into believing that:

There can be no "archaeological context" without an observer -- so there is no such "thing" as an "archaeological record" that is not the product of individual(s) in present time [...] the building of an archaeological record requires people suffering from a mental disorder. [...] without an archaeologist, there can be no archaeological site, no archaeological record.

[so much then for the notion of a "people's archaeology" so beloved of antiquity collectors]

This is not the first time those associated with the ACCG have tried to deny the existence of the archaeological record or poke fun at archaeologists in this manner. A while back ACCG's Dave Welsh tried a similar ruse. As far as I can see those who collect coins and other antiquities tend to accept such arguments without a single murmur.

Hooker again mentions his stock argument "the dreadfully wrong dating for the Ferrybridge chariot burial" (adding now "apparently, bringing in a finds specialist was either never considered or was rejected"). From what is this apparent? Certainly not from the report of the site which has now been out many years which Hooker quite plainly has not read, basing his imaginary case instead on internet journalism.

According to Hooker, nothing exists that is not perceived and named. A tree falling in an uninhabited forest according to him falls noiselessly because there is nobody to hear it, equally it does not exist as such without anyone to see it and think "this is a tree". So there is no problem with disappearing tropical rainforests as long as nobody sees it happen. In the same way, he says, the archaeological record does not exist when there is nobody to read it. But on one level nobody is questioning that, when a looter digs blindly through different colours and textures of earth and stones to get collectables out of the ground, he does not see an archaeological record. He sees earth and stones in the way of what he wants to get his hands on. Does that mean however that there is no archaeological record because the person trashing it has a metal detector and a greedy smile and not the knowledge and experience and explicit methodology of the archaeologist under his belt? It would be a comfortable argument for those who buy looted goods ("no arechaeological site was destroyed because no archaeological site was reported as observed being destroyed by the person digging this stuff up") but is it true?

Did the geological record only materialise in modern times when we began to understand how we could read the "different layers of rocks and stuff" in terms of the results of a specific sequence of processes in the past, and therefore a key to understanding the geological past? Of course not, the patterns of strata in the walls of the Grand Canyon existed there well before there was anyone to 'read' them. It is nonsense to deny these patterns of deposition a physical existence in the eons before there was Man on the North American continent to look at them (the upper deposits through which it is cut, the Kaibab Limestone, are from the Permian period).

Hooker then tries to argue that there is in fact "no difference" between archaeological sites and archaeological artefacts because

"an object is only an object because someone says it is so. An object has parts - even if the object is a single atom it has its nucleus and its electrons, or looking even deeper, it has a whole menagerie of quarks or strings - whatever".

So, he goes on to say, do archaeological sites. This however totally ignores the issue that he himself raised that an archaeological site is not simply a sum of physical parts. The next leap in logic is therefore unjustifiable. He asserts that a single decontextualised artefact (like his favourite hobby horse the Celtic coins of Armorica) can be treated as a "site". The implications of this for the preservation of the archaeological record are however not revealed, discussion diverts to pictures of boars on coins and "round and long skulls" in Brittany.

John Hooker has already made a number of web-based contributions (some of which are discussed on this blog) claiming there can be no "cultural property" because there is "no culture", only "nationalism". Now it seems the collector is adamant in "proving" there is no archaeological heritage at all because there is no such thing as the archaeological record, archaeologial sites and all archaeologists who say otherwise have some kind of a "mental disorder". I really would like to see these collectors publishing such general methodological reflections not on internet forums to persuade other collectors, but in peer-reviewed journals where it can be subjected to the normal mechanisms of academic criticism. It is notable that all those "professional numsmatists" (like Welsh) and all those homespun "avocational scholar collectors" with their heap-of-contextless-coins-on-a-tabletop numismatics strenuously avoid doing this. Why? British Post-Processual archaeology, for example, is very open to alternative points of view, the collector cannot claim that their articles would be discriminated against because they are collectors. So what actually is stopping these authors unleashing their considerations on those unenlightened scholars out there who will never read the Moneta-L forum or the ACCG website? Could it be that these authors are in fact less than sincere in what they write? That what counts is effect rather than what they contribute to a wider discussion. If so, what "effect" do such texts intend to achieve?

Hooker has taken to signing his posts

"Numismatics is the window through which I look out on the past." Derek Fortrose Allen 1910-1975.

One can only remark it is "contributions" to the debate on archaeological resource preservation like this which show it is a very small and dirty window through which one can see only a small fragment of the whole landscape of the past and very foggily. If that narrow isolationist and distrorted view is how coineys want to see "the past", that is fine as long as in doing so they do not by their actions ruin things for those upstairs who have bigger windows and want to see a wider perspective and show it to a wider audience.

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Crosby Garrett: If it wasn't for a Metal Detectorist...

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Candice Jarman, Hampshire secretary and artefact collector is angered by any attempt to discuss the shortcomings of the British system of "preservation" of the archaeological record with reference to the Crosby Garrett fiasco:

I was furious when I read Barford's blog - if it wasn't for a metal detectorist, the Crosby Garrett helmet would still be rotting in the ground and would be completely unknown to us. If Christies [...] had not restored it, then we would never have seen its true beauty - just because it's not in a museum now, does n't mean it never will be!

Well, I am really not as sure as Ms Jarman that we can see any evidence from the photos that the object had been "rotting" particularly rapidly over the past two thousand years in the ground wherever it had originally been deposited. Since (according to the PAS) it was recovered from "heathland" in Cumbria, was not being affected by those two old tekkie excuses "plough damage and artificial fertilisers". So actually it could have lain in the ground a bit longer, increasing the chance that when eventually it was removed from where it was safely lying, it might be under better conditions allowing us to better understand its context of deposition.

If Christie's had instead of quickly restoring it (according to Dr Jackson of the British Museum who saw it 'part way' through restoration, leaving the soil accretions on below the green paint) done a proper analysis and conservation project we'd see a lot more of the "beauty" of the object because we'd understand it better. But that takes time and proper lab facilities. I suspect that what "Fugitive ink" wrote on the matter of that "beauty" went right over Ms Jarman's head.

John Hooker answered her:

I agree about the helmet, it will last a lot longer than its new owner --so even if it does not become a museum exhibit right away, it will probably end up in one someday.

That really depends on the conservation treatment applied by Christie's before the green paint. Properly curated in a modern museum, its condition would be continually monitored by professionals; as flashy decoration in the summer cottage of some rich collector that is much less likely. The question of how long it will remain beautiful or even intact depends on the conditions to which it is subjected during display in somebody's home or office, and above all how many chlorides (among other things) were left with the "soil accretions" under the polyfilla and green paint by the over-hasty "restoration" process in order to get it from fresh out of the ground and onto the auction block as soon as possible.

How to Avoid Buying a Medici Piece: David Gill Under Attack Again

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There is an interesting thread on Tim Haines' Ancient Artifacts discussion group in which plot against David Gill of "Looting matters" which seems worth bringing out in the open. One collector of Greek pots etc. is told by another (ACCG's John Hooker) who specialises in another field:

I'm glad I do not have to endure what you do with that Medici photos business. Villains holding unpublished incriminating photos, looking for people to control, or turn into criminals? It's like something out of a comic book.

The latter then expands on who he had in mind:

If you are considering buying something that you feel might be included in the Medici archive, and you know that David Gill has access to this archive, and uses it to point out illicit objects then due diligence must include asking him if it is the archive. If it is, and he does not tell you, then I cannot see how he would not legally be considered an accessory to a crime. In any case, you would certainly be protected as you would have met the requirements for due diligence. If you do not check with him after knowing this, you have not met the requirements for due diligence -- it is as simple as that.

The archive of photos of items held by Medici ad his associates is being used, it is alleged for nefarious purposes, according to the collector on the Yahoo discussion list:

As far as I know, the archive has not been made public and is being used for "industrial espionage" purposes to damage the reputations of dealers and auction houses and have an adverse effect on their ability to conduct business. I would imagine that eventually the auction houses would launch a civil suit over this naming all of the involved parties -- but it is also possible that this activity is extra-legal and could come under police scrutiny at some point.

"Extra legal" seems to be the new no-questions-asked collector's buzz word.

So how to buy antiquities and avoid having your piece revealed as a looted piece? Its not really as simple as asking a researcher if the objects are on the "Medici and Associates" archive, for who is to say that a "Firanelli" or "Ravioli" (made-up names) archive of similar photos of similar implications will not surface next week? Surely the point is to avoid buying artefacts which can later be revealed were looted, which really means buying artefacts which the seller can demonstrate came from somewhere else, from a legitimate source.

John Hooker indicates that "archaeologist Raimund Karl who is also a specialist on
"Heritage" matters" has suggested that one way for a collector to avoid being caught with looted material on his hands is "to send yourself photographs and details of everything in your collection in a registered envelope. Keep it unopened as proof that by this date, you were in possession of these things". That really does not help, the question is not what somebody has acquired by a certain date, but where they acquired it from. Bangor University heritage specialist Mr Karl seems to be getting confused.

I think the gist of this discussion on the Yahoo list is buying looted or potentially looted artefacts is not the real problem, the real problem is how not to get caught doing it. That's the self-declared "responsible" collectors' forum. No wonder they keep that sort of discussion closed away where normal folk cannot see it without registering.

ACCG Pom Pom Propagandist Warns

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The ACCG's hired help, Canadian pompom man John Hooker warns the American: That collectors "rights" are somehow being eroded when the US government decides to take action against people who handle dugup ancient artefacts illegally exported from their source country as well as those illegally excavated in the US. He reminds readers that they may have read of:

an unfortunate woman of frail health who is arrested and jailed because her authorizing signature was found on some phony export permits of Thai ceramics. The stress is too much for her, and medical help is delayed too long and she dies in her cell. The fact that the signatures were forged and this information would have come out in her trial is irrelevant, She is gone and this is a tragedy that could easily have been avoided. Later still, you read of the Feds setting up a sting operation over illicit Indian artifacts where a great number of people are arrested and where even suicides then result. Pots over human lives?

Hmm. First of all the signatures were not on "phony export permits" and neither were they "forged" (he is talking about Roxanna Brown and I think using her 'example' in a inappropriate and disrespectful manner, Roxanna Brown was very much concerned with the ethics of collecting, was concerned about looting. It is very unjust of Hooker to try and make out that she was a victim because she was a collector. In fact, I think he owes her family and colleagues an apology). It is also disrespectful to bring up the family tragedies of the suicides connected with the ill-fated Four Corners bust - especially since the US so-called "collectors' rights" movement did not lift a finger to help these collectors in the glare of the media spotlight, and forged on fighting the state on issues involving collecting objects from foreign countries rather than the wider US collectors' rights they claim to be defending. Maybe Hooker is waving his pom poms at the wrong bit of US gubn'mint?

With regard to what he insists in portraying as an erosion of rights, Hooker suggests:

I imagine that many Americans would start to the think about Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and Bill of Rights at this point -- perhaps you might reach for your dictionary to look up the word "inalienable"(sic)! Am I right? Do you feel that your rights are being, ever so gradually, eroded away? This, for me, is the main issue. Archaeology and collecting are lesser matters and only a fanatic would place them higher than human rights. We have suffered far too much at the hands of fanatics in recent years and too many lives have been lost.

Yeeharrr !!
Well, let us see what "human rights" really are being "eroded" by the CCPIA. Well, actually none at all, because not even the founding fathers would have condoned taking from other nations property you want without their consent (that after all is precisely the issue over which the War of Independence was fought) and what the CCPIA is about is precisely ensuring that the importers have the consent for the export of the archaeological and ethnographic cultural property designated by the MOU.

So that's what collectors do...

"The monster looks at you -- one eye made extra wide, the other normal. Then he grabs the triskeles with its rotating "motion" emphasized by the central snail coil and shows it to you. This snail-coil had just been the widened eye, now it is a lively banner which shows the ebbing of life. The other eye of the monster now peers at you from behind this banner. What happens after death, occurs in another dimension -- the side that cannot be seen at the same time as the triskeles".

No, not a review of the latest blood and gore-monsters video game in a teenager computer magazine, but an "analysis" of a "finial" in the cabinet of collector John Hooker Esquire which he has posted on the Yahoo "AncientArtifacts" discussion list.

A smith capable of such work would have been of the druid class. [...] Eventually, the design ceases its peregrinations and returns to the above world of the top design its "soul" transmigrated back to the world of the living where death waits, once again, to show you the way around yet again.

The nonsense about life and death forces and invisible themes goes on for a few pages, what is so odd is the object on which Celtophile Hooker sees all this played out is a fragment of what he describes as a "finial" in the 3rd cent. B.C. "plastic style" and the surviving bit is only 23mm tall. He says the (unnamed) dealer misidentified and misdated it, only he, Hooker, knows the real identity.

It was bought from "a U.K. antiquities dealer". It was said to have come from metal detecting "in Oxfordshire", no more specific find spot was given. Says Hooker: "As far as I know, this is the first object in the plastic style to come from British soil" ("Only a handful of objects in this style are known, and they are mostly bracelets and anklets"). The object of course does not figure in the PAS database (nor the UKDFD one) and its current owner in Canada is jubilant: "I said to a friend at the time "If I were a person who issues export permits, I would never give one for this!"." Yeah, well they did, because its not gold and sparkly, and anyway the PAS has not seen it to say how important or otherwise it is/was.

Hooker typically for a collector reckons:

After contacting the dealer in England, I was no closer to learning where, exactly, it was found and who the finder was. [....] Too bad, but not terribly important for a piece like this. Oxfordshire had some significance, but a specific find spot would be highly unlikely to provide any more real information.

On the contrary a piece of datable metalwork as part of a specific site assemblage may have yielded information if that findspot was noted, reported and information collated before the piece was shipped off to a delighted and uncaring collector overseas. Perhaps there is a reason why the metal detector user does not want his identity known and why he's keeping quiet where it was found? Maybe it was found in pitch darkness in a remote location where nobody should be metal detecting, day or night. Or maybe it was one of a group of bronze objects found in a pot split up quietly between detecting pals? Or sold from an address in Oxfordshire on behalf of an metal detectorist operating illegally outside England? If all is legitimate and above board, why actually can there not be any openness about this in the case of a find from England where metal detecting is legal? The fact that the information is nevertheless hidden should be ringing alarm bells in both dealer and collector. But as we see, the collector does not care, "it's probably not important" he persuades himself. The important thing (which comes over very clearly in his message to the discussion list) is that he's got his hands on what he calls the "ultimate" artefact (actually this is the third time I recall hearing that the findspot of an unprovenanced "Celtic" object in the possession of this same collector is "probably not important", the others were a decorated lead spindlewhorl and a linchpin terminal). And now he's bragging about having it, dropping the names of all the Big Boys in the rather incestuous little world of Celtic metalwork studies who have been "enthusiastic" when shown the photos, and now he's bragging to fellow collectors what a clever chappie he is to have got his hands on this little goodie.

And I think establishing the findspot is important if one is going to pose questions like: "Did its owner bring it to Britain [...] Did he arrive as craftsman seeking a new patron? and did he eventually change the course of British Celtic art?". For all we know the field from which it came might be full of continental coins and potsherds because it came with the soil in the flowerpots of imported plants used to lay out the hall gardens.

Frankly I find the discussion typology of fragments of motifs, a boss here, a squiggly bit "like one on the Weedly Bottom Torc Finial" terribly sterile, and all the imagnative narrativisation that Hooker attaches to them mildly amusing. But what angers me is the totally cavalier attitude to best practice in collecting which is what the PAS is supposed to be propagating in England and Wales and has been doing so at public expense for coming up to thirteen years. Where is the evidence of this in this case?

If this object is so "unique", no responsible collector has any business buying it before he gets the full details from the dealer, who got it from somewhere. But of course the Gotta-have-it attitude of the indiscriminate collector - who will of course see himself as the "Good Collector" (giving it the "best possible home" "because only I can appreciate it for what it is" when the experts cannot).

If I was the boss of the PAS (or the Oxfordshire FLO), and am sincerely glad I am not, I'd be on to Hooker for the name and address of this "dealer" and then I'd contact them to trace this find back to the finder to get a record of it (unique or not) in the PAS database. That is the least PAS could do. Of course they will not, after all, reporting finds made during artefact hunting with a metal detector for collection or sale, no matter how interesting they are, is only voluntary isn't it? It is a policy open to abuse by artefact hunters, dealers and irresponsible collectors, who nevertheless (as Hooker himself has on more than one occasion) hold it up as a "model of good practice" that other nations should follow. If it does not work in the UK (If collectors don't make it work in the UK) then why should it be?

Vignette: Another plastic monster.

"Succinctly contrasts", but Mr Giedroyc gets it terribly wrong again

According to an ACG-affiliated coin collector writing on Moneta-L, the latest article (Iron Age Coin Find Ruled Treasure Trove) of Numismaster's master numismojournalist Richard Giedroyc of World Coin News "succinctly contrasts the real effect of England's Treasure Act with that of the laws of other countries"... (yawn). Sadly this assessment is a trifle overenthusiastic: the article is actually a poorly-researched heap of misleading nonsense.

When, oh when will American collectors and their mates learn the NAME of the Act which so appeals to them? Wickham Market is near the bottom on the left of that green bit across the water called "England", and the lumpier bit with the jaggedy edges at the top is another country called "Scotland". Scotland has legislation on Treasure Trove, England has....? England has, Mr Giedroyć, the 1996 Treasure Act. I don't expect it makes much difference to him. Not when he writes:

Suffolk Coroner Dr. Peter Dean declared the find to be treasure since the coins are more than 300 years old and were likely buried to be hidden with the intent to recover them later rather than being lost by their owner. [....] If, due to the nature of the find, the items found are determined to have been lost by chance, the finder takes possession of these items.

What? I suspect the influence of the 1965 Readers Digest Book of Buried Treasure here. That's the old law that went out in 1996! Thirteen years ago. What the Monetan correspondent finds so valuable (and yes, succinct) is this bit I presume:

At a time when countries such as Greece, Italy and Turkey have been enforcing laws banning the export of antiquities as being the cultural patrimony of these countries, the British treasure trove laws become even more relevant on the world stage as an example of how treasure finders can be encouraged to "do the right thing."

(Polite) words fail me, what has the Treasure Act got to do with "export"? Nothing, actually. Chalk and cheese. The English Treasure Act of course retains for the state these items "as being the cultural patrimony of the country" just as much as the laws of Greece, Turkey and Italy. Also Mr Giedroyc, instead of relying on ACCG handouts for information really should look into (for example) Greek heritage law concerning finds. He might find a surprise there. But then does he really mean Britain's (so that's Scotland then) Treasure TROVE laws? Because according to these, there is no division into "shiny gold/silver for the state - all the rest, who cares?" (which is I presume the wonder of the English legislation for the external collector of bronze coins and other decontextualised geegaws). No, in Scotland, the State wants to get its hands on all archaeological finds as it regards them all as the cultural patrimony of its citizens.

This article is sadly perfectly typical of the sort of shoddy research that goes into the anti-preservationist wafflings of the pro-collecting lobby, and which members of the latter propagate among collectors and try to foist off on the general public, totally misinforming them. Let's see if any well-informed Monetan queries the account of the workings of the English Treasure Act given in the article recommended to them so highly.

ADDENDUM 19th Aug: well it seems none of them noticed. So much for their knowledge of the laws which apply to their hobby which they like to portray as a scholarly "discipline".

"Coiney" concept of "Comedy"

The no-questions-asked acquirers and handlers of heaps of decontextualised ancient coins on transatlantic table tops clearly have a distorted sense of humour. Yesterday Heritage Action discussed the story of the quarrel between two UK metal detector using finders about how the reward for the Dallinghoo Hoard should be split. It raised some perfectly valid questions, how it was "ludicrous it is to be paying metal detectorists millions of pounds in rewards for doing what they all swear blind they would do without any reward anyway" (see what "metal detectorist" Darke is quoted as saying). Heritage Action further raises the question of why on earth in the grip of a recession, the British are spending further millions of money from the public budget "encouraging and supporting them in a hobby that other countries deem illegal and would simply send them to prison for" (if carried out in the manner of this find). Heritage Action adds:

If you pay tax or care about the archaeological record, or think the first should go towards protecting the second not in facilitating its erosion away into the hands of a few thousand nameless and entirely unregulated private individuals (most of whom tell no-one what they have found or where) it’s definitely worth a look.

It is interesting to see what reaction this met in the transatlantic collecting community (who claim to care about the preservation of the archaeological record). Apparently all they could muster to contribute to any discussion of the issues was: "Some things are just too funny to parody". Really? Personally, I do not get the "joke". Saying something is laughable and not explaining why is a pretty transparent tactic.

The monetan poster goes on to say "(although we might try to do something with gambling money being called tax!)". By "gambling money" one can only infer that the author believes that in England and Wales, Treasure rewards are paid from Heritage Lottery Fund money, which is by no means the case, the HLF are no longer even the principal source of PAS funding as it was in the late 1990s. Perhaps "monetans" interested in the workings of the British Treasure Act need to keep up with the news of how it actually does work.

[*What is odd though is that the ACCG Museums Fund (aiming to help British museums acquire numismatic treasure finds) does not mention the HLF in the information about why the collectors think the fund is necessary, though it mentions the Headly Trust for entirely transparent reasons. What is significant is that the author of the Monetan post is closely involved in the ACCG fund's operation.]

ACCG Misleading its Members: Twenty Days Left

Coin collectors in the US should take note that there are still twenty days for the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG), Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG) and International Association of Professional Numismatists (IAPN) to call off their stunt involving using their members' money to fight a case brought on by an attempt to illegally import ancient coins without the requisite paperwork. This goes against the codes of ethics of these three organizations, a fact that all those who thought they actually meant something should note.

There has been some confusion introduced into the discussion which is failing to take place in no-questions-asked collecting circles over this. About ten days ago I made a post here in which any interested coin collectors and other observers can learn for themselves what piece of paper is missing to make this ACCG import legal and above board. It's not a particularly onerous task to get it. I even copied out the relevant paragraphs of the CPIA for them so they do not have to tire their mouse-clicking fingers overly to look at it.

Coin dealer Dave Welsh however says something different. On Moneta-L yesterday he informed members:

But to read what Barford said about this test case in his blog, you would think that this is an unethical gambit on the part of the ACCG.

[I must interrupt him here, actually, there is absolutely NO question about it, it is (even by the weasel-worded ACCG code of ethics... which is thereby shown to be worth nothing) an unethical gambit, it is also supremely mis-timed, but more of that later]

He harps upon the "piece of paper" that is all that has to be presented to secure the release of the coins, never of course mentioning that this document is not a packing list or other easily obtained bit of paperwork, but is instead an official export permit that cannot be obtained in practice.

Now that is sheer nonsense, since in my post I very clearly define what this missing piece of paper consists of. Very precisely. It is as easily obtainable from a reputable (note that word) dealer who is exporting these items, and it has nothing to do at this stage with "export licences". I find this comment on a numismatic forum from one of the officers of the main organization involved in this stunt extremely odd. Unless this is deliberate misinformation, it firstly suggests he apparently does not - as an importer of ancient coins - actually know in any detail what the laws of his own country at least say. That is shocking. Secondly the tracking widget over in the margin of this blog shows that somebody in Goleta California (which is where his Classical coins business is based) has been reading those specific posts about the ACCG illegal import stunt where I write quite clearly what this piece of paper should look like. (If its not Dave Welsh, and the person responsible is reading this now, give him a ring and tell him what you read).

But that's not the end of the misinformation, John Hooker who the ACCG is now increasingly relying on to produce "ideologies" for collecting (he's going to start up a "conservation spoof" blog soon and write some ideological bit about Jung) has joined in the effort to misinform "Monetans". He too says that I do not understand why there cannot be an "export licence". John, read the CPIA for yourself. We are not talking now about export licences.

Mr Hooker tells Monetans that the law is being broken by those involved:

to fight unreasonable U.S. import restrictions. The only way that this can be done under U.S. law is through an actual case and in the courts.

Well, first of all a detailed reading of the CPIA actually shows it gives such leeway to importers to be virtually meaningless (which was probably the intent of its authors), so I really think in the circumstances that the coineys' claim that these are "unreasonable U.S. import restrictions" is simply laughable. Secondly of course even in the US there is no need to break a law to get it repealed or rewritten. There are other mechanisms. The ACCG has however decided to flaunt the law to influence international policy.

Fine, but let them be totally honest and open with their members about what this is about. What kind of piece of paper is it Mr Welsh? Answers on Moneta-L please.

Photo: astronomical clock. Time is running out... .

Coineys ignore Von Kaenel

In reference to John Hooker's rambling name-dropping reaction to a post on this blog, Californian portable antiquity dealer Dave Welsh apparently in all seriousness announces on Moneta-L:

In the detailed post below, John Hooker meticulously refutes Paul Barford (yet again ....) and then goes on to say that Barford "... just doesn't get it. It is all invisible to him.

Well, John Hooker’s post on Moneta-L is long, a bit short on the (relevant) detail, but despite his efforts to legitimate the mere dismissal of what I wrote, I do not accept that Hooker has “refuted” what I said. Neither has Welsh for that matter.

I would like to point out to the scolding and moralizing Californian coin dealer that the points I was highlighting here were made by Dr. Hans-Markus von Kaenel, of the Goethe University, Frankfurt-am-Main. I would say he merits the term “professional numismatist” more than a mere shopkeeper with - as far as I can see – few articles in proper peer-reviewed numismatic journals or monographs to his name. So Mr Welsh will forgive me if I tend more to be interested in von Kaenel's assessment of the situation in current numismatics this side of the Atlantic than his own.

What I said would however be very helpful would be if the heap-of-loose-artefacts-on-a-table “numismatists” would attempt to produce (a) a review of the book about “coins in context” and (b) a methodological treatise [let's call it "Coins OUT OF Context"] which shows how ignoring the context from which the objects they collect come can in any way advance a fuller understanding of the past.

We are witness to a 'decontextualisation process' on an enormous scale

Over on his Numismatics blog, Nathan Elkins has begun a series of comments on a recent book (H.-M von Kaenel and F. Kemmers (eds.) 2009, Coins in Context I: New Perspectives for the Interpretation of Coin Finds, Studien zu Fundmünzen der Antike 23 - Mainz). In the second post in what promises to be a thought-provoking series, he discusses the first essay [in the section "Methodological Overviews"] which is by one of the volume’s editors H.-M. von Kaenel ("Coins in context - a personal approach", pp. 9-24). Nathan has summarised the text for those – like me – who have not yet seen the book itself. I was struck by several of the quotes he gives. For example he reports that Von Kaenel writes:

"Never before has so much archaeological material been removed from the earth through illegal looting as it has since the 1990s. We are witness to a 'decontextualisation process' on an enormous scale which affects all archaeological objects. However, as regards sheer numbers, coins take first place."

I think this word “decontextualisation” is a useful concept to describe what is taking place and its effects; objects which have a context, are deprived of them by entry into the market of contextless “dugups” which collectors buy no-questions-asked. Von Kaenel continues:

"This is a loss of historical source material that is without comparison, and it cannot be replaced. The situation for archaeology is just as disastrous as it is for numismatics. Many colleagues are aware of this, but only a few speak out and
the authorities responsible have so far not been prepared to intervene actively and consistently."

I am not sure it is "without comparison", I'd liken it to the burning of the Alexandrine library many hundred times over. The question of why there are so many colleagues that are aware of this but few of whom speak out is an interesting one.

There is also a section of the paper called: "From 'numismatics or archaeology' to 'archaeology and numismatics'". Von Kaenel suggests that it is a younger generation of numismatists which is coming to realize that the study of ancient coins (which are after all just ONE type of archaeological artefact) cannot take part in isolation from (and to the detriment of) other branches of the study of the past. He uses an example taken from the realms of “Celtic” coinage in central Europe where the evidence from stratified coin finds overturned the traditional chronology based on typology. Von Kaenel suggests that:

"today no one seriously asks the question 'numismatics or archaeology' – the title of a paper by K. Castelin published in 1976. In fact, in Celtic numismatics today it is a matter of 'archaeology and numismatics'."

It would seem that Dr Von Kaenel has not come across (or paid attention to) the ACCG. Their spokesmen claim to be “professional numismatists”, and the dealers' lobby group does indeed proclaim that it is either archaeology OR the coin collector, as we have seen time and time again, they apparently do not see room for both unless the other side (the conservationsist) makes vast compromises to the exclusive benefit of the coin collector and dealer. The ACCG which seeks at every step to discredit the archaeological study of artefacts such as coins and all that goes with it, including those that would protect the archaeological record from exploitation for commercial purposes. I could not help a wry smile on reading the next part:

"In no other area of ancient numismatics has the discussion on coins and money been so productively stimulated and advanced by archaeologists as in Celtic numismatics".

It is in this field that the current main ideologue of the ACCG (Canadian John Hooker), claims to have his expertise, and we may note that while he is very willing to quote archaeologists when it suits him, in general he is an advocate of the autonomy and primacy of “numismatics” and typology over archaeology and context.

I look forward to the ACCG review of “Coins in Context I”, perhaps as one of the “Hooker papers” series.

Hooker quotes A.A. Milne

Canadian coin collector John Hooker writes this morning to ancient coin collectors on Moneta-L on the subject of "Bulk lots of Roman coins" and reveals something of his taste in literature.

There is a tremendous amount of nonsense being spread about bulk lots of Roman coins from Britain being sold in the U.S. Almost all of this is by people who have very little knowledge of numismatics, have never published anything on the subject and who have even less knowledge of coins in the archaeological context. Only one of these spokesmen can make any claim to some knowledge of these subjects and he is a tyro to the subject. In dealing with the more complex levels of numismatics, especially in its archaeological context, one starts to get the hang of things usually after about twenty years. [...] As for these supposedly "well-meaning" "concerned citizens" with little real knowledge of the subject and no art at all, what can I say? I think that Winnie the Pooh sums it up nicely: “When you are a Bear of very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”

Well, of course one of the purposes of blogging thoughts is so that it gets them out in the open and has other people looking at them and examining them in various contexts. This discussion is of course not about coins as art objects or subject of typological study, but about coins as archaeological artefacts (just like any other). It is about the use (or in this case prevention of use) of a particular group of ancient metal artefacts as evidence of the patterns of human activity within a region. That region is not in Canada or Wisconsin, but the place from where those archaeological artefacts were removed from the ground. On that subject I do have (well) more than twenty years experience.

I say that removing random elements from among the patterns and assemblages of archaeological artefacts from the soil in the places where they have been laying since they were deposited is damaging our ability to interpret those patterns. John Hooker likens me to a "bear of little brain" for saying so. He seems to be of the view that removing year after year an unknown (but obviously large) quantity of material like ancient coins from unknown areas of relict landscapes all over the old world has no 'significant' effect whatsoever on the archaeological record. Like Mr Tompa then.

I really think the PAS, "partner" of collectors, and "Friend of Numismatists" needs to step in here. Collecting these data and making them available for research is what it does. Collector Hooker is questioning the fundamental reasons behind that. Let the PAS for once defend what they do against the misinformation that is being constantly spread by ACCG-affiliated collectors of ancient coins who see the Scheme only as a shield for their hobby when it suits them. Until they do, with reference to what Hooker says, I'll add that no amount of "statistics" can compensate for a randomly damaged database. John Hooker suggests that:

if you want to attempt some sort of distribution pattern from non-site surface finds, then go ahead. It will not be very useful because you must make a number of assumptions without good evidence. Should you try to include every coin found? of course not!

I'd question what Mr Hooker really knows about the "assumptions" that he claims lie behind archaeological field survey. So, by that argument, we can pack up the PAS then as we've already gathered some hundreds of thousands of pieces of information about findspots. It seems to me that there is a different problem, if we allow destruction of a finite, fragile and important resource, then we cannot let that damage go on unmitigated. All we "tyros" are asking is that collectors ("friends" and "partners" of archaeology ostensibly) help ensure that it is by only buying material which has been properly recorded and legally obtained and exported. Obviously for people like Mr Hooker that is far too much of us to ask or expect and merely suggesting it is enough to make individuals the object of his comments.

What is more, John Hooker reckons that because of the concerns that have been raised about unethical and illegal practices on the antiquities market:

Asking a European dealer for a provenance sets up alarm bells with them these days. They know what can then happen. It is far simpler to say "it's from an old ___ collection". This is what these supposedly well-meaning fools have accomplished.

The dealers admitting where the stuff they sell comes from "know what can then happen", so that's why they keep quiet? Well, one of the things might be that they could go to jail if it turns out they are dealing in illegally obtained materials. Hooker suggests that if a dealer will not reveal where something comes from and where they got it from its the fault of those "fools" in the heritage protection lobby, and not the collectors who will buy stuff no matter where it came from and how it got there? A neat way for collectors to absolve themselves of responsibility.

Readers can find the rest of John Hooker's lengthy post here.

Photo: Bear of Very Little Brain (Allegro).

US collectors start a "fund to assist British Museums"

Following a comment on this blog on 19th April Canadian coin dealer Robert Kokotailo suggested on the Moneta-L discussion list which he moderates setting up a fund to help out British museums purchase treasure finds. It has now been announced that the coin trade lobby group the ACCG has established such a fund. It is to help provide funding up to 500 GBP to small museums in England and Wales that wish to purchase local finds of ancient (ie, pre- Anglo-Saxon) coins which have been declared Treasure in terms of the 1996 Treasure Act. As we all know, the ACCG wishes to propagate the “British system” of portable antiquity laissez-faire worldwide and this is apparently their way of saying "thank you" to the Brits for showing the way... The ACCG says their motive is that in Britain:

Many small museums have inadequate find purchasing budgets and although there are schemes such the Headley Trust which might award a portion of the price for purchases of ₤500 or more, amounts lower than this must be entirely raised by the local museum. If the museum fails to raise the money, the coins might be purchased by a larger museum and leave the area where they were found. Local museums will place such finds on display to be enjoyed by the local population. Many ancient coin collectors support both the Treasure Act and voluntary reporting systems in England and Wales and would like to express their appreciation by donating money to help keep some of these ancient coin finds in the area in which they were found.

What a shame the ACCG does not apply the same high-sounding ideals to the coins their members collect no-questions-asked from the Balkans, Near East and other regions and sold by ACCG-affiliated dealers. As for US collectors “supporting” the British system, we saw an example of this the other day… The true aim of the exercise is revealed by the statement that:

The Committee will post details of any awards and a link to the museum home page on the ACCG web site along with photographs of the museum and the finds.

This is clearly a propaganda exercise. The ACCG adds: "This fund will enable small museums to be able to display local finds without overtaxing their limited financial resources. It will serve the established goals of the ACCG to broaden its visibility among non-coin collecting groups and will provide a vehicle for collectors to "give something back in appreciation". Well, I suppose it depends whether small British museums want to be involved in “broadening the visibility” of the ACCG among non-coin-collecting groups in Britain and whether that would serve the museum's mission – particularly bearing in mind the ACCG's recent coin import stunt and its general and stated opposition to any heritage protection measures which may disturb the free access of US dealers to as many ancient coins as they want. (That's basically most of them.) Support of the US dealers’ lobby by British museums would therefore rather go against the 2006 ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums which sets out some principles regarding the market in natural and cultural property. Members of the museum profession (principle 8.5) are not allowed to support certain parts of it directly or indirectly. Basically while the ACCG has the stated attitude it does to coin imports and exports, British museum professionals cannot ethically participate in broadening its visibility. In any case principle 8.15 (Interaction with Dealers) of the same code states: “Museum professionals should not accept any gift, hospitality, or any form of reward from a dealer, auctioneer, or other person as an inducement to purchase or dispose of museum items...".

It's also a bit of a shame that in setting up this fund, the ACCG did not first find out more about the sequence of the Treasure process in England and Wales (if they find reading the material too much of a strain, probably one phone call to the British Museum would have been enough to sort it out). They ask for a document which is not produced at the stage when museums are being approached about their desire and ability to purchase a find, and they fail to realise that the small museums they want to "assist" are offered the finds after the larger national museums have decided not to acquire - so the stated aim of helping the smaller museum to prevent the big museums snatching them is a misunderstanding of the process. If neither big nor small museums express a need for the find, it is returned to the finder and landowner and may then legitimately appear on the market.

It is also interesting that ACCG members are asked to send their donations to the Executive Director, while the ACCG does in fact have a separate office of Treasurer, and it is to the Executive Director that applications for the fund are to be made. Odd. We are told that “Approval will be based on the availability of funds, the number of current requests and the importance of the find as described in the application”. The executive Director has recently announced that Robert Kokotailo, John Hooker and Zach Beasley have volunteered to manage the ACCG Museum Fund. So that's a dealer and collector from Canada, and a dealer from the US. Perhaps they could have co-opted somebody from the British Isles (perhaps from the museum world) to give more informed advice? But then of course they are not really doing this to further the needs of British society, culture or museums.

Nice though the gesture is, there is something vaguely neo-colonial about rich US private collectors providing funding for foreign institutions to help them realise their cultural mission. The sum offered is laughable, there are many individual coins (without provenance) listed on eBay and V-Coins (owned by the ACCG President) which are being sold for much more than 500 GBP. Many of the Treasure finds which museums are having to buy from treasure hunters cost much more than that. Britain is a comparatively rich country compared with many of those that current ACCG doctrine would force "the British system" on. Who is going to pay for the treasure rewards that introduction of a British Treasure act clone would engender in those countries? US collectors too? When all they can manage for Britain is "payments up to 500 pounds"?

Mr Sayles has no sense of occasion. Immediately under his announcement of the way the coin dealers and collectors of the US want to help Britain preserve its culture, he adds:

I'd also like to remind collectors and dealers that now is the time to send donations to the ACCG Benefit Auction. If you have a single coin or a group of coins, that no longer fit into your collectingscheme, this is the perfect place for them. All proceeds of the auction go to the legal expenses of challenging import restrictions that threaten our hobby.

That sort of talk will certainly not encourage British heritage professionals to feel comfortable beating a path to their door for some cash handouts, because those same restrictions protect the culture which museums are set up to curate and help protect, and it is the collecting hobby which wants these restrictions relaxed or removed that is the threat to that cultural heritage.

"The Hooker Papers"

The Collectors’ rights lobby have obviously taken previous criticisms of the intellectual bankruptcy of their arguments to heart, so it would appear that now they are searching around for new ones. The latest installment in this entertaining spectacle is the publication on the ACCG website of what promises to be a new series of pieces called “Cultural Property: The Hooker papers”. Some of us have been following the unfolding spectacle of the conspiracy theories by former ACCG president Peter Tompa about the mechanisms of a Rogue Administration in the US conspiring with foreign governments against the interests of US citizens. These readers might therefore view the title with some misgivings, expecting that it might contain spicy revelations about State Department officials and Washington ladies of easy virtue.

Fortunately it turns out to be a bland bolstering of collectors' self-esteem written by Canadian coin collector John Hooker under the heading of: “A series of white papers by John Hooker dealing with the philosophical aspects of cultural heritage, cultural property and the concept of stewardship". John Hooker used to write some interesting stuff, so I read both with interest, though mounting disappointment.

The first of this series published by the ACCG is called Deconstructing Cultural Heritage as it applies to property and quickly turns out to be a rather superficial piece. Surely anything which claims to be “deconstructing” a somewhat complex concept like "cultural heritage" requires an examination and presentation of the literature regarding that concept which goes beyond a citation of a single convention, and one from 1970 (and about cultural property) to boot. It is like discussing Canada’s energy policy on the basis of a single treaty of 1970 concerning coal imports. Furthermore, I suspect the author has skipped the preamble of the Convention and (typically for this milieu) misinterpreted its title and remit. I wonder if the author really has grasped the meaning of the concept of "deconstruction". The text also contains a suspicious number of references to the heritage of Nazi Germany which is customary in this milieu.

On page [3] the author attempts to philosophise about the 'nature of history', but apparently does not know enough about this and its literature to penetrate the problem very deeply, but this does not seem bother him, the whole point of it is to lead to the statement "if the objects of the past belong to the people[,] then should any of them not belong to any person?". Predictably, Mr Hooker's answer to the question he poses himself is a foregone conclusion. He reckons there are two "aspects to culture" (just two? Hmm), and the second, an 'individual' one, is impossible to define exactly. Well, again it is a shame that Hooker betrays no inkling of the vast literature in a number of the human sciences (including historiography) connected with identity (and indeed the role of memory in that) which do precisely that. Instead of referring to any of that, however, he found a paper in the Internet about something called "cultural frames" by a Spanish author. This relates to concepts that have bneen around since at least the 1970s, but in the spin put on it by Hooker is nothing more or less than another name for an aspect of the identity of collectors I have previously discussed on this blog a number of times (such as here). The value of this online paper for Hooker is that "the wonderful thing about the cultural frames approach as discussed by Marti is that it frees us from having to agree, in principle, with nationalistic hype".

Wonderful. The problem is that the UNESCO convention which Hooker's paper critiques is about the means of prohibiting the illicit transfer of ownership of cultural property. Hooker in this paper is attacking the basis of the right of (any) groups to be able to define an activity involving cultural property (or is that "heritage"?) as in any way illicit. This is not "philosophy", it is anarchy in the strict sense of the word. Is Hooker saying that Marti's "cultural frames" gives the culture criminal a carte blanche? It seems so. So, what about the cultural frames of those in the source countries that do not want to see their heritage(dug out of their local archaeological sites and ripped off the monuments), their marbles, bronzes, artworks taken off by Canadian collectors to store in their dens as part of their own acquisitive "cultural frames"? Is Mr Hooker's own cultural frame ("student of the global past") superior to that of a Greek, Nigerian or Cambodian whom looters and smugglers are depriving of their ability to appreciate these items? Why? Presumably Mr Hooker would want to tell them that they are all in the "wrong cultural frame", but then are they not free to choose? To choose between their own archaeology (done by people of the same nationality and reported in their language) and public collections, and having their heritage illicitly carted off to foreign and inaccessible to them markets? It's a shame that Hooker does not expand his "frame" more fully to look at the culture of indigenous communities in Canada and the US in the context of collecting and looting of sites which they regard as their ancestral sites for collectables for outsiders to acquire. This seems to me a deliberate omission.

The "property" of the second part of the title of this paper does not figure much in the text, I presume it means the collector's "property" - which in the case of no-questions-asked collecting could well be stolen property, though of course the whole point of Hookers home-grown philosophising is to "prove" why we should not regard this type of stolen property stolen at all, because its all - he says - about "cultural frames" of individuals. Once again we see the discussion diverted away from conservation issues under the pretence that they are only about the rights of individuals to do their own thing no matter what.

The second “White Paper” promises to be about: Ancient Coin Collecting: Organization, Praxis and Epistemology. Despite the title, it actually contains nothing about the epistemology of “ancient coin collecting” (or how that differs from any other kind of coin collecting, or indeed collecting of anything else). It also contains little on the praxis, surely the basis of any decent collection is documentation? There is no mention of that in Hooker’s account so the praxis is just heaping them up loose on a table in Calgary or somewhere I guess. Surely a paper intended to inform readers of the "praxis and epitemology" of coin collecting would have been helped by a few references to textbooks on the methodology of collecting and numismatics. The text is instead a loose farrago of chatty and personal reflections consisting (despite its title) mainly of numerous references to what “archaeologists” write say and think (and “fail to realize") about something-or-other. The unspoken assumption is that coins (just the "ancient" ones maybe) are in some way different from other types of addressed and non-addressed sources used by the archaeologist (page [7-8], though nowhere is the reasoning behind this discussed. The text is lamentably short on references to where such statements attributed to "some" or "many" archaeologists are made in order to indicate that such statements come from a proper study of the archaeological literature from the English-speaking world (as well as the “source countries”) rather than the author plucking them from thin air. In a few places archaeologists (Hodder, Wylie) are however cited out of context when they support Hooker’s line of thinking. Throughout the "paper", archaeologists are for some reason routinely labelled “nationalist” without any coherent explanation why. Are the police who raided the “Crack House” down the road from Hooker (pp [13-4]) to reduce access to damaging drugs by Canadian citizens “nationalist policemen”? Is the Canadian Council on Animal Care a “nationalist” organization too? More to the point, is Britain's Portable Antiquities Scheme a "nationalist" organization? What nonsense. Am I supposed to be a "nationalist archaeologist"? More revealingly, conservation of the archaeological resource is apparently “a crackpot idea”. (page [6], no references here either). The “way forward” is apparently to leave “collectors who buy from [Canadian?] shops” alone. Hooker is illogical when he contrasts “collectors” with museums, without recognizing (page [3]) that the latter too are collections.

Page 4 contains the most telling flaw. Apparently, according to the Canadian coin-collecting "independent scholar": “archaeologists stress the importance of recording of provenance for three reasons…” but then among those he lists, Hooker totally ignores the most important of them, which is the context of deposition. This is of course the most fundamental of them all, and is behind the central issue that the digging up of archaeological sites and assemblages for collectables irreversibly destroys those sites and assemblages, for ever making impossible their use in gaining a fuller knowledge of the past than can be gained by the "study of objects themselves [...] within the context of similar objects regardless of their site context" (p. [10]). This is an issue which of course Hooker’s paper somehow completely avoids discussing…

In my opinion, most of this text is rather naive and superficial, though I am sure coin collectors will treat it very seriously. This is after all an official ACCG “White Paper”.

US Portable Antiquity Collectors Demand change in foreign laws

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More portable antiquity collecting rant from the USA, this is Jorg Lueke again bad-mouthing other countries attempting to protect their archaeological heritage.

If source countries continue to implement restrictive laws that lead to looting in those countries who is responsible for stopping that looting? Under UNESCO it those source countries. They can also ask for help via import restrictions which Italy may soon do. If Italy insists on a domestic policy that discourages reporting and increases looting should the United States or other countries grant import restrictions or should they politely refuse and offer the UK Treasure Act as a model to better protect cultural property?

Well, first of all, let us note how insulting the notion of a “source country” is here. In the eyes of the US collector a country does not have a cultural heritage of its own, but is merely a “source” for the collectables that US collectors will buy by hook or crook! These “source countries” have “restrictive” laws which aim to prevent their archaeological heritage being dug over by looters eager to find geegaws with which to earn a few dollars from middlemen acting for foreign markets.

The reason why the laws are not as effective as they should be is that people like Mr Lueke back in the USA will pay money no-questions-asked for whatever is offered, no matter if it is looted and smuggled or not. It is not the laws that are at fault but those who pay money to those who break the laws.

More importantly the United States of America regards itself as above the other nations that have become party to the 1970 convention. It has passed the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act [19 U.S.C. §§ 2601-2613 (1982)] which totally ignores recognising any obligations under Article 13 of the Convention it has signed. Instead there is a convoluted process of individual nations requesting it to enforce any form of restrictions on the undocumented (and here's the crucial point so often ignored) trade in cultural property of specified types. This request then undergoes a protracted review process in the State Dedpartment in which the Presidential advsory CPAC plays its role, and which inevitably is fought at every step by self-interested collectors and especially dealers eager to prevent its own nation actually respecting export licencing concerns (even though this is required by the convention).

Now we see a further development. US collectors like Lueke are trying to persuade that the honouring of such requests should be conditional on those "source countries" who have already stated that their cultural heritage is threatened by looting should adopt collector-friendly laws first. Collector-friendly laws by their very nature however DO NOT protect the archaeological resource from being exploited as a source of collectables, they merely facilitate it. Where is the logic in that?

Further lack of logic is evidenced by the suggestion that in the interests of US collectors and dealers would be if nations were forced by the US to adopt something like the "UK Treasure Act" (sic). Well, the useflness of that for the COLLECTOR varies on whether Lueke means the English version, the Scottish or Northern Irish one. Whichever he means however, these are all acts intended to secure material for PUBLIC collections and not to release it on the market! I suspect that what Lueke means is however the English Portable Antiquity Scheme, though this does NOT "pay" collectors for reporting finds, it merely attempts to deal with the recording of non-Treasure items. I suspect the latter is what Lueke is really getting at. He wants "source nations" to differentiate between the shiny glittery stuff it wants for museum cases (which it buys off the legalised looter) and the more mundane stuff like coins and painted pots which Mr Lueke and his buddies would all too willingly collect.

John Hooker in Canada thinks Lueke is onto a good thing and adds his two cents:

This is the crux of the matter, but before we can hope to change the minds of these states, it must be made very clear to them that what they are currently doing is not working. In areas where the demands of foreign states are eroding the citizen's rights of the collector's own country then such actions should be really brought into the light and demands must be made. After all, many people have even lost their lives in order to win these rights. Should that amount to nothing? [...] going along with any of these ideas about buying only provenanced objects etc. will only encourage the states to try for more and it might be about something very different next time.

Well, it just so happens that the Good Ole' Portable Antiquities Scheme seems to be setting out to do just what Hooker suggests for their "partners" the artefact hunters. In September 2009 the PAS is organizing a conference which the pre-event blurb suggests is primarily instigated to demonstrate the corresctness of the US dealers and collectors' assertion that "only" the Portable Antiquities Scheme is the way forward to deal with the threat to the archaeological heritage caused by portable antiquities collecting. The UK's is a defeatist approach of "if we cannot beat them, let's join them", and that is precisely what US collectors want the rest of the world to be induced to do.

Fortunately there is still another school of thought which is that if collectors and dealers were to be induced to act ethically and responsibly (ie take responsibility), then nobody would need to become "partners" with artefact hunters and collectors. All it takes is for collectors and everybody to "Say No to Tainted and Undocumented Antiquities". ("SANTUA"?)

I would like to propose another paper for the PAS conference, applying the PAS to the protection of the Iraqi archaeological record - a theme dear to the heart of the British Museum that will be hosting this pro-PAS-propaganda event.
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Californian coin dealing and the Bulgarian connection

In an earlier post here I discussed the accumulations of Roman provincial bronze coins from Thrace and lower Moesia which a Californian coin dealer is offering. I asked where they came from and how they got to California. In reply, the proprietor of the firm, coin dealer and pro-collecting activist Dave Welsh tells readers of his Unidroit-L list:

They were acquired from a long established, reputable dealer in Canada. Canada is a signatory to UNESCO 1970, and I had observed that Revenue Canada was very scrupulous in enforcing Canadian import regulations. I did not doubt that these coins were licitly imported.

So once again we have the employment of a variant of the “Customs officers had no objections” argument which I have earlier discussed here as a totally dubious justification which sometimes used by dealers who cannot be bothered to comply with the export regulations of the countries which are the source of the exported archaeological material. I am sure though that Mr Welsh meant to say that the (unnamed) Canadian dealer was able to show his customer (Classical Coins) a copy of the export papers which were required to get them through the rigours of Canadian customs.

I am however a bit puzzled by the fact that earlier Mr Welsh talking of these same coins wrote:

"I had, and still have, no idea of where or when the coins were discovered. They were acquired licitly in the USA and Canada. […] I make all reasonable efforts to avoid acquiring anything that may have been stolen or that I think has been smuggled into the USA. It would, however, be absolutely unreasonable to require me to prove beyond all doubt the actual origin of everything I buy". [my emphasis]

To judge from a juxtaposition of these two statements talking about the same process, one might conclude that these “all reasonable efforts” consists of little more than buying from a dealer whose suppliers for one reason or another have not been stopped by US and Canadian customs of sending archaeological material abroad. The admission that some of these coins were purchased in the USA however takes on a new irony in the light of the fact that Mr Welsh is very visible as an ardent campaigner aiming to get the lifting of existing US import restrictions on certain types of archaeological material, including coins. Mr Welsh apparently sees no ambiguity in relying on the existence of import restrictions to justify his claims of the legitimacy of his own business practices as an artefact dealer while at the same time being an active campaigner for their lifting.

Surely due diligence in cases like these does indeed require the buyer to “prove beyond all doubt the actual origin of everything” they buy when the commodity is notoriously known to be one which includes a substantial admixture of material of completely illicit origin. Such as precisely ancient coins of the types found in the Balkans and Bulgaria, in other words precisely the type of material under discussion here. It is not “unreasonable” at all for a responsible and ethic dealer to take every possible step to identify the origin of material like this, and if that is impossible, not to touch it. This is not a case for "innocent until proven guilty" but simple good practice.

There is nothing “gratuitously insulting” in pointing out the ambiguity of the situation concerning these job lots of provincial Roman coins offered to its customers by Classical Coins, held up by its proprietor as a paragon of virtue, but in fact no different from several hundred sellers engaged in the selling of bulk lots of objects some of which may reasonably be suspected by its purchasers in the light of evidence to the contrary as having come from the illegal metal detecting of archaeological sites in central southeastern Europe which we know is occurring on a massive scale. On his own Unidroit-L site, Mr Welsh comments “I believe I have every right to defend myself and the collectors I serve on archaeology lists.” Perhaps the collectors Mr Welsh “serves” and archaeologists will note that instead of a meaningful assurance that these coins can be documented as being of legitimate provenance, all that seems to be being offered is a weak argument that “Canadian customs had no objections to their import”, but that some of them were in any case bought in the USA.

I ask again, to what degree do the measures applied by the proprietors of US firms like Classical Coins prevent their stock containing items from illegal metal detecting in the Balkans and how is the client to know from the information presented in its sales offer? That is surely a perfectly valid question in the circumstances and one that should not be dismissed.