An AIA 'Take' on the CPAC Meeting

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Laetitia La Follette (Associate Professor of Art History at University of Massachusetts Amherst and member of AIA's Cultural Heritage Policy Committee) has given an account of the meeting of the CPAC at which the bilateral cultural property agreement with Greece was discussed This account ('Eleven AIA Members testify at Cultural Property Advisory Committee Meeting on October 12, 2010', AIA blog October 26, 2010) gives more of the atmosphere of the meeting than the earlier coiney-centred account of Tompa. In fact she gives one piece of information that Tompa witheld:

Peter Tompa, a paid lobbyist, provided some drama, protesting the Committee's refusal, based on advice from legal counsel, to allow him to pass ancient coins around the conference table as he has done in the past.

I have heard from people who were there that he almost had to be physically restrained from passing round his coins, I don't know if that its true, but the 'drama' of the moment made an impression on Prof. La Follette. Note how she emphasises Tompa is "paid" to do his lobbying.

Tompa's account is coiney centred and although Professor La Follette's version gives a much more rounded picture of the various concerns voiced, coins do seem to have figured large in the discussions. I do so hope that the Greek request covers ancient coins and wouldn't it be scandalous for the CPAC then to recommend their exclusion?

Mr Tompa also criticises Professor La Follette not saying anything in her account of the meeting to the effect that prior to it, "70% of the public comments [were] opposed to the MOU or its extension to coins". I hope however that the President's advisory committee pays special attention to those submissions and identifies the mechanisms and motives which were the motor behind them. Will they do that? Hmmm?

Neither did Professor La Follette mention that the UNESCO Convention contain other measures than Art. 9, and its about time the US took its accession to it seriously, or not at all. If they cannot adhere to it, the United States should withdraw from the Convention itself and rename the CCPIA to make perfectly clear to the rest of the world what is going on in and around the US antiquities market.