Financial Times on Investing in Antiquities (Again)

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The Financial Times has an article 'Antiquities: the war of art', by Stephen Wilmot (23/6/11) discussing the "attractions and risks associated with investing in antiquities". Every so often the financial papers produce such cringe-worthy texts which invariably miss out any discussion whatsoever of the moral aspects of the no-questions-asked commerce in antiquities which they are advertising. This article is no exception, though it has a surprise ending. It seems vaguely to focus on the market for Chinese artefacts for some reason. There is a discussion of China's efforts to get looted material back home, Neil Brodie is quoted as asking whether these efforts may be increased as China gains influence in the world economy:“At the moment people can afford to ignore Chinese claims, but will that still be the case in 10 or 20 years’ time?” he asks. the nearest the article gets to discussing the ethics of the trade is when it points out that investigating culture crime requires the investment of considerable resources, which is where countries like Italy have an advantage over poorer countries (Greece and Egypt are cited) where less resources can be devoted to this effort. This part of the discussion is entirely object-centred.

Costas Paraskevaides, director of ArtAncient, a website that sells historical objects, says “there is little doubt the market is very buoyant right now”. He cites the emergence of mainland Chinese buyers as a key reason. Two years ago, he sold roughly one item a month to a mainland Chinese buyer. Now, he says, they snap up pieces at all price ranges almost every other day.

As one of the 'posities' in 'investing in antiquities', the size of the market is stressed, and the article points out it is an expanding one.

Jonathan Stone, international business director of Asian art at Christie’s, believes the well of buyers is deep enough. “We’re not dealing with a handful of people – the breadth and depth of the market now is something very new,” he says.

But of course an expanding number of people after a finite resource (the number of licitly-obtained artefacts on the market) is one full of dire portent, because it will increasingly draw illicitly-obtained material onto the market to make up the shortfall, and as prices rise so does the incentive for looting. This of course is an aspect totally omitted by the Financial Times' one-sided discussion of the "investment value" of antiquities.

The article points out that some antiquities lose value [Brodie is again quoted here], that they may be over-priced at the time of sale due to aggressive bidding from a small number of greedy people for a particularly coveted item (I'd say the Crosby Garrett helmet is a good example of this). the article warns there are a lot of fakes around, and "the risk that the piece has been illegally imported" (should be "exported" shouldn't it FT?). There is no proper mention of the need for responsible collectors to ensure they have documented title to objects through verifiable and documented collecting histories and proof export formalities were fulfilled, or that it is collections of such artefacts which are most worth 'investing' in.

All this has made other ways of investing in emerging-world culture more popular, particularly Chinese contemporary art. “You need very specialist knowledge to collect the past, whereas the appeal of contemporary art is visceral – it’s about how you feel about it, what it does to you,” says Strauss. “Antiquities are far more problematic.”

Indeed they are, and it is to be noted that achieving "intercultural understanding" and cosmopolitanism (that's "globalisation" over here) is one of the main motives US (mainly) "cultural property internationalist" authors have been ascribing to their collecting and commercial activities. Why however concentrate on dead cultures of a foreign region at the expense of contact with the living one?

Vignette: money, money, money.

Antiquity Collecting as Cultural Cosmopolitanism

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The "Cultural Property Internationalist" message brought by US coiney dealer-ideologues to the Newcastle Conference was, they say, well received by UK metal detectorists with whom the US coineys have, they say, common interests. They claim that collecting dugup artefacts fosters inter-cultural understanding and tolerance. That this is not always the case is shown by the naked nationalism visible on UK detecting forums. There is little cultural tolerance visible there. This is well illustrated by a comment that has just appeared on one of them, it refers to a news item: "Mladic is accused of organising the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys during Bosnia's 1992 to 1995 war - a charge he denies". A UK metal detectorist adds:

Could we borrow him before they execute him? He could start in East London and crack on from there.

Thank goodness this extremist is one of the UKDFD crowd and therefore not one of the PAS-partners. This goes well with the torch and pitchfork talk of a certain ACCG officer who wants to see certain members of the US administration and others meet violent ends. Let us watch the forum to see how many share the genocidal detectorist's approach to cultural diversity.

"Cosmopolitan" behaviour

The collectors of dugup antiquities claim that their activities promote "cultural understanding", that they have a cosmopolitan outlook on World Culture to which others (non-collectors like myself) can never aspire. This is the basis of Cunoesque "Universalism". I really would question whether collecting bits of archaeological sites like shabti figures or cleaning and hoarding bucketloads of dugup Constantinian camp gate and "Fel Temp Rep" coins really does promote international cultural understanding in any way. This is even more unsustainable in the context of some of the other arguments used by the same ranters (and also Mr Cuno), that most often the modern population of a land has no conceivable link with the ancient inhabiants of the region compared with the US or British dugup antiquities collector (an argument I do not accept anyway).


Personally, I think a far more effective way to understand a culture is to live among its bearers. Living here in Upper Egypt for the past couple of months, one learns very quickly what the cultural norms are and is careful not to act in a way which shows (and engenders) disrespect. One of the issues involves an unspoken dress code for males and females alike. Both sexes dress in a manner which hides not only bare flesh, but even the shape of the body. That is how it is, it is neither good nor bad, but a female student venturing outside the tourist zone in tight jeans and flowing red locks (Hi, Kamilla !) knows that she tends to attract more attention than is pleasant from the local "gentlemen". But we are guests in their country, I guess a Papuan New Guinean should not really expect to walk through Central Birmingham naked or wearing nothing but a very long penis sheath and attract no attention. In fact, even in liberal Great Britain, even today he probably would run the risk of being arrested for public nudity.

Members of our team are therefore careful about how they behave and dress when out and about. Sadly for those who know what the local norms are, there is much to criticise in the dress styles of the "cultural tourists" we see daily in our place of work doing their version of the Grand Tour, cameras in hand rushing overnight from their Red Sea coast resorts to do in one day "Karnak, Valley of Kings, Hatshepsut's Temple, alabaster factory and back to the hotel". Visitor numbers at the Temple reach 8000 a day. Many of the tourists clearly have no idea of (or perhaps simply do not care about) what impression they are creating among the local inhabitants by the way they behave while they are guests in a foreign country. Thankfully most of them are shielded from the real locals, they are herded in their tour groups from one sun-baked monument to another, cameras clicking away. They meet mainly the gaffirs (guards) and souvenir peddlars, both of whom one may suspect see them mainly as totally naïve walking wallets (though the more one has contact with both groups, the more one sympathises with the locals). There is also the conviction among the natives of the region that European women dress and behave immodestly and so therefore the normal rules of behaviour towards women need not apply - as many a female tourist walking around a place like Luxor can probably testify. Men in shorts or walking around shirtless also look very much out of place here, Luxor is not Hurghada.

Just a few days ago there was a spate of people visiting the Temple in dress that was extremely unsuitable for the local conditions. Its hot work being a gaffir, and after lunch last week Saïd the Temple Guard was sitting on the ground in the shade just by the entrance to the upper portico watching the people walk past into the centre of the monument just as the excavation team was returning to work. It is unclear who noticed her first, Saïd or my colleague Sarah, but they exchanged knowing glances and she snatched a few shots on my camera as the individual in question gazed into the darkness of the Sanctuary of Amun. After she had gone, a hastily convened unofficial commission of the expedition fashion police failed to reach agreement on what precisely the lady in question, a Russian, was or was not wearing. They were however of the opinion that she was not dressed in the most appropriate manner for visiting Upper Egypt, whoever she was and whatever she thought she was doing.

In the clash of civilisations, whose value system should be applied, that which is most aggressive or the more culturally inoffensive? The same of course applies to those collectors enforcing their "rights" to do whatever they please to get decontextualised pieces of somebody else's archaeological heritage in the name of spreading "cosmopolitan values". That is their own values at the expense of others.

Photos: "townswomen in upper Egypt" top (photo PMB); "tourist bottom", (photo Sarah Fortune).