Thursday 4 June 2009

Hooker quotes A.A. Milne

Canadian coin collector John Hooker writes this morning to ancient coin collectors on Moneta-L on the subject of "Bulk lots of Roman coins" and reveals something of his taste in literature.
There is a tremendous amount of nonsense being spread about bulk lots of Roman coins from Britain being sold in the U.S. Almost all of this is by people who have very little knowledge of numismatics, have never published anything on the subject and who have even less knowledge of coins in the archaeological context. Only one of these spokesmen can make any claim to some knowledge of these subjects and he is a tyro to the subject. In dealing with the more complex levels of numismatics, especially in its archaeological context, one starts to get the hang of things usually after about twenty years. [...] As for these supposedly "well-meaning" "concerned citizens" with little real knowledge of the subject and no art at all, what can I say? I think that Winnie the Pooh sums it up nicely: “When you are a Bear of very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”
Well, of course one of the purposes of blogging thoughts is so that it gets them out in the open and has other people looking at them and examining them in various contexts. This discussion is of course not about coins as art objects or subject of typological study, but about coins as archaeological artefacts (just like any other). It is about the use (or in this case prevention of use) of a particular group of ancient metal artefacts as evidence of the patterns of human activity within a region. That region is not in Canada or Wisconsin, but the place from where those archaeological artefacts were removed from the ground. On that subject I do have (well) more than twenty years experience.

I say that removing random elements from among the patterns and assemblages of archaeological artefacts from the soil in the places where they have been laying since they were deposited is damaging our ability to interpret those patterns. John Hooker likens me to a "bear of little brain" for saying so. He seems to be of the view that removing year after year an unknown (but obviously large) quantity of material like ancient coins from unknown areas of relict landscapes all over the old world has no 'significant' effect whatsoever on the archaeological record. Like Mr Tompa then.

I really think the PAS, "partner" of collectors, and "Friend of Numismatists" needs to step in here. Collecting these data and making them available for research is what it does. Collector Hooker is questioning the fundamental reasons behind that. Let the PAS for once defend what they do against the misinformation that is being constantly spread by ACCG-affiliated collectors of ancient coins who see the Scheme only as a shield for their hobby when it suits them. Until they do, with reference to what Hooker says, I'll add that no amount of "statistics" can compensate for a randomly damaged database. John Hooker suggests that:
if you want to attempt some sort of distribution pattern from non-site surface finds, then go ahead. It will not be very useful because you must make a number of assumptions without good evidence. Should you try to include every coin found? of course not!
I'd question what Mr Hooker really knows about the "assumptions" that he claims lie behind archaeological field survey. So, by that argument, we can pack up the PAS then as we've already gathered some hundreds of thousands of pieces of information about findspots. It seems to me that there is a different problem, if we allow destruction of a finite, fragile and important resource, then we cannot let that damage go on unmitigated. All we "tyros" are asking is that collectors ("friends" and "partners" of archaeology ostensibly) help ensure that it is by only buying material which has been properly recorded and legally obtained and exported. Obviously for people like Mr Hooker that is far too much of us to ask or expect and merely suggesting it is enough to make individuals the object of his comments.

What is more, John Hooker reckons that because of the concerns that have been raised about unethical and illegal practices on the antiquities market:
Asking a European dealer for a provenance sets up alarm bells with them these days. They know what can then happen. It is far simpler to say "it's from an old ___ collection". This is what these supposedly well-meaning fools have accomplished.
The dealers admitting where the stuff they sell comes from "know what can then happen", so that's why they keep quiet? Well, one of the things might be that they could go to jail if it turns out they are dealing in illegally obtained materials. Hooker suggests that if a dealer will not reveal where something comes from and where they got it from its the fault of those "fools" in the heritage protection lobby, and not the collectors who will buy stuff no matter where it came from and how it got there? A neat way for collectors to absolve themselves of responsibility.

Readers can find the rest of John Hooker's lengthy post here.

Photo: Bear of Very Little Brain (Allegro).

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. Well I rather suspect Mr Hooker was meaning the "ordinary people" of Heritage Action when he wrote this -

" As for these supposedly "well-meaning" "concerned citizens" with little real knowledge of the subject and no art at all, what can I say? I think that Winnie the Pooh sums it up nicely: “When you are a Bear of very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”

Three things, Mr Hooker:

1. First, I paid you the courtesy of suggesting you were not ill-educated,it seems churlish for you to respond by saying we have small brains. Just as you are a collector but also a lawyer, please understand we are conservationists but also various other things, some of which require adequate brains.

2. Please understand that in sneering at our capacity to have concerns you are sneering at the capacity of the British public to have concerns. This would only be untrue if you were able to show the members of Heritage Action were in some way unrepresentative of the British public. I think you can have no evidence of that and that it is a characterisation of convenience.

3. Please understand: our supposed ignorance of numismatics (and that of the British public) is of no relevance. We see lost context as lost history and the activities of a numismatist, however learned and fruitful, can never replace that. If you pay someone who destroys context you are paying for our history to be lost. That's a plain fact. Please don't tell us we just don't understand.

In my view the most revealing remark you made was "What can I say?" Nothing, I would suggest, nor can anyone that buys British dugups without being determined to absolutely ensure they aren't causing damage.

Nathan Elkins said...

Another interesting part of Hooker's post is that he claims that it takes one 20 years to master the study of "coins in context." If, as he and his friends have said before, context is unimportant and virtually useless, then I wonder why it would take so long to master the study of it. Again this shows he has little if any comprehension or knowledge of the subject matter let alone the literature that is available.

Like everything else, he is making it all up as he goes along. Obfuscation and distortion is the best that many in this angry milieu can pull off.

Nathan Elkins said...

Also regarding site finds, there is at least one methodological essay in the forthcoming edited volume ( Coins in Context I) which discusses in detail the difference between studying coins in "close contexts" (e.g. features and stratigraphic layers) versus an entire series of coins from a site. Both types of studies are essential and answer different questions.

Of course, Hooker's dismissal of various approaches to coins in context is uninformed. He has not the faintest idea of how coins in context are intensively studied, or can be intensively studied. I've mentioned the work of H.-M. von Kaenel, Markus Peter, David Wigg-Wolf, and Fleur Kemmers, among others many times on my own website.

Watch my website (http://coinarchaeology.blogspot.com) for discussion of the edited volume when it comes out.

Paul Barford said...

Heritage Action:
John Hooker is no lawyer as his recent total misapprehensions on the scope and subject of US copyright legislation on Moneta-L well illustrate.

Nathan (first comment):
" Obfuscation and distortion is the best that many in this angry milieu can pull off" which is precisely why they try to sidetrack the argument and launch personal attacks whenever somebody points out the logical fallacies in their arguments or behaviour. The fuss they kicked up (are kicking up) about your perfectly valid comments on the unrecorded "British dugups" being a case in point. Instead of addressing the issue within their own ranks, they are casting blame on outsiders for noticing.

"Wasn't me, miss, I weren't even in the playground when it 'appened, it was the boys from Class IIIB, yes, miss, it woz them that done it, not us !". (Richmal Crompton: "William and the Treasure Hunters" Chapter seven) http://sharpsoftware.co.uk/william/

Nathan (second post):
This dismissal of context is not restricted to just John Hooker, though I do wonder how one can claim to be a "numismatist" (in the less narrow meaning of the word than just "coin collector") without knowledge of the literature and the scope of work being done elsewhere. It is here we note the absence of any of the ACCG dealers/writers as speakers at major numismatic gathering (conferences, not coin fairs). Spotted many?

Anonymous said...

My apologies to Mr Hooker for confusing him with Mr Tompa.

But I'm still indignant about his contemptuous dismissal of "supposedly well-meaning concerned citizens" as people that just don't understand the issue.

As I say to metal detectorists, who frequently take the same line, it is not us that have taken 10,497,425 British artefacts out of the fields since 1975, mostly without recording them, it's you! By the same token I can say to collectors it is not us that has bought a lot of them and encouraged the process - it's you!

What's not to understand about that?

Paul Barford said...

It seems perfectly clear to me.

Paul Barford said...

More self-promotion from the pen of John Hooker on several topics except the one that matters, the original one raised by Nathan Elkins: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Moneta-L/message/92619. Includes testimonials on an internet discussion forum and a quote from a blurb about his book on the patterns on some Celtic coins.

Paul Barford said...

Who is responsible for „Bulk lots” of unrecorded British artefacts on the US market?

The coineys are still discussing what they see as the “implications” of the comments by Nathan Elkins REF on the sale of unrecorded “bulk lots” of ancient artifacts from British soil in the US. As Nathan suggests, this totally undermines the pro-PAS sentiments this milieu adopts when it suits them.

One ACCG-associated commentator suggests http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Moneta-L/message/92627
There are worries that with the retreat back into animosity against metal detectorists, dealers and collectors, further restrictions might be in our future. For that reason, some careful people are less eager to share the knowledge of what they hold.” The adjective further restrictions is thought provoking. What restrictions do collectors of portable artifacts suffer in the case of Britain? Which of those “restrictions” of an almost totally laissez-faire system would they like to see removed? Give them an inch and they want a mile.

The diatribe continues:
Barford, Swift and Elkins are busy undoing what it took many years for such people as the late Tony Gregory, Philip de Jersey and others to build up. Their endless and fanatical denigration of dealers, collectors and independent numismatists who do not accept their dogma is doing great harm to numismatics, museology, education and archaeology and they are incapable of seeing how it is happening .

Now, let us get this right. By criticizing dealers and collectors who deal and collect from the products of irresponsible artefact hunting, “[Paul] Barford, [Nigel] Swift and [Nathan] Elkins” are encouraging irresponsible artefact hunting in the UK. Eh? Well, to judge by the fact that not a single Moneta-L member has to date queried the logic behind that statement, we have to assume that it makes total sense to a US coin collector. But it beats me how.

I suppose the coin collecting community feels that if somebody sees something going on which seems wrong to them, they are supposed to button their lips and look the other way. I think it is good that not everybody turns their back on problems. Not like the no-questions-asked dealers and especially collectors of portable antiquities do. These are the people who for such attitudes deserve all the criticism they get.

Nathan Elkins said...

In 2007 after some of my research on the coin trade was published as a SAFE Feature *subsequently published in the peer-reviewed electronic journal FeRA) there was a lot of anger from collectors/dealers who did not like the scrutiny and the facts attesting to the role the indiscriminate market plays in looting.

At that time Mr. Hooker dismissed the research as "yellow journalism" and suggested collectors start engaging more systematically in their own brand of "yellow journalism" in order to discredit those who bring awareness to the problem. Perhaps this explains why an otherwise well-informed person is writing such absurd and obfuscatory nonsense. It seems he has taken his own advice to heart.

See his post
here
.

Paul Barford said...

I note John Hooker ends that 2007 post with the exhortation: "We must learn how to offend our opponents!"

Hmmm.

 
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