The Antiquities Collector and the Elephant

In an earlier post here I made reference to a collector’s idea that since a lot of antiquities were already on the market, there was obviously a lot of them, and so (it seems to have been argued) one could take more; this author seemed to be of the opinion that a few million more or less is a sustainable loss.

I would argue this is manifestly not so. I originally intended to discuss this aspect further there but got sidetracked when I spotted a fallacy in the mathematics. I’d like to return to the original idea here.

Although it’s a much used (some would argue over-used) analogy, I see the antiquities trade as a very close parallel to the trade in elephant ivory in several ways. There is one clear difference, elephants breed and have baby elephants; archaeological sites from all periods of history (except our own) are a finite and non-renewable resource. This, however, makes the parallel even more telling. We are all of us aware that there is a limit to the number of elephants that can be killed before the depletion of even a renewable resource becomes unsustainable. In the case of elephants at least, we know that we reached that stage many decades ago. In the late 1970s for example, there were still 1.2 million elephants alive in Africa, now the number is half that (5-600 000). This number is still dropping, almost entirely due to illegal slaughter for their tusks which are made into valued ‘art objects’.

The international community recognized the danger this created for the natural environment and elephant populations in particular and introduced legislation to help combat the problem. In 1989, most international ivory trade was banned by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which regulates trade in threatened and endangered species. The restrictions banned ivory trade except for ivory from elephants that nations legally culled from their herds or those that died naturally (or if the ivory was old, from official stockpiles of previously seized ivory or of fossil origin). For a while things quietened down, only China and Taiwan continued to trade in ivory, though the Japanese market (chiefly for hanko seals) also continued to flourish.

In recent years however according to wildlife conservation groups, poachers in Africa are now killing more elephants than they have at anytime in the past 20 years. An estimated 23,000 elephants were illegally slaughtered in 2006 to serve the ivory trade. Between October 2004 and March 2007 customs officials seized 41 tons of ivory, thought to be only about one-tenth of the illegal ivory trade in that period.

Ivory poaching is now said to have reached critical levels with predictions that if nothing is done, the depletion of the population may reach such levels that the African elephant may be on the path to extinction by 2020. Thousands of elephants are dying a cruel and needless death to obtain their tusks. Much of the trade is in the hands of organized crime, some of the ivory going through Sudanese markets seems to be being used to raise money for partisan armies engaged in the civil wars in countries further south.

In May 2007 a study published in May by Care for the Wild International indicated that the United States is now the second largest market for illegal ivory after China, traders here are failing to comply with both CITES regulations and the domestic laws of their own country. Much of this ivory is used to make decorative items such as knife handles and gun grips.

So what is the source of this problem? Firstly the trade is very profitable. In China, high quality ivory currently sells for $750 (U.S.) a kilogram but contraband raw ivory is currently available in Africa for less than $25 (U.S.) a kilogram. Secondly there are not the resources to police the remaining herds and individuals in the source countries. The initial success of CITIES (which was widely quoted as having led to the “collapse of the ivory market”) led within five years to the lessening of controls and western financial aid to help fight the poachers. Thirdly the media has tended to keep the public unaware of the escalation of the problem. The fourth problem is that there is still a demand among buyers in the countries with stronger economies for ivory products. In part, it is argued by some that this is fuelled by the occasional controlled release of ivory from stockpiles and culling onto the markets, which seems to have lulled consumers into thinking “it’s all right” to buy ivory, but who do not enquire too carefully into its origin. In addition, the illegal ivory trade is given relatively low priority by prosecutors, and new agreements sanctioning limited trade have created a policing nightmare. Ivory poaching and smuggling are high-profit, low-risk activities.

This morning a search on the US internet auction site eBay found 253 objects, most of which were described conventionally as “pre-ban”, but it seems odd that in the second biggest ivory market in the world that among them are quite a few obviously new objects and (more importantly) raw material which have allegedly been lying around unused since 1989. This looks rather like the “old dealers stock found in a cupboard” story which seems quite popular among those trading Mesopotamian antiquities recently.

The parallels with the antiquities trade are striking. Most dealers in portable antiquities will assure us all that the market is almost entirely legitimate, does not constitute a threat to any resource, there is no need for any controls. Secondly the market can be incredibly profitable (Brodie 1998). As in the case of ivory poaching, the media concentrate on isolated instances of archaeological looting, rather than the problem as a whole, despite the best efforts of conservationists, the public still seems unaware of and unconcerned by the escalation of the problem. A further problem is that there is still a demand among buyers in the countries with stronger economies for antiquities, the assurances of the traders has lulled consumers into thinking “it’s all right” to buy portable antiquities without enquiring too carefully into its origin. The illegal antiquities trade is given relatively low priority by prosecutors, and the lack of a coherent set of laws hindering unregulated global movement are a policing nightmare. Antiquity digging, smuggling and trading, like ivory poaching, are high-profit, low-risk endeavours. [We may note calls from collectors to make available a controlled release of so-called ‘redundant’ antiquities from stockpiles onto the market which should be seen in the same way as arguments over the ivory trade, it may only increase demand].

Most conservationists concerned about the fate of the elephant agree that while resources in the source countries are over-stretched it would be facile to merely insist that "the only solution to the problem of the illegal ivory trade is better policing in the countries where the poaching is happening". The problem is not purely one of supply, it is also driven by demand, mainly from countries whose citizens should know better. The way conservationists in the market countries can help to stop the slaughter is to work to influence cultural attitudes about the ivory trade. Consumers need to be informed about the effects of their financial support of the ivory trade and persuaded that they really do not need an elephant ivory walking stick knob or toilet roll holder to make their lives complete. The way to stop the killing of elephants is not to change the law, for we already have very strong laws. In order for them to work to preserve the surviving elephant population, consumers all over the world have to unite and say 'no' and simply refuse to buy anything that can have come from the illegal trade. Glib assurances of the dealers are not enough, if a thinking consumer is to have any ivory at all around them, then let it be only that about which there is 100% certainty, which can be DOCUMENTED as being in that form pre-1989 or from officially-sanctioned sources. Anyone who is a bit concerned and has a sense of responsibility surely must be able to see that this is a conservation issue, not one of "ownership rights".

Ivory is not something that should be desired as a thing of beauty. Carved ivory should not be valued or displayed as works of art. Nearly all ivory products are derived from elephants that were specifically killed so that their tusks could be carved. We should not see it as a thing of beauty. It is not art. It is the carved body part of a killed elephant.

The same, I would argue, goes for archaeological artefacts. From the perspective of resource conservation, portable antiquities should not be desired merely as mysterious things of beauty to serve largely as classy geegaws enhancing interior decoration, investment, or to enhance self-esteem or raise social prestige. Archaeological evidence should not be ripped from its context by commercial artefact hunters, from sites which are deliberately and specifically targeted to produce collectables for profit. A contextless archaeological find is not art. It is the dismembered part of a trashed archaeological site, it is a piece hacked out of an unwritten history. Anyone who is a bit concerned and has even a modicum of interest in and any intention of taking responsibility for the care of the historic environment surely can see that this is a conservation issue, not one of "ownership rights".

Picture: One of the few hundred thousand African elephants which (we hope) is still alive (source: Elephantcountryweb.com)

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

Another US 'Antique' Smuggling Case: Hardly "A museum by any other name"

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There is another upcoming case now before a New York court which has very close, and telling, analogies with the smuggling and no-questions-asked trade in antiquities. This one involves not dugup artefacts, but the import of ethnographic artefacts from Africa as "tribal art". Let us start by looking at Julian Baggini's photostream on Flickr. There you will find a photo taken 17th January 2011 of the interior of a Philadelphia shop which he titles "A museum by any other name". Behind a crumbling store-front and advertised by its owner as "the most unusual shop in Philadelphia", Victor Gordon Enterprises is full of ethnographic-type material recently imported from (among other places maybe) western and central Africa. Here's what Bagini writes there about it:

It's mostly an extraordinary collection of genuine, old African art, with a sideline in vintage clock sales and repair. Wandering around its packed space, I thought of how the same artifacts, in a museum setting, would have people queuing and paying to see them. [...] in fact, the owner tells me the gems of the collection are going to become a museum collection soon.

This is the typical story isn't it? This is a shop, but its owner claims he's some kind of scholarly philanthropist "protecting the objects" in his "collection" and "making them available to the public". So how "old" are these items, and under what circumstances were they exported? Many of the states on the west coast of Africa have export regulations covering "old" artworks and ethnographic material (though not so-called 'airport art', made for the tourist market).

Victor Gordon Enterprises is in the news today as the art dealer is alleged to have been involved in an ivory smuggling enterprise which has been under Federal investigation for five years. The ivory was reportedly smuggled from or through Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, US officials said.

Nathan Gorenstein and Drew Singer, 'Philadelphia business imported illegal ivory carvings, prosecutors say', The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jul. 26, 2011.

Maryclaire Dale (Associated Press), 'Staggering amount of ivory smuggled into US', 3news.co.nz, 27 Jul 2011. (similar by same author: Feds: Pa. shop-owner smuggled ton of banned ivory)

Michael Hinkelman, 'Philadelphia man charged in major ivory trafficking probe', Philadelphia Daily News, Jul. 26, 2011.

The art dealer, Victor Gordon (68), was arrested Tuesday 26th July by federal agents and charged with the illegal importation and sale of African elephant ivory. Authorities said the alleged illegal smuggling took place from May 2006 to April 2009. In the course of the investigation, approximately one ton of ivory objects was seized, apparently one of the largest such seizures on record. Altogether, nearly 460 tusks and carvings of ivory from the endangered African elephant were seized in the Philadelphia area in 2009 and 2010, the indictment said. "The amount of elephant ivory allegedly plundered in this case is staggering and highlights the seriousness of the charged crimes," Loretta E. Lynch, the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn is quoted as saying. US officials could not immediately estimate how many elephants allegedly had been slaughtered allegedly at art dealer Gordon's instigation. The art dealer was arraigned in federal magistrate court in Brooklyn and charged with conspiracy, smuggling and illegally importing ivory. Gordon pleaded not guilty and was released on $1 million bond secured by two properties he owns.

Authorities said Gordon paid an unidentified co-conspirator thousands of dollars to travel to Africa to purchase raw elephant ivory and have it carved to his specifications. He allegedly provided the co-conspirator with photographs and other depictions of ivory carvings to serve as templates for ivory carvers in Africa and directed the co-conspirator to stain or dye the ivory so the specimens would appear old. Gordon then planned and financed the illegal importation of the ivory from Africa to the U.S. through New York's JFK International Airport and sold the carvings to customers at his Philadelphia store, authorities maintain.

Trade in elephant ivory is forbidden by U.S. law and international convention, so most of the carvings seized from Gordon and his customers were passed off as century-old antiques from "old collections", which the current law allows to be sold legally in the US.

The carvings on display Tuesday in Philadelphia ranged from intricate designs incised on 4-foot-long tusks to small figurines a few inches high. They were laid out by Fish and Wildlife agents just as Gordon surrendered to federal agents in New York City. The carvings will be permanently confiscated by the government if Gordon is convicted. The carvings imitate traditional African art, said Edward Grace, deputy chief of the agency's Office of Law Enforcement. Many of the items on display were sophisticated, expressive art, while other items were more kitschy.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agent Salvatore Amato told reporters that the carvings had been smuggled into the United States by misrepresenting them as something else to avoid customs officers examining the shipments too closely. The ivory had been disguised by coating the objects with material to make them appear to be made of wood or clay, giving the investigation the code name "Operation Scratch Off". The current investigation was launched by the discovery of one such shipment by federal agents in 2006. Since then, eight people in New York have pleaded guilty or been convicted in the case.

During two raids in 2009, 428 ivory tusks and carvings were seized in Philadelphia. Other items were taken from customers of Gordon's shop. Carvings were seized outside New York City, in Bryn Mawr, and in Missouri, Kansas and Florida, among other locations.

Gordon's lawyer, Daniel-Paul Alva is reported as having said that "Gordon is a legitimate collector and dealer of ivory tusks who has documentation to show he was collecting them in the hopes of leaving them to a museum and who had no knowledge that any of them came from illegal poaching".

This, apart from the fact that it follows within a few weeks from the "Windsor Antiquities Bust" court case in the same jurisdiction, is an interesting case. Like the other one, it involves the stopping of a shipment of objects into the USA under what is reported to be an incorrect and misleading description, the passing of restricted goods off as something else. Like the "Windsor" case, it seems the Federal authorities went after the customers who bought the items no-questions-asked (buyers of 'unpapered' imported antiquities and coins beware, it could be you next). It is interesting that an attempt is being made to see the customer as in some way guilty of aiding and abetting, and while no mention is made (here, yet) of any of the customers being arrested and charged, at least it seems they had their collectables investigated and seized. Good for the investigating authorities, keep it up and collectors will think twice before buying things from dodgy dealers who do not offer proper paperwork with the purchased item. Mr Gordon says he has paperwork for his goods, and it will be interesting to see what kind when he brings it before the court. I wonder how many US dugup artefact dealers could match it?

Finally I sincerley hope that when Mr Gordon appears in court - whatever the verdict - there is a substantial picket of noisy animal welfare campaigners and conservationists outside the courtroom drawing attention to the horrors of ivory poaching and the ivory trade.

See in a separate post below: "Why it Matters"

Vignette: ivory "art" like that sold by Victor Gordon Enterprises, Philadelphia USA. It really angers me that an elephant, living breathing sentient being, is slaughtered cruelly by poachers just so some jerk can make make the worst possible kind of kitsch from its teeth, so another jerk (after he's paid off the poachers and smugglers) can make money convincing more jerks that this is some form of legitimate art.

Top photo, carved and painted kitsch pseudo-art made by slaughtering endangered elephants for could-not-care-less US collectors to decorate their pathetic homes with (Bill Butcher/AP)

Bottom photo: Just look at this crap , who would buy anything like this no-questions-asked? What kind of people would buy anything like this at all, even if it was properly 'papered'? (United States Attorney’s Office)

Selling Stockpiles Increases Demand

Bryan Walsh ("Ivory Wars Redux? African Nations Move to 'Downlist' the Elephant ", Time Mar. 11, 2010) writes of the ivory trade which I have used here as an analogy to the antiquities trade:

They were called the ivory wars. In the 1980s, at least 700,000 elephants, and possibly as many as 1 million, were slaughtered throughout Africa, killed by hunters and poachers for their ivory tusks, which would be made into jewelry. The substance was so valuable it was known as "white gold," and international organized-crime arose around the trade, adding human carnage to the animal toll. [...] The ivory wars continued until 1989, when countries at the global Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) voted to ban all trade in elephant ivory. With trade choked off, demand for ivory plummeted; African governments, with Western aid, cracked down on remaining poachers. Elephant populations in Africa began to rebound slowly.

All well and good, as it should be; cut off the demand, supplying a non-existent market ceases to be viable. Logical. The logic however implies another problem. Tanzania and Zambia are now petitioning CITES to "downlist" the conservation status of elephants so that they can sell on the open market stockpiled ivory coming from elephants that have died naturally or was seized from illegal poachers. This could have a disasterous effect. In 1997 pro-ivory trade forces pushed through a decision in CITES that allowed a one-time exception to the ban on sales of stockpiled ivory.

The idea was that by allowing a few legal sales, pressure for ivory goods would diminish, mostly in richer Asian nations, and therefore reduce the demand for poaching. If poaching was an illegal drug, stockpile sales were the methadone. But the treatment didn't work. From 1997 to 2007, following those stockpile sales, poaching and seizures of illegal ivory began to rise. In Tanzania alone, the percentage of elephant mortality attributed to poaching rose from 22% in 2003 to 62% in 2009. The wholesale price of high-quality ivory went from $200 per kilogram to $850 per kilogram in 2007, and then doubled again by 2009. As economies boomed in Asia — the destination for much of the ivory trade, at least initially — demand for white gold continued to rise.

The US however is the second largest retail ivory market in the world and ivory-trade regulation in the U.S. is confusing and full of holes, making it dificult for consumers to know what is legal and what is not. Ivory was even being traded on eBay until the Internet vendor shut down the sale of it recently. The confusion will remain as long as stockpile sales remain, flooding the market with ivory and weakening what was once a powerful moral prohibition against the trade.

Allowing further sales in Zambia and Tanzania — already considered the center of the illegal elephant trade — would likely end up increasing poaching, especially in neighboring nations like Zimbabwe where enforcement is rapidly falling apart. If poaching and trade continue at the current rate, African elephants could disappear from the majority of their range by 2020.

I think this is relevant to antiquities, the exploitation of the fragile and finite (archaeological sites do not breed like elephants) resource for saleable collectables is a form of poaching. It is illegal in many of the countries which international dealers get their goods from - they are dealing with the poachers. They argue that if there were sales of all the "duplicate objects mouldering in museums" the market would not be "forced" to buy illicitly obtained objects. But conversely it is the very availability of cheap antiquities (via the metal detector and Internet) which has led to the expansion (explosion) of the hobby of artefact collecting in certain countries. While there are a lot of them, prices are low, more people find they are affordable and collect - creating a demand for more. A vicious circle. Is the answer to the problem to pump even more antiquities onto the already saturated market? ("Saturated" because prices are low).

Another US 'Antique' Smuggling Case: Why Import Restrictions Are Needed

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I doubt whether there is an Artistic Ivory Collectors' Guild, a "non-profit organization committed to promoting the free and independent collecting of artistic products of ivory regardless of date or place of origin, a group of collectors and professionals who care passionately about preserving, studying and displaying ivory objects". If there were, in the face of the enforcement of import restrictions on the type of object collected, it would probably employ much the same arguments as the coineys and dugup antiquity collectors. Coineys and dugup antiquity collectors argue that they should be above any laws and restrictions because they are "researchers", interested in "cultural internationalism" and fighting for "free enterprise" of those that, like them oppose "retentionist laws" which lead to import restrictions. These people however are blinkered in their view, focussing only on the OBJECTS, the ones they want to collect and trade in. they ignore the context, the destruction that is caused in extracting these OBJECTS from a wider reality. In the case of dugup antiquities that is archaeological sites and the archaeological record (common archaeological heritage) in a far-off country. A fragile, finite and threatened resource. In the case of elephant ivory, it is herds and the ecological habitat (the common natural heritage) in a far off country. A fragile, finite and threatened resource. Frankly, it does not matter what other arguments are offered to support the no-questions-asked trade in either commodity, the fundamental one is that of the sustainable preservation of the resource from which they come.

It seems to be a great mental effort for collectors of dugup antiquities to get into their blinkered brains that the preservationist case over artefacts is a conservation issue like any other. Or maybe they just don't want to think of it in that way, seeing any measures taken to clean up the market as gubn'mint interference in their hobby, at the instigation of a group of evil elitist academics, and all these laws and restrictions just so much verbiage which does not apply to them and anyway, just downright "unfair". Let's have a look at why this matters. First the elephant conservation issue, then the archaeological one.

Trade in elephant ivory is forbidden by U.S. law and international convention for good reason. As their habitat shrinks, species such as the African elephant are increasingly endangered, and active steps have to be (and to some extent are) being taken to help offset this threat. This is the same as the case of archaeological sites all over the world threatened by development and land use (eg agriculture). In both the case of archaeological sites and endangered species there is however also a quite separate threat, the commercial value placed by unscrupulous dealers on elements of both archaeological sites and African elements. in one case dugup artefacts, in the other the ivory of their teeth. In both cases the people that obtain these commodities are totally uninterested in the rest of the thing they destroy. Elephant poachers do not eat the carcass, artefact hunters dig through and discard the main body of the archaeological evidence from which they extract a few sealeable and collectable geegaws.

Victim of poaching: elephant carcass in Zakouma National Park, Chad (Mike Fey, National Geographic).


Victim of artefact hunting: Wanborough temple site during excavation after the site had been well and truly 'done over' by metal detectorists and other artefact hunters (David Graham).

Elephants now live in relatively restricted areas of Africa in two main habitats, on the savanna and in the forests. The ivory from the latter is particularly sought after as a raw material for "art", as it is denser than that of the grassland animals. The number of forest elephants killed for their tusks has jumped in recent years, said the expert, Richard Ruggerio, who runs the agency's conservation programs in Africa. "We're seeing the last battle for the survival of the forest elephant [...] The elephant population has fallen sharply in the past 20 to 30 years". He attributes this to the no-questions-asked nature of the "art" market: "The market goes up, so the killing goes up". Much of it is driven by demand from a newly affluent Asian market where ivory figures are treasured. James Deutsch, who runs the African conservation program at the Wildlife Conservation Society, estimated there were about 100,000 forest elephants left in central Africa and said forest elephants in Central Africa "could go extinct in 10 to 20 years". Herds have already gone from a large part of their original range.

Forest elephants can live to more than 50 years. They live in herds, but these are now being broken up by the activity of the poachers not just by the killing of individual elephants, but also by the damage done to the group structure when a lead elephant has been eliminated. Poachers first seek out the largest males in the group, then mid-size males, then the largest females, typically the matriarchs. With their deaths, the social structure of the group disintegrates, the rest of the animals of the group "act like displaced persons from a war", as one naturalist put it.

Illegal trade in freshly slaughtered African elephant ivory is therefore a major threat to elephant populations in Africa, particularly in the hardest hit poaching regions of West and Central Africa. Controls on the market which provides the demand for the raw material are necessary to supplement the measures taken to stop poaching in the field, but the effectiveness of the latter varies, Gabon is an example of a country with progressive leadership putting resources into fighting elephant poaching, other countries lack the resources or will to do so.

African elephants are protected under an international treaty that dates back to 1975 to prevent the species from becoming endangered or extinct due to international trade. The African elephant also is listed as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Ivory over 100 years old can be imported as an antique. Newer ivory has been banned since the 1980s under an international conservation treaty. Sadly the conventions and laws governing this trade are ignored by many of those engaged in a no-questions-asked trade, arguing that if other nations don't apply these rules (China for example), then dealers and collectors in countries like the USA are not going to take the lead and give up their "rights" to buy and sell what they want. Such self-centred 'two-wrongs-make-a-right' arguments however are not going to help save the African elephant population.

Archaeological sites are accessible to looters in many areas of the ancient world, and certain types of artefacts are particularly sought after as a form of "ancient art". the number of archaeological sites that have been eroded, severely damaged or destroyed by artefact hunting (plundered as a source of collectables) has jumped in recent years with the rise of a plethora of internet dealers selling "pieces of the past" no-questions-asked to an expanding number of could-not-care-;less collectors all over the world, including expanding markets in Asia. In many regions of the world, we are seeing the last battle for the survival of the archaeological record. The dataset of intact sites in the landscape of many regions has fallen sharply in the past 20 to 30 years. This may be attributable directly to the no-questions-asked "art" market: "The market goes up, so the digging goes up". The Monuments at Risk survey in Britain estimated that there were about 1000,000 archaeological sites left in England and Wales, and with 8 000 artefact hunters looking for sites to extract collectable finds from, it is clear that very soon, there will not be any sites at all that have not been emptied of collectable archaeological finds by artefact hunters with no way of knowing what was destroyed and discarded, what was taken and what happened to it. Some archaeologists have been heard suggesting that much of the surface evidence forming the archaeological record "could have gone in the next 10 to 20 years". Sites have already been "hammered" in some regions meaning artefact hunters already have to go further and further away from their homes to find "productive" sites.

The patterns of sites in the landscape is being distorted and broken up by this activity, not just by the destruction of individual sites but by the damage done to the group structure when a leading ones in the area have been eliminated by being used as a source of collectables. Artefact hunters first seek out the largest and most 'productive' sites in the complex, then sites of lesser productivity when they are exhausted, or they may strip finds from the inter-site areas between which give clues as to land use and the articulation of the settlement network. With the selective removal of this material, the structure of the group disintegrates, the rest of the sites in the group can no longer be interpreted as part of a coherent landscape pattern.

The unregulated trade in artefacts freshly plundered from sites for entertainment and profit is therefore a major threat to our knowledge of the past across vast areas of the ancient world, particularly in the hardest hit artefact poaching regions of Europe and the Near East. Obviously controls on the market which provides the demand for the commodity are necessary to supplement the measures taken to stop poaching in the field, but the effectiveness of the latter varies, some countries lack the resources or will to do so, a situation which collectors and dealers currently exploit.

The trade in archaeological artefacts is covered by a number of international treaties going back to the 1950s, and these are intended to prevent the endangerment or destruction of the archaeological record due to international trade. Sadly the conventions and laws governing this trade are ignored by many of those engaged in a no-questions-asked trade, arguing that if other nations don't apply these rules (China for example), then dealers and collectors in countries like the USA are not going to take the lead and give up their "rights" to buy and sell what they want. Such self-centred 'two-wrongs-make-a-right' arguments however are not going to help save the archaeological record from destruction.

Now, with the upcoming trial of a Pennsylvania art dealer and a clampdown on the application of import restriction laws, will we be seeing the emergence in the United States of collectors' interest groups like this?

The Artistic Ivory Collectors' Guild (AICG) was formed to provide a voice for collectors of ivory art on issues that threaten the hobby. Given a widespread disinformation campaign about the extent of ivory poaching in Africa, we fear that ideologues within the environmental protection establishment have subverted laudable efforts to protect endangered species into a crusade to suppress the public's longstanding right to preserve, study and display artefacts made of ivory, including ones as common as ornaments and jewellery. Unless we provide decision makers in the legislative and administrative branches of government with our own views on the complex issues surrounding preservation of animal populations, we face the prospect that our right to collect artefacts made of ivory will be legislated out of existence by ill-informed decision makers who have been told that anything of ivory should stay on the elephant in the country where it is found, and that only academic elites in public collections should have a right to study and preserve the artifacts of this material.

See:
Nathan Gorenstein and Drew Singer, 'Philadelphia business imported illegal ivory carvings, prosecutors say', The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jul. 26, 2011.

Maryclaire Dale (Associated Press), 'Staggering amount of ivory smuggled into US', 3news.co.nz, 27 Jul 2011. (similar by same author: Feds: Pa. shop-owner smuggled ton of banned ivory)

Michael Hinkelman, 'Philadelphia man charged in major ivory trafficking probe', Philadelphia Daily News, Jul. 26, 2011.

Vignette: ivory "art" like that sold by Victor Gordon Enterprises, Philadelphia USA. It really angers me that an elephant, living breathing sentient being, is slaughtered cruelly by poachers just so some jerk can make make the worst possible kind of kitsch from its teeth, so another jerk (after he's paid off the poachers and smugglers) can make money convincing more jerks that this is some form of legitimate art.

South London Dealers Jailed After £145,000 eBay Ivory Sale

Two south London dealers, Guy Buckle and Sik-Hung Or have been sentenced for selling antique ivory fans on eBay to buyers in China and the US. The items were illegally exported without the required export permits (ATG Reporter, ' South London pair jailed after selling £145,000 worth of antique ivory to overseas buyers on eBay', Antiques Trade Gazette 27 Sep 2019). They were each sentenced to 28 months imprisonment after pleading guilty to three counts of illegally exporting ivory goods in breach of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979.

A police investigation established that 136 carved ivory fans – most of them 19th century Cantonese – had been exported outside the EU by the pair between January 2014 and November 2017 with the sales totalling £145,259. As antiques, the fans could be lawfully sold in the UK. However Buckle and Or made the majority of their sales to purchasers in China, Hong Kong and the US and dispatched the items without the necessary ‘re-export’ permits issued by the Animal and Plant Health Agency. Permits would not have been issued as import bans on ivory have been in place in the US and China since 2017.

Two items had been seized in November 2017 by UK Border Force at Heathrow when parcels being sent abroad were found to each contain an 'antique' carved ivory fan. Officers quickly identified the sender as an online trader selling identical carved ivory items.

When the pair’s home address was searched in March 2018, a total of 291 carved ivory fans, all from protected or endangered species, and four pieces of unworked elephant ivory was seized.

The men ignored the legal requirements in relation to the sale of specimens derived from protected/endangered species, though whether their arrest and sentencing will act as a deterrent to those involved in the illegal sale and export of such items remains to be seen. Dealers will be dealers, collectors will want to collect, regardless of the legality or ethics. EBay anyway has a self-imposed ivory ban in place for more than 10 years, but nasty dealers still sell it there regardless, under not-so-secret code names (like the illegal trade in wild bird eggs and human remains can from time to time still be seen to be going on there too).

Victor Gordon Pleads Guilty

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Readers may remember the sad story of the 'tribal art' dealer in Philadelphia who was selling poached ivory in his shop. Today he pleaded guilty (News Release - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service   Philadelphia Man Pleads Guilty To Smuggling African Elephant Ivory 15919335)

The owner of a Philadelphia African art store, Victor Gordon, pleaded guilty today to smuggling African elephant ivory into the United States [...] Gordon was arrested in July 2011, following the seizure from his Philadelphia store of approximately one ton of elephant ivory - one of the largest U.S. seizures of elephant ivory on record. As part of his plea agreement, Gordon has agreed to forfeit all of the seized ivory and $150,000. The value of the ivory Gordon has agreed to forfeit is estimated to be in excess of $400,000.[...] The government's ongoing investigation into the importation of elephant ivory from Africa into the United States has already resulted in the convictions of nine defendants for federal smuggling and/or Lacey Act violations. The defendant faces a maximum sentence of 20 years' imprisonment on the charge to which he has pleaded guilty.

How many elephants have been slaughtered, how man orphaned, to satisfy this callous man's greed? I hope he gets the twenty years.

I covered this story at the time of the arrest, as it seems very much related to the so-called "ancient art trade". Tuesday, 26 July 2011: Another US 'Antique' Smuggling Case: Hardly "A museum by any other name"

UPDATE 24.09.12
Rick St Hilaire has further details: 'Ivory Smuggler Pleads Guilty in US v. Gordon'.

UPDATE UPDATE 5th June 2014 The bloke is sentenced, he goes to jail, but the elephants are still dead.  U.S. v. Victor Gordon: Prison Term Imposed in Ivory Smuggling Case "30 months in prison, two years supervised release, a fine of $7500 and forfeiture of $150,000 plus one ton of elephant ivory".

Statue Stolen in 2013 Found in German Auction House

A German gallery was offering an ancient Egyptian ivory statue with a gazelle. The trouble is they did not do enough careful research to identify where the object came from, and if they had, they would have realised that an object surfacing on the market as recently as 2013 must be from an illicit source. So it was (Nevine El-Aref, 'Unique stolen ancient Egyptian statue to return from Germany soon' Al-Ahram   Sunday 14 Jun 2015).

The statue was discovered in 2008 in Aswan by a Swiss archaeological mission and was stored since in the Elephantine archaeological galleries. In 2013, the Elephantine galleries were subject to looting and the statue was stolen among other objects. At the time, the Ministry of Antiquities created a list of the stolen objects and put it on the red list of Interpol, in order to guarantee its return if it appeared in any auction hall or on the antiquities trading market.

Neither the auction house nor the seller are named, nor are any details of any investigation that may be taking place (if at all) in Germany given. Just the usual "repatriation"....

UPDATE 15th June 2015

The Cairo Post (Rany Mostafa, 'Egypt recovers 2,700-year-old statue from auction house in Germany', Cairo Post Jun. 14, 2015) suggests that the dealer concerned is the Aton Gallery for Egyptian Art in Oberhausen, who claims to be an AIDA member and provide a COA for things they sell which certifies "that this artifact [sic] comes from legal sources (private collections, art fairs, auctions)". Interestingly, a simple Google search reveals this:

Important superb Ivory Figur with Oryx - Aton Gallery
aton-gallery.com/.../hervorragende-elfenbein-figur-mit-oryxantilope.htm...Ivory Figure. Move your mouse over image or click to enlarge. Ivory Figure ... A fine, perfectly carved figure of ivory with Oryx on his shoulder. The body is twisted

Although the page to which that link goes and its cache appear to have been deleted from the Aton Gallery website, there is another page (http://aton-gallery.com/hervorragende-elfenbein-figur-mit-oryxantilope.html?___store=us&___from_store=de) the cache of which (20 May 2015 20:40:21 GMT.) is intact. Here, for the sake of discussion, is what the Google cache records the gallery had said about the object. Note the extensive narrativisation:

(Google cache screenshot 15th June 2015 g. 23:57)

Important superb Ivory Figur with Oryx
Item-No.: BO04
Date: Egypt, late New Kingdom to early Late Period c. 1100-600 B.C.
Material: Ivory
Size: Height: c. 5.0 cm
Condition: fragmentary
Provenance: German Privat Colleciton, formed in the 60s to 70s., before American NY Collection formed in the 1930s.

You can reserve this piece for you 24 hours! $5,050
Object Description A fine, perfectly carved figure of ivory with Oryx on his shoulder. The body is twisted asymmetrical, the upper body looks straight ahead while the lower body in striding pose . A style made famous by the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean. Such decorative elements were symbols of prosperity in the early 1st millennium BC and were used mainly for exclusive furniture. This figure was probably found in 1900 in Egypt and came probably through trade or as war booty in the country. Some Phoenician-style ivories are solid plaques, while others are carved on one or both sides in a delicate openwork technique. Many originally were covered by gold leaf and inlaid with semiprecious stones or colored glass. Such rich combinations of ivory, gold, and brightly colored stones made the thrones of the Assyrian kings famous for their exquisite beauty. Phoenician ivory carvers were strongly influenced by the themes and style of Egyptian art owing to longstanding ties between the two cultures. Some Phoenician ivories illustrate purely Egyptian themes, but many use Egyptian motifs in entirely original compositions.

Comp.: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1960, Accession Number: 60.145.11 - http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/60.145.11

There is also a cache (8th May 2015) of the page "highlights from the store", where can be seen "Important superb Ivory Figur with Oryx $5,108" which looks awfully like the Al Ahram's photo. Are these the same object?

If this is the object taken from the Elephantine storeroom, how did it get to Oberhausen? Where would the details "German Private Colleciton, formed in the 60s to 70s., before American NY Collection formed in the 1930s" and the "probably found in 1900 in Egypt " come from? was there any confirmatory documentation or is this a word-of-mouth provenance? What value is the latter? Note: 

"A spokesperson from the ministry added that further investigations are underway to salvage another ancient artifact that was stolen from the Aswan museum, which is also now reportedly in Germany. No further details were issued regarding the second item" (Mada Masr, 'Egypt saves stolen ancient statuette from German auction house', Mada Masr Monday, June 15, 2015).

 

Curbing the Killing by Keystrokes: EBay ivory ban

For the past few days, conservation blogs and news have been full of stories that from the beginning of 2009, eBay will ban all sales of items made of elephant ivory - Yielding to Conservationists, eBay Will Ban Ivory Sales. Lobbyists had been campaigning for the closure of the loopholes that de facto had existed in the existing regulation of the ivory trade, and unregulated internet sales were one of the biggest.

This is a victory for the conservation lobbyists who have been pointing out that it is the inability of buyers (and here US ones figured largely) to curb their acquisitiveness and ask where the raw material was coming from which has been directly responsible for the continued poaching of elephants in the wild, even in places where they are supposed to be protected. Good profits are still involved because despite existing bans there is still an unquestioning market for ivory, as a result elephants are being gunned down even in wildlife reserves, despite the presence there of armed rangers and other measures taken to protect them. I wrote on this depressing situation earlier and reflected on its relationship to the antiquities trade.

This is an interesting parallel to the antiquities market in several ways. First of all the current situation is a foil to the arguments of portable antiquity collectors that "it is not they who are responsible for looting", but the archaeologists who “do not guard sites against the looters”, or the laws "are ineffective". It is clear that in the case of ivory, the market and therefore the incentive for poaching exist because there are people willing to buy ivory goods no-questions-asked. Here internet-aided sales have a large influence. Conservation groups detail how much ivory they found being traded in the US alone through sites like eBay. They labeled it “Killing by Keystrokes” which is an interesting parallel to Elias’ “Collectors are the real Looters” epigram referring to portable antiquities.

It is the same with document-less antiquities. There in an incentive for people to go out with spades and metal detectors to dig up little scraps of the past from a local archaeological site while there are acquisitive people who are willing to buy them.

In the case of ivory, EBay faced with the criticisms of a whole bunch of animal rights and nature conservation groups has decided to do its bit to protect the elephant (and also of course its corporate image). Good for them, one can only applaud this decision and hope it will do its bit to curb the disgusting killing to give a few selfish individuals the hedonistic but perverted pleasure of owning a piece of dismembered elephant in the form of some kitschy gee-gaw. What I would like to know however is where are the archaeological and heritage lobby groups insisting they take the same sort of measures to protect the world's archaeological heritage from being similarly dismembered?

"Ecologists Do Not Study Ivories, Collectors Do"

The current issue of the magazine Tusks Week (for collectors of scrimshaw, netsuke and other carvings of elephant ivory) has a revealing article in the which highlights the problems of the attitudes of dealers towards conservation of the resource ('The Modern Ivory Collection – A Tusks Week Exclusive with Hassan B. Jerk', January 28, 2016 ). This Harlem dealer was asked:

it seems that the greatest threat to the hobby is the growing tide of legal and administrative restrictions on the collecting, importation, and trade in ivory and other animal products – usually in response to instability and warfare in different parts of the world. Is this reaction called for? How do collectors and dealers stay on the right side of the issue?

The dealer dodges the question:

HBJ: This is all the work of ecologists. What they say sounds good, but it is not good. They say that all ivory objects should go to the country of origin and no one should be able to collect them. But the fact is, all of the good books and articles about ivories and netsuke etc are written by collectors. Ecologists don’t study or care much about tusks. But collectors do. Ivories circulated all over the world in the past. They were not confined to one geographic space. Ivories traveled. I’ve never been offered anything that has come from ISIS. And if I was, I’d never buy it. One time, I was offered an ivory carving that most certainly came out of a museum. I told the guy to never call me again and I sent a picture of the object to the feds. No dealer wants to trade in that stuff. As for the proposed laws, most are written by people who know nothing about tusks… and they do this for attention.

What actually is this dealer saying here? That dealers and collectors need not bother about the effects on the elephant population of the no questions-asked buying of material of unknown collecting history because "ivory travelled"? Is really the only thing this dealer has understood of the public concern and debate about the market for ivory and rhino horn is that "ecologists want the objects to go back to the source country"? How distorted a picture of the real concerns is that? This is not just about "repatriation". 

Any ban would be the result of dealers and collectors repeatedly showing that they cannot understand the issues of concern and refuse to take any action to counteract the problems their trade involves. How much longer can we afford to be patient with the non-arguments and deflections of the dealers and their lobbyists?

To STOP the illicit trade in ivory, we need to STOP those who will buy it from dodgy sources no questions asked. If dealers and collectors will not do it themselves, then they need to be compelled, (and one way to do that is to impose a total ban). Now is the time for responsible dealers and collectors to take responsibility for the shape of the modern antiquities trade. There is no place for dinosaurs.

Archaeologists, Attitudes to Conservation and the Elephant Hunter Argument

Portable Antiquities Scheme Database

Diplodicus Snarl, the famous Styrian big game hunter has just published an article in the Moldavian periodical 'Ökologische habitatspflege' (Snarl 2018, An empirical examination of ecological damage caused by non-professional extraction of elephant ivory ex situ ('poaching'). A case study from the Republic of Equatorial Guinea'). He argues that ivory is a very useful material, and left on the living animal often never gets even seen by the man on the street and ends up being lost when the animal dies and disintegrates on the decomposing carcass under the tropical sun. He dismisses the conflict of interest between the conservationists who see ivory hunting as causing significant ecological damage (Snarl, 2018 p. 2) and the group of people who argue for the harvesting of as much of this material as possible by amateur hunters so it can be used and not 'go to waste' (Snarl 2018, passim) He says:

'The major disagreement between the two groups thus mainly lies in the cost-benefit analysis: is it better for preservationists to prevent damage to the undisturbed ecosystem is [sic] situ, so that it isn’t disturbed, even if that means that much will be lost completely, because it will never be seen at all? Or is it better for us to extract and use as much ivory and get as much use as possible from what is extracted 'ex situ', whether it has been professionally obtained or not, even if that means that some elephants will be destroyed by non-professional ivory extraction?' (Snarl 2018, p. 2).

Archaeological site after 'collection-
driven exploitation'

I think this is a similar argument to the one applied to archaeology, isn't it?  There have been those that have suggested that there is a similar 'cost-benefit' conflict when it comes to the preservation of the archaeological record as a resource for future use. This goes on the lines of something like: "is it better for archaeology to prevent damage to the undisturbed archaeology is situ, so that it is not disturbed prior to its professional excavation, even if that means that much will be lost completely, because it will never be excavated at all?....". But then is that not what elephant conservation is about? Individual elephants will die a natural death, so will be lost anyway. In the same way we conserve remains of the past (and that goes for historical buildings and other types of cultural property) for a future, without necessarily knowing what that future will be or having any control over it, but trusting that in that future there will be those that care enough to do something about its eventual deterioration and destruction, just as we do. That is what conservation is about - optimism about the future of our concepts of heritage values rather than nihilist pessimism. What these people are saying is the equivalent of: "we might as well scrape all the gold off the stucco in Venice and strip the lead from the roofs there now as the city is sinking and the buildings will be underwater and collapse within a century or so anyway, and Italy will probably be inhabited by uncaring philistines who will not value it as much as we do and have less idea than we do about how to look after it - so we should use them up now as we do not know, cannot know, which ones will be saved". This is the arrogance of presentism.

These supporters of collection-driven exploitation go on:

"...or is it better for archaeology to record as m[any] data as possible about what is excavated and thus destroyed in situ, whether it has been professionally excavated or not, even if that means that some ‘ undisturbed ’ contexts will be destroyed by unprofessional finds extraction?" (Karl 2018, 2).

What 'data' are these? Concerning what? 

This raises a whole load of questions. First of all, what is meant by [archaeological] data here? An ivory tusk from Botswana is evidence of the former presence of an elephant in Botswana, as much as a Roman coin from Bognor is evidence of presence of Romans there, and we can even say roughly (TPQ) when. We can even have loose reports of 'lots of Roman coins' from all over the Bognor region dug out of the archaeological record. But these are not data on the sites and contexts they were hoiked from. They illustrate the historical record to which they can be related (narrativised) because we recognise their shape, can name them, and they have pictures and writing on them They document recent collecting and reporting activities by random individuals engaged in a minority hobby. Not much else. Artefacts are not data in themselves.

Secondly is archaeological evidence an objective existing entity, or is archaeological evidence co-created by the observer? Obviously the latter. If the observer knows what to look for, what it means - understands site formation processes and taphonolmy and how to document it. If not we get the equivalent of ancient aliens, or Inigo Jones' square Stonehenge. It should be obvious that a metal detectorist that cannot even string more that a handful of words into a coherent sentence in his native language or (apparently) read more than eight consecutive sentences without getting lost, has about as much chance of correctly reading and describing the archaeological record of a Roman deposit in a field near Bognor as my cat (the intelligent one - the other one could not even find the field).

Here is the problem for glib soundbite notions of 'citizen archaeology' - coterminous with 'digging up old things'. Through learning and the use of a recognised methodology, we standardise our excavation and recording methods in the way we do so that their reliability because we can see how the knowledge they embody was constructed, where its strong and weak points are (this will be apparent to anyone working on documentation from old excavations as I am doing at the moment). Amateur archaeology is amateur archaeology because it employs archaeological methodology. If archaeological methodologies are not applied, it is not archaeology.

In the same way, and following on from that, bad archaeological evidence is not better than no evidence. Bad evidence is bad evidence, a rotten apple is not better than no apple and should not be packed in a box going to the shop with fresh ones to make up numbers. It has to be discarded. In the same way archaeological material inexpertly 'excavated' and improperly recorded are data that must be discarded or at least treated as wholly suspect and unreliable in any analysis.

Metal detectorists mostly produce loose collectables, not data that tell you anything about the taphonomy of the deposit in which they were preserved, and from which they were taken. Furthermore, by removal of that object, those objects, the original structure of those deposits is changed by the artefact hunter. But anybody later doing a surface survey, of that site will never know that in the first week of July 1982, Bob, Baz and Jez spent a couple of days in tents 'doing over' the site (the boxload of diagnostic artefacts long ago ended up in a skip with a load of other stuff - Jez sold the hammies he found in '86) and eight years later Jayn and Terry 'found a few bits' - one brooch is in Barchester Museum, but only has a four-figure NGR and three other guys also tried their hand several years later, but decided it was not worth their while as they could see by what was now coming up that the site had been 'hammered' by previous visitors, the names of whom the farmer has forgotten. Doing a surface survey of the site, one might tell the field had been 'done over', but not where had been searched, what was taken, and where the surface of the field is relatively untouched by such activity. In that way, any distribution of material across that field is totally distorted, and as a source of information, the distribution pattern of material on that site has been destroyed as surely as if the site had been randomly bulldozed.


Reading what they write (and I've read a lot of it), it seems to me that the archaeologists who support collectors seem to me to be seeing the whole issue from three narrow viewpoints:

1) archaeology as discovery and not a conservation issue,
2) Archaeology as primarily about objects/artefacts, and
3) Archaeology as about individual spots, trenches that are dug, rather than landscapes (that's not the same as dot-distribution maps) and surface survey. Surface sites seem in general outside their field of view* 

The sites are destroyed, nobody profits

The archaeological context is not a coin in a box, and as archaeologists who believe in a future for archaeology, our responsibilities surely go further than dig up everything so the current generation can use it all up now. The cost benefit analysis of trying to use Collection-Driven Exploitation of the archaeological record as a form of ersatz archaeology is that the cheap costs of getting 'stuff for an arkie to write about' (ivories) are relatively low, but the material is obtained at the cost of destruction of a part of the archaeological record (the killing of an elephant) and in fact on more caereful analysis, those random loose decontextualised bits and pieces that enter the database are really not of as much benefit to anyone as they are often made out to be.


* Unless its demanding a 'metal detector survey of the topsoil' to 'get those objects out' before digging [digging to find more old objects?]

Blairing errors in ivory tower arguments?

New Zealander oriental antiquities collector Kenneth Blair reckons I've got it all wrong about the significance of the ivory ban, so wrong in fact he has cross posted this information not only on the ancient artifacts Forum, but also (for reasons that are beyond me) to the antiquitists' plodding happy-slapping Unidroit-L. Well, Mr Blair obviously has not read what I wrote nor thought too deeply about it, so I'm not really too bothered to discuss it with him in detail. If you read what he wrote, its the same old mantras, the same old personal comments rustled up in defence of a bunch of attitudes which are increasingly obviously becoming indefensible.

It's odd isn't it that the antiquities trade is said some of the time by collectors and dealers to act like any other supply and demand market... until that is supply and demand arguments are used to criticise it. Then we are told that of course we "simply do not understand" how this mysterious market works, it's not like a normal supply and demand market. Well, there certainly is a LOT of secrecy about and this lack of transparency hinders determining its workings - but the areas that dealers and collectors keep most quiet about are of course rather telling in themselves, I think in reality most observers have a pretty good idea what it is they are trying to hide and trying to deny. The parallel with the trade in illicit and mis-provenenced ivory is too close for comfort I guess.

The point is that ebay's ivory ban IS in response to a demand. The demand from decent conservation minded and concerned people that, in order that its reputation is not further tarnished, eBay do something about the way it is currently apparently being used to disseminate misprovenanced ivory goods which has the potential of being used as a cover for the sale of illicitly-obtained material. Despite the ban, nobody is in any doubt that some nasty, thoughtless and self-centred people will still continue to buy and sell their sliced up bits of freshly slaughtered elephant, but not on ebay alongside decent people. There will be less ambiguity about who they are and precisely what they are doing. EBay realises that decent normal folk will not want want to mix with them, and do not want the reputation of a place where "elephant killing by keystrokes" happens. Perhaps it is time for them to likewise sort out some of the other controversial areas such as their involvement in the trade in poorly-provenanced and fake antiquities which also heavily tarnishes its corporate reputation.

Vignette: taotie mask from the type of Chinese bronze terribly popular with collectors.

US Ivory Ban Affects BM Exhibit

Heffalump, real men say no to ivory

Six Byzantine ivory reliefs from the British Museum were denied entry to the US by Fish and Wildlife Service (Victoria Stapley-Brown, 'British Museum’s ivory icons denied US entry for loan show' the Art Newspaper 1 July 2015 ). But looted artworks loaned by a museum are not allowed in, and given immunity from seizure by US law. Elephants are cuddlier than cultural heritage.

Anyway, the BM has a programme of making 3D models of things, let them scan their ivory and send a 3D printout, cheaper, safer than sending the originals and the simulacra do not need controlled environments. Americans (as people from the source countries they came from) can see the originals in London. What about the rest of the objects in the show, when and how did those Russian icons surface on the market? How many of them have blood on them?

Ivory trade to be banned in UK 'to protect elephants'

The sale and export of almost all ivory items would be banned in the UK under plans set out by the government. Environment Secretary Michael Gove has announced a consultation to end the trade in ivory of all ages - previous attempts at a ban would have excluded antique ivory produced before 1947. The government says there will be some exemptions, for musical instruments and items of cultural importance. (Matt McGrath, Ivory trade to be banned in UK 'to protect elephants' BBC 6 October 2017)

Vignette: Elephant

Warlords Of Ivory

Dismembered elephant remains,
each one slaughtered just for two teeth
(National Geographic)

Warlords Of Ivory

Next month, National Geographic Fellow Bryan Christy takes an in-depth look at the global illegal ivory trade using a smuggled tusk with GPS tracker to follow a bloody trail leading to the doorsteps of Africa’s most dangerous terrorists. Warlords of Ivory Premieres Tuesday 1st September 9.30pm AEST/NZST National Geographic Channel

Source: National Geographic Channel Facebook page  12 August 2015

There is an article in the September issue of the National Geographic Magazine; 'A smuggled tusk. A hidden GPS chip. A crime story'  (see interview with the writer here too).
 It strikes me that this would be a great thing to do with antiquities, put a tracking chip into several genuine artefacts and put them on the Turkish black market right on the Syrian border and then track its movement. The ivory tusk has stopped moving, and is presumably stashed somewhere - like Middle Eastern antiquities are presumed to be, get some chips in artefacts and maybe we'll locate some of those stashes.

[the same NatGeoMag also contains an article on Mes Aynak]

BBC considers whether to stop showing ivory on Antiques Roadshow

This would be a welcome move, the BBC is considering whether to stop showing ivory on the Antiques Roadshow as the government looks to a total ban on the material’s sale in the UK (Graham Ruddick, ' BBC considers whether to stop showing ivory on Antiques Roadshow' BBC, Tue 9 Jan 2018).

China has already outlawed all trade in ivory and the UK government is consulting on whether to follow suit as attempts to stop the poaching of elephants increase around the world. It is already illegal in the UK to sell ivory from elephants killed after 1947. Campaigners claim it creates a gap in the law allowing dealers to declare items as antiques without providing evidence of their age.

About 20,000 African elephants a year are slaughtered by poachers.  Then maybe they can impose a similar ban on the showing of the valuation of archaeological material and paperless antiquities from abroad.

Vignette: Quit showing ivories