A Collector (above) and Her Unprovenanced Shabti

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In the above post I discuss where collector Meechmunchie says she disagrees with me over the best way to protect the archaeological heritage from looting. Now I'd like to discuss why what she says is doing nothing to protect the archaeological record from continual looting for collectables. This involves the sale of a shabti figurine on ebay last week. Sold by Barry and Darling "Bits of History" of Point Pleasant, New Jersey. They previously had had this shabti for sale on their V-Coins portal for 200 dollars recently. Nobody would touch it for that price, perhaps because there was no information offered about where it came from and when and how it had left Egypt. Like many of the artefacts offered by that dealer one might add. So they decided to cut their losses and put it on the venue where many collectors go in the hope of picking up cut-price looted artefacts. This is the description from the eBay sale.

Egyptian Faience Ushabti, 21st Dynasty, 1077 - 943 BC "Pale blue faience ushabti wearing a black painted seshed headband (tied at back) and carrying the usual flail and hoe. 6.0 cm tall. 21st Dynasty, Third Intermediate Period (TIP), 1077 - 943 BC. Not freestanding (will tip over). It has been repaired at the foot and there is a chip missing from the bottom, both are not visible in the image. Cute with nice coloring. cf Petrie "Shabtis" # 388 [...] All of our artifacts are guaranteed to be genuine. The items pictured is the ones that the winning bidder will receive. COA available on request. Item number AR0909-004.

There then follow two paragraphs saying what shabtis are for, the usual dealer stuff, followed by... well, nothing. No provenance, not even a "purchased from an unknown seller in 1953 and then kept in two New York collections since then, documentation will be supplied to purchaser". Nothing. For all we know from the description, the bloke Barry and Darling bought it from might have not long before that got it from Lyon F. Agin, loot suppliers to the well-heeled - who lied when he said "got it from a bloke just after the War, been in the family years mate" when in fact it came in a box of bananas from Egypt a few months before. The sales offer contains nothing whatsoever to contradict such a scenario, simply no information is provided whatsoever.

A responsible collector surely would not be buying such stuff "hoping it is not recently looted" or "to give it a good home anyway" (what is so "good" about their home relative to anybody else's?). Let it stay on the dealer's hands long enough for him to realise that it is no longer a viable proposition buying unprovenanced stuff, material which cannot be truthfully advertised as vefifiably legitimate in accordance with all considerations. Sadly 14 people bid for the item, and the winner paid 69 dollars for this item. Guess who.

The same person also has on her flickr photos website a scarab bearing the name of Tuthmosis III "When I stop being lazy I'll ask around and see if I can find out anything about its history!" (there we have that notion that context can be reconstructed just by "asking around"; no it cannot and I think from the poor photo there is a fair chance its a fake anyway - serves you right). She also first appeared (under a different name) on my blog having freshly bought herself a "Wenneb" shabti. Now that same somebody not so long ago was holding forth on my blog on buying dodgy artefacts:

I have absolutely no sympathy here. I think more collectors need to care about provenance on "small objects". Dealers seem to view the influx of a few who care as an inconvenience and lament the death of the "discreet deal between gentlemen"* nature of the profession. It seems like the privacy of the previous owner is valued more than the legality of the object, which is a shame. I've definitely gotten some snarky replies inquiring about provenance on Ebay..."if you don't like that it came from a 'german collection', don't bid." And they can afford to do this because I'll not bid, but a jillion other people who don't care will. [...] This fellow bought stolen goods and did no due diligence, and the galleries that sold it to him are no better than black-market dealers and back-alley fences for stolen goods.This is an attitude amongst collectors that MUST CHANGE, and perhaps if an example was made of a collector or dealer, it would help.

Fine words. But collectors just cannot stop themselves from carrying on collecting this stuff regardless, don't they? And they think up a jillion reasons why its OK, it's not their fault, it does not apply to this "one object" which they are "only giving a good home to".

This was the argument used by Robert Hecht, that provenance was not important, it was "preserving the object" by the prvate collector that was important. But see where that has got him and US collecting.

Now tell us, what are you going to do with that "cute" object? What are you going to learn from it? Do you not feel guilty about buying it, or proud of yourself that you beat the competition? A bit of one-upmanship. How much of your 69 dollars is Mr Barry going to send to the family of the man who dug it out? Let's ask him shall we? Mr Barry, do you have an export licence for that object or any documentation whatsoever that it actually left Egypt legitimately after, or before such export controls were in place? If so, why was it not mentioned in your ebay advert instead of all that junk about what shabtis were for? Is that not just a smokescreen, to make it look as if you are giving the gullible buyer a "lot of information" when in fact the most important information is missing? Do Barry and Darling sell many Egyptian antiquities without any actual documentation how and when they left Egypt?

Perhaps it should be made clear that I believe that by no means is the buyer of this shabti alone in this. In fact probably well over ninety percent of transactions involving antiquities which are daily bought and sold on the global market are being bought and sold in exactly the same way. I imagine each concerned buyer looks a bit ruefull when they realise once again that the seller is not going to cough up the details ("trade secret, client confidentiality, sorry") of how they actually know that this particular object is not recently looted from a site in, or recently smuggled out of, a source country. No documents, but he "has checked" and "knows" it is legitimate. The dealer puts on a hurt expression that their client "will not trust them". All aimed at persuading them to give up this provenance silliness: "of course it is OK, don't you trust me?" they wheedle. The client almost invariably gives in and buys, its all part of the game.

Almost certainly, each buyer persuades themselves, this one is legitimate. Look, it has a browning paper label on it, must be old, surely... yes. Only other people buy the looted stuff, this one I am sure is OK. Its the other dealers who buy from looters, not my favourite dealers (Ken Grabkesh and Donny Runn). They say it's OK to buy it and I trust them, they would not deceive me, surely... Not after all the money I have spent in their shop... Anyway, even if its not really all that legal, its going to a good home, I will look after it, poor cute little shabti....it's better off with me than lying unseen in the earth or with those awful foreigners in the source country. Yeah, that feels good, nice, speak to me shabti, my shabti, tell me about the past.

I think that some people buying dodgy artefacts do so because of the frisson of doing so, cocking a snook at authority, expression of rebellion (what are you going to do about it archie? No American law was broken so there!). Most however I suspect persuade themselves that in their specific case, they are not really doing anything bad, that most probably the artefacts they buy are not tainted, just a little orphaned, just a little bit separated from their provenance. Or another common theme is that by possessing them, they are in some way a heritage hero saving the object from something. Perhaps there is a sense that the individual collector is in a sense deserving to be the curator of the object. Most of them would be appalled to it be even suggested that in consistently buying unprovenanced artefacts they might have touched looted goods. Yet the statistical chance of them doing so increases with every such purchase. A statistic most I suspect would prefer not to think about, or even deny.

These are all implications of some of what we see these people saying on the collectors' forums. Most of them of course do not discuss motivations, let alone ethics, so we have only oblique references to try and understand this phenomenon.