Jeepers: Leaked UN Documents Reveal Plan For “Archaeological World Order” By 2012

Paul Joseph Watson (Prison Planet.com and InfoWar) Friday, February 26, 2010 writes:

Leaked policy documents reveal that the United Nations plans to create a “green world order” by 2012 which will be enforced by a structure of global governance and funded by a gargantuan $45 trillion transfer of wealth from richer countries, as the globalists’ insidious plan to centralize power, crush sovereignty while devastating the economy is exposed once again.

As we warned at the time, the failure of Copenhagen in December did not spell the end of the global warming heist, but merely a roadblock in the UN’s agenda to create a world government funded by taxes paid by you on the very substance you exhale – carbon dioxide.

Using the justification of the vehemently debunked hoax that carbon dioxide is a deadly threat to the planet, the UN is already working to resurrect the failed Copenhagen agreement, with a series of new Copenhagen process negotiations set to take place in April, May and June.

Leaked planning documents (PDF) obtained by Fox News lift the lid on the UN’s plan [...]

The very foundation of the global warming argument has been completely eviscerated by the Climategate scandal, which proved that United Nations IPCC scientists forged and exaggerated data to “hide the decline” in global temperatures while engaging in witch hunts to cull dissenting opinions from appearing in IPPC reports. Despite this, control freaks intent on taxing the life-giving gas carbon dioxide have signaled that they no longer care about the truth behind man-made climate change and have resolved to slam through their totalitarian agenda anyway.

It strikes me that if we replace the words "carbon dioxide" with "antiquities" and "scientists" by "archaeologists" and do a bit of tweaking, we have here the blueprint for many an ACCG anti-UNESCO Convention / anti preservationist declaration.

They have their leaked "policy documents" from the FOI which "reveal" some "conspiracy" to create a “preservationist world order”, part of the "archaeologists' insidious plan to centralize power, crush sovereignty while devastating the economic basis of the indiscriminate antiquities market". The ACCG and its followers claim the "looted antiquities heist" is merely part of the "UN’s agenda to create a world government". Toward achieving this aim, it uses as justification "the vehemently debunked hoax that the indiscriminate market in antiquities is a deadly threat to the global archaelogical record". Meanwhile, :""the very foundation of the looting argument has been completely eviscerated by the ACCG which holds that United Nations archaeologists have forged and exaggerated data to hide the decline in looting while engaging in witch hunts to cull dissenting opinions from appearing in archaeological discussions".
The ACCG and its followers hold that the "control freaks intent on crushing the essential, beneficial and educational antiquities trade have signaled that they no longer care about the truth behind the issue of the looting of archaeological sites, and have resolved to slam through their totalitarian agenda anyway. The ACCG are opposed to a world system where every nation offers mutual active assistance to other nations to curb the illicit destruction of their cultural heritage and is in favour of "Internationalism" a passive world system of unrestricted exploitation and free and indiscriminate trade in antiquities.

By the way, read the comments under the InforWar article, right to the bottom. From the similarities of these comments to those received when discussing the indiscriminate trade in antiquities, they appear to show the mindset from which it seems much of the responses to the preservationist position comes from in US coiney circles. Frightening, eh? How do you conduct a rational discussion with that?

Vignette: Black helicopter by GearOtter

Antiquity Collecting and International Cultural Exchange

The ACCG press release which argues that ripping off other nations' archaeological heritage so it can be sold to North American collectors is a form of "grassroots cultural excange" prompted me to quote here a portion of the 1970 UNESCO Convention the US dealers and collectors all fear and hate:

"Recalling the importance of the provisions contained in the Declaration of the Principles of International Cultural Co-operation[...] Considering that the interchange of cultural property among nations for scientific, cultural and educational purposes increases the knowledge of the civilization of Man, enriches the cultural life of all peoples and inspires mutual respect and appreciation among nations, Considering that cultural property constitutes one of the basic elements of civilization and national culture, and that its true value can be appreciated only in relation to the fullest possible information regarding is origin, history and traditional setting [...] Considering that the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property is an obstacle to that understanding between nations [...] Article 2 1. The States Parties to this Convention recognize that the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property is one of the main causes of the impoverishment of the cultural heritage of the countries of origin of such property and that international co-operation constitutes one of the most efficient means of protecting each country's cultural property against all the dangers resulting there from. 2. To this end, the States Parties undertake to oppose such practices with the means at their disposal, and particularly by removing their causes, putting a stop to current practices, and by helping to make the necessary reparations.

Now it seems to me that groups promoting the prolongation of the no-questions-asked antiquities trade should be addressing those sentiments. Through exploitation of the tactic of manipulation of the Convention's Article 1 (which they present as an inclusive categorisation, rather than the exclusive one it in reality is)* dealer-lobbyists present the UNESCO 1970 Convention as in some way "nationalist". To label that manipulation a "misunderstanding" would be an understatement. Those who have actually read the whole text and are aware of its background will know that this is far from the case. Instead, from the perspective of the Convention the type of "grassroots cultural exchange" which the no-questions-asked dealers of ancient dugups propose is damaging to international understanding. It would be difficult to explain their notion of one-way "grassroots cultural exchange" in terms of article VIII of the "Declaration of the Principles of International Cultural Co-operation". Probably they would just reject it out of hand. But that would mean rejecting too its article IV.4 which no doubt they would support. "Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive...".

* Best illustrated by an example. The new Egyptian antiquities law would make possession of unauthorised photographs of certain monuments also cultural property which is thereby declared some form of "national patrimony" (and so I guess taking this to extremes might mean in theory at least you could have trouble at the airport if you are found trying to take them out of the country in the memory card of your camera). Egypt cannot however demand under the terms of the Convention such ("stolen") photos be "repatriated" once taken to another country, because they do not fit into the criteria laid down by article 1 of the Convention defining to what kind of cultural property the document refers. The dealer-lobbyists would have collectors believe something else and many of the latter - much to their shame - are unable to check themselves (perhaps due to a too short attention span to get that far down the convention to read Article 1 themselves), and gullible enough to believe them.

Where does this Coiney "Journalist" do his "Research"?

The hapless Richard Giedrojć has been listening to Wayne Sayles again rather than finding out things for himself. Anyway his latest alarmist text: UNESCO, Nationalism, Collectors Clash talks of "The 1970 UNESCO agreement to which the United States is not yet a signatory..." and notes that the ACCG is " actively apposing (sic!) having the United States sign the UNESCO agreement..."and how he read in Sayles' column in "Celator" (a popular US coiney magazine) about "...the impact the agreement would have on coin collectors should the United States become a signatory to the agreement". According to Sayles/Giedrojć

All coin collections could be impacted should the UNESCO agreement be signed by the United States. The bottom line for world coin collectors is that even such commonplace coins as Chinese cash coins issued prior to 1911 may be able to be legally seized and returned to the country in which they originated or were initially discovered if the UNESCO agreement becomes effective in the United States. If you don’t want to see that happen perhaps you should support ACCG and others trying to avoid the ratification of the agreement.

Perhaps somebody should send the poor chap a link to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property and in particular a list of the States Parties (clue, look at the 1983 entries), and while they are at it a copy of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act of January 1983 (where the CPAC is initiated) and explain to him what the connection is between them. Then and only then might he be ready for reading the text of the MOU with China about the import of fresh pre-Tang cash coins to the US and what it REALLY says.

UPDATE 16/2/10:
It appears its not just the coineys that are confused. Someone has just sent this to an artefact collectors' forum. After telling collectors that the 1970 Convention exists (duh), Bob Dodge of Artemis Galleries (he of the mummified foot sale discussed here earlier) tells them that "We do not recommend that you read or study this important document, but it is critical to understanding its basics". According to him, those basics are "In a nutshell, the UNESCO Treaty makes it illegal to export items of cultural heritage from a country after they have signed the treaty...". Well, as an antiquities dealer, Mr Dodge really ought to read and study that document, because from what he says on his website, he obviously has not the foggiest idea what it is about. Not the foggiest. What is the matter with these people? Does selling and collecting ancient artefacts rot the brain and affect reasoning abilities? The more time I spend reading what artefact collectors both sides of the Atlantic write the more the conviction grows that this might be the case, something for medical science to look into maybe.

Making the PAS fit – more smoking guns: NuPAS 4

I have earlier suggested that an analysis of the text of the 2008 PAS review seems to suggest that it was written ‘backwards’; rather than inducing its conclusion from arguments, the text appears to have been constructed starting with the conclusion and deductively fitting arguments to lead to them.

Another example appears on page 19, Clark says one [anonymous] expert sees PAS data as creating a

new cultural map of England and Wales through new insights into the material culture of ordinary people and ordinary places. It (sic) has also shown the far-reaching contacts and cosmopolitan nature of Britain from prehistory onwards…

I think it would be difficult to make a more banal statement about what archaeological finds can tell us. This has been one of the commonplaces since the early years of the twentieth century and those dotty diffusionist and invasion hypotheses, and discussions of "trade" and cross channel contacts… What is interesting however is that this odd “cosmopolitan” remark can be seen in the context of a later passage in the review. This is on page 34 where the author discusses the various options for funding and delivery of the New Portable Antiquities Scheme:

PAS also meshes with the three priorities in the current British Museum review – ‘in the city’, ‘across the country’ and ‘throughout the world’ – by creating partnerships across the country and revealing the cosmopolitan nature of English
society through time.

The banality has been harnessed to support the conclusion that the rightful place of the NuPAS is in the British Museum.

Another example of backward logic is found on page 28, where we learn

This review has suggested that the current objectives of PAS do not entirely reflect its impact or achievements. At present they are: […] Instead they should reflect the fact that PAS is…[…].

Elsewhere in the review the PAS is praised for its “clear sense of direction” (p. 30), and yet its objectives do not reflect what it has been doing…. Maybe somebody could explain to me this other meaning of the term “objectives”. It seems to me that the purpose of the review of a Scheme that has actually had the same objectives since 2003 should primarily be seeing whether the actual results adequately reflect those objectives and not the other way around! Anyhow, seeing that the results do not reflect the original objectives, Clark has suggested some more, to fit the results. How about looking at the Scheme and its context and setting some aims for the Scheme based on that?

Excluding the stakeholders

The archaeological heritage belongs to us all, but there are those in Britain who feel it is their “right” to go out and trash bits of the common heritage for their own selfish entertainment needs and profit. They do not welcome any form of discussion of this notion on terms they cannot dictate, not least from the 62 million non-collecting members of the British public who are the real stakeholders in the finite and fragile resource the artefact hunters wish to quarry to supply them or the antiquities market with collectables.

So it is with metal detecting forums and rallies. A few days ago I made a post here in reply to Derek Fincham’s suggestion of exporting the PAS to other countries, in which I posted a picture found on a metal detecting forum. I properly cited the source of the photo, and I believe this was fair use. Not so one Riohard Lincoln who claims to be the real author of the image (which was actually posted on the Forum by a person using the pseudonym "Sheddy" who is a garden shed retailer from Canvey Island in darkest Essex). He writes “the photograph which you have reproduced on your blog spot is not yous (sic) to reproduce. i am a semi professional photographer and I took the photograph of Judith Plouviez”. He wants to send me an invoice since he had previously “assigned licence to use the image to Shane Rear, administrator of Detectorist.co.uk”. I am grateful to Mr Lincoln for pointing this out and intend to enter negotiation with him to obtain the rights to use this image of the PAS in action in something I have written about portable antiquities collecting in Britain. In the meanwhile if Mr Shane Rear would like to pursue the matter of his "licence", he is free to contact me.

I think the problem here is that “metal detectorists” don’t like people looking over their shoulder at what they are doing with the common heritage. Like the coin and antiquity collectors of the US they want not only to strenuously deny that their activities are in any way harmful or erosive to the archaeological record and our knowledge of the past, but even to put over a picture of the “benefits” of their hobby. This is understandable and fine, freedom of speech and all that, there is nothing wrong with that – as long as the information the public gets is a true and balanced presentation. I believe that the pro-collecting propaganda is precisely that, mere propaganda based on partial presentation of the facts. The unposed candid picture I drew to the attention of the readers of my blog, of the flagship government scheme in action on the ground, working out of the back of somebody’s car and a hand scribbled notice, may be felt by collectors as showing the wrong side of British policy on artefact collecting. But that is exactly why it is here. Anyone can see the carefully selected propaganda photos published on the PAS website or the MLA mouthpiece 24 Hours Museum. Here however (and in many more similar photos which you can find by logging on to metal detecting forums if you have the stomach for it) we see a little of another reality behind the glib words, glossy annual reports and big numbers. Why should this type of information NOT be made more widely available.

If you take a look at the little map over to the left, you can see that over the past day or two quite a lot of British readers have been accessing a restricted range of items on this blog. As a result of the appearance of the PAS-in-action photo here, a purge of members’ accounts seems to have been carried out on the metal detector forum concerned. A member of the heritage lobby had an account on one of these forums (from which he only observed ongoing discussions with interest, I do not think he raised a peep of protest); this morning it appears that it was blocked to stop him seeing what “metal detectorists” are discussing. It is only a matter of time I guess that they find my own account and block it too, not for the first time. We might wonder why that actually is. What is it that metal detectorists have to hide that they cannot countenance anyone from outside seeing what they say and do amongst themselves? Why is it that candid photos and candid remarks are seen as potentially damaging to their image rather than confirming it? Surely if the milieu feels it is in general being misrepresented by their critics, “metal detectorists” should welcome all, conservationists as well, into their ranks to see for themselves what the truth is. They should be seeking such contact as part of their outreach to the British public, the real stakeholders in the past. The fact that they are doing everything to hide their activities from critical scrutiny and disrupt open discussion rather than welcome it and engage in it themselves, is rather telling I feel.

Readers of this blog might try to register with a few British forums and see what gems of “detecting lore” the archives contain. Please pay especial attention to the bits where somebody says to the others “shhh, somebody might be reading this”, or gaps where whole blocks of posts have been deleted…

Photo: Canvey Islanders

Kwame Opoku challenges Universal Collection arguments

In a wickedly elegant and well argued essay, tireless campaigner Dr Kwame Opoku raises a number of extremely pertinent points about the accusations thrown out by the Universal Collection advocates who oppose the repatriation of cultural property taken under dubious circumstances from other countries. In particular he cites the recent provocative book Who Owns Antiquity?: Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage by James Cuno, the publication of which has emboldened a few wannabe clones in the collecting world to join their voices to the clamour against “retentionist nationalism” and the policies lying behind the 1970 UNESCO convention.
The “universal collectors” see the nationalism in their own culture as benign while in foreign source countries it is dangerous, needing to be eradicated. The concept of nation-State:

gives countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon a certain amount of control over their own resources and cultural artefacts. These opponents of nationalism turn out almost invariably to be persons who would like to see the world governed by the forces in place. They would like to have a free-for-all situation where the stronger get what they want and the weaker ones can go to hell with their complaints.

Opoku notes that none of those playing the “Universalism” card offers:

any evidence that nationalism has any deleterious effect on restitution or on culture except that it prevents the large museums from continuing their old practice of taking objects from wherever they want. It also appears that they resort to accusations of nationalism only when there is a discussion on restitution of stolen or looted cultural objects that are in the so-called “universal museums” in the western world. We are still awaiting their explanation why nationalism in the case of claimants is somehow less respectable but not in the case of the western retentionists who are hanging onto stolen or looted property […] Cuno and his supporters should bring evidence why “retentionist nationalists” in some countries - Egypt, China, Turkey, Greece, Italy and Nigeria - are to be suspected in their motives for demanding restitution but “retentionist nationalists” in USA, Great Britain, Germany and France are not to be questioned in their motives for holding on to looted or stolen cultural artefacts.

He concludes that

With the hope of having contributed to clearing away this diversionary accusation of nationalism, the retentionists of the western museums should now offer more solid arguments, if they have any, for holding on to stolen or looted cultural objects from other countries. They should not present us arguments that do not help in understanding or solving the issue of restitution of stolen or looted cultural objects that are in the European and American museums. Their untenable contentions obscure the issues rather than enlighten us on the asymmetric nature of power in the colonial and imperialist system that made such illegal and unjustified robberies possible. The unresolved problems arising from colonialism will not simply disappear and the earlier serious efforts are made to reach acceptable solutions, the better for all of us

The whole article is well worth reading in its entirity, and it will be interesting to see whether the Universal Collectors reply with anything more than embarrassed silence...

Denying the US market in Iraqi artefacts

US dealers of portable antiquities have always opposed the imposition of the emergency restrictions on the import of Iraqi antiquities (without export licences) into the US. They claim that the American market for unprovenanced bits of other people's portable antiquity heritage is entirely guiltless of any involvement in the trafficing of looted artefacts from Iraq. The internet pro-collecting propaganda is full of solemn assertions of portable antiquity dealers stating outright things such as: “so far as I am aware not even a single instance has been reported of any reaching Western art markets." They strenuously assert things like: “very few such objects ever surfaced in Western art and antiquities markets, or any other identifiable and monitored trade channel through which they could be sold to collectors".*

These dealers ask questions like: "what justification is there for asserting that Western collectors and art markets are responsible for looting in Iraq, and are therefore morally obligated to cease their activities to help solve the problem? Especially when there is still no credible evidence that the looted artifacts are being traded in Western markets, or finding their way into the hands of Western collectors?” How unfair, they suggest, that "despite all that has been said regarding the influence of Western antiquities markets upon the ongoing looting in Iraq, no one has yet presented credible evidence of any significant number of such antiquities being offered for sale in these markets. Until there is some evidence that looted Iraqi antiquities are actually reaching Western markets, there is no objective reason to take the sort of action Dr. Mayah is requesting.”

The dealers may say what they want, on the other hand we have statements from portable antiquity collectors in the US such as Nader Rastegar referring to “the flood of antiquities that we have all been witnessing” and “....though somehow mysteriously a steady stream of those items seem to be in possession of US Troops, and showing up in the USA!” So what is the truth of this matter?

Well, we find that at least one archaeological item looted from Baghdad museum seems to have been seized at a US airport within days of the fall of Baghdad. Several journalists and one American soldier were under investigation. Matthew Bogdanos refers in his book to other stuff being handed over to him in New York when he returned from his Iraq mission. In November 2003 it was being reported that looted Iraqi artefacts had been found in London by the Metropolitan Police's specialist arts and antiques squad. A number of men had been arrested, including one at a central London gallery.

At about the same time as certain biased newspapers were suggesting in the summer of 2008 that the looting of archaeological sites in Iraq was reducing, two news items suggested that the role of the US market was by no means as innocent as the portable antiquities traders were suggesting.

On the 9th June 2008 we learnt that eleven agate and alabaster cylinder seals stolen in 2003 from the Baghdad Museum had been seized by U.S. customs officers in Philadelphia in May and were handed over to the Iraqi embassy in Washington from where they were returned to Iraq. The circumstances of the seizure were - suspiciously - never made public.

Now we learn from that on 15 September 2008 in a transfer ceremony at Iraq's embassy in Washington an even larger cache of unprovenanced archaeological artifacts has been returned to Iraq's government, thanks to a multi-year initiative by U.S. customs authorities to intercept items being smuggled into the United State. Iraqi ambassador Samir Sumaida'ie took possession of more than 1,000 rare objects, many of which date back to Mesopotamian times. The objects include inscribed ceramic pieces, figurines, tablets, and ancient coins. They were seized from smugglers who either hid the objects or misrepresented their country of origin to U.S. customs officials. In handing them over, Julie Myers the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said: "These items are much more than souvenirs or art objects - even though that is how people who tried to profit from them treated them; these are part of Iraq's priceless history".Presumably, the artifacts would have been put up for sale in the US had they not been intercepted. These however are just those items that were detected and intercepted. Despite the unamimous denials of those involved in this trade this collection of objects gives ample reason to assume that many more recently-looted items will have slipped through the net and entered the United States despite import restrictions are among those currently on offer as unprovenanced Mesopotamian artefacts on the western markets. How can one attempt to deny this? Do the dealers making such claims expect us to treat them seriously?

* this one with the utterly curious suggestion “There seems to be every reason to think that a system broadly modelled on the UK Treasure Law and Portable Antiquities Scheme would find favor among the Iraqi people” (sic).

Reference Matthew Bogdanos with William Patrick 2005, "Thieves of Baghdad: One Marine’s Passion for Ancient Civilizations and the Journey to Recover the World’s Greatest Stolen Treasures". Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 1582346453.

UK metal detector users get militant

Ted Fletcher
 (Timelines Auctions)

There are two major artefact hunting and collecting organizations in Great Britain. The Federation of Independent Detectorists (FID) split away in the early 1980s from the National Council for Metal Detecting (NCMD). In contrast to the NCMD, it has a rather ‘anti-establishment’ approach, and focuses many of its activities on highlighting “threats to the independence” of its members and opposing them. The siege mentality of this group is well illustrated by the news items it releases. In the latest update (July 2008) we learn that the British government is having difficulty finding increasing numbers of thousands of pounds to allow the Portable Antiquities Scheme unlimited expansion and this would lead to the scheme losing jobs. The FID interpretation of this is telling:

“Although relations with detectorists have been mixed and often not worked in the interests of either the hobby or landowners, it has stopped further moves to ban or hamper detecting with extra regulation. […] Only time will tell what the eventual outcome will be. We should all be prepared in case of 'bad news' and be ready to lobby hard if this should prove to be the case.”

The next news item is about the National Trust policy document “Metal Detecting on National Trust land” (apparently in existence since at least 2003, so hardly “news”) is described as a “Typically Negative Atitude (sic)”. This policy is of course concerned with preserving the heritage values of National Trust land, instead the FID artefact hunters characterize this policy as having arisen due to “those small minded people who cannot behave in an adult manner who try undermine the good work of detectorists and archaeologists alike”. They add disingenuously “It is well to remember that the past belongs to everyone not just any particular small minority interest”. Quite, and the aim of the National Trust of course is of course to preserve those heritage values (“for ever, for everyone”) so they can be managed for everyone’s benefit and not stripped away by some selfish individuals to add to some garden shed collection or sold on ebay. The big 'shock-horror’ online news story of the summer was however headlined “Heritage – up to the same old tricks?” which emerges from the realisation that the grassroots heritage organization Heritage Action have a web page dedicated to the erosive effects of the hobby of artefact hunting and collecting with metal detectors. Part of it is a clever little clock ticking away showing how many recordable archaeological artefacts a conservative estimate indicates have been taken from the UK archaeological record since the hobby began in the 1970s. This time last year it passed a staggering ten million items showing the scale of erosion to the archaeological heritage of Britain that is caused by a few thousand hobbyists.* The accompanying text makes clear the problem. Although collectors are taking away so many items, very few of them are being reported to archaeological bodies and therefore any information that accompanied their discovery is completely and irretrievably lost. In the time since the PAS was set up, the counter shows that nearly three and a half million objects have been taken by metal detector using collectors, and yet in that period PAS and the Scottish Treasure Trove Unit have had reported to them something like one tenth of that number of objects. According to these figures therefore, ninety percent of the finds made with a metal detector by artefact hunters and collectors in UK fields are just disappearing into domestic and foreign ephemeral personal collections without any record being made. Heritage Action call on those concerned to remedy this situation. The FID artefact hunters see the problem differently. They label this as merely “heritage propaganda” put out by “the archaeological fraternity, their friends in museums, universities and even governments” who “have tried their very best to either outlaw or control the hobby” (does this account of whom these collectors regard themselves as up against sound familiar?) The FID take comfort in the fact that “well known and respected author Edward (Ted) Fletcher […] is still fighting for our survival in the here and now”. Mr Fletcher announces:

“I hope to launch a similar internet site dedicated to countering the propaganda put out by Heritage Action; and ensuring that the media, politicians, tax payers, landowners, farmers and anyone thinking of taking up metal detecting as a hobby, have easy access to the true facts about the heritage industry. Those who run Heritage Action are totally dedicated to the destruction of the metal detecting hobby. They cannot be deflected from that task by appeasement ... by cow-towing ... by keeping a low profile.

The author concludes that:

The only way to beat them is to hit hard with the facts they do not want excavated and brought to the attention of the media. I can do that ... but not without help from you with the costs of research, which involves travel to and from archives, as well as laborious searches of archaeological records and journals over many, many years.

”There then follows an appeal for funds. We wonder how much money Mr Fletcher has received to counterattack what he labels “the heritage industry”. What is however interesting is Mr Fletcher, though he obviously regards these numbers produced by Heriage Action as some kind of threat to the image of metal detecting, does not say he is going to set out to prove that the figures presented in the erosion counter are wrong. He is not going to attempt to prove that it is not true that ninety percent of UK detector-made finds are unrecorded. Instead he is going to try to dig up some dirt on the whole “heritage industry”. He announces he is going to pore over archives, and conduct “laborious searches of archaeological records and journals over many, many years” to uncover and disseminate through the media facts which he is sure that heritage professionals will find embarrassing. What is not clear however is quite what he thinks this will achieve. It is also less than clear why he does not see that his aims and those of the organization he imagines he will damage by such activity are so far from one another. Heritage Action itself is dedicated to showing where the professional, government, response to threats to the heritage is totally (in the view of its members) inadequate to the task. Mr Fletcher could therefore start his search on their webpage as their aim and his seem related. The problem for Mr Fletcher is that Heritage Action shows that the British government response to artefact hunting and collecting and the illicit antiquities trade in Britain is indeed completely inadequate and much is being lost without record. Maybe, however, instead of attacking heritage concern organizations who point this out, Mr Fletcher and the FID should be considering instead what they could be doing to remedy this.

* The Heritage Action counter and the figures on which it is based were consulted with the author of this blog who has been actively researching UK “metal detecting” for some years. Since the counter was installed, new evidence has come to light which shows that this estimate is in fact far too conservative, the true numbers turn out to be even higher (publication in prep/forthcoming).

Attacking the Kaimsthorn Bogeyman

We may observe that the pro-collecting lobby have a tendency to prefer simplistic arguments and create straw man arguments which they demolish with glibness and glee. They are happiest picking on a participant in the debate about collecting, demonising them and pouring scorn and hatred on them in the manner the Two Minute Hate of Orwell's distopian '1984.

One of the bogeymen of US collectors for some reason is Lord Professor Colin Renfrew, humanist, scholar, pioneering theoretician, one time Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge. This means little to collectors. Renfrew is reviled among them for the forthright way he has since the early 1970s and particularly from the 1990s onwards spoken out against (among other things) the illicit trade in portable antiquities, the thought-provoking texts he has written on the subject and his activities to promote the development of legislation to regulate this problem. What for the conservation conscious among us would be laudable clearly makes collectors uncomfortable.

A few days ago what was meant (I think) to be a critique of Renfrew's ideas (entitled "Problems with Renfrew") was going the rounds of collectors' forums and was even cross-posted on two archaeology forums. It was signed by Professor T.V. Buttrey from the Coin Department of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. It concentrates on a very narrow (coin-centred) interpretation of the context of Renfrew's position and that of the conservation lobby he represents. Although some collectors enthusiastically received it, the text was largely disregarded, mainly one suspects because of its character. A colleague has characterised it as "most offensive and unnecessary too, and possibly libellous". I agree. One gets the impression that this text reflects some Cambridge infighting and academic cattiness and personal jealousies rather than being a fair discussion of the views which Renfrew espouses. Certainly it contains a number of factual errors.

Californian coin dealing: the British Connection

Earlier here I posted some perfectly reasonable queries that arose when reading what pro-collecting activist Dave Welsh was saying about his own business practices which he was holding up as an exemplar of ethical trading. He seems however not to have appreciated his firm, ‘Classical Coins’ of Goleta California being examined in this way. In a post entitled “Barford Attacks Unidroit-L Listowner's Ethics” he complains
I should add that the tone of Mr. Barford's blog post is gratuitously insulting, and that not only in my opinion, but also in that of an attorney experienced in cultural property law, his remarks are skating on the very edge of defamation.

Anyone who has followed these discussions will be aware that Mr Welsh and his fellow ACCG officers are no strangers to the use of insulting language referring to conservationists in the archaeological milieu. There is of course nothing “gratuitously insulting” in pointing out contradictory statements in information Mr Welsh disseminates about his own firm in presenting it as an exemplar how other similar businesses should be operating. In response to his answer and its somewhat aggressive tone therefore, I would like to expand on why I am still puzzled by what Mr Welsh asserts, and invite him to avail himself of the ability to post a comment here to clarify the situation. There are three main matters involved and for clarity I want to treat them in three separate and successive posts.

The first issue concerns three conflicting statements about purchase of artefacts in Britain. Mr Welsh has at many times expressed the opinion that Britain has the wisest and most fair antiquities legislation in the world. It is therefore perfectly valid to ask what experience Mr Welsh actually has with this system. In his reply to the questions I raised here, he now asserts:

The only items I have acquired that are known to have originated in Britain are antiquarian books and antique furniture, which if more than 100 years old are subject to export control under the provisions of UNESCO 1970. These however did not fall under
that classification

I suspect that Mr Welsh is becoming confused; the 1970 UNESCO Convention has NOTHING to do with this. What is important is UK and EU export licencing requirements.

Let us have a look at the wider context of the first quote I cited the other day. It was (as the reader can check for themselves) part of an ongoing discussion about export licences for antiquities in general:

"The question is, whether once British subjects or concerns get
title to an ancient coin, are they then free to sell it to me without having to get an export license? I believe that they are. I have never received an export license with any of the items shipped to me from the UK. Can you help to clarify this, seeing that there is apparently some confusion?" [my emphasis]

The context indicates that the word “items” here clearly does not refer to “antiquarian books and antique furniture”. In the second quote I cited here, the topic of discussion was “doing the right thing” (and the context in the thread was a discussion of following the advice of the Portable Antiquities Scheme about the purchase of artefacts. In answering an earlier point Welsh wrote:

Conducting my business is also "doing the right thing." I'm an
ethical dealer, and have never acquired an antiquity from the UK that was not provenanced.

Again, “antiquity” and not “antiquarian books and antique furniture” and they are all provenanced (how do you provenance second hand books and old chairs?). But then a day later he said:

I have never acquired an artifact in Britain, and do not ever expect to do so.

There is nothing “gratuitously insulting” in pointing out that these three statements as written are in total conflict with each other. It does not seem unduly churlish to ask the reason why this should be when Mr Welsh has been setting his own business practice out as an exemplar.

On his own Unidroit-L site Mr Welsh comments “I believe I have every right to defend myself and the collectors I serve on archaeology lists.” Perhaps the collectors Mr Welsh “serves” and archaeologists will note that instead of an explanation of the first three mutually exclusive, only a fourth was proffered which conflicts with them even more.

I ask again, Do any of the coins Classical Coins has had in stock come from provenanced British finds or not?. (Mr Welsh is perfectly welcome to post a comment here explaining these discrepancies if he can manage to stay on topic and not use abusive and insulting language).

Ethics codes and their application by dealers

The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild has postulated that the codes of conduct of museum professionals and archaeologists “ought to include certain issues like conservation, publishing responsibilities, respect for private ownership and public access”, and they announce that they will be communicating these concerns “to the appropriate organizations or associations in the form of an ACCG petition for consideration”. They seem to be unaware of the fact that the codes of conduct/practice/ethics of a number of archaeological bodies already include these elements.

More interesting from our point of view is that this body, a self-appointed spokesman for the entire international http://www.accg.us/ (it would seem) milieu of ancient coin collectors has proposed its own Code of Ethics for Collectors and Sellers of ancient coins.

It is interesting to note that this was adopted, not as a result of wide consultation in the collecting and cultural heritage protection world, but as the result of a “formal meeting of the Board of Directors at New York, NY on January 15, 2005”. The majority of the officers of the ACCG are dealers, so it is not surprising that this uniform “Code of Ethics for Collectors and Sellers of ancient coins” concentrates mainly on the selling of coins.

Somewhat conventionally the second principle states “Coin Collectors and Sellers will protect, preserve and share knowledge about coins in their collections”, though it would seem it was not thought advisable to add to this Code that information on provenance is an extremely important element of the “knowledge” about archaeological finds (as ancient coins are) which also should be preserved by sellers and collectors of this type of material.

The last three of the five principles refer to the ethics of selling coins “Coin Sellers will not knowingly sell modern forgeries of ancient coins, and all ancient counterfeits or Renaissance type copies will be clearly identified as such”, “Coin Sellers will disclose all known defects, including tooling, re-engraving or reconstruction of coins they sell.”, “Coin Sellers will not misrepresent the value of coins they buy or sell.”

From our point of view however the first principle of this code of ethics is completely inadequate, as has previously pointed out by David Gill. It states

“Coin Collectors and Sellers will not knowingly purchase
coins illegally removed from scheduled archaeological sites or stolen from museum or personal collections, and will comply with all cultural property laws of their own country.”

In the same vein the ACCG advises collectors that the way to help protect archaeological sites from looting is for collectors “refusing to purchase any coin known to be removed from a scheduled archaeological site or stolen from a private or public collection and by complying with all cultural property laws in their own country.” It is not however stated how this is to be achieved, it is unlikely that any dealer selling such items or in contravention of domestic would be openly advertising that fact.
We note the wording “knowingly purchase”, this is a far different matter from “will take steps to ensure” (which actually involves asking the vendor to demonstrate the licit origin of the portable antiquities on offer). The same goes for the manner in which the ethical collector will ensure that a coin has come from an old collection because its owner has passed it on willingly or whether it was stolen. As for where the coins ultimately come from, the problem is not whether any archaeological site which has been riddled with holes to extract collectables for foreign markets is scheduled or not (or even known to the authorities), it is whether the irreversible extraction of archaeological evidence from it was recorded or not. Obviously most collectors will feel they are helping to prevent culture-crime by buying coins but not asking where they came from, that way they are not "knowingly" buying looted or stolen material.

The clause “will comply with all cultural property laws of their own country” would be laughable if we did not know that this is actually the self-justification some portable antiquity collectors actually do apply to what they do. “No law was broken in my country” they say and the antiquities protection laws of the countries where this stuff comes from are "unwise” and “unjust” and therefore there is not only no legal obligation to respect them, but (these people claim) neither is there any sort of ethical conflict in not doing so, nor in financing those who deliberately break the law of their own country because there are foreign buyers greedy for the products. This rather reduces the value of the ACCG document as a code of “ethics”. This is merely the “its legal innit?” argument taken to extremes.

More important however than what the wording of a code of ethics says, is how its principles are reflected in action. In particular by dealers who at the same time set themselves up as authorities speaking for the whole collecting community. Californian coin dealer Dave Welsh, an ACCG officer and pro-collecting activist has obligingly supplied some information on this in reply to my queries about the manner of determination of the actual origins of some of the unprovenanced items on offer by his own firm (Classical coins) Yesterday he was assuring British archaeologists that in his own business practices

I take all available measures to avoid anything illicit. No one could possibly carry on my business with more attention paid to ensuring that only trustworthy sources are dealt with.

Mr Welsh therefore holds out Classical Coins as a real paragon of virtue. So it is with great interest that we learn of the methods applied to prevent illicitly obtained archaeological material being among that offered by this firm. In one case he tells us that a group of Parthian coins:

were received from a Spanish dealer who is among my trusted sources. Spain is not a path through which illicit coins are known to flow to the market, and there was considerable commerce in antiquity between Spain and areas where Parthian coins circulated.

Is this unnamed dealer trusted mainly because he is Spanish and “Spain is not a path through which illicit coins are known to flow to the market”? Is that enough to make this dealer a “trusted source"or was any other verification of what he has on offer applied? Especially important when (as in this case) the coins concerned were not of Spanish but of Parthian origin, and so of types in circulation in the region of modern Iran, Azerbaijan, Iraq and Afghanistan and neighbouring countries, countries where looting of archaeological sites is rife.

My questions in another case which I discussed, coins apparently coming from the Balkans and adjacent areas (another region where archaeological sites are notoriously targeted by looters on a massive scale), was dismissed with the words:

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

The unnamed dealer from which these were bought has been in operation over a longish period, has a “good reputation” (for what?) and furthermore operates in a country where Mr Welsh believes the customs service rigorously enforces the export restrictions of other countries (really?)

In neither of these cases is it stated to which of the several numismatic trade codes of ethics/conduct these unnamed dealers subscribe, nor what assurances had been sought and received in addition to the (rather weak) justifications for “trusting’ these sources offered in the pro-collector advocate's description of his own business practices .

Is this typical of what is happening? Mr Welsh claims that nobody else could carry out this business with more attention paid to the sources of the objects he deals in, and yet what he describes seems to me to be barely sufficient - in fact, insufficient. This raises very real questions about how dealers in portable antiquities actually do ascertain that the goods they buy and sell have not come from the looting of archaeological sites in the source countries and illicitly exported from that country. If they cannot actually show - even when they are trying so hard as Mr Welsh seems to be - that they are able to ascertain that, how can they claim that they uphold any sort of ethics at all? There is a difference between legality and ethics.

Ethical dealing: The cock crowed thrice

One of the potential dangers in being a vociferous opponent of cultural preservation measures and at the same time running a business selling antiquities must be that it increases scrutiny of the business practices of one’s firm. Californian “professional numismatist” and vociferous pro-collecting activist Dave Welsh, the proprietor of Classical Coins for example seems unclear where some of his goods actually come from.

For example he is cagey about what he has bought in Great Britain. He candidly admitted in November 2007 on his own Unidroit-L discussion list:

I have never received an export license with any of the items shipped to me from the UK.

and subsequent discussion on that list indicated that he was not the only US portable antiquities dealer that was unaware of the circumstances under which a UK export licence was needed for coins and other antiquities. This incident was discussed in Heritage Action’s online journal.

A few days ago when discussing what the recommendations of Britain’s Portable Antiquities Scheme on buying antiquities would mean for a collector of portable antiquities, Mr Welsh expounded:

I'm an ethical dealer, and have never acquired an antiquity from the UK that was not provenanced

So no export licenses, but the proprietor of Classical Coins assures archaeologists that the only portable antiquities from the UK which he handles are provenanced. In the light of these, at first sight, unambiguous statements, it is curious to learn just a day later:

I do not make artifact purchases in Britain. I have never acquired an artifact in Britain, and do not ever expect to do so

I think all past, present and potential clients would be interested to learn the relationship between these three apparently conflicting statements and the assurances of the proprietor of Classical Coins about the origins of his stock in general. Do any of the coins he has had in stock come from provenanced British finds or not?

Professor Elizabeth Stone’s analysis (published in Antiquity with a summary here) of of satellite imagery of the holes dug in Iraqi archaeological sites since the weakening of controls due to political instability introduced by UN sanctions in the 1990s has shown that some sites there were being targeted in all probability for Parthian and later coins. These coins are also sought by artefact hunters in neighbouring Iran and Afghanistan, and again the looting in the latter has not abated since the recent US-led invasion. Artefacts from the latter region are now appearing on eBay and attempts to stem the flow by introducing new legislation were strenuously fought by the US antiqity dealer lobby (including the ACG). In the light of this it is interesting to note that Classical Coins has among its "new listings" a group of 17 coins of the relatively short reign of Orodes II (57 to 38 BC) they are all in a similar state of preservation, have the same reddish brown surface deposits which suggests that they might have been found together – but where and when? Although Welsh states where he got his other “new listings” from ("ex Dr A. W. Potts collection”, presumably that sold by Freeman and Sear Feb 2007), the origins, neither general nor specific, of these new Parthian items is not even hinted at. Since no provenance is cited, how does Mr Welsh and more importantly the clients of Classical Coins, know these do not come from recent looting of archaeological sites in Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan? Mr Welsh has many other similar coins here, again no hint of where they came from and how they got into his shop.

The same goes for Classical Coins’ "specials", job lots of Roman provincial “coins that we were able to acquire in quantity and can offer to the collector at particularly attractive prices”. From whom were they “acquired in quantity”, and where did they originate? They seem not to be metal detector finds from legitimate searching in Great Britain, some of them are stated to be “Roman provincial bronze coins from Thrace and lower Moesia” (ie the area of modern Bulgaria), some are specifically noted as having been struck at Thessalonica and Siscia. Many different dates and coin types in various states are involved, and these coins have the appearance of being the pickings of accumulations from metal detector use on many different archaeological sites and findspots across a region. The looting of archaeological sites in the Balkans and along the limes to produce relics and coins which are then sold on illegal domestic markets and smuggled out to foreign ones is a severe problem. Here organized crime is known to be deeply involved in this trade (for example, see the fifth chapter of a recent report on Organized Crime in Bulgaria which Nathan Elkins draws attention to). Again in offering these artefacts for sale, the Classical Coins website gives no indication of where these coins came from and how they reached California. How is the client to know what they are buying and into whose pockets Mr Welsh's dollars were ultimately ending up to get them?

These are of course questions that could be posed to other dealers selling this kind of material. There are many dealerships like Classical Coins (over 200 in the US alone) and serving 50 000 US collectors of ancient coins who seem could not care less where the coins are coming from as long - it would seem - as they have a ready supply of them at prices they can afford. But what price is the archaeological record of the 'source countries' paying?

REFERENCES
Shentov, O., Todorov, B. and Stoyanov, A. 2007, 'Organized Crime in Bulgaria: Markets and Trends', Sofia, Center for the Study of Democracy (this thought-provoking report figures the antiquities trade alongside trade in drugs, prostitution and human trafficking, and vehicle thefts).

Elizabeth C. Stone 2008, "Patterns of looting in southern Iraq", Antiquity, Vol. 82, No. 315, 125–38.

More (and more) "Radical Archaeology"

The end of the ACCG „benefit Auction” (more about this later) was trumpeted today as „ ACCG Raises $45,000 to fund the Struggle Against Radical Archaeologists” which is no doubt news to all those people whose collecting activities are an expression of an "interest in the past” and who thought they were bidding to raise money to fight the US government’s restrictions on import of undocumented archaeological artefacts from heavily-looted Cyprus. The ACCG have even gone so far as to post this “good news” on the CBA’s Britarch archaeology discussion forum, perhaps seeking approval, perhaps hoping to stir controversy, who knows?

There may however be a communication problem unforeseen by these non-archaeological transatlantic pieces-of-the-past consumers. In Great Britain, we already have a Radical Archaeology, and it's not an archaeology which is (as the portable antiquity collecting lobby loudly accuse) the so-called “Culture Property Nationalist” or “Retentionist” type (see David Gill’s Looting Matters post on their use of the term). The REAL Radical archaeology in quite the opposite.

I am sure we all wish that portable antiquity collectors would do a little research and thinking before they make their wild claims and try to attach labels to what they quite clearly have no understanding.


Illustration: From Archaeology Channel's Radical Archaeology Television Parody (yet another meaning of the term "radical archaeology")

Discussing the International Antiquities Trade, the British Way

This is a follow up to an earlier post here about discussions or rather the attempted avoidance of discussions about collection of potable antiquities on the Council for British Archaeology’s discussion forum, Britarch .

Ten days on, Dave Welsh is still trying to persuade British archaeologists there of what is what. They are mostly ignoring both him and sidekick (antiquity collector from Canada) John Hooker, from time to time interjecting with carefully-worded brief comments or reproaches. Welsh is noticeably attempting to play to the gallery by singling out for criticism one participant in the debate over portable antiquities collecting and trade in every second of a long series of posts, usually preceded by words such as “extremist”. Emboldened by the fact that nobody objected, and one “metal detectorist” agreed to the use of the term, he has now issued them a direct challenge:

I would like to invite listreaders other than extremists such as Paul Barford, to present reasons why his remarks and those of similar extremists should be taken seriously.

These "remarks" of course refer to things like:
1) the international trade of portable antiquities,
2) the effects of wholesale unregulated digging on a near global scale of the archaeological record as a source of collectables for entertainment and profit,
3) the movement of illegally excavated and exported material (and the efforts of the pro-collecting lobby to justify ignoring such “bothersome” formalities as documenting the origin of the items which are traded in this lucrative and ambiguous market).

The conservation-minded reader can decide for themselves whether it is indeed “extremist” to express concern about and desire to see a change in the current situation.

Welsh has made the job of starting (or avoiding) such a discussion easier for them by issuing statements in the same challenge such as:

Arguments which in effect assert that site specific contextual information is all important frequently tend to conflict with modern views of the importance of learning from the past

and that such attitudes lead to disastrous results:

Perhaps the preventable (and in many cases horrible) deaths of many millions of people should receive at least some weight in current archaeological opinion.” (sic).

Well, let us see what the inherently portable antiquity collector-friendly British archaeological community on the CBA's discussion forum make of this. Will they stand up to the challenges of the portable antiquity dealer and argue in support the notion of the conservation of the archaeological resource in the face of widespread commercial exploitation for the collectables market? Or perhaps they will collapse in the face of the enthusiasm with which he expounds the collectors’ point-of-view that to question the status quo from conservation grounds is in some way not only "non politically correct " or "elitist" but actually "extremist" and refuse to be seen to be associated with such ideals? Will they settle for further “compromise” with commercial exploitation (on the grounds that artefact collecting of the type advocated by Mr Welsh is in some way really “archaeology for all”)? Or will they turn a deaf ear and pretend they did not hear the question and ignore him in discrete (or embarrassed) silence?

Watch this space.

Is Looting of archaeological sites the 'fault of archaeologists'?

.

In a famous reply to comments by Ricardo Elia, Colin Renfrew (1993) formulated the notion that “Collectors are the real looters” . By this he means that the international trade in illicitly obtained and illegally exported archeological artifacts is supported and maintained by demand from collectors that purchase such artifacts without regard for, or even enquiring into, the manner in which they were acquired and reached the market. Collectors of course deny strenuously that this is the case. I have to admit that the logic of their arguments totally escapes me. A piece of a Nok terracotta only becomes worth digging up under the hot Nigerian sun if there is somebody in the region eager to pay the “subsistence digger” money to pass it on to the international market. A cuneiform tablet is just a lump of clay to a middle eastern peasant, but can be turned into cash if they can find a purchaser. It only becomes worth venturing into the Cambodian jungle with a hammer and chisel and a big bag to visit the overgrown temple if there is a man who will buy all the little heads of smiling Buddha which have been ‘harvested’ to end up in western galleries at extortionate prices (Brodie 1998).

In retaliation for conservationists pointing out this obvious and uncomfortable truth, collectors are trying to reapportion the blame. Three of the most commonly used ploys have been rehearsed recently on archaeological forums in the English-speaking world.

1) “If you give us the stuff we want we’ll stop buying dodgy items”. In this model, the portable antiquity collector asserts that the dog-in-a-manger archaeological “elitists” trying to spoil their fun have hidden away plenty of “redundant” collectables which they should release on the market to create a regulated market.

Doing that requires more than collectors and the trade can do by themselves. A cooperative effort involving archaeologists, academics and governments is needed. […] Why won't archaeologists take an interest in establishing a regulated licit numismatic market? That would do more to eliminate looting than you could imagine.” (Dave Welsh

In an earlier post we are told:

If it were feasible to establish internationally controlled antiquities auctions, in which objects (whether surplus to museums, or recently found by archaeologists and others) would be sold with provenance after they had been duly examined and recorded, that the illegal trade in unprovenanced antiquities would be greatly diminished.” (Dave Welsh)

And:

There are many millions of redundant, unstudied antiquities in storerooms that no one has any real interest in, nor seems to have any idea what to do with. […]The motive for archaeologists to agree to such cooperation is to understand human social dynamics clearly enough to realize that this is the ONLY possible approach that can actually bring looting of archaeological sites under control. Provenance/provenience will command a sufficient economic premium in a regulated licit market to make cooperating with the authorities the only economically rational choice for those who discover antiquities. That motive will even cause those who presently loot sites to start policing them so that they can be reserved for cooperative licit excavation, if something like the Treasure Act/PAS scheme can be adopted in source states such as Iraq. (Dave Welsh)

The basic message then is that “archaeologists must agree to this, there is no alternative”. [The rather odd idea for a PAS-clone in Iraq is worthy of discussion in its own right....].

2) “If you don’t guard the sites properly, stuff will be stolen”. In this model, the portable antiquity collector asserts that archaeologists and conservationists are simply not doing enough to keep illegal diggers off sites in most of the source countries. It is this lack of site guards (presumably like the Antiquities Police of Egypt or the guards which were present in Iraq prior to 1990) which is the cause of the looting.

The looting of sites should be treated not through laws, but through proper security measures. Would you leave money lying around unattended and rely on laws to prevent it being stolen? It is irresponsible to expose a site without providing a guard and/or security systems to protect it. If money is not dedicated to that, or volunteers employed, then it should remain undug. There is the technology to provide proper protection for even very large sites”. (John Hooker)

And:

The only solution to the looting problem is better methods in the countries where this is happening, and that can never be a total solution. All it can possibly do is to lessen the instances of it back to pre 1970 levels, or perhaps a little better than that”. (John Hooker)

Or:

I simply do not know how many times I must repeat myself that unless the governments of the source countries take some harsh measures to guard every one of their archaeological sites, the illegal digging will go on forever and you and people like you CANNOT do anything about it”. (Farhad Assar)

It is a good job that we have not reached such a desperate situation as to need to post armed guards to defend every environmental resource we value, in the bluebell woods, nature reserves and wild places. We only need them to keep poachers out of game reserves. What does that say about the antiquities market?

3) “Archaeologists must sort out foreign social problems to curb looting”. Then we have those who say looting will take place as long as there is poverty in the world. If the portable antiquity collectors do not buy these things and give them a good home, they will be “sold for scrap” and “turned into tourist trinkets”. [While this argument may apply to metal (uncorroded copper alloys, lead, silver and gold) it does not apply to Nok terracottas, Southeast Asian Buddha heads and sculpture fragments, or cuneiform tablets]. Anyhow, the adherents of this line of argument are clear, the archaeologist concerned with the circulation of illicitly excavated archaeological material in the markets of the developed countries must deal with all the other social problems in the region.

If you genuinely care about the ancient heritage of people in poor and/or developing countries […], then please begin educating those people properly, not by dumping on them your unwanted rubbish, but through the opportunities you create for them to get the same level of education you, yourself, received. Then, and only then, they may begin to think that there is some sense in saving their ancient dog- or cat-bones, coins, vases, jewellery, bronze sculptures, palaces, etc. In other words, find the root causes of the irreversible damage to the archaeological sites all over the world, including the effects of illicit and clandestine digging, and do not put the blame for what is going on in this respect at the doors of coin collectors and dealers alone. (Farhad Assar)

And:

If the advocates of protecting the historical assets of all nations are sincere about their good intentions, they must begin by educating the poor and providing for the needy in those countries in order to encourage them to appreciate and protect their cultural heritage. Then, private collecting and dealing will begin to slow down, become unprofitable, and eventually die out. (Farhad Assar)

I suspect these collectors pride themselves that by buying artefacts dug out of foreign sites they are doing their little bit to solve the problems of world poverty (but see Brodie 1998), as well as giving the displaced artefacts a "good home". Nevertheless I agree that an important approach is education of local populations persuading them that their cultural heritage has a value and is worthy of their attention and care. Mind you, what in that situation they will then think of all those that took advantage of them now and took lots of it away for their own foreign collections may only be imagined.

These three arguments have a common theme, its not the collectors’ fault that there is a market for antiquities, they claim that there is nothing they or anyone except the archaeologist or governments can do to stop it. If the archaeologist or foreign government will not adopt what collectors like the ones cited above insist is the “obvious” solution, then it is not the fault of the collector that no progress can be made with the destruction of the archaeological heritage by exploitation as a source of collectables for various people's entertainment and profit. It seems to me however that there is some rather obvious special pleading going on here.

References
Brodie Neil 1998, 'Pity the poor middlemen' Culture Without Context, Issue 3, Autumn 1998.

Renfrew, Colin 1993 Collectors are the real looters. Archaeology 46(3):16-17

Notes from Britarch: Coins are not archaeological finds because...

For the reason mentioned in my previous post, I did not feel comfortable to reply this afternoon to a post made by Dave Welsh on Britarch, the Council for British Archaeology's academic discussion forum presenting for discussion by British archaeologists of the definition on which the ACCG seems to be basing its curious assertion that ancient coins are not archaeological finds (and which will perhaps in part form the basis of their case against the Cyprus coin restrictions). Dave Welsh writes:

Archaeological finds are objects which have been buried, or concealed in subterranean locations or ancient structures. The origin of nearly all ancient coins being unknown, to classify them as "archaeological finds" is clearly presumptuous.

He adds in explanation that

Large numbers of ancient coins were never buried at all, but were kept in treasures until they eventually found their way into collections, for example the vast store of Byzantine coins [originally paid in as tribute to the Sultan] held by the Ottoman treasury until the twentieth century. Roman coins were still circulating in Europe during the eighteenth century. Finally, there are large numbers of ancient coins in the souks and bazaars of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia, where they havebeen traded by money-changers since time immemorial. These coins are in demand for various uses including being sewn into tribal wedding garments".

Well, there we have it, straight from the expert's mouth, though Mr Welsh admitted that (unlike most members of the forum he was addressing), he had not actually dug up any ancient coins himself and his information on where they come from was largely second-hand. Anyway, according to the coin dealer, coins on the market are "not archaeological finds" because we don't know where they were found once they appear there by mysterious and undocumented means. Also many ancient coins were according to coin dealer Welsh simply never buried at all. Have a look in your pocket change, you might find one. It is a shame that the call for the discussion to be brought to a close prevented British archaeologists from discussing this strange idea.

To suggest that “coins are not archaeological finds” of course implies a denial of the right of the US State Department to include them on lists of restricted goods if a nation requests the US to restrict the import of “archaeological finds” in general. This argument has taken so many strange turns recently that its's not beyond the bounds of possibility to imagine we might see the lawyer for the ACCG case stating in court, "Your Honor, this definition was posted on the Council for British Archaeology's website and most of the 1440 British archaeologists there did not contest it, so it must be a true statement of archaeological opinion". Yeah right.

Let's take a look at this definition. Welsh states that “archaeological finds are objects which have been buried, or concealed in subterranean locations or ancient structures”. He uses the phrase “have been buried” (and not “have become buried”) which would tend to suggest that he thinks the only category of items qualified to be considered the subject of archaeological enquiry are those deliberately hidden (the relationship between this and old Treasure Trove law is obvious).

Indeed, there seems to be a conviction among US coin collectors that the fresh coins they collect come mainly from hoards, though one collector adds grave robbing to this. The lawyer Peter Tompa (1998: 73-75; Tompa and Brose 2005: 205, 207-210) claims that the exploitation of such hoards need not be a matter of concern for they are found in the middle of empty fields, well away from any archaeological sites. There is a piece of collectors' folklore that they were buried by Roman soldiers before battles.

These collectors completely ignore the fact that many hoards and groups of ancient coins are indeed to be found within settlements where they were used, deposited, left and lost. Welsh claims though that coin collectors cannot be held responsible for the destruction of ancient sites by metal detector users and other artefact hunters because collectors would allegedly not even want coins coming from settlement losses because finds from settlements are unsuitable due to their “low denominations and very poor condition” This however does not seem to deter many US collectors who buy uncleaned Roman coins precisely of such a character .

There also seems to be considerable misunderstanding in coin-collecting circles in the US over the “90% of finds” that the records of the Portable Antiquities Scheme show are coming from ploughed fields. Many portable antiquity collectors in the US seem not to understand that archaeological finds come from fields because archaeological material is in those fields because in the past (before they became fields in the modern landscape) they were the site of human activity. It is that activity (whether or not it comes from particular surface patterns of finds that we would label ‘sites’) which is the focus of archaeological enquiry. US collectors claim that Roger Bland told them of this on each of his three ACCG-sponsored trips to the USA presenting the Portable Antiquities Scheme as a model which (apparently) could be with benefit adopted elsewhere.

In reality in the 'source countries' of the classical world, ancient coins are commonly found on archaeological sites of all types, and as casual losses in areas between them. They are as much archaeological finds as potsherds, post-consumption animal remains, roofing tile fragments, glass shards, iron slag, burnt daub, wall plaster and a couple of dozen other categories of object types which are commonly found on ancient sites. From an archaeological point of view, it is utterly pointless for ancient coin collectors and dealers to try to pretend otherwise. Their special pleadings have noting to do with scholarship and actual knowledge of where coins are actually found, but are clearly dictated by entirely commercial motives.

References:
Tompa, P.K. 1998. "Ancient Coins as Cultural Property: A Cause for Concern?" Journal of International Legal Studies 4.1: 69-104.

Tompa, P.K. and A.M. Brose. 2005. "A Modern Challenge to an Age-Old Pursuit: Can Cultural Patrimony Claims and Coin Collecting Coexist?" in K.F. Gibbon, ed., Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law. New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press: 205-216.

Tiberias coins and Collectors' Numismadogma

As part of the ideological battle to protect their commercial interest, a group of coin dealers and collectors, for the most part based in the US, are attempting desperately to persuade the public and lawmakers of the truth of a number of dogmas which have been developed as protective mantras, defending the noble and venerable “science” (sic) of amateur numismatics from attacks by those good-for-nothing conservationists and archaeologists. In the course of following the antiquity collecting debate the same ones keep cropping up again and again.

One of them (Numismadogma number one) is that ancient coins are not archaeological objects (and so therefore should not be included in measures intended to protect the archaeological record from erosion by artefact hunting to supply the antiquities market). These pro-collecting activists have armed themselves with a number of specious arguments which aim to prove “coins are not archaeological finds”. Most of them show a woeful disregard (for I suspect its not actually ignorance) of the facts concerning where coins are actually found in the “source countries”. Currently one of the dealer-activists is over on the British archaeological discussion list (Britarch run by the CBA) trying to lecture British archaeologists about how they allegedly “don’t know” where Roman coins are found in the soil of Great Britain, apparently they don’t come from archaeological sites at all, because “90% come from ploughed fields”. Yeah, right.

Another of their strategies is to try their hardest to claim some intellectual (and cultural and sometimes ethical) higher ground over archaeologists when coins are concerned. One of the ploys in which they do this is to belittle the understanding of archaeologists of any matters connected with ancient coins (and their ability to look after them). Archaeologists, allegedly know nothing about ancient coins, only a collector can do that. This seems a rather unfair and intentionally misleading generalization. A typical example of this mythmaking appeared a few days ago on the Moneta-L discussion list. Dawson Lewis a collector from South Dakota writes:

A few years ago there was a find of "Jesus" coins in Northern Israel. The archeologists who reported the finds talked about how rare the coins were and gave new light on Muslim and Christian relations. In reality they were gold Byzantine solidi minted in the early 1000's. That archeologist needed some
collectors to help them.

This seems an odd story, it is incomprehensible how an archaeologist working in Israel could be unable to identify such a coin. Barely believable in fact. So I decided to try to look into these sad allegations of artefactological ignorance. As far as I can find out from colleagues working in the area, there were no “gold Byzantine solidi”(sic) minted in the early 11th century found in northern Israel in the period mentioned. There was however some newspaper coverage of finds made by Byzantine specialist Prof. Yizhar Hirschfeld in Tiberias. It would seem that these are the coins referred to. But these are anonymous folles, struck in copper alloy not "gold". We are clearly dealing with more of the mythmaking endemic in US amateur numismatic circles. I cannot see where there is a problem here in what Hirschfeld said and why he allegedly "needs a coin collector". Hirschfeld was a specialist in Byzantine archaeology and I think we can assume he well knew what these coins were (The predictable comments of a local government official seeing here an opportunity to market the tourist values of the area as a result of these finds should not be ascribed to the archaeologist.)

Lewis seems to think that it is an expression of ignorance that Hirschfeldt said they were “rare”, such coins are pretty common after all in coin dealer’s trays (many of them from illicitly exported metal detected finds from the Balkans). By the end of the tenth century the area where these coins were found had not been in Byzantine hands for a couple of centuries, and Byzantine coins of this date and type are indeed rare there. The presence of a group of 58 folles does indeed raise interesting questions about what they are doing there and the relations between Byzantium and the Islamic world. Mr Lewis seems merely to have had a problem accepting that these coins were found by an archaeologist rather than them entering the antiquities trade. As a result however of his muddled account of what had been found and what was said about them, many US amateur numismophilists will have found confirmation of the “archaeologists know nothing about coins” mantra. How many of them are bolstered by precisely such anecdotal evidence? Probably all of them.