Blog gathering information on Syrian looting

There is a blog which has been gathering some of the information about looting of archaeological sites up to now:  Syrien vor der Eskalation (August 2013)  Sonntag, 1. September 2013

Focus on Metal Detecting: Archaeology and Artefact Hunting

A simple question about their "partners", and a couple of British archaeologists lose their cool.... I was musing here yesterday about a brief exchange of comments on Twitter which I had not intended to return to, but I find out this morning that the conversation went on, and took a pretty astounding turn.

About eight yesterday evening one Mark Clifford ‏@MarkClifford86 [Project Officer at  Avoncroft Museum]  comments on te Twitter thread:  "to compare a metal detecting swoop on a site at night without permission to a professional excavation is laughable". What is laughable is I have no idea what the bloke is on about. It certainly is not me that is comparing "metal detecting" of any kind to an archaeological investigation. I've no idea what point he's making there and in relation to what, perhaps, if he's reading this he'd like to clarify in a comment.

Writing about the same time, Jack Hanson ‏@JackH235 14 h describes something as: "Shameful post - @PortantIssues you turn a clear and simple misreading of question into attack on professional integrity". I have to assume ("post") that it's the blog text he's addressing here. He suggests that there has been a misunderstanding and Mr Hedge misread one or other of my earlier tweeted questions, but I'm not sure which of the three attempts at clarification he had in mind. But, where for goodness' sake is there an "attack on professional integrity"? He goes on "Slamming @robhedge as jobsworth and clearly deliberate misspelling of name is petty, immature and unprofessional". It is indeed unprofessional of me that I did not notice that the colleague's name was "Hedge" and not "Hedges" as I now find that I inadvertently had written three times in my previous post - for which I apologise (and have now corrected the typo). It was not deliberate, it was a slip of the pen as it was the surname of my old boss in archaeology back in Essex. I admit that I should have checked what I wrote more carefully - but methinks Mr Hanson is overreacting a bit...

That aside, what I actually said was that British archaeologists (plural) tend not to want to discuss artefact hunters in public. This is because they work for councils, heritage bodies etc in Britain which all  have a policy of working with and not against artefact hunters. I've had so many private emails from UK archaeologists going back a decade and a half, one after the other saying that they support what I was saying in this or that forum (mostly they are from Britarch days), but they work for XYZ and if they added their voice to the discussion, it might cause trouble at work. Now, I do not know about Mr Hanson, but that is what I call a "jobsworth".*

Mr Hanson further urges me to  "Calm your ego" because all this is about is "from simple frustration of night-looting of a community excavation of which @robhedge values". I wonder whether he thinks I value the archaeological record any less than Mr Hedge.  I am certainly doing my best to draw attention to and provoke debate on the threats to it from policies on artefact hunting and the antiquities trade (with little help from many of my British colleagues). That's what this blog is all about, in case you'd not noticed. 

We seem to have got right off the original topic. I was trying to make a wider point on the basis of another statement in which archaeologist Mr Hedge was distancing himself from criticising artefact hunting in general, and it was this I was trying to talk about. There seems to me to be in British archaeology in general, not just Worcestershire, some exceedingly woolly thinking about artefact hunting and collecting. I was trying, ultimately unsuccessfully, to use the social media comment on it to explore that a bit. 

Mr Hedge himself admits he was a "bit taken aback" by my comments and once again goes on about his site's fence. That was not the point, the point was his distancing himself from criticism of artefact hunting - nothing whatsoever to do with fences. He says "I realise this is an emotive issue for many but personal attacks and jumping to conclusions aren't helpful". 

In reply to the latter point first, think when one asks a question, and gets an answer which seems to relate to something you'd not actually asked about (the comments on the PAS, detectors are tools etc), it's not me that was "jumping to conclusions". If the other party goes off on a tangent and discusses a side issue rather than addressing the point made, it rather invites one to speculate why that might be (let us note that this inability to focus on the core issues is endemic in the so-called "metal detector debate").

Secondly, I really see nothing there that anyone with skin of a normal thickness would class as a "personal attack", maybe Mr Hedge would like to clarify where he feels actually attacked by somebody trying to ascertain his opinion on the archaeological effects of artefact hunting.

Thirdly, I also really do not see why it should be any more an "emotive" topic for archaeologists to discuss the archaeological effects of artefact hunting among themselves any more than the archaeological effects of spending cuts, the destruction of the waterlogged archaeological record in wetlands through drainage/land improvement schemes, or policies towards plough destruction. There is surely no difference.  

Finally (?) yesterday evening  Rob Hedge ‏@robhedge assures his readers:  

On issues raised by @portantissues post, I'm happy to address them via email if he can refrain from calling me 'witless' or a 'jobsworth'.

NOWHERE in the blog article ("post") was Mr Hedge referred to as "witless"**  nor is he himself called a "jobsworth". However, in order to enable him to, if he wishes, clarify his position on artefact hunting (not fences), I've deleted that adjective [referring there to British archaeologists generally who do not like talking about this] from my previous post. Now there is nothing to stop him telling us exactly what he, as an archaeologist, feels about artefact hunting removing items from archaeological sites and assemblages. 

But - in relation to the comments I made, and to which he takes such great exception and obviously takes personally, why does he indicate he prefers to answer offline in a private email (where, obviously,  nobody else can see what he writes)?  The comments I made were made here on my blog. This blog has a perfectly accessible comments section (look down the bottom of this text) which a number of people have used to tell me that I am wrong, and why and some to express support, or ask further questions. I really do not see why Mr Hedge feels unable to use it to address the "issues raised by @portantissues post". Let's keep any discussion in one place, and public. In any case I do not have his email address.

 

* I do not know if the "Historic Landscape Office at Worcs Archive and Archaeology Service" is free to say whatever he likes about local government landscape  policy in his area, he writes in his Twitter header  "All views are my own" which suggests he's willing to speak out about whatever's bothering him about this or that planned or ongoing council sponsored development. If so, good for him. Not everybody in British archaeology/heritage management makes so bold with their opinions on what their present and potential future employers and paymasters are up to.... [I'm in a privileged position here, in general, I do not have to worry about not upsetting HBMC, the BM or any of the others involved as they do not influence those who employ me over here].


**The only time this word was ever used on this blog, the search engine reveals, was in October 2010 to refer to certain North American coin collectors attacking allegedly "ignorant archaeologists". Mr Hedge can check that out for himself. 

Vignette: Indy gets angry at simple question ('How Archaeology Works')

Dodgy British Archaeology Dodging the Big Questions

Metal detectorist James says of artefact hunting: "we are all trying to add a positive contribution to our heritage, though our methods are different". He feels that grassroots conservation group Heritage Action is:

"rather negative in their in their opinions and have a somewhat closed mind as to what the majority of people "outside" the archaeological community have to offer. This is a mistake we humans tend to make, we see some bad practise and then paint everyone in that area with the same brush. Instead of us being in conflict, why can we not discuss this issue that stands between us? We can only move forward with discussion and education and above all cooperation between us, shouldn't we all have the right to connect to our heritage?" 

Hmm. So artefact hunting is not at all exploitive? Is not the extent of the bad practice the issue here, if its 10% o0f the activity, it's a different question from it being 80% or more isn't it? THAT is the question Heritage Action are posing. That's not "negative", it is an important question that we should all be asking (actually it's a question to which we should long ago have received an answer from fifteen-million-quid-and-rising PAS).

And yes, why, indeed can we NOT discuss this and other issues like any normal question? Finally, I absolutely agree that we should all have the right to connect to our heritage, though I cannot agree to that being the case when it is at the expense of killing and gutting it.

I asked: Paul Barford | September 2, 2013 at 5:58 am 

and did you get around to discussing “this issue that stands between us” with the archaeologists and conservationists in any detail? Where, please?  Artefact hunting and collecting happen in many corners of the world, can you give an indication how this is adding “a positive contribution to our heritage” in Egypt, Syria, Peru, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and NW Russia and everywhere else this is going on at the moment?  Thanks

James replies:

Personally, I don’t believe and have never said that irresponsible use and metal detecting theft here and in any other country is contributing to our heritage. In other articles I’ve written, I openly condemn this type of crime – for crime it is and it is wrong to colour true metal detectorist’s with this image.

So, it's legal innit? When artefact hunting takes place on a site in a forest in Russia its not contributing to culture in because the laws say it is wrong to damage sites in this way, but in a forest in Norfolk doing the same sort of damage is "contributing to culture" because its legal there? How so? Damage, surely, is damage. But is it always "responsible"? How do you define "responsible artefact hunting" in Egypt, or is artefact hunting only done responsibly in England? How would one actually define that these days?


As for the other points made, most metal detectorists do not find things like the Staffordshire hoard, and most of the finds they rip out of archaeological sites never end up in any museum, and a huge number do not even get seen by the PAS. How then are most metal detectorists therefore "contributing to culture"?

Condemning all people who metal detect as those who rob our heritage is like saying that if a criminal used a car as part of a crime, then all motorists are criminals. 

No, it's not, not unless 80% of the time when car drivers are out, they are driving around completely drunk, ignoring red lights and week after week knock over old ladies on pedestrian crossings. Then the 20% would have a hard time justify doing nothing and fighting those who say we need to clamp down on traffic offenders. And I would say that in such circumstances they would be utterly wrong to do so. Heritage Action suggest the problem with UK metal detecting is that bad (and I think they are right). Frankly I do not see the stereotypical justification connected with what Time Team does on TV, two wrongs never make a right. James says he "speaks for true and honest detectorist’s who love our history":

I cannot speak for the rest! 

But he is. He is pretending that the 20% is what we should be judging the hobby by, not the 80%.
Let there be no mistake, the "nighthawks" are not the only problem, it's the Grey detectorists who are. And do they "love history" any the less because they practice their hobby in a different way to James? I doubt they'd see it like that. James seems to want to set himself up as a member of some kind of an elite group which should receive some kind of special treatment, and that we should ignore the existence of the rest.

I do not think therefore that we are any nearer identifying  “this issue that stands between us”, are we?

Tweet Tweet: Debating Archaeology Policy in 140 characters

[NOTE 2nd September 2013:  After reading this, see the update here].

Following on from the artefact hunter looting at Kidderminster, readers might recall this bit:

Rob Hedge ‏@robhedge 24godz.  Don't want to tar all detectorists with the same brush, but this opportunistic looting of sites is damaging and very frustrating.

I decided to see what would happen if I challenged this view, artefact hunting is artefact hunting and in archaeological terms equally damaging (to the archaeology) whatever the time of day it is done :Paul Barford ‏@PortantIssues 17godz.  @robhedge So, there is GOOD artefact hunting and Bad Artefact Hunting then? In post-military-takeover EGYPT too? What's the difference between the two?

Long silence, then:

Rob Hedge ‏@robhedge 1 godz

@PortantIssues Whatever your views on suitability of UK law, there's a distinction between those acting lawfully & nocturnal looters of digs   [Rob Hedge ‏@robhedge 16 min  @PortantIssues In case the context was unclear, thieves broke into our compound at night with a detector and dug up a graveyard].

So, he missed the archaeological point.  Let's see how this goes down:

Paul Barford ‏@PortantIssues 1 godz

@robhedge So if they'd come onto that same site 3 years ago with the landowner's permission and taken the same stuff, it would be OK? Yes?

Silence for about an hour, then we get this:

Rob Hedge ‏@robhedge 1 min.

@PortantIssues N/A. This was in a churchyard. Rights/wrongs of PAS not the issue. Detector was a tool, like crowbar they used on our cabin.

Now I expect we could go on like that for hours. But then it's not my aim to browbeat my colleages, I'm over here wittering away in my own little corner of the Internet expressing my opinion, and if Mr Hedge wants to he can read it or ignore it. No skin off my nose.  He quite clearly is either missing or avoiding the point. It certainly is no answer to my question to say "not applicable" (see below where the question is clarified) and nobody even mentioned the "Portable Antiquities Scheme" (or metal detectors)! We were talking about artefact hunting. I asked whether if he claims there are "bad" artefact hunters (and he does not want to tar all tekkies with that brush) then it means he accepts that there are GOOD artefact hunters too. So far he's managed to say that the bad ones do things illegal, they go on his site and they metal detect in churchyards. So as long as they keep off archaeological stripped areas and out of churchyards, can we presume that archaeologist Mr Hedge has no other problems with artefact hunters? That was the point I was getting at.

Now in actual fact there is no law in Britain about metal detecting in churchyards, if they have the permission of the right authorities and promise not to dig too deep, then they can go ahead as long as its not a SAM or SSSI. So I am not sure about the relevance of that last comment.

I'll ask the last question again. If a bunch of artefact hunters (with metal detectors) got permission to hoik away at the artefacts of that particular churchyard three years before he began his research, would Mr Hedge now be quite happy to accept that they were "good detectorists" (because doing it legally), or would he recognize that the integrity of the assemblage of artefacts from the upper levels//layers of the site he is now investigating had been compromised?  Would things have been made better by all the collectable artefacts being given a (the same) six-figure NGR and a mention in the UKDFD database?

Now it just so happens that while this tweeting was going on, a member of Heritage Action took an active step, and went and visited Mr Hedge's site in Kidderminster. No guard, he reports. No fence either, he could walk right into the churchyard (the site Mr Hedge is investigating). Thus it was, just before that last message of Mr Hedge making his weak attempt to fend off leading questions, Heritage Action Chairman Nigel Swift had already been on the phone to me discussing the set of photos he'd just mailed me which very clearly show that the main detecting was done outside the excavated area. Some very clear examples of spade-dug artefact-hoik-holes. Just to be clear here, many (most of) the holes were reported to me as being outside the excavated area. So what's all this about tekkies "breaking in" to get at the site?  I'm not going to publish the photos (though I was told I could) as I know HA are going to do their own post on this later.

I would have liked however to have asked the excavator what his thoughts are on the rash of holes in the undisturbed grass next to his excavation. Is there any difference between holes dug in a site here (apart from the fact that he is now working there and its a churchyard) and holes in a site at - say - Hartlebury just down the road?

And we never did get the archaeologist's view on the relationship between artefact hunting in rural Worcestershire and rural Egypt.  Wriggle as he might, I really cannot see how he'd avoid saying that in archaeological terms, the effect is the same. Which is probably why he decided to deflect the question.

I do not expect he'll answer, few of them do, which is a shame. It is a shame that British [adjective deleted] archaeologists are in general simply not at all willing to entertain any detailed dissection of their attitudes about artefact hunting and collecting, when they would be quite willing to discuss their attitudes on a whole range of other topics (ethnicity/identity, agency, gender, queer theory etc etc.). This one topic tends to be avoided, or simply treated by mouthing the platitudes PAS disseminates among them (see above "the detector is just a tool" as if that solved anything when nobody was discussing metal detector use, but specifically artefact hunting). Another ploy used by British colleagues to avoid detailed discussion is to call artefact hunting "community archaeology" and then pretend that somebody who criticises policies on artefact hunting is in some way "against archaeology for all". That is just a crackpot argument  because quite clearly artefact hunting is not archaeology (ask the IfA).  Many British archaeologists are content to leave any discussion of the topic of artefact hunting and collecting up to the PAS (artefact hunters are their problem), but the PAS self-evidently has its own interests in presenting a certain set of pictures of the phenomenon at the expense of another, which is no substitute for a proper heritage debate.  

Syrian Conflict Antiquities Coming onto the European Market

Samarkeolog has a post today about the financing of the civil war in Syria by smuggling antiquities through Turkey. The sale of conflict antiquities is apparently is 'the route to easy money' which helps finance the conflict (based on: Boris Mabillard, 'Snapshot of a Syrian Smuggler: Arms, Antiquities and Jihad along Turkey’s Border,  Le temps, 2013-08-31). In the chaos, it is reported, "it has become impossible to do legal business in Syria if you are not part of an armed group", and in Turkey, there’s plenty of profit for traffickers large and small. 

It has even become impossible to do some illegal business in Syria if you are not part of an armed group. Beyond the local level, crime has been paramilitarised. In the beginning, ‘[m]ost of the weapons were sold by corrupt army officers’ but, ‘for the past six months, the jihadists [have taken] control of the traffic and imposed their laws’. ‘Small traffickers’ – independent traders who do not take sides in the conflict – ‘aren’t safe anymore.’

The article follows multi-commodity smuggler Ayham and his efforts to make a living - which includdes peddling antiquities ("[e]verybody does it [antiquities looting]‘, including ‘every katiba (military camp)").

Ayham sells looted antiquities from ancient Greek/Christian sites (or, according to an antiquities trader from Istanbul, ‘pale copies’ of Greek/Christian material). Whether or not his material is genuine, there is evidently a market for Syrian antiquities in Turkey (or, probably more precisely, a market for Syrian antiquities that reach the market through Turkey). And there is apparently little barrier to that trade: ‘Turkish customs officials… turn a blind eye on Syrian objects smuggled into their country’; hence, people now know that ‘smuggling antiquities [through Turkey] is the route to easy money’.

So, if this is so, it would seem that relatively large numbers of freshly-looted artefacts and coins from looted sites in Syria are coming onto the international market through Turkish middlemen and in this are involved major organized gangs which have links with those engaged in the senseless fighting and slaughter. These are blood antiquities of the first order. Next time you look at a dealer's site, V-coins for example and see dealers selling loads of objects which had, or could have had an origin in illicit digging in Syria, ask yourself why - if the objects are indeed as legitimate as they'd like you to believe - virtually none of them are sold with any kind of up-front indication that this can be shown to not be so. Why are the dealers not falling over themselves to demonstrate that they are NOT blood antiquities?

Of course a dealer might answer as one of the ACCG board of directors did to me two days ago in another matter "I will not consider complying [...]  until you have provided evidence that [this] contravenes the laws prevailing in the State of California and the United States of America". 'Falsus in unum, Falsus in omnibus'. Illegally obtained in one country, by that token illicitly transferred to another, but "OK to sell in California"? That seems to be the fundamental problem with the antiquities trade in general. A total lack of responsibility.  It is up to collectors to challenge this way of thinking and reject objects from dealers who cannot demonstrate that what they are offering is not only "they-cannot-touch-you-for-it-in-California"-legal, but wholly clean from the point of view of responsible and ethical dealings from start to finish.

In order to maintain the integrity of the market, surely any antiquity dealer who (because they've bought things without checking thoroughly where they came from and whether there is any documentation of licit origins and transfer of ownership), repeatedly cannot do that in the case of items in their stock, should be considered a cowboy and kicked out of the profession.  

Vignette: or don't collectors care at all?
 

Egypt: Stop the Heritage Drain

Facebook pages keep springing up to "save" this or that and it's difficult to keep up with them. Here's one (actually started back in February 2013) which has some good photos of missing objects and other heritage crime.

حوش اللى بيتسرق منك - Stop the Heritage Drain

Here's the blurb:

Help us save our shared heritage Over the last two years, Egypt has fallen into a state of increasing chaos. Theft and looting of the country’s heritage have been rampant. Adding insult to injury, the ministries of culture and antiquities, in a (miserable) attempt to pretend that “everything is fine” do not publicize the thefts in order not to scare off prospective tourists.. They don’t want the bad PR you see… As Egyptians, we think it’s a bit too late for that. Through this page, citizens all around Egypt will report on thefts and looting of heritage sites and monuments. We will also collect photographs of stolen antiquities. We urge friends of Egyptian heritage around the world not to let our heritage disappear in the private collections housed in basements of the filthy rich, or in museums with a relaxed conscience. Help us kill this despicable market of stolen antiquities. Do note that we are not asking right now for the repatriation of this or that. We are simply asking you to help us stop as many thefts as possible, to throw a wrench in the workings of the illegal antiquities market. Our stolen artifacts travel to *your* countries. Help us by sharing our photos. Share our page, help us protect the heritage of Egypt that is being ravaged by none other than human greed. 

I thought I'd share this message from its owners:

Looting is not just lawless Egyptians destroying their heritage. It is about a thriving antiquities market in the west. Had there been no demand, chances are there would have been no supply. Private collectors, museums, galleries are often willing to accept objects with dubious certification or no certification at all. The certification ideally proves that they were taken out of the country before modern bans on the export of antiquities from Egypt were put into place.  What you can do to help? Share all our photos, and share them often. Share our page with friends or colleagues who work in related fields, or with your local museums that have Egyptology collections.  And be wary of buying "antiquities" online. These usually have fake certificates, or are fakes themselves!

Focus on UK Metal Detecting Policy: "Staffordshire joke…"

As the 'arable' metal detecting season gets underway in the UK and archaeoloogical sites all over the country are subjected to a relentless wave of greedy hoiking of collectable items from them, grassroots conservation group Heritage Action once again expresses concern about the lack of any kind of protection for the field in which the iconic Staffordshire Hoard was found and which it is 100% certain more important archaeological information, vital for the proper interpretation of the assemblage, still lies buried (Staffordshire joke… 01/09/2013).

Apparently the The Heritage Lottery Fund is forking out £47,000 for some "wottalotta-stuff-we-got" publicity project rather than being used to protect what is left of the archaeological context of this nationally-important site.

By this means, British archaeology is reduced to the role of institutionally-sanctioned Treasure-hunting. British archaeology sanctions and even promotes (through entering a "partnership" with artefact hoikers a policy which leads to:

-  the virtually unmitigated depletion of the archaeological record,
- the location of sites of nationally important (because they are treated separately as 'Treasure') material and assemblages they have no resources to investigate properly. 
- It accumulates material which there are few resources to properly conserve, document, and analyse. 
- It accumulates a vast backlog of material which will never receive the full monographic publication it deserves. 

This is not archaeology, its a hoiking and fetishisation of shiny geegaws. It is fobbing off the public, who once had an interest in archaeology as a discipline, with a dumbed-down bread-and-circus artefact-centred gawp. As Heritage Action conclude:

Sad isn’t it?

Worse than that. We have to be very vigilant over here on the Mainland to make sure that insular aberration, 'the British Disease' does not spread. The PAS have a lot to answer for, but of course they will never actually admit that.