History Buffs Applaud Raid

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On a metal detecting forum near you, the "responsible" tekkies ("passionately intersted in history") have reacted to yesterday's news of the seizure of 900 looted artefacts from a Norfolk home with joy. Bazza Thugwit, of Billericay for example writes (21 may 2013):

Well caught! People who handle dodgy artefacts should get what they deserve. Pity these guys got away with it for so long. 

Sam Scabmitts (21 may 2013) agrees:

Lock 'em up, that's what I say! 

The forum's moderator Ivor Eraysor adds:

the British Museum was right to shop these guys the moment they spotted them, apparently this was through one of the 'other' metal detecting forums, if these guys had been writing about what they were doing over here, they'd have been banned immediately and the police informed. We refuse to allow our forum to be used for discussions of anything of that nature. Be warned. 

 The reader need not try following the links, they do not work because there never were any such posts. The whole matter of one of their number in Northern Ireland going out there without a permit and thus metal detecting illegally has been skipped over on most detecting forums this morning. The whole issue of a metal detectorists's family home in Norfolk being raided and an entire collection of items seized is not mentioned. There has been no discussion of the fact that the Northern Irish guy ("only interested in the history?") was reportedly passing on masses of objects to the Norfolk guy. Why would he do that?  Why would the latter accumulate a whole load of stuff which he'd not found himself while "researching local history"? There are no anecdotes about how Thugwit "always suspected that **** was up to summat" and was a strange guy, and that he'd "never give his hand to him at a club dig". There are in fact a number of elements to this story which to my mind any normal group of enthusiasts (and especially self-proclaimed "responsible ones") would be interest themselves in and be discussing with alacrity. So why is there instead a conspiracy of silence about this notable and interesting case?

“We know for a fact that metal detectors were used,” said Dr Ned Kelly, keeper of antiquities with the National Museum of Ireland, where the items will be displayed to the media tomorrow.

Two Khmer Statues in the Met: What Are They Doing There?

The Cambodian government is being kept busy trying to piece together the history of two objects in the Southeast Asian galleries of New York's Metropolitan Museum. These two life-size 10th-century sandstone statues, called the Kneeling Attendants, currently "flank the doorway of the gallery where the Met displays its small but globally significant collection of artifacts from the glory days of Khmer civilization". They had been on display since 1994 when the Met opened its new Southeast Asian galleries. The heads of the two statues had been donated in 1987 and 1989, and the two torsos were given together to the museum in 1992. It now appears that they were taken around 1970,

at about the same time as a companion piece, a mythic warrior figure that the United States government sought to seize last month on Cambodia’s behalf from Sotheby’s, where it had been placed for sale [...]  Anne LeMaistre, the Unesco representative in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, said her agency is assembling a report laying out evidence that the Met statues and the Sotheby’s warrior belonged to a 12-statue Khmer empire grouping first broken up when Cambodia was destabilized by civil war. 

The evidence accumulated in the case of the 'Sotheby’s Koh Ker piece', indicates that the temple was savagely looted after 1970, during Cambodia’s chaotic and bloody years of civil war, genocide and Vietnamese occupation. There is testimony from villagers who say the temple was virtually unmolested until the 1970s, and the not insignificant detail that until the late 1960s the area lacked the roads needed to carry away large and heavy statuary. The Met had (obtained) no information to say how and when these objects had left the country, or from what site they had come (though the style should have suggested that they were from the Koh Ker site in the period of its greatest glory).

Archaeologists believe the Kneeling Attendants stood for about 1,000 years at the Prasat Chen temple in a vast site called Koh Ker, about 200 miles northwest of Phnom Penh, said Eric Bourdonneau, who directs a project at the site overseen by the French School of Asian Studies. The Met statues, the experts say, stood a few yards from the Sotheby’s warrior, a figure known as Duryodhana. 

One of the heads and both torsos are listed as gifts from Douglas A. J. Latchford (a British citizen living in Thailand who has a vast collection of Khmer antiquities). The New York Times journalists contacted  Mr. Latchford, 80, in Bangkok, he gave some interesting information:

he came upon the three items when they were the property of Spink & Son, a London dealer known for its sales of Asian art. “Spinks had had the pieces for some time,” Mr. Latchford said, “and they had not sold, so in honor of the curator, who was Martin Lerner, they requested that I would provide financial aid to donate them, and that’s what I did and why they are in my name.” Mr. Latchford said that he did not know where Spink had gotten the items, that he never took possession of them, and that he does not have any documents from the transaction. He recalled spending about £10,000. A spokesman for Spink said it no longer has any of the paperwork from that era. The family that donated the head of the other statue in 1987 also found it at Spink, a year before the gift, and said it had not come with any information on its provenance. Marsha Vargas Handley, the wife of Raymond G. Handley, one of two donors, who has since died, said the purchase price was $42,000. 

It will be recalled that Spinks (suppliers too of the ACCG illegal import stunt coins) was also mixed up in the story of the other Koh Ker statues in the news recently... Note the interesting discrepancy in prices, one knocked-off head Spinks was able to sell, without its torso (which it seems to have had), for 42000 green ones, but a few years later they were glad to offload the other bits for a far smaller sum. Perhaps most collectors on being shown the stuff were more cautious about its legitimacy than the Met.


In the wake of the Sotheby’s case Cambodian officials have formed a task force to return artifacts removed from their country and possibly held by American and other foreign museums.

Source: Tom Mashberg and Ralph Blumental, 'Cambodia to Ask Met to Return 10th-Century Statues',  New York Times, June 1, 2012.

Additional note: Kimberley Alderman has a rather scathing post about this story here, taking issue with a side-point to the main issue: 'New York Times to Assign Cultural Heritage Articles to Uninformed Generalists'("it’s not really a story yet because Cambodia hasn’t actually asked the Met to return anything. But, apparently, they will. That’s fine, ask away, and then we’ll discuss it"). In my opinion, there is something here to be thinking about before the Cambodians get their request on paper - and even if they do not.

If there were indeed twelve statues in the group, do specialists know where the other eight are? I don't suppose it would do any harm to ask Spink's...

Photo: Kneeling Male Attendant Cambodia, Angkor period, Khmer style of Koh Ker, ca. 921–45 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Focus on Metal Detecting: Bitter and Stout (2)

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Texas detectorist Dick Stout persists in not understanding what this blog is about. He challenges his readers "see if you are able to find one post where Mr. Barford does not refer to us as something less than honest". Us? Who is "us"? Is "us" the responsible detectorist that follows the Code of Practice for Responsible Detecting in England and Wales and work with archaeology applying best practice to what they do? Or is "us" those who do not? Why on a blog talking about flaws in the current policies which the author thinks need fixing would one expect to find "positive" comments about irresponsible artefact hunting and collecting? Gentle reader, if that is what you have come here for, you will look in vain, I suggest you go over to one of the several dozen English-language metal detecting forums or the PAS website, lots of positive vibes about all manner of deeds with metal detectors over there. Off you go.

Mr Stout over in America says:

I have come to the conclusion that trying to work with the archaeological community is not worth the effort and a total waste of time.

Then he joins the hundreds of other metal detectorists who find it too much effort, but benefit from the fact that others do, thus legitimising the hobby as a whole. It is a shame that not all can do their bit to earn the current status of "partners" that certain factions in the archaeological community afford them. I hope the latter take a good hard look at Mr Stout's blog. They might like also to take a look at some of the comments of John Howland hosted on the same blog. There it is about archaeology and archaeologists that one will search in vain for terms like: "positive, harmonious, sociable, fun, partnership, compromise, joint-effort, etc.".
Vignette: Dick Stout dismisses my comments on artefact collecting as due solely to my being a bitter man.

Dugup Dealer Disapprovingly of: "Kyri and his ilk"

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For commenting on the recent Greek antiquities bust in a tone disapproving of looters, collector of Greek extraction Kyri (who prefers not to use his surname) is well and truly savaged by dugup dealer Dave Welsh (here and here and possibly cross posted elsewhere). Now, I have never seen Kyri's collection and what pains he takes to collect responsibly and ethically, I can only go on what he says himself, openly on the ("responsible") artefact collectors' Yahoo discussion forum, and in his many comments to this blog and David Gill's Looting Matters. Certainly he seems to me to come over as sincere, reflective and well-meaning, and at least going through the motions of collecting antiquities responsibly. Welsh claims not to know who he is, accuses him of being anonymous. He is however very much a real figure, younger and better looking than Dave Welsh, a successful London businessman, attending sales at the major London auction houses, with a lovely home in a nice neighbourhood, a very attractive wife and some lovely kids. It's all on the Internet.

Kyri is the type of person involved with the antiquities market with whom one can have a dialogue. Dave Welsh with his backward looking attitudes to responsible collectors like Kyri and their collecting aims is the epitome of all that stands in the way of a proper dialogue, a proper debate and a proper discussion about the current state and future of the antiquities trade. No wonder then that he attacks Kyri with such venom and vehemence.

Another US Collector Loses Property Without Documentation of Lawful Import

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Claude Hendrickson, president of Dixie Equipment in Woodstock, Ala., bought himself a Douglas AD-4N Skyraider aircraft with full equipment (log books, four 20mm M3 aircraft cannons and assorted aircraft parts) abroad. It is one of relatively few [airworthy] machines of this type still in existence. He then had it flown into the US in August 2008:

without the required authorization from the U.S. Department of State. The pilot, who was hired by Hendrickson to fly the plane from France into the United States, provided false information to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the Port of Buffalo, N.Y., to gain admittance into the country.

Nevertheless it seems even a small warplane can be smuggled through the barrier of bubbles that is the US border security. Hendrickson kept it at the Bessemer Airport, Jefferson County, Alabama. The collector had a few problems with getting the cannons through the border though.

The 20mm cannons arrived at the Port of Savannah, Ga., on Oct. 8, 2008, inside two 40-foot shipping containers being imported by Dixie Equipment. CBP officers discovered the cannons concealed in a wooden box, hidden under aircraft parts in the nose of one of the containers, although the cannons were not listed on the entry form, bill of lading, invoice or any other documentation submitted by Dixie Equipment.

It was only after the discovery and seizure of the cannons on Oct. 15, 2008 that Customs and Border Patrol officers noticed the plane. An ICE HSI investigation revealed that the Skyraider aircraft had entered the United States illegally, and as a result the following year ICE HSI agents seized the plane (through a court order of April 24, 2009). As a result, on Dec. 21, 2011, Judge William M. Acker, Jr., U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama, ordered that the aircraft, log books, four 20mm M3 aircraft cannons and assorted aircraft parts be forfeited to the government as property brought into the United States in violation of U.S. law.

"The Skyraider aircraft, its cannons and parts are all subject to import licensing requirements as ‘defense articles' under the Arms Export Control Act. Federal law prohibits the importation of defense articles without a license or permit," said Raymond R. Parmer, Jr., special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in New Orleans. "ICE aggressively investigates these cases in order to deter this type of illegal activity and protect those who abide by our nation's laws."[...] Neither the State Department nor the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had granted a permit, license or other written authorization for the importation of the Skyraider, the cannons or the aircraft parts at the time they entered the United States.

It is now reported that the ICE HSI is currently

working to transfer the Skyraider aircraft, cannons, and assorted aircraft parts, including three Wright engines, to the U.S. Department of the Navy, National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida, for the purpose of preserving the aircraft's value as a significant and lasting part of our nation's Naval aviation history.

Once again, we see another example of US collectors losing their property due to the failure to document lawful passage across international borders. I don't know how much Hendrickson paid for his plane, but suspect he is quite a bit out of pocket through the failure to get the required bits of paper to bring this piece of cultural property into the United States. Again, the CCPIA was not involved at all in this affair, and it seems to me that dealers' lobbyists who claim to be working "in the interests of collectors" really ought to be drawing collectors' attention to the dangers of ignoring acquiring artefacts without paying attention to securing documentation of lawful export and import. They could well find people "coming for their coins" and it is nobody's fault but their own.

Source: Jim Douglas, 'Illegally Smuggled (sic) Military Aircraft, AD-4N Skyraider To End Up At Naval Museum', AvStop Online Magazine January 8, 2012

Vignette: I am not sure if this is the actual plane, but it flies.

The "Dundas Leda"

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"That? Oh, that's been in the family for years" was the reply Sotheby's antiquities specialist Dr Florent Heintz got when he enquired about a 4ft 5in statue of Leda and the Swan which he spotted during "a routine visit" to a Northern England Georgian country house with an impressive collection of historic furniture, paintings and porcelain. The statue had once stood in the garden as an ornament but was recently moved indoors – to the corner of a room at Aske Hall, near Richmond, North Yorkshire. The Marquess of Zetland and the rest of his family had believed the artwork was created in relatively modern times and their staff regarded it as “part of the furniture”. Heintz recognised it as an ancient second century Roman Imperial sculpture.

Until its rediscovery, despite having been kept at the estate by the Dundas family since 1788, the statue had remained entirely unknown to scholars. It does not appear in any of the major surveys of ancient marble sculpture in English country houses, but is mentioned in Robinson’s Guide to Richmond of 1833. [...] Dr Heintz found the sculpture had a rich provenance, being one of four antiquities bought in Rome during the 18th Century by the 1st Earl of Zetland on behalf of his father. The most prized of the antiquities – a statue of the Lysippean Eros – was stolen from the grounds of Aske Hall in the Seventies and has never been recovered.

The sculpture was offered for auction by the will trust of the 3rd Marquess of Zetland, Lawrence Dundas, who died in 1989.

It had been expected to fetch between £1.2m and £1.9m at Sotheby’s antiquities sale in New York on Friday, but four determined bidders pushed it to ten times its estimate, before an anonymous buyer clinched the statue over the phone.

The hammer price was reportedly £12.2m.
This is a rare example of an object coming onto the market with an impeccable collecting history going back well before the 1970 UNESCO Convention, and the sort of object which nobody would have any qualms about circulating on the international antiquities market, and going to any buyer with money enough to grab it all for himself. It is not freshly surfaced, what is more it is one whose collecting history was lost and has been reconstructed by diligent research (due diligence by the seller). What a contrast with those objects which "surface' on the market and we are expected to believe are from an lost "old collection" with absolutely not a shred of evidence to support, let alone allow verification of that claim. The legitimacy of these objects is of a far more questionable nature than the Aske Hall Leda.

But how much of a "routine visit" was Dr Heintz on, when it was known that the first Dundas to own the hall was a member of the Society of Dilettantes with a lot of money (made from supplying the British army and banking)?

Stuart Minting, 'Statue used as garden ornament sells at auction for £12.2m', Northern Echo, 12th December 2011

Daily Mail article too.

Detecting Under the Microscope: Comments on Old Sarum Looting

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The nine comments under the article on illegal artefact hunting at the earthwork site at Old Sarum in the Salisbury Journal are worthy of note. Immediately under the article one "fudgeeeey" moans that this news item detracts from the carefully constructed benign image of artefact hunting:

seems to me this is just another way of putting us detectorist down again

and "Venusintransit" interjects with the usual tekkie 'hoik-it-all-out' solution to a problem of preservation of the archaeological record:

How is it that there is still things to find by people with metal detectors? It time the area was scanned by English heritage fully, then others would not bother.

It is nice to see some of the thirteen million pounds worth of PAS "outreach" is getting through to at least some elements of the population, for "Bigdavenorcott" recognising that riddling the site with holes is hardly "preservation", replies to the latter comment:

Yanking metal objects out of their context without proper excavation removes their archaeological value and destroys information which cannot be retrieved. That is why EH doesn't want to 'scan' its monuments, as their job is to preserve heritage, not destroy it. Detectorists on scheduled sites are thieves and vandals and should be treated as such.

Contributor "treehugginghippycrap" replies to the first poster,

@fudgeeeey: "another way of putting detectorists down"? By pointing out that their activities are antisocial and illegal? If detectorists are breaking the law and damaging our national heritage for personal gain, I can suggest better ways of putting them down. Preferably for a long stretch at her Majesty's pleasure. There are plenty of responsible detectorists and this activity and your comment tarnish their wholly legitimate activities.

To this "fudgeeeey" replies:

how can my comment tarnish are activities? We all know that english heritage etc are trying to get metal detecting band (sic), this is just another nail in the coffin. All i can say is , if it was not for us metal detectors they would not know about half these sites. And i and all the other detectorist i know would never do this to Ancient Monuments .

[Old Sarum is a pretty substantial site, and was discovered well before metal detectorists came along to pretend that in taking away stuff from archaeological sites they are in some way "partnering" archaeology and archaeological preservation]. "Yer Tis" suggests that responsible detectorists should:

take responsibility, as the detectorist world is small, find out who did this and then shop them to the police. Oh no you wont it is the unwritten code between detectorists, like the event in North Essex, where over £70000 worth of gold has been stolen by "responsible" detectorists from an event organised by detectorists! Theft it theft, simple, so maybe it does need to be banned

Indeed, there is an unwritten code, "we all know who they are" is said pretty frequently on metal detecting forums, but that information only very seldom gets passed on to the authorities (the exception are unverified allegations made most often as the result of a personal vendetta between detectorists competing for a site or sites in the region). But what is the difference in archaeological and heritage management terms between emptying an archaeological site of collectables that is not actually protected by law (yet) and one that is? A hole dug in a site is a hole dug in a site no matter what legal pieces of paper about it lie in an archive somewhere.

The "it's all right, I'm not ACTUALLY breaking the law" argument really does not apply here. Plundering the collectables from an archaeological site or assemblage protected by law is a crime, but just because a site is not protected by law, that does not make plundering it for collectables the right thing to do to it.

"The most amoral and dangerous individuals in the world"

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"the most amoral and dangerous individuals in the world" is how a Californian dugup dealer characterises those who wish to impose restrictions on the import into the USA of archaeological and ethnographical artefacts without documentation of lawful export. In other words take away "from the longstanding and traditional rights of US collectors -- without any compensation whatsoever". Long-standing RIGHTS to import illicitly exported artefacts? Surely any such illusions ended when the USA became a state party to the 1970 UNESCO Convention back in 1983? What are these dealers thinking?

Peter Tompa continues his incessant moaning about how hard-done-by are US collectors (already in possession of a huge chunk of the above-ground resources of portable antiquities from all over the ancient world - but still want "more and more"). He attempts to assign "winners and losers" to the Greek Import Restrictions (restrictions, let us remind ourselves on illicitly exported items).

"Winners" according to Tompa are:
The Greek Cultural Bureaucracy ("poorly managed" and "corrupt")
The Greek Government ("poorly managed" and "corrupt")
"The Obdurate State Department Cultural Bureaucracy" ("obdurate", "entrenched")
"The AIA and its Archaeological Fanatics" ("anti-collecting", "fanatics")
"Wealthy Greek Collectors".

One wonders just how long the buffoonery of pretending that the archaeologists (institutional or otherwise) are all "fanatics" (was "radicals") who are to a man rabidly "anti-collecting" can persist. The evidence is very clear that the AIA is not against collecting per se, but - in line with US legislation since the early 1980s - against collecting of ILLICITLY exported cultural artefacts. No more, no less - and it is all in black and white for any dealer, lawyer or collector with more brain cells than my cat to check. Of course such nonsense suits well the yapping dogs that try to frighten, huddle and herd as many ovicaprid collectors onto the barren thistle patches of indignant opposition as possible, but it is not the truth. But then what evidence has there been from the ongoing dialogue of the deaf that dealers' lobbyists or collectors are even a bit concerned about the truth?

According to Tompa:

These fanatics hold that the only legitimate exchange of archaeological artifacts is a museum loan.

Well, since the law stipulates documentation of licit importation, it would be more truthful (see above) to say that they hold that the only legitimate exchange of archaeological artefacts is with documentation of licit export.

As for those "Wealthy Greek Collectors" (where the adjective wealthy magically become pejorative...). Surely there is a huge faultline running through the ACCG logic here. The whole point the collectors opposed to import controls are making is that the vast majority of the artefacts affected are too cheap (on the US market) for it to be at all "economical" to get documentation of licit origins and transfer. So they are not the kind of things one has to be inordinately "wealthy" to buy.

How shocking to the American psyche that:

Greek collectors will gain a competitive advantage over their American counterparts who can no longer import undocumented cultural goods.

They will stay in Greece, rather the best items being constantly and illegally siphoned off to a voracious and well-financed foreign market. How curious though that an American collector (and Peter Tompa, who is if I am not mistaken of Hungarian Jewish stock, collects dugup ancient Greek coins) feels he has MORE right to Greek cultural property than the citizens of that country (even if these items are illicitly exported?) and considers it a matter of regret that fellow collectors (though of a different nationality) will be able more easily to collect items which reflect their own cultural heritage.

For Tompa, the "losers" are:
"Greece's Cultural Patrimony" [too much stuff to look after as it is],
"The CPIA and the Process Congress Contemplated" back in 1983 (sic)
"The Small Businesses of the Antiquities and Numismatic trade" [who are now going to have to document licit export to allow legal import into the US: "This is particularly a problem for the small businesses of the numismatic trade". This is because the objects available for import are typically lacking such documentation]
"US Collectors" [who will be forced to buy material which has been licitly exported, rather than the other type that was on the market formerly].
"US Museums" who will not be able to carry on purchasing items without any kind of documentation of licit export [not, I think that they are likely to be wanting to in the coming years anyway].
"US Customs" [because they are going to have to do something connected with the fact that in 1983 the USA became a state party to the 1970 UNESCO Convention, too bad, but the idyll of US hypocrisy in this regard could not go on for ever]

What is not explained is the manner in which having mainly material which has passed scrutiny with regard to licit export on the US market as a matter of course is allegedly a "bad" thing for collectors, museums, and responsible (responsible) dealers. What is clear that the persons who have lost (not mentioned for some reason by Tompa) are the smugglers (possibly related in some way to organized criminal groups) and looters, who will have their US markets fundamentally curtailed by these measures if they are applied effectively by all involved. These people are on the losing side and among those who actively regret that we'd expect to find a number who are "amoral and dangerous". What nasty company the no-questions-asked antiquity dealers keep.

Illegally Exported Artefacts from Greece (Including Coins) on US Watch List

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The list produced (under CCPIA section 2604, check it out, you might be surprised) of archaeological and ethnographic material from Greece which can be imported freely into the US only if accompanied by documentation of legal export has just been published

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY U.S. Customs and Border Protection, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, 19 CFR Part 12 [CBP Dec. 11-25] RIN 1515-AD84 "Import Restrictions Imposed on Certain Archaeological and Ethnological Material From Greece" Archaeological materials representing Greece's cultural heritage from the Upper Paleolithic (beginning approximately 20,000 B.C.) through the 15th century A.D. and ecclesiastical ethnological material representing Greece's Byzantine culture (approximately the 4th century through the 15th century A.D.).

effective December 1, 2011.

The ACCG supporters who all wrote to the CPAC asking them not to impose these restrictions should read the preamble attentively. This is about the import of illegally exported items, the US is not the only nation involved, and to oafishly oppose is tantamount to being un-American:

The value of cultural property, whether archaeological or ethnological in nature, is immeasurable. Such items often constitute the very essence of a society and convey important information concerning a people's origin, history, and traditional setting. The importance and popularity of such items regrettably makes them targets of theft, encourages clandestine looting of archaeological sites, and results in their illegal export and import. The United States shares in the international concern for the need to protect endangered cultural property. The appearance in the United States of stolen or illegally exported artifacts from other countries where there has been pillage has, on occasion, strained our foreign and cultural relations. This situation, combined with the concerns of museum, archaeological, and scholarly communities, was recognized by the President and Congress. It became apparent that it was in the national interest for the United States to join with other countries to control illegal trafficking of such articles in international commerce.

The United States joined international efforts and actively participated in deliberations resulting in the 1970 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (823 U.N.T.S. 231 (1972)). U.S. acceptance of the 1970 UNESCO Convention was codified into U.S. law as the ``Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act'' (Pub. L. 97-446, 19 U.S.C. 2601 et seq.) (the Act). This was done to promote U.S. leadership in achieving greater international cooperation towards preserving cultural treasures that are of importance to the nations from where they originate and contribute to greater international understanding of our common heritage.

The list contains a whole range of the type of items that are looted from archaeological sites and then sold on the collectors' market, of stone, ceramic, metal, Bone, Ivory, and Other Organics, glass and faience, textiles, papyrus, paintings and mosaics. It includes things like statues, runs through pots and even mentions beads. All these things are collected, all these things are smuggled out of Greece (the smaller the easier it is) and all of them are looted and stolen to fuel the market.

If the barrier of bubbles that the US Customs seems to be when it comes to the thousands of freshly "surfaced" (from "underground") artefacts openly sold on their markets can cope with finding the packages of illicitly exported items among the masses that pass through it every day, there is at last a tool which allows them to take action, two and a half decades after the US "implemented" the 1970 UNESCO Convention. Whether or not it is the action that is needed to stop this disgusting trade is another thing. That is up to the authorities in the US.


These measures are only temporary, the US can go back to being the Robber Baron of the Greek illicit antiquities market in five years time, what obviously needs to happen in the next five years is a change in the attitudes of 'entitlement' to illicitly exported material among dealers and collectors on a global scale, let us see how well the USA copes with making itself the "leader" in this regard.

And yes, ancient Greek coins are metal artefacts typically taken from the archaeological record and typically sold without the required documentation, and they are on the list. Coins of the fourth (nota bene) to fifteenth century however are not on the list.

The Trade in Dugup Artefacts

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A dugup antiquity dealer examines the background to the US trade in dug-up antiquities and exclaims that in this trade:

"Clearly something that cannot withstand the light of day is going on and [...] it is essential to expose it to the full glare of public scrutiny".

I agree, there should be more transparency about the actual origins and passage of the coins here, for example, from a hole in the ground to the US market ("161 Ancient Dealers, 108,549 Items, $23,053,106 Value"). Where did they all "surface", when and how? This information certainly should be made available to public scrutiny.

This seems to be something that bodies such as the Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild should be addressing on behalf of all responsible collectors of ancient coins concerned about the hygiene of their collections.

Making Money from Antiquities - at What Cost?

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David Gill has a timely piece reminding us that "attitudes towards selling and collecting antiquities were very different in 1990", just two decades ago. This has significant repercussions for the market today and causes one to cast a suspicious eye on collecting histories which - even in the case of highly significant ("art") objects - cannot be traced much further back beyond the previous owner. Read his piece "Looking Back to Athena Fund II" and Bruce McNall's (2003) autobiography "Fun while it lasted" (available from Amazon for a reasonable price). (Really) "Smart money" would probably prefer something else in preference to something that emerged on this sector of the market. That is probably why dealers and collectors with one or more of the very many "pieces" which surfaced there and then would probably prefer to keep it quiet rather than honestly reveal the actual history of the items they are now trying to flog off.

Vignette: Athena and her pot (red figure vase)

Detecting under the Microscope: New Club Being Secretly Convened?

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Mick Turrell organizer of "Leisure Promotions" commercial metal detecting and artefact hunting club, based in Newbury Berks has a newsletter for his members. One of them has passed it on to me and I was astonished to read the "Fortress detecting" attitudes it reflects. So much, it would seem, for the effects of thirteen years of "archaeological outreach", even in civilized Berkshire. Among other things, Mr Turrel writes:

I have heard whispers that someone is trying to whip up support for another organisation along the lines of both the NCMD and FID, but aimed at fighting back at those organisations that seem intent of attacking our hobby.

Well, they need to get in contact with Dave Welsh and Peter Tompa, to "Unite to Defend Collectors' Rights". This sort of thing seems right up their street. The justification for the need of these "Metal Detecting Minutemen" is that despite all the PAS "partnership" and sickeningly pro-collecting press releases in the national media, there is still - horror! - public criticism of the hobby and its effects:

We have had a relatively ‘quiet’ few years but the attacks are becoming more commonplace. For example, there is the Nighthawking Survey that showed that the situation had improved since the last survey, but it was still used to attack the hobby in the media. Then there is the Stewardship Scheme which has curbed the number of large rallies taking place by the restrictions being put in place. Fifty, or more, detector users in an event and the organisers need to give the archaeologists 6 months notice and it can be cancelled at the last minute leaving organisers with a huge bill. Do not think that this will not affect you, as it will shortly be reduced to just 30 detector users, thereby affecting most clubs as well! Then there is the small matter that we have a Code of Conduct, but that did not stop the archaeologists helping to rewrite it to their own specifications. If we suggested ‘helping’ the archaeologists to write a code for themselves, they would probably be quite upset by the suggestion so they will therefore understand why we would equally be upset. Then there is the ‘Voluntary Code’, which is not voluntary when connected with the Stewardship Scheme. If you do not follow it, the farmer could lose his funding. The attacks continue. How much more can we take before we fight back [?] I am not suggesting that our hobby is perfect, there are no doubt just as many ‘bad’ detector users as ‘bad’ archaeologists, but if they really do want us to work along side them, then this is not the way to do it. If it continues, then it would not be surprising if some in the hobby decide to fight back.

So creating a mutually agreed Code of Practice is "not the way" to go about working alongside each other? It is regrettable that Mr Turrel does not state what he condiders is. "Leave us alone, git orf are case" as NCMD's Trevor Austin once said? The people doing the Nighthawking Survey could not have bent over backwards any further in their efforts to stress that nighthawking was a quite separate phenomenon from "bona fide detecting", a superficial view which was a hat-tip to the prevailing mantras in the artefact hunting and pro-collecting archaeological milieus alike. It was nighthawking that was discussed in the media upon the report's publication, hardly therefore an "attack [on] the hobby". '

The Stewardship Schemes are no more no less than conservation schemes, put in place to preserve the resources of the British rural landscape. The accessible archaeological record in those rural landscapes is - whether artefact hunters like it or not - a finite and fragile resource which is being seriously depleted by artefact hunting. Any conservation scheme worth the name should be stopping, or at least managing and mitigating the losses. From our point of view, the Stewardship Schemes are not doing this to a degree which could be called satisfactory. remember that part of the money being paid to farmers is coming from European funds, and in most countries of the EU artefact hunting is not understood as "conservation' but looting of archaeological sites. Why should we be paying for English farmers to say they are 'conserving" something while they allow the looting of the archaeological resource? No, regulating rallies is NOT enough.

Go on, tekkies "fight back". Show us all how much entitlement you feel to carry on plundering the archaeological record for collectable artefacts for your personal entertainment and profit. Show the public (the real joint stakeholder in the heritage you covet for your personal use) what a lot of agressive oiks you have among you. Oppose the attempts by bodies such as the PAS to impose higher standards ("best practice"), please do, the sooner and more noisily the better as far as I am concerned. Then try and get some public sympathy. Come on, one, two, three, all together now:

"Git Orf Are Case!!
Stop the Gubn'mint Taking Away Are Rights
to Take Away Are 'Istry Fer Areselves!!".

Vignette: In 2012, will Britain be engulfed by a wave of populist pitchfork and torch protests spreading out from the epicentre of the "Leisure promotions" movement in Newbury Berkshire only to be crushed in a confrontation with the militant arm of the Young Archaeologists Club on the outskirts of York? And what part will the Portable antiquities Scheme play in the confrontation?

Coineyistic Squirrelling in Bulgaria?

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There is a fragment of the text by Mark Fox ('Bulgaria Seeks Import Restrictions', Numismatic News/Numismaster October 31, 2011) about the Bulgaria bilateral cultural property agreement request discussed in the post above which deserves some attention. Fox reports that "one Bulgarian numismatist" gave him an account of "what recently happened" in Bulgaria:

This recent MOU-request of the Bulgarian government is directly linked with the new 'Antiquities Act' in Bulgaria-enforced since 10th April 2009 (published in 'State Gazette', no.19, of 13 March 2009; full text here: http://www.lex.bg/bg/laws/ldoc/2135623662- in Bulgarian, Google it). It was harshly criticized and much debated on all sides and parties; there were a couple of great public disputes; nobody liked it, but it was finally accepted by the previous government (dominated by BSP-the former communists). More recently (in July 2011) two to three minor amendments of that law were passed by the National Assembly, but in effect it is enabled un-changed, however useless and incomplete it is.

According to its regulations, everything found in the lands of modern Bulgaria dating from the Neolithic period to the early 1900s is defined as "national cultural values" equal "antiquity" belongs to the state and cannot be exported (without a special permission by the Ministry of Culture [very hard, nearly impossible to get in fact]).

But all was not darkness and gloom for collectors, one could register collections to legitimise thee ownership of the objects in them (I wrote about this at the time as I recall, this was the situation we had in Poland as a result of the 1962 cultural property law). Sadly Bulgarian collectors did not like this idea any more than western ones:

The law also obliged all collectors to declare all their possessions within a some six- to nine-month period (with an expensive and very slow bureaucratic procedure). Do you know what happened in reality? Of the some 50,000 coin collectors in this country (enlisted in the early 1990s at the numismatic clubs), only around 150-200 collections were de facto declared by this law. The rest simply vanished, buried in bank safes, hidden in the ground, etc. The owners just did not want to bother. Much of it will be exported/smuggled and will finally reach the market, no doubt.

This is supposed to be reason NOT to prevent illegally exported material into the United States? It will all be "up for grabs" to anyone willing to buy illegally exported material, and the US dealers and collectors don't want to miss out?

Fifty thousand members of "numismatic clubs" in the Bulgaria of the early 1990s before the law was changed does not equal 50 000 collectors of illegally dugup ancient coins of course.

So, rather than legitimise their collections, the unregistered Bulgarian collectors have buried their coins "in the ground"? That seems rather atavistic behaviour... Like squirrels.

PAS to the Rescue?

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On looking through the next batch of texts from US coineys opposed to smuggling-curb measures (gruesome), it strikes me that with the frequency that these people mention on an open access website which anyone anywhere can read the good ol' PAS over in England, it really behoves that organization as part of its outreach (even to the citizens of the good ol' United K.) to submit a comment. It COULD point out that what the PAS does has absolutely nothing to do with export controls (which is what the US' CCPIA is about). There really does seem an awful lot of misapprehension going around the international coin collecting community about that. If PAS wants to be a real "Friend of Numismatics", it should (I think) spend a few minutes for one member of outreach staff to try and correct that damaging misapprehension. Should it not?

So does the PAS think the US should apply import controls on dugup artefacts coming to the US borders with no documentation of legal import? Would it like to see the same measures applied to artefacts dug up in the UK and exported illegally without following the correct export licensing procedure? Or would it side with the ACCG over this?

Dr Bland was over in Dublin talking to CPAC Chair Patty Gerstenblith about this a week or so ago, a comment from him reminding her of the main points about the British position over export licensing might well be appreciated by the CPAC in their deliberations. It'd make a change from them having to plough through the irritating coiney whingeing.

Metal Detecting Under the Microscope: "Jus' Ignore 'im and the Problem Will Go Away"

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A while ago British "metal detectorists" were kicking up a fuss on their forums that I'd made reference to a some pretty egregious examples of bad practice that some among their number had gaily posted up on You Tube. As is the way of these things, the moment it was realised that outsiders were looking at this material and making judgements other than "wot 'erritidge 'eroes these blokes are" (which was the intent presumably of the candid filming and broadcasting), the videos were taken down. But my posts were not. I think the fact that the link goes to a "this video has been deleted" message is equally telling. It tells of the fact that "metal detectorists" (artefact hunters) are NOT willing to discuss what they do with the rest of us. They obviously regard the archaeological heritage as theirs and theirs alone, and are not going to listen to what others think should be done with it. Hiding the evidence of what they actually do and say is a very visible symptom of precisely that attitude. To maintain the portable antiquity SCAM perpetrated on the rest of society for as long as possible.

These people apparently have very short attention spans so it is that again the topic of the old post here about the "Blaydon Boyz" video is dragged up to incite rage and indignation in the artefact hunting community. The way this rally was reported is also something they'd rather I'd not brought up on a blog about archaeological conservation.

Typical also is the reaction "just ignore Barford's blogs". That's right guys, head in the sand and pretend you don't see it. These are not real issues are they? I mean not like real issues that really responsible "detectorists" (instead of pretend-responsible "detectorists") would be looking at and trying to do something about. After all, the only things at stake are the preservation of the archaeological record, and the degree to which your hobby can be represented as a legitimate use of the archaeological record. You just carry on ignoring and let people outside the hobby form their own judgement about that.

UPDATE 14.10.11
Quelle surprise, while the thread was visible to all and sundry yesterday, access seems to be blocked today for some readers in some parts of the world at least. Are you one of them? Follow the link and see if you can see "responsible detectorists" discussing conservation and standards.

Vignette: the typical pose of could-not-care-less-"metal-detecting".

A Collector's View of the Conflict

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Chris Rose, a previous correspondent with this blog, offered his own opinion on an ongoing Unidroit-L discussion about whether I should brave the naysaying lynch mob and attempt to take part in discussions with collectors and dealers on that list. He mentioned there that he felt I'd been a bit rude to him when he came here (which I accept I was, because it seemed to me at the time that he was an ACCG supporter trying to be disruptive). I wrote to him to apologise and received a long reply which I asked him to edit out certain remarks and for permission to reproduce here as it presents a somewhat different picture of part of the collectors' world than the one usually presented on the pages of this blog.

Hi Paul, It is nice to get a direct email from you. First of all, I am sorry that you are under various threats related to your blog. Sometimes people get caught up in an argument and lose basic human decency. You certainly have a right to speak out over your concerns. Collectors need to check our bruised egos and recognize that your freedom of speech is at least as valuable as our freedom to collect.

I think you have made some serious headway among a good portion of Moneta, people that largely communicate with me off-list. It is frustrating to me and others that the market offers no other real options to collectors than buying coins without evidence of legitimacy or stopping collecting all together.

A few months back I made a real push to see if I could build some collector concern around this issue by focusing on a collector's right to clear title to what they purchase. It may have appeared that I was wasting your time but I was taking your strongest responses and trying to inject them into the Moneta discussion. Unfortunately most of the list was caught up in a fit of pique at the thought that anybody would question their right to totally unrestricted access to whatever they wanted. They had plenty of attention for scurrilous accusations against you but no attention for your strongest responses, such as your demonstration that the AIA is not implacably anti-collecting.

You have a right to do as you like, but generally advocates of a certain position do well to make it easy for people to learn about their views. I really don't understand why you don't have a FAQ that lays out your main points and your strongest evidence. Combing through 4 years of blog entries is not an option for me or most people who come to your site for information. I read a good deal of your blog and it seemed to me -- incorrectly or not -- that your position varied. Having an explicit summary would have been helpful.

I am sure that most or all of the Moneta-L members are nice people in person. I suspect that many of them suffer from the inflexibility of viewpoint that comes with having many years under their belts. Some of them do sometimes seem to be extremists but then seem totally normal in other situations. I have spoken out out publicly several times against unhelpful statements about suppressing "anti-collector" blogs [...].

I appreciate that it was difficult to distinguish me from someone who was attempting to wear you down with feigned interest. But I am human. I really was operating with good will towards you (meaning that I respected your right to have your views and to call ancient coin collectors and dealers to task. And also that I respected your knowledge and was interested in learning more about the issue from your perspective) so the tenor of your response did hurt my feelings. But I am a big boy. Certainly it is no longer an issue after hearing your side.

I am a consultant. I live around the concept of win-win solutions. I do not understand why that phrase bothers you. Solutions that work for both sides in a dispute are much more stable and reliable than unwelcome solutions forced upon one party.

As I have laid out in various postings on Moneta, I think lack of provenance and site information puts collectors at much greater risk of counterfeits. It introduces criminals into our hobby. People that smuggle coins are likely also to be human traffickers, gun runners, and a host of other things that I don't want to support or be involved in. We are erasing the information that we need for our own studies. Not keeping provenance is not in the everyday collector's interest.

Is the absolute refusal of ACCG to address the problem of looting and provenance just a question of old timers not wanting things to change? Is it an ego battle? Or is dealers' profit dependent on illicit coins? Are 1% of coins on the market looted? Or 95%? I don't know and it really seems that nobody wants me or others to find out.

I believe that antiquity belongs to all of us and that individuals have as much right to collect ancient coins as organizations and professionals. But I also believe in the rule of law. I do not want to see archaeological sites ruined for a greedy grab at a few coins. I personally think that the British scheme should be adopted worldwide. But I cannot impose that solution. Countries not passing the laws I want does not mean that I am free to ignore the laws that ARE in place. We are adults, not spoiled children. I am tired of the tantrums.

Nobody is going to get everything they want in the issue of cultural property. I recommend negotiation. There are a lot of coins. There should be enough for everyone. Archaeologists and collectors should stand hand in hand around remaining pristine sites and ensure that all interested parties get maximal benefit from their study and excavation. If the interested parties don't come to agreement amongst themselves politicians will force some incomplete and fractured solution on us that doesn't serve anybody's interest.

That is my position today. It is a work in progress. I realize you feel differently. I am open to learning more.

I do not claim to be "enlightened". I am motivated by self interest and self respect. I too benefit from archeology. I do not want to be involved with criminals. I do not want to be tricked by counterfeiters. I am enraged at the thought that provenance is purposefully being erased. And I am enraged at the image of looted sites. And I do not like being played for a sucker.

I would appreciate an invitation to your blog. If it matters to you I will not share its content with anyone without specifically asking for your permission. However if you do not wish to invite me I respect your decision.

I would love to see a debate on Unidroit or Moneta. I think that you would find a decent amount of support on the list, particularly if you suspended the generic collector gibes ("coiney", etc) for a while. In any case, I wish you well in your current trials. I am a web systems architect. If I can be of assistance please let me know.

Best regards, Chris

Vignette: a rose for collectors with responsible attitudes.

Hearts and Minds, with What?

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In the comments to an earlier post, art historian Dr Marc Fehlmann has among other things written:

Greed has become such an uncontrollable force within the global art market that I see a strong parallels with the drug-trade - and therefore - lack of political will. [...] Strict regulations for the transfer of cultural property in the EU and Switzerland have certainly improved the situation within the relevant countries, but there will always be guys beyond that "juristiction"... One might be able to change the current situation if it became more appealing to buy pieces with solid histories of previous ownership. If buying unprovenanced material would become an equivalent to consuming heroin, but acquiring pieces with attractive provenances would become 'chic' and convey palpable prestige, then we might change the behaviour on the consumer side.

This is of course the answer, what is needed is for collectors to take responsibility for the form of the market they frequent. Or rather first of all acknowledge their responsibility for the form it is currently in, and accept the need to take responsibility. On present showing, that seems likely to be an uphill struggle for them.

But with reference to what Dr Fehmann said, I’d like to ask, is it not already “appealing to buy pieces with solid histories of previous ownership”? Is it not “chic” and prestigious to buy “pieces with attractive provenances” ? Of course it already is.

Of course if such stuff was readily available “We might change the behaviour on the consumer side” [or "see change" perhaps]. The trouble is it currently is not, because of the cloak and dagger manner in which the majority of the finds (antiquities) on the market “surfaced” on the market. Collectors have long valued provenanced pieces, the problem is that one might very well suspect that most of the stuff they’ve been buying since the ‘magic’ date of 1970 has been of a provenance that nobody is going to admit to. It is not being unduly cynical to suggest a number of reasons why dealers have not been keen to let on just where they got most of their stock from and how their supplier came by it. These probably have less to do with commercial secrets and gentlemanly discretion about former owners of an 'old private collection' or simple carelessness of such mere details, than the fact that deeper enquiry would reveal that these "freshly surfaced" objects are instead from completely dodgy sources. That is, I submit a perfectly valid interpretation of the number of artefacts on the market with virtually no information about where they were more than a few years ago - that they were then probably still in a (now destroyed) archaeological context in the ground.

How is anyone going to “give” these undocumented pieces already circulating on the no-questions-asked market the provenance that would be required for the "provenance chic" model to work? Or are we to wipe the slate clean, accept that we’ve hundreds of thousands of potentially looted objects on the market (or dump them in a skip), and start stocking the market with freshly dug stuff which does have a provenance? That obviously is not that a sustainable model of managing what is left of the archaeological record?

How could anybody go about “changing the behaviour of the consumers”? Like the US dugup collectors who’ve joined the ACCG for example? What pointers do we have that even suggest it is possible to change attitudes to the extent that would be needed to severely curb the illicit trade to a timeline that would actually manage it before the world runs out of unlooted sites?

Reactions to the Baltimore Illegal Coin Import Stunt Case Decision

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The news that a decision had been reached in the ACCG Baltimore Illegal Coin Import Stunt Case seems to have reached Peter Tompa yesterday (Monday) morning. The news went up on the ACCG website yesterday at an unspecified time: "Decision Released in Baltimore Litigation ACCG website, 8th August 2011.

Dave Welsh was one of the first to write at length about it with his usual fire-and-brimstone approach (no mention of stringing people up this time) at 12:16 AM PT: He calls it "A Disastrous Legal Decision". Since this is the only comment so far which looks to the future, I would like to discuss some of the things he suggests in a later post.

Peter Tompa on his own Cultural Property Observer blog writes at 5:19 AM: "Not for Me to Decide...", referring to the District Court's judge's assessment that she has not the authority to judge the President of the USA.

Then it was Rick St Hilaire's turn at 1:01 AM EST: "Judge Dismisses ACCG Challenge to Cultural Property Import Protections - Acknowledges President's Foreign Policy Role in MoU Process". he notes three important points about the decision.

David Gill has a short note: Baltimore Test Case Rejected

I wrote a piece between trying to plough through the 52 pages of the Judge's decision (not there yet) and a rather nice bottle of red which I'd opened to celebrate.

Wayne Sayles, who we may suspect was in fact the main instigator of the whole action, has a surprisingly magnanimous approach to the whole affair, at 11:31 AM EST: "The Morning After"

Then Peter Tompa again: "Legal Times Blog About ACCG Decision" about a blog by Zoe Tillmann "Coin Collectors' Guild Loses Bid to Import 1,000-Year-Old Coins"

Blake dismissed claims brought under the Administrative Procedure Act, writing that decisions made pursuant to presidential authority weren’t subject to judicial review. Regarding whether the State Department exceeded its authority, Blake found that the law put the burden on the importer to prove the artifacts are legitimate, “and prohibits the importation of those objects if they cannot meet that burden.”

The guild also argued that the restrictions amounted to a violation of the First Amendment because the inscriptions and motifs on the coins are “information or speech” and convey content [which has got to be one of the stupidest justifications for no-questions-asked collecting on the planet - PMB]. Blake disagreed. “Even if ancient coins convey information about ancient societies, the government’s interest in combating the pillage of archaeological materials is unrelated to the suppression of the flow of that information,” she wrote.

I'm interested to see what Kimberley Alderman ("Cultural Property Law Deathmatch: The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild v. The State Department" - "it's the equivalent of cultural property lawyer porn"), Derek Fincham, and a few others will make of it.

Vignette: Nice bottle of Italian red to celebrate.

UPDATE: Kimberley adds her comments: Ancient Coin Import Restriction Test Case Dismissed "While the precise basis for the dismissal is a little different than what I had explored, it arises out of the same problem with this particular test case. The Plaintiffs weren’t just asking for a limited decision about a specific seizure; they were looking for a broader decision about coin import restrictions. The Court determined it didn’t have the authority to issue one". So how much did making the gesture of submitting a useless complaint cost US collectors and dealers who donated the coins for the "benefit auctions"?
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A Dealer's "Tips for Buyers of Ancient Coins"

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Wayne Sayles, Executive Director of the campaigning Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild, has apparently been asked by increasingly concerned members who are US dugup coin collectors "what they can do to assure that the purchases they make are legal". As a result he has today (Aug 7th) posted up on the ACCG webpage (as a "news item") a section called "Tips for buyers of ancient coins".

It is notable that the question asked concerned legality, in other words addressing concerns whether the collector can lose items which can be shown to be illegally obtained rather than the ethical issues involved in purchasing potentially looted and smuggled material. It is therefore in this legalistic spirit that the ACCG answers. The "tips" are not so much directed to methods to avoid buying illegally exported items, but how to avoid items in a collection being claimed as illegally exported. There is a not-so-subtle difference.

First of all its author (Sayles?) starts off by reminding collectors that if they had no "guilty mind" when purchasing, nothing wrong is done. I'd day the wrong is that collectors are being encouraged to not even consider how a coin got from the ground in a source country to a Missouri coin dealers website. "Keep the mind free of such thoughts, my lad and the law can't touch you for it" seems to be the paternal advice passed down here (Keep on believing in the Coin Elves). Having given that assurance, the ACCG website (and repeated on Sayles' own blog) offers their view of "a few very simple precautions that a buyer might take". What is notable is the admission that the key is good documentation when ACCG dealers have struggled for so long to deny that and claim that such documentation is "impossible". The four ACCG "tips for buyers" are:

- Only buy from reputable sources that will guarantee title for your purchases.

- Always ask for an invoice for your purchase, which should be retained along with any collecting history you have for your coins.

- For purchases directly from abroad, make sure the sender properly declares the country of manufacture of the coin and its value.

- For coins subject to import restrictions directly purchased from abroad, ship separately from other coins and make sure they are accompanied with certifications attesting to the fact that they were out of the country for which restrictions were granted before the date of the restrictions.

What is interesting (apart from the fact that no mention is made here at all in points 3 and 4 of the magic word "export licences") is that the list completely avoids the first and fundamental point:

Only buy from a dealer that can supply copies of exactly the same documentation to you . This documentation should be an integral part of the "any collecting history you have for your coins".

Surely the whole burden of this due diligence should not be thrust only on individual clients, the "reputable source" is one that can show that it has done this before putting such items in its stock. An additional point which is notable for its absence is that the direct source of "any collecting history you have for your coins" can only be the person who sold it. Why is taking steps to obtain this from the seller not the fifth point? In many cases of cultural property dispute, a key fact is when an individual item left the source country with regard to certain legislation (not just US import controls of points 3 and 4), and the collecting history is vital to claims of title of suppliers and therefore those who are found to have purchased from them (as in the case of the Ka Nefer Nefer mask).

Point three is a bit superfluous. A coin minted in Rome ("country of manufacture" is Italy) but illegally dug up and illegally exported from Great Britain is not assessed on the grounds of "when it left Italy" (circa two thousand years ago) but the circumstances of when it left the country from whose archaeological record it was taken. This is a remnant of the misleading and alarmist ACCG/coiney dealer propaganda trundled out before the Greece and Italy MOUs and is meaningless. What needs to be shown for purposes of 'legality' is the country of export. What needs to be shown for purposes of legitimacy and responsibility is something else, but let us not stray from the topic.

Sayles ends his advice:

The prospect of seizure of coins from law abiding rank and file collectors is remote and is not a cause for undue concern. This does not, however, absolve collectors from doing their part to discourage the illicit transfer of cultural property.

Surely, the same applies, if not more so, to dealers, whether ACCG members or not. Perhaps the ACCG is now working on the version "Tips for Dealers in Ancient Coins" (bearing in mind the name of the group, it could be titles "Responsible Collectors' Desiderata for Dealers in Ancient Coins").
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Vignette: legal advice for buyers

Archaeologists Supporting Artefact Hunting in Mid-Wales

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The "heritage society" (in reality a metal detecting club) of Wrexham has sent yet another comment to a previous post. I did not publish it as it was not phrased in a manner conducive to further discussion of the points raised, though I will answer some of the points here. In my earlier text I had pointed out the gallery labelled "for our local Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust team to place artefacts of interest" and doubling as the "PAS Gallery". I expressed surprise that, if archaeologists from the CPAT and PAS were posting items of interest on the Society's website (why?), it was odd that no findspots were given. After all PAS is all about instilling best practice, and recording and reporting findspots is part of that. The Society's spokesperson queries this ethos:

Do you honestly think we would post find spot data on a very public page Paul??!! I think the local farmers would thank you for that one!

But is not indicating where finds were made what the PAS do? This is how they claim to be allowing the public to learn about the history of their region. This is the whole justification of what the PAS do and part of the bargain between artefact hunter and the public whose archaeological record is being exploited to provide the collectables they seek. The bargain is that the collectors get to keep most of what they find if they provide the public with information about what was found where so it can be recorded for general use. So I really do not see why when the PAS and its CPAT team put information on the WHS website, it allows itself a different approach to the public record from that adopted on its own database.

If the farmers object to this basic information being available, the responsible artefact hunter surely says 'thanks but no thanks' and finds a farmer willing to allow him to operate within the bounds of the Code of Practice for Responsible Metal Detecting in England and Wales.

So I really do not know what example the "CPAT/PAS team" is setting posting these items on the Society's website without any inkling that this is what the bargain with the main stakeholders in the remains of Britain's past is. The "PAS gallery" of the WHS has less information than an eBay page (because there at lest you get the seller's identity and a price). Come on, PAS, pull your socks up.

I expressed surprise that over in Wrexham the Welsh Portable Antiquities Scheme reportedly actually supports artefact hunting. My correspondent expands on that:

Yes we are supported by the CPAT team in Welshpool, And Mark Lodwick from Cardiff.

So the local archaeological trust actually supports people that seek out and and take archaeological finds from the archaeological sites, thus depleting their information content, taking them away and keeping them in scattered ephemeral personal collections? Archaeologist Mark Lodwick too? Would they come out in public and say so? I'd like to hear it from their own lips, this is scandalous. Are these people members of the IfA? If they support others doing it, do they collect artefacts too?

Actually, I think the public have a right to know. How many of the people working for the PAS actually support artefact hunting and collecting, and in what form, and do these people have any collections of archaeological material (including coins) themselves?

I am told

"Some clubs do not record anything, so i think you should be at least grateful that we do, and all find spot data is collected by Mark Lodwick / Tresure items are reported within the allotted timeframe".

With regard to the latter point, adhering to the law has nothing to do with "detecting best practice" any more than staying at the scene of an accident which you caused when somebody has been seriously injured is "driving best practice".

Let us have a look at the claim made above that the "Wrexham Heritage Society" is a responsible recorder. According to PAS statistics, CPAT has managed this year to record a total of 29 finds in total (1st January - 7th August). They were reported by 17 finders in February, May and July, and all were found with a metal detector. Of them 23 were Medieval and Post-Medieval, and to judge from the year of finding, reporting is not exactly prompt. CPAT does not record metal detector finds from just one club, so these figures include Wrexham Heritage Society information plus potentially some other reporters. Although nowhere on the WHS webpage does it betray how many members the society has, on this video one can see at least twenty people at a club meeting. You can also see a table-top covered with finds made - it would seem - by the guy behind the table (note the lack of transparency on the labels associated with the objects; they only say what the item is, not where it was found nor the PAS record number). Now that looks like more than 2.4 recordable finds a year. So if 17 people reported 1.7 finds each to CPAT in the first part of 2011 in total, how can the Wrexham Heritage Society claim they are responsibly reporting ALL of their finds made with a metal detector? It just does not add up.

What we are seeing here is the same pattern that we see nationwide, a number of metal detectorists are reporting a bare minimum of what they find artefact hunting each year, and on their backs the rest claim "we are all responsible".

This is when the next comment I receive from Mr "IrateWrexhamMan" is that reporting finds to the PAS is "only voluntary, innit" - rather missing the point.

[The figures for Mark Lodwick by the way in distant Cardiff are not much evidence that the reporting of finds by the Wrexham Heritage people is keeping up with what they are taking from the archaeological record, 78 finds this first half year from the whole of Wales, including the heavily detected south, around Cardiff].

I think we may fairly conclude that if CPAT and Dr Lodwick "support" artefact hunting, they are not getting a lot of support FROM artefact hunters in return. The Wrexham Heritage Society metal detecting bloke then goes on to express the opinion:

I think you are very un unprofessional slating responsible metal detectorists.

I simply do not see any evidence here of a satisfactory level of "responsibility". I think it would be very unprofessional of my colleagues to support the sort of activity we see illustrated by the statistics, and call it "responsible artefact hunting". Whether it is technically legal or not, I personally regard it as unprofessional for an archaeologist to support artefact hunting and collecting of objects taken randomly from archaeological sites.

I'd say though that if they really were supportive of the activity and believed in what they were doing and saying, they'd be arguing their case. Where are their personal websites and blogs expressing these views? Why are they not over here sparring with me and the opinions I express which would be so much in opposition to their own ("more progressive") ones? Proving me wrong, preventing me "misleading" any readers that may stumble upon this blog (remember they reportedly dismiss this as the ramblings of a "mouthy twat"). The fact that the only people who actually come over here posing and threatening - but rarely engaging in any serious, open and informed debate - are metal detectorists and collectors, tells us a lot about the ability and willingness of the British archaeological establishment to actualyy defend what they are doing.

I will leave the last word to the metal detectorist in a "heritage society" who would obviously prefer to avoid any kind of substantive debate on the issues surrounding this manner of non-sustainable exploitation of the archaeological record:

i will report this blog to google ....

Vignette: Some Wrexham 'heritage'