Thursday 4 March 2010

Berk "Beats Archaeologists" to Recent Find of Athenian Red Figure Cup?


Prompted by the remarks he made at a numismatic conference in New York (which I also discussed here), David Gill took a look at Harlan Berk’s website and found a series of joining fragments of an apparently unrecorded and thus potentially “freshly-surfaced” (sic) fragmentary Attic red-figured cup (Item #aq13622) being sold there for US$12500. He discusses them in a post on Looting Matters ( "I am angry at the archaeologists and I want to beat them" ). Gill notes:
it is claimed that this newly surfaced cup is "an important piece". However its findspot is apparently unknown and unrecorded. This is a pity as it could have told us something of the distribution of this type of pottery in the late Archaic period.
I think knowing where it came from might also tell us a little more about the supply of material to this corner of the US antiquities market. Where are the rest of the pieces?
.
Vignette - Vesta the Discerning Collector: "No, I will not touch it until you tell me where it really came from Mr Berk" (Britannica).

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