Focus on UK Metal Detecting: "Shady, Sinister and Dishonest", Is He Talking About Me?

In what seems to me to be relatively clear English, I wrote:

English Heritage's guidance on "responding to heritagecrime in progress" is not a lot of use when you see some blokes walking up and down with shadowy metal-detector-like tools on an archaeological site in the middle of a field at dusk. They might be nighthawks, or they might be there with a letter of permission. That's in Bonkers Britain, outside it there is often far less ambiguity. 

Admittedly some of the sentences are more than eight words long. Nevertheless, it is with some surprise that over on a detectorist's blog near you (i - Go Detecting, Wednesday, 22 January 2014), we read the astonishing claim:

"The author of the original post tries to paint a shady, sinister and dishonest picture of all detectorists"

Can anyone else see here what he's getting at? Where is this "shady"? Where is it "sinister"? And for goodness sake where is the "deceit"? It seems to me we have a case here of a reader unjustifiably replacing with an alleged hidden intent the real meaning of the actual words used.

Any observer of the heritage debate in Britain will quickly see that a constant stream of kneejerk paranoia from a bunch of mental-age-of-thirteen buffoons quick to take offence is about all one can expect when one tries to discuss anything sensibly with artefact hunters around. These people refuse to admit the existence of serious issues surrounding the whole area of artefact collecting and the antiquities trade, still less offer to help do anything about it. As far as they are concernedl the only problems must be assignable to the ill-will of the "Other", they are ever-keen to play the victim and deny any responsibility of themselves and their fellows, it is always "somebody else".

Bonkers Britain will be "Portableising" Ancient Woodland Now?

The British Environmental Secretary Owen Patterson has taken a leaf out of the Historic Environment Mismanagement book. Just as the latter sees the artefact patterns that make up cultural landscapes fit for dismembering, and actually encourages the scattering of the decontextualised "portable antiquities" into new personal assemblages, he apparently reckons Britain can do the same with ancient woodland. Rescue's letter regarding protection for ancient woodland, explaining why one is OK and the other not has been published in today's Telegraph. You can see it here. (Oh, by the way, Rescue do not actually explain why they are not bellyaching about ripping the artefacts out of cultural landscapes, perhaps they should).

Vignette: Trees are sexier than finds scatters, "can this disappear? asks an article. That thousands of sites are disappearing from the archaeological record, trashed by artefact hunting alarms nobody.

Focus on UK Metal Detecting: It's Easy!!

Poor Baz Thugwit, his mates all urge him to fill in a PAS survey, to "help the hobby", but he hesitates. What if it asks questions he cannot answer? What if he cannot work out how to fill in the details, and keeps getting error messages? Or what after laboriously filling in the answers to them questions and checking the speling so they don't fink he's an idiot, he cannot work out how to send it? Or maybe some password or somefink is needed? Baz breaks out in a cold sweat at the thought. But there is no need to worry !! All his friends have done it and each of them reports back (each with an encouraging smiley) on the thread on a metal detecting forum near you how "easy" it is, as if they all too had been expecting to encounter difficulties. Now they are happy and relieved to have 'taken the PAS test' (having faced up to it as a duty). But there is really no need to fear. This survey is specifically  written by the PAS for their "partners", and after sixteen years of liaising with them, the PAS has a jolly good idea of how many words some detectorists can be expected to be able to manage in twenty minutes. Not that many, with a minimum of sentences over eight words long. It's easy Baz, fill it in, give the PAS a boost !  

2013 Annual Report of Syrian Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums

Bearing in mind the Inspectors cannot be getting out to the more remote areas as much as they'd like and also I suspect an understandable desire to show that what they are able to do is not without effect (to the extent that shocking extent of recent Apamea is somewhat played down), this is still very upsetting reading: 

Annual Report, 2013 Syrian Arab Republic, Ministry of Culture, Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums

Cultural Heritage Lawyer on ACCG Mistake and the Responsibilities of Importers

Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hilaire has a post on his blog today reminding us of the judicial verdict on the coineys' claims about "First found"* in a 2012 coiney case ('The U.S.- Bulgaria Bilateral Agreement and Ancient Coins: Some Thoughts', 23 Jan 2014). Basically the conclusion is the same, the claims of US dugup coin collectors (dealers) that the "first found principle" somehow negates import restrictions is utterly false and based on (what it seems to me is in fact) the same misinterpretation of the law as the one I discussed a few days ago - though seen from a different standpoint.

 I think every ancient coin collector in the US should read St Hilaire's text and reflect. They should reflect on the value of ACCG leadership- where are they taking the hobby? They should also reflect on two facts, the second part of St Hilaire's text considers the responsibilities of the importer as defined by the CCPIA. As nicely summarised by St Hilaire:

CBP need not demonstrate that the articles are restricted; rather, the statute “expressly places the burden on importers to prove that they are importable. [...] More details about the legal responsibilities borne by cultural property importers can be found here.

Coin collectors might like to reflect on the fact that even if he wanted, St Hilaire could not have given a link to any resource prepared by the ACCG for an objective and accurate presentation of the legislation regarding import of ancient coins from countries with and without MOUs with the United States of America. The ACCG dealers expect collectors to back them up in their own fight against the current legislation, without actually properly informing them what it is.

* They are claiming (falsely, and collectors are uncritically accepting) that the US government acts unlawfully putting coins on a Designated List appended to a cultural property MOU because, they argue, the CCPIA only protects archaeological and ethnographic objects first found in the territory of the petitioning state. I have discussed this a number of times, showing the fallacy (most recently here), it is good to see a US lawyer who knows what he's talking about join the debate.

The Next US Coin Collectors' Comedy Turn

It is rather difficult these days to tell whether US ancient coin collectors are jackassing around or are trying to make a serious contribution to the heritage debate. The net result though is more or less the same, their spokesmen end up each time making a laughing stock of the whole community.

The US has at long last signed a cultural property MOU with Bulgaria (its the way they think the 1970 UNESCO Convention should be implemented in this case). There is a designated list of the sort of things US Customs should be on the lookout for published in the federal Register,"Import Restrictions Imposed on Certain Archaeological and Ecclesiastical Ethnological Material From Bulgaria". This is preceded by a text which no coin collector is ever going to read which says "why" stopping illegal exports is so important.  There is then a long list of ancient and antique objects which the US has agreed it is going to be scrutinising as it comes into the US from Bulgaria, so the Archaeological Material includes items of:

• A. Stone
• 1. Sculpture
• B. Metal
• 1. Sculpture
• C. Ceramic
• 1. Sculpture
• 2. Vessels
• D. Bone, Ivory, Horn, and Other Organics
• E. Glass and Faience
• F. Paintings
  

Note it also says:

The bilateral agreement between the United States and Bulgaria includes, but is not limited to, the categories of objects described in the designated list set forth below. These categories of objects are subject to the import restrictions set forth above, in accordance with the above explained applicable law and the regulation amended in this document (19 CFR 12.104(g)(a)).

Where the objects on the list are not "archaeological or ethnological material of the State Party"  then they are not of course subject to import restrictions.

Now, as far as I am aware, its only the collectors of ancient (not world) coins kicking up a fuss about this list. That tells you something from a start. None of the dealers in any other of the 122 categories are at all phased by this list. When they  import this sort of thing into the US, they are prepared to be asked about export documentation. It stands to reason that you need some.  Not so ancient coin dealers...

So it is we learn that "The ACCG has filed Freedom of Information Requests with the State Department and US Customs with regard to the new restrictions on on all Celtic, Greek, Roman,  Bulgarian and Byzantine Imperial, and Ottoman coins made in Bulgaria as recently as 1750"  ("The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild has served Freedom of Information Requests on the State Department and U.S. Customs seeking information about the preparation of  the designated lists for coins").  

When however you try to find out why these clowns are prancing around, the motivations become less clear. On the ACCG website they say

"The ACCG is particularly interested in learning the basis for the State Department’s apparent conclusion that all coins produced in Bulgaria from ancient times to 1750 must be considered local issues that only circulated within the confines of the modern Bulgarian nation state".

This relates to their mistaken interpretation of the function of the Designated List. 

On the Cultural property Observer blog, however, a totally different motivation is cited: 

Did State and U.S. Customs undertake a principled review of the numismatic scholarship about the find spots of Bulgarian coins [...] Or, did they merely seek to justify their efforts to impose the broadest restrictions possible by relying upon information supplied by archaeologists with an ax to grind against collectors who claim that all Bulgarian coins (including those of gold and silver) are "local issues?" 

This really relates (as the link makes clear) the anti-academic and personal prejudices of the dealers running the "collectors' guild". 

I asked their lobbyist (who one assumes is responsible for both texts):

could you provide a reading list of this "numismatic scholarship" you are on the lookout for? Does it include titles in Bulgarian, or is only evidence of use of the scholarship of US coin collectors (private and institutional) on the findspots of coins in their own collections sought? Or on the contrary, is the latter not expected to be used as documenting findspots seem of rather little interest to US collectors and the dealers who supply them?  And what if you find evidence that an archaeologist or two was consulted here? Are not coins archaeological objects (hence their coverage by the CCPIA)?

That comment received the most skimpy of answers. The source of the findspot information the ACCG are expecting the State Department to have used is left unclear. Another question concerns the procedure laid down in Section 305 , which does not stipulate anything at all about the need to consult anything with anyone, so I really fail to see what the point is of this FOI. It seems like another way for the ACCG to make collectors think they are doing "something important for collectors - so give us more of your money". Actually what the ACCG could do important for collectors is help clean up the no-questions-asked antiquities market instead of jackassing around getting on everybody's nerves, getting ancient coin collectors a bad name, and wasting an awful lot of collectors' and public money.  But the ACCG does not give a hoot about any of that, the ACCG is trying to stave off the inevitable by playing a stalling game, isn't it?

 

Focus on Metal Detecting: Fill in the Form Me Hearties and Help The Hobby

The PAS are, it seems, desperate to get people filling in their Audience Survey. On a metal detecting forum near you, member 'GiXeR Mark' writes about it, encouraging his mates to show the better face of the exploitive hobby ('PAS doing another survey Including Detectorists' Thu Jan 23, 2014 2:30 am) writes:

The portable Antiquities Scheme are doing another survey and this time are including Metal Detectorists so now is the time to voice the benefits detectorists have to offer to such a scheme.  

This is somewhat misrepresenting the relationship, the PAS was set up for one reason only, because a previous government chose not to regulate artefact hunting, so it set up a Scheme to try to mitigate its effects. Without thousands of artefact hunters hoovering the archaeological record for hoikable collectables, we'd all have saved sixteen million quid of the money available for culture and have a public better informed about the issues surrounding looting of archaeological sites and the antiquities trade.  It seems artefact hunters are being promised something in return. 'Liam Nolan' writes ("Re: PAS Survey" Wed Jan 22, 2014 10:07 pm):

I have been in touch with Claire [Costin at the BM -PMB] and this survey will really help our hobby.  

Thereby effectively skewing the results they will get. How not to do a survey really. They've still not plugged it on an archaeological forum. What remains unclear is how a project bid to expand to new audiences will "help the hobby" [of mining the archaeological record for collectables] if not simply to broaden the number of recipients of the messages uncritically legitimating it. What else can Ms Costin have been thinking of when she said that to her "partner"?

Vignette: News and encouragement for the "Partners" from Number 41.