Not "Anti-collecting Demands" but Separating the Good Wheat from the Wasteful Tares, Sheep from the Goats

wheat and tares

I made a post here (Shopkeeper Evasion, Dead Pigs, Ancient Coins and Cowboys )  questioning a Californian dugup antiquities dealer's statement that "there is nothing wrong with selling antiquities which have no paperwork supporting the seller's claim that they are kosher". I say they cannot be so treated without that paperwork. Dealer Dave responds with his usual personal attacks, calling me an "archaeomaniac" with "Captain Archaeology anticollecting demands" because of that view. My comments on the matter are merely dismissed as  a "venting" of "overt and compulsive hatred for collectors and dealers".

The dealer is guilty here of generalization; like most people, I despise dodgy irresponsible antiquity dealers and superficial  antiquity collectors unwilling to take responsibility for what they and their fellows do -  and I see no reason to hold back on where I see such characteristics on open display.  Let others see for themselves what we are up against ion trying to get the antiquities market to clean up its act.

Basically it seems to me that it is the dealer who is expressing hatred for and despising his clients by refusing to address the point made in that post.  A dealer in a side of pork and all manner of other commodities should be able to supply  potential customers with documentation that the goods on offer have been procured in accordance with every possible precaution to serve the public interest - otherwise the seller is left with unsaleable material on his hands at best (and a trade inspector on his back at worst). Dealer Dave claims some special privilege for him and his fellow no-questions-asked ("ain't-got-no-paperwork-so-don't-ask" ) antiquities dealers, claiming "it should be understood that" the antiquities trade "cannot" work like that.

Dealer Dave attempts to mislead his readers in thinking that it is some kind of metal disease ("progressive psychological degeneration") to assert that the legitimate antiquities trade in portable antiquities of the twenty first century can indeed function like that.  Those corner-cutting cowboy traders who cannot manage it (Compare them with Charles Ede, Baron Lorne Thyssen-Bornemisza, and Rolf von Kiaer) are the black sheep which bring the antiquities trade onto disrepute and should be pushed out of  the legitimate trade.

The requirement of a documented collecting history is not an example of "anti-collecting demands" but a means for separating the good wheat from the wasteful tares in the antiquities market, a way of separating the virtuous sheep from the loudmouth bleating head-butting goats.

What You'll Find Inside a UK Metal Detector Dealer's Shop

Regton's sell metal detectors. They proudly show a 360 degree shot of the inside of their shop. Nigel Swift spotted this on the wall.

This can be seen as a quick prompt how to find somewhere to test out the machine you've just bought on some known ('productive') Roman sites just up the road. Artefact hunters do not "find new sites" as often as they strip out for their own use what is left of known ones. Anywhere else in Europe such sites would be protected, in Bonkers Britain anything goes. Now look at the PAS database for the number of Roman finds reported to the Scheme from these sites.

Portable Antiquities database data automatically mapped

If artefact hunters are following the pointers given by Regton and detecting these sites or their close vicinity, they are not reporting what they take.

UPDATE 8th July 2016
Metal-detector-shopkeepers gonna be Metal-detector-shopkeepers I guess. One "Nigel" from Regtons has published this comment on a metal detecting blog well-known for being populated largely by ill-informed senior citizens from across the Ocean:

Nice one Mr B, firstly thank you for showing an interest in us once more[. O]ur hand drawn picture shows crudely the interesting ancient settlements in our vicinity, this is for interest only. You however have published a far more accurate map of a larger area complete with find spots, how utterly irresponsible for posting a detailed map of Roman Britain showing major finds (Hope Ordinance Survey don’t catch up with you).

How awkward for claims to support the scheme seen on the firm's website that the retailer fails to recognize the distinctive style of the PAS database. He can take his comments about "responsibility" to the PAS. I guess the map is hung there "for interest only" to the same degree as the two cases of artefacts on adjacent walls labelled "found with metal detectors" and the cases of other collectables by the door. Not at all intended to encourage buyers to "go out and find likewise", are they?

Brexit and the Parthenon Marbles (Updated)

As Britain prepares to Leave Europe and sever links with the community of European nations, this is obviously the time for the Parthenon Marbles to go back to Athens. They are clearly part of the European cultural heritage not the British. In rejecting its links with European ideals, the British people forfeit any claims to be part of that heritage. In the period 447 - 432 BC when the Parthenon was built, the ancient Britons were still cattle-herders living in wattle-and-daub huts using grotty Middle Iron Age pottery and making tools of animal bones.

Vignette: Wattle and daub


UPDATE
Meanwhile pragmatic rather than altruistic motives lie behind similar calls, campaigners say allowing the reunification of the sculptures kept in London with those still in Athens could be a diplomatic coup for the UK as it negotiates Brexit (Ian Johnston, 'MPs introduce Bill to return 'Elgin Marbles' to Greece 200 years after the UK decided to buy them' Monday 11 July 2016).

Antiquities and Gun Trafficking in Sicily

 Police seize 600 ancient coins from two men in Gela under investigation for arms trafficking ('Gela, sequestrate oltre 600 monete antiche a negozio ferramenta' Sicilia Journal 29th June 2016). Gela in Sicily is in the news for antiquities trafficking again. Over 600 coins of silver and bronze, presumably dating back to the archaic era, were discovered and seized by the police in Gela, in a hardware store, during an operation to search for weapons and ammunition. The coins, together with jewellery and many other archaeological objects were well preserved in binders and numbered trays, that the owner, a 69-year-old businessman, kept in a well hidden corner of the store. Ancient Greek coins were found during a second search warrant at the home of a  58-year old alleged accomplice,. Both suspects were charged with receiving stolen goods. The police suspect that the two suspects are part of an organization of traffickers and tombaroli. Greek coin collectors, have you bought anything that passed through the hands of these men? You really don't know, do you? 

 

Floundering about Collecting

The PAS outreach continues in its usual fine form, with the Leicester FLO informing her "partners" that in Belgium, "metal detecting has just been legalised":

Hmmm. First of all, one suspects that the region she's talking about is Flanders (an area the size of Cornwall and Devon) - not the whole of "Belgium". This was discussed here four years ago:  Flanders About to Licence Archaeological Looting?", so a licensing system. The MEDEA project to which she refers (http://smit.vub.ac.be/Project/215/) is a three year research project, an experimental move, created with the help of researchers from Ghent University and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven ("on the advisory board of the project members include foreign experts from the Portable Antiquities Scheme and the Universities of Oxford, Aarhus and Helsinki), and it's no surprise to find PAS's sticky fingers all over it. Brexit will hopefully put paid to that and keep the British propagandists of looting where they belong on Looty-Island on the other side of La Manche. This was a topic discussed at that pro-looting conference organized a few weeks ago at Aarhus (PACHI Monday, 4 April 2016, "The English Disease").

Flanders where they are floundering about what to do about collectors

Italy has 'Reached an Agreement' with the Glyptotek

The Italian Ministry of Culture and Flemming Friborg, director of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek art museum in Copenhagen signed an agreement that includes the return of archaeological artifacts that Italy said had been looted from Italian soil.

The return includes the contents of a princely tomb excavated near Fara in Sabina, north of Rome, which the museum bought in the 1970s. Italian officials maintained the deal had been brokered by Robert Hecht, an American antiquities dealer who was tried in Italy in 2005 on charges of dealing in looted art. Mr. Hecht died in 2012, shortly after his trial ended without a verdict when the statute of limitations expired. The Danish museum resisted demands for the return of the artifacts for years. But Tuesday’s statement included the museum’s acknowledgment that “investigations have shown that the objects had been unearthed in illegal excavations in Italy and exported without license.”

The artifacts will begin to return to Italy in December and in exchange, Italy has agreed to “a number of long-term loans of significant tomb discoveries from Italy.”

This is wha happens when collections acquire paperless antiquities taking as a fact the dealers' claim "they can't touch you for it". Well in some cases they jolly well can.

Source: Elisabetta Povoledo, 'Those Italian Artifacts Actually Were Looted, Danish Museum Now Says' New York Times July 5th, 2016

British Museum Celebrates 2016 As Most Successful Year Ever [updated]

Post-dated text:

[The BM 2015/16 Annual Review contained a bit singing the praises of artefact hunters as so-called "citizen archaeologists". This was challenged by several of us. Eventually the review itself vanisthed from the Internet, but traces remained in some contemporary media accounts that were not removed. (such as this one, or this one). This is posted here for the record. 

The British Museum has released their Annual Review for 2016 revealing thatit was the Museum’s most successful year ever with nearly 6.9 million visitors to Bloomsbury (6,853,540) and a digital audience in excess of 40 million.
[..]

Museum Highlights of 2015/16

[...] Citizen archaeology is a growing phenomenon with 82,000 finds recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme last year – including finds by detecting superfan Mackenzie Crook.

And how much "suucess" have they had getting the many other hundreds of thousands of unreported finds made by so-called "citizen archaeologists " (metal detectorists) recorded?]

[Meanwhile here is the official BM definition of what archaeology is...]