More on Jenny Rubin versus Ancient Civilizations of Near East

Rick St Hilaire, 'Chicago Museums Seek Summary Judgment in Rubin v. Iran', Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hilaire blog, August 26, 2013.

The Field Museum of Natural History and the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute filed a motion for summary judgment last week seeking to end a case that has pitted victims of a terrorist attack against two Illinois museums and Iran.

For a summary of the beginnings of this case, in a September 1997 event in Jerusalem, see here:  Jenny Rubin, et al v. the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Focus on UK Metal Detecting: There's no "Too Low" for UK Tekkies to Stoop

Readers might remember the "responsible British detectorist" who could not make up his mind whether his name was "Don" or "Ton" and who falsely asserted an "endemic ransack of huge numbers of Roman coins that are ending up on Ebay" from Poland. He has just sent a comment to the thread on detectorist Graham Chetwynd's promise to come over here as an ambassador of the hobby and have a proper discussion of the issues. I am not publishing the comment. Apart from its other insulting remarks addressed to my person, it contained a joke on the subject of Syrian chemical weapons which I think many besides myself would find highly offensive. I have not posted it, but you will have to take my word for it that there are people in UK metal detecting who find such things as nerve gas attacks on unarmed brown-skinned civilians intensely amusing. You do not have to look very far on their forums for all manner of misogynous, sexist, xenophobic and racist comments and 'jokes'.

 TAKE A GOOD LOOK at this behaviour, for these are precisely the sort of people the PAS wants to grab more and more millions of public quid to make into the "partners" of the British Museum, archaeological heritage professionals and to whom they want us all to entrust the exploitation of the archaeological record. Take a good look and decide what you think about that as a "policy".  

Coin Smugglers Arrested on Way to Bangkok

Jamal Shahid, 'Smugglers fly out but without treasures', Dawn.com, 26th August 2013.

Security personnel at the Islamabad airport busted a third attempt in almost as many months to smuggle out rare artifacts of the country on the Independence Day, Dawn has learned. Customs sources said Bangkok-bound passengers Subhan Allah and Zahir Allah set off the metal detector alarm while passing through the screening machine. Their body check yielded the airport security staff two envelopes containing ancient gold coins. Since the two ‘smugglers’ from Peshawar could not be detained legally, they were allowed to board their Flight TG 350 – but without their treasure.

The haul was twenty gold Kushan coins and a Hellenistic style gold pendant.

Senior Customs official at the Islamabad Airport, Ghulam Ali Malik, explained that whenever a catch is made of the August 14 kind, a case is registered under the Customs laws and the Antiquities Act after the verification of the confiscated artifacts. “We know that smugglers often carry to Thailand antiquities, such as these coins, the export of which is banned. They conceal them in decoration pieces but the bolder ones try to carry the treasures on their persons. We are not permitted to allow the carrier board the aircraft with items which appear important historical riches,” he said.

I'd say not let them on the aircraft at all, but lock them up and find out where they got the coins from and send someone there to arrest the middleman. Then find out who are their contacts in Bangkok and get the local authorities to investigate them (and where do they go from there?). What's the problem? How is anyone going to combat artefact smuggling and looting otherwise?

Vignette: Where were the envelopes? 

Egypt’s antiquities in peril as political turmoil drags on

 

Eyes are on Egypt's heritage half-way round the world too (Joseph A. Cambra, 'Egypt’s antiquities in peril as political turmoil drags on', New Zealand Week, 26/08/2013).

Today, when Egypt is busy drafting plans for a future to lead the country out of chaos, its past seems to be in peril as well, as the ongoing political turmoil and consequent violence put the country’s priceless fortune of history under threat. In one of the biggest looting incidents the world has even seen, over 1,000 artifacts were stolen from the Malawi Museum in the central Minya governorate on August 14 [...] one employee was killed, while other security guards ran for their lives, but no army or police forces were there. “No one denies the humble security measures in the museum, but what had happened there was unprecedented and unexpected,” said Shadia Mahmoud, head of the international cooperation department at the Ministry of Antiquities. “We have nearly 40 local museums around the country, some of them are fully protected with modern systems, but others still depend on old protection systems that need to be improved,” she said. 

Well, not exactly "unprecedented", not at all:

Just before the 2011 unrest that eventually toppled ex- President Hosni Mubarak, looters sneaked into the Egyptian Museum in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, then nearly 50 pieces of the museum’s artifacts went missing. Also in 2011, valuable pieces were stolen from a museum affiliated to the faculty of antiquities of Cairo University. 

Then we have a dozen archaeological storerooms all over the country (mainly in the north though) that were broken into in the early months of 2011 and lost unknown (still unlisted?) numbers of curated objects.

“It’s strange that the government didn’t introduce any new security measures to museums after those accidents,” said Hossam Eddin Aboud [...] a member of archaeologists coalition that aims at improving archaeologists’ working conditions, said “There were no training or lectures for workers to help them deal with such a situation.”.

No emergency response plans either it seems. Perhaps now Egypt's new government will give this matter more consideration as part of restoring law and order. they could usefully start with holding an official investigation into all the cases of looting since January 2011, identifying what happened, what the response was and why it failed to prevent the loss of thousands of archaeological objects - state property, the heritage of all its citizens with the safety of which the state is entrusted.

So how do Egyptian archaeologists plan to mend the broken system, especially now when a ready-made source for funding (tourism) seems likely to be drying up over the next few months and years? Perhaps they should not be in so much of a hurry to cut off their ties with their colleagues outside, who may be able to offer valuable support, help and share opinions and expertise?  

Vignette: Artefact Hunters hunting artefacts for collection and sale. 

UK Metal Detecting's Ambassador to Europe ?

Heritage Action have a post up today called "A tale of two Staffordshire fields" a pretty innocuous text, one would have thought. A casual mention following it that I'd written something about the costs of guarding a site however elicited the following response from one of the ASPD folk in the UK metal detecting fraternity:

graham [Chetwynd] 25/08/2013 at 11:48:
Mr barford we will meet soon and then we can have A PROPER CHAT .just me and you see you soon Graham xx
Nigel S 25/08/2013 at 12:07:
Mr Chetwynd, I take it that’s a physical threat, like the late-night telephoned one you delivered to me. Paul isn’t a member of Heritage Action but I’ll pass it on to him.
graham 25/08/2013 at 13:32:
Take it exactly how you want to but its a promise to be honest. 

What a treat that will be. Mr Chetwynd coming to Poland to have an articulate discussion about metal detecting. In fact, if he lets me know in advance I'll book him up to give a talk to all those lost souls at the University here that want to believe  that the Portable Antiquity Scheme is achieving great things. Let them meet a real metal detectorist from England, I think between us, Mr Chetwynd and I can pretty soon disabuse them of any illusions.

NCMD Code of Conduct ( Appendix A to the NCMD Constitution):
9) Remember that[...] you are an ambassador for our hobby. Do nothing that might give it a bad name. 10) Never miss an opportunity to explain your hobby to anyone who asks about it.

Vignette: Part of the Chetwynd logo (motto: "Success through effort", Mr Chetwynd is putting a lot of effort into his interactions with this blog, his actual achievements however remain to be seen).

Hong Kong discussed at ARCA Conference

'2013 ARCA Art and Cultural Heritage Conference: Senior Police Inspector Toby Bull on “Property of a Hong Kong Gentleman, Art Crime in Hong Kong – Buyer Beware”...', ARCA blog August 21, 2013 In an article about ARCA’s Art and Cultural Heritage Conference (June 21-23, 2013), held in the ancient Umbrian town of Amelia, there is a discussion of the presentation of Toby Bull, a Senior Inspector with the Hong Kong Police Force, who presented “Property of a Hong Kong Gentleman, Art Crime in Hong Kong – Buyer Beware”, discussing the black-market antiquities trade and the free port of Hong Kong, often used as a "way station for much of China’s exported artifacts on their journey to collections abroad". Much of the trade seems to be in the hands of organized gangs, involved in corruption and other crimes. Tomb robbing in China involves diggers, equipment, and fences (middleman to sell the objects) and requires a multi-layered network.

According to Inspector Bull, criminal networks know how to move stolen art or illicitly dug-up antiquities because they already have the knowledge of the best ‘routes’ to get the illicit merchandise across the HK border, thanks in large part to their experience from drug trafficking. "The idea that these are art-loving criminals is risible, as they are only interested in the money that comes from their various nefarious activities," Inspector Bull said. "The trade in antiquities (be they real or fake) is part of highly organized criminal enterprise structures. The people perpetrating these crimes are your commonplace criminals – no more, no less, but businessmen too, as they have realized that there is still a lot of money to be made in this type of trafficking and far less harsh penalties if caught than with drugs, for example.[...] “If it’s (the artifact) not proven to be stolen, objects can be legally exported, changing from illicit to licit,” Inspector Bull said. “Once entered into auction catalogues, the objects are often shown to be from a private collection in Hong Kong.”

It should be noted that the free trade of antiquities from Hong Kong is frequently cited by lobbyists of the dugup antiquities trade, who seldom mention how items from the earlier civilizations many thousands of kilometres to the north came to be in the Hong Kong Free Port. Perhaps they should ask Inspector Bull.

Damaged Museum Features in Full-Page antiMB ad in the NYTimes

There's a full page pro-Sisi/anti-MB ad in the NYTimes by "American Egyptians For Justice" (pic.twitter.com/VaB4MYAFMm). The fourth photo of the series shows Mallawi museum, what proof have they that the looting of the museum was done by Islamists, or indeed even Moslems?