We View Arguments of US Dugup Collectors with Mistrust

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The President of the US dugup numismatic artefact lobbbying group the ACCG, coin collector Kerry Wetterstrom has joined the debate on looting and the antiquities trade . The somewhat muddled PRNewswire text "American Collectors Eye Events in Egypt with Mistrust", highlights his views on the matter. Let's take a look at them.

According to Kerry K. Wetterstrom, President of the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG), the reason for concern among collectors is that import restrictions like those sought by archaeologists have typically been applied far and beyond the scope of authority vested under U.S. law. [...] This tendency toward bureaucratic overreach is discussed introspectively in Archaeology Under Dictatorship, Michael L. Galaty and Charles Watkinson, eds., New York, 2004. In the final chapter: Dealing with the Devil: The Faustian Bargain of Archaeology Under Dictatorship Bettina Arnold says: "Financial dependence on the state makes archaeology especially vulnerable to manipulation by political entities, including individual leaders, whose interest in its research potential varies but is always expedient."

So who, according to Mr Wetterstrom, is "manipulating archaeology" in the US? Surely until now the ACCG mantra has been that it is archaeologists manipulating the State Department (?) So US archaeologists are manipulating the US government who is in turn manipulating US archaeologists through entrapping them in financial dependence? (Really?) What a mess, but I rather think it's in the logic of Wetterstrom's thinking than the politics of archaeology in his country. The new guy Mr Wetterstrom really ought also to sort out what it is the CCPIA regulates, it is not as he suggests "provenance" but documentation of legal export from the "source country" (!).

Anyway, passing on from that tangled tale, let's have a look at the next.

Coin collectors see the driving force behind import restrictions as stemming from a belief that legitimate markets for cultural objects fuel clandestine excavation or theft in source countries.

Let's just stop him there. Whose "belief" is that supposed to be? This is equally lacking in logic. The legitimate market obviously consists of a market in objects that are legitimately on that market. Like any market, not those that are assumed/imagined/hoped/insinuated to be, but can be verified as genuinely legitimately obtained. So by definition that cannot "fuel clandestine excavation or theft in source countries" since objects illegally obtained cannot by any stretch of the imagination be part of any legitimate market. Mr Wetterstom is putting up one of those typical coiney straw man arguments. In fact he's manipulating words, isn't he? More accurate would be to substitute the words "current state of the" for "legitimate". But then he could not do that, as that suggests that the market could be changed so the problem is reduced, and resisting any change in the global and US market is what the organization he heads is all about. But that's not the end of it:

To collectors, the failure of states to enforce their own cultural heritage laws is a key factor in any illicit activity. Corruption within nationalist governments is pervasive and compounds the problem [...] the best approach to reduce looting and corruption is to address the problem at the source.

Well, postulating that this is the only way forward and dealers and collectors have no responsibilities whatsoever (indeed victims of the situation) may be very comfortable, but is it true? Yesterday I posted a text about measures in England to prevent ongoing archaeological looting there. I am not sure where corruption comes in there, does he think the British police force is corrupt because they are not catching the night-time looters? Or perhaps British politicians or heritage organizations? This really needs clarification. (He may argue that a body called English Heritage is in some way "not nationalist", but could he argue it with any real conviction?) Then we have the US Four Corners case, Wetterstrom seems to be suggesting that the solution to the endemic vandalism of archaeological sites there is a clampdown on the artefact diggers. Is that the ACCG position? I thought they were campaigners for "collectors' rights"? But obviously we cant have one solution for the US and one for the rest of the world (imposed by the US), can we? The ACCG has always been quick to present US collectors' "recommendations" for the rest of the world to follow (the "Witschonke Argument"). They have with equal alacrity shied away from the implications of applying the same measures to resolving the same problems at home in the US. Why? Maybe now the ACCG has a new leadership, we will see the reverse approach adopted more consistently.

But surely, short of policemen lurking behind every bush or rock all night every night by every lootable archaeological site across the western hemisphere (and Africa, the Near East and Far East too) at tax-payers' expense, part of the operation to enforce the antiquities legislation is keeping a close eye on what is happening on the antiquities market (it will be recalled that this was one of the recommendations of the Oxford Nighthawking Report on which this new English heritage scheme is based).

It seems to me that Wetterstrom is standing by the traditional collectors' position that the looting of archaeological sites somehow has no connection with the no-questions-asked antiquities market and that sorting it out is the task and problem of everybody else, and not the no-questions-asked dealers and collectors. They consider themselves marginal to the solution. I think it is obvious to the rest of us that they are central to it.

US Museums in No State to Accept Loans?

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The United States of America, though it is a state party of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property actually does not respect the majority of its contents. The 1983 Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act conditions even the most basic activities (import control of antiquities) on a complicated procedure involving prior individual public consultations and the State Party which is the victim of illegal export fulfilling certain conditions in favour of the US first. This is a total anathema to the ideals behind the Convention.

The Wisconsin 12 Congressmen urge the State Department to look into the degree to which countries like Italy, having signed bilateral cultural property agreements with the US are loaning museums in the US objects for display. Presumably they are hoping the State Department will conclude that these state parties are failing in their obligations towards the US in this regard (it seems clear that their intention is that the free sale of smuggled ancient coins should not be hindered by such agreements).

Meanwhile British artefact hunter and collector Candice Jarman with the support of US collectors' rights lobbyists Wayne Sayles and Peter Tompa has been examining the relationship between private and public collection. She draws attention to a report of Heritage Preservation, a Washington-based conservation group which would indicate that even before the current financial crisis, US museums were woefully badly prepared to look after such material, were it to be loaned (Lynette Clementson, 'History Is Slipping Away as Collections Deteriorate, Report Says', New York Times, Dec 6th 2005).

It would be interesting to see whether the same Congressmen who signed a letter urging that Italy should be forced to increase still further "long term loans to all US museums" had also previously taken part in any moves to better fund conservation and environmental control in US museums. If not, it would be hypocritical expecting other countries to loan material to US museums if they are ill-prepared to look after them properly.

Have these Congressmen supported increased allocations of money to US museums for conservation facilities, staff and environmental control? How much and what was the result?


Paul Ryan (R-WI), Thomas Petri (R-WI), John Culberson (R-TX), Michael Burgess (R-TX), Sam Johnson (R-TX), Lamar Smith (R-TX), Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX), John Campbell (R-CA), Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO) , Rob Wittman (R-VA), John Spratt (D-SC) and Joe Courtney (D-CT).

Vignette: The Adams Family Museum.
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"Responsible Collecting" a la Yahoo

To judge from material sent me by several well-wishers since I was blocked from accessing this closed-access group, the discussions of the social background to collecting are still going on over on the Yahoo Ancient Artefacts - much to the chagrin of those many members over there who'd rather bury their heads in the sand and forget that portable antiquity collecting has a social context and other stakeholders.

A number of responsible collectors are now leaving the group. Instrumental in this was a thread started by a coiney called in typical puerile low-brow fashion: "Barford is a looney". One of the people who has just left the list (a British collector whose truly responsible attitude to the material acquired has been mentioned on this blog) explained his decision:

Paul Barford has a blog giving an archaeologist's point of view on collecting antiquities: http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/

Dave Welsh has a blog giving a coin dealer's point of view on collecting antiquities: http://classicalcoins.blogspot.com/

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Paul Barford argues for ethical practice within the antiquities trade in order to preserve the archaeological record from destruction.

Dave Welsh argues for the status quo in the antiquities trade to continue exactly as it is.

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Paul Barford has been banned from posting on this Yahoo list.

Dave Welsh has been allowed to continue posting on this Yahoo list.

Both have blogs but only one of them is allowed to post his point of view on this list as well.

Far from being satisfied with what is already an unfair advantage, the one who can post on this list uses the opportunity to ridicule the one who cannot.

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I sense a vast imbalance on this list. At best, it is unfair. At worst, it is deliberate prejudice.

Whether you agree with Paul Barford, Dave Welsh, both of them, neither of them, or fall somewhere in between - the current situation is untenable.

With occasional exceptions by Paul Barford,* both exploited this list merely to preach their points of view regarding legalities or ethics. They were not participating members in the normal sense.

In the interest of fairness, either BOTH should be given free rein to vent their views on this list or BOTH should be compelled to vent them only on their respective blogs (or elsewhere).

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With both on-list, members were caught in the crossfire between two pulpits. Now there is only one pulpit left - but with nothing to balance it. Members are now subjected to only one stream of propaganda.

The current unbalanced situation gives the impression that the stream of propaganda from the remaining pulpit represents the consensus opinion of the list. I find this worrying [...]

I do not know why Tim allows the one-sided stream of propaganda to continue - whether from a hatred of Paul Barford or from support for Dave Welsh or perhaps a mix of both - but I personally find a biased discussion list unpleasant. Since I do not wish to be associated with such bias, I will no longer participate on this list while it persists.

Since I was blocked, the Ancient Artifacts list has been invaded by the coineys with their gung-ho anti-preservationist ("internationalist") claptrap, several of the usual culprits have reactivated (Sayles, de la Fe, Hooker, Welsh). Recent weeks have therefore seen the continued use of the discussion list with 2000 members to produce a one-sided stream of anti-archaeological propaganda, claims that there is "not one shred of evidence that irresponsible collecting encourages looting" and so on. Since one of the main protagonists on that list of the view there that the two go intimitely together has been blocked from replying, these essentially go without answer from either the general membership or the moderator (a moderator who defensively declared unilaterally that the forum supported responsible collecting). Not that anyone on the outside can see what the Yahoo definition of "responsible collecting" looks like in action, as it is all shut away behind closed doors and anyone discussing it outside the group (such as on a blog about responsible collecting like this one) is censured and expelled. What have responsible collectors got to hide? (register with the site and take a look and write about what you see there on your own blogs, truly responsible attitudes to collecting have no need to hide).

What is galling is that the main "evidence" offered to the outside world that - in contrast to what actually happens in the members-only section of that list - it is dedicated to discussing only responsible collecting is a document which is linked from the home page and is thus one of the few elements of the group that is visible to the outside world. This is a code of ethics. This, the blurb says was "created by group members". It was in fact edited, by just two collectors and one of the few British dealers to consistently offer provenanced artefacts, from a document I supplied. There was some desultory discussion on the list of individual points, but there was not a great enthusiasm for hammering out a text that would truly define "responsible collecting". My post here shows the original text and the yahoo Groups version clearly owes much to that.

It is therefore ironic that the author of the original draft on which this document was based was later blocked for promoting responsible collecting and openly criticising irresponsible collecting and those who advocate it on that list. This is very revealing about what is going on. The facade of responsibility on this key online artefact collectors' forum is only skin deep. The Yahoo group is freely used to promote the sale of tainted and unprovenanced artefacts of unstated origins. There is no commitment to investigating or discussing the current social context of nineteenth-century style collecting on that list, just heads-down (head in sand) talk about the collectables themselves and where to get them cheapest and avoid fakes. Maybe truly responsible portable antiquity collectors need to set up another discussion list with a clear policy on tainted artefacts and leave the recalcitrant hoi polloi of the antiquity collecting world to their howling about their nineteenth century "collectors' rights" and leave Mr Haines and his ranting anti-preservationist dealer friends to stew in their own juices.

*"With occasional exceptions by Paul Barford,"Actually I contest that, there were more than "occasional" situations when on that list I gave an opinion as an archaeologist about the accuracy of the description of an object being offered by one of the many dealers who offered items through the list. Most of the time this was less than appreciated by the dealer trying to flog it under a less-than-accurate description and many collectors also turned nasty when their favourite dealer was challenged, often generating a log-jam of anti-archaeological posts. An Ottoman tobacco pipe sold as seventh century AD Byzantine generated some acrimonious attacks on the archaeologist who pointed out a rather obvious anachronism.

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Vingnette: Looking in on Lilliput (Aidan Courtney).

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The Questions they DO ask

Is David Gill acting as an undisclosed agent of the Italian Cultural Bureaucracy ? Or is he just some sort of Internet cultural property vigilante?

Has Paul Barford become a member of the Dominican order, continuing the practices of the Holy Office? Even attacking decent people in their homes? Victimising innocent lobbyists?

Or is he just stark raving bonkers? Has he too overstepped the "bounds of reason" like Dr Gill? Is he just a sad guy lost in his own rhetoric which nobody should take seriously? A "Mentally Fixated ideologue" like President Obama?

Or is he a base and unprincipled "liar" as recently "reported" on Museum Security Network? Or a "thief" as reported on Yahoo's Ancient Antiquities Forum ? Or both a liar and a thief as was essayed on Moneta-L?

Or is he perhaps an anti-semite intent on wiping out the Jews, or necrophiliac trying to return things to "people who have been dust for centuries"? A frustrated former debating club captain? An extremist? Or a "classic Marxist agitator"? Or a goose-stepping Nazi whose literary efforts "seem to approach [the merits ] of "Mein Kampf" - one of the all time bestsellers" whose idea of fun would be "immolating" things "to the stirring strains of the Königgrätzer Marsch".

The answers to these and other questions set by the no-questions-asked collecting brigade can be found on the pages of our blogs. You will also find here the questions which the collectors of ancient dugups and the people that sell them to them no-questions-asked are not willing to ask themselves, let alone seek an answer to. This might go some way to explaining why they carry on in this way, why three dealers' so-called "ancient coin" blogs these days contain nothing at all about ancient coins but merely a continuous series of personal attacks on those they persist in labelling "radical" "anti-collecting" "ideologues", those who question what is going on behind the secretive facade of the no-questions-asked collecting of portable antiquities and are urging more responsible attitudes within portable antiquities collecting and more effective policies encouraging responsible attitudes and resource sustainability. The reader might ask themselves the position from which such concepts might appear "radical" and disturbing.


Vignette: David Gill arriving at work on the forecourt of the Department of History and Classics in his trademark black helicopter.

Classical Nudes Not Allowed in New Jersey?

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US Collectors of ancient coins claim that their hobby helps the Americans "appreciate ancient culture". Moved perhaps by such sentiments, in last week's snow a Rahway New Jersey family sculpted a replica of the Venus de Milo described as "curvaceous, bodacious and booty-licious" (sic). Sadly not everybody in the neighbourhood was so appreciative of the classical lines of the marble-white form. The police received an anonymous complaint and sent an officer round to the family's house to ask them to dress the nude snow sculpture, which was accordingly garbed in a green bikini top and a blue sarong bottom. I wonder if the Metropolitan Museum over the river will now be being asked to cover up some of its sculptures and more explicit Greek vases?

A friend of mine once wrote a kids' book on "the Romans" and had a two-page cut-away picture of the Roman baths with little people inside showing what went on in different parts of Roman baths. The problem was that the drawings had to be redesigned with each figure strategically placed in order to avoid showing any naked 'naughty parts' (including naked buttocks and breasts), because the publisher wanted it to be suitable for the US market. Experience had taught him that US publishers were highly sensitive to this. American children of course do not have buttocks and apparently are to have their eyes shielded from them, even in books about classical culture. As for the sculpted breasts of New Jersey Venuses...

Photo: New Jersey Family Asked to Cover Up Nude Snow Woman (AP/ Fox News).

Coin auctions: "Not illegal" does not mean "not unethical."

On the Moneta-L discussion forum they are discussing a piece of news that the coin dealer Heritage Auction Galleries might be bidding on their own auctions under an assumed name, some members are leaping to the firm's defence pointing out that its not illegal. In this discussion one John Tratman remarks flatly ""Not illegal" does not mean "not unethical"". Collectors of and dealers in portable antiquities in the USA are notorious for buying coins that were illegally dug out of an archaeological site in the source country and then illegally exported from it while defiantly stating "no American law was broken". It is a shame that they do not apply more widely to to their own purchasing practices what they do to price-regulating practices of auction houses.

Sam Merten Lawsuit Claims Heritage Auction Galleries Uses Fake Bidder to Manipulate Auctions, Sept 10 2009.