The first 13 public comments on the Egypt MOU are up on the US Regulations website. Two of them by Rick St Hilaire and Damien Huffer are worth reading. The other 11 are by lost limp-minded souls who think Ancient Egyptians produced coins, coins which they study and the whole world would be a far poorer place if these home-grown scholars of "Ancient Egyptian coins" could not get their hands on "Ancient Egyptian coins". Oh dear, Amenhotep dirhems, Hatshepsut denars and the boy-king Tutanknhamun's minimissimi will have to be studied by those who know more about such things than these pathetic numpties singing in vacant chorus from the ACCG's Tompa's songsheet. Mind you one of them counts himself as the greatest numismatic scholar in the whole of Montana, what Warren Esty does not know about the die links of coins of the First Intermediate Period is probably not worth knowing.Vignette: A chorus of, for the most part, ridiculous looking people.
11 comments:
Why must you mock people who disagree with you? And come now, a bit of bait and switch is going on here-- the Public Notice indicates that restrictions on artifacts of later periods are on the table. It's not just the earlier material that is subject to restriction.
As for Messrs. St. Hilaire and Huffer, it looks like they've drunk the Kool-Aid. These prejudged restrictions will only help give some much needed legitimacy to the Egyptian Military Dictatorship. They will not discourage looting. Rather, if anything, they may encourage further destruction of artifacts by Egyptian citizens who associate them with the military dictatorship. Recall the justification given by the young looter at the Malawi Museum for his destruction of artifacts. They were destroyed BECAUSE they have been declared property of his state oppressors.
These people do not "disagree with me" because these people have simply NOT read anything other than some dealers' appeal to oppose the MOU. Believe me, it would be far more intellectually satisfying to have somebody making REAL points which challenge the position I hold. I do not see any at all there in that first batch. They look as if they cut-and-pasted their responses to the Bulgarian one (Mr Big-Montana-Scholar-Esty in particular).
Have you been to Egypt Mr Tompa? Have you talked to Egyptians? First you try to lecture me this morning on what archaeological excavations look like (I know) and now you want to tell me what Egyptians think. Why?
as for "legitimacy",the indecision of your your President (former "leader of the free world") in January 2011, and last year's verbal gymnastics to avoid using the "C-word" so they could keep pumping cash over there is a FAR more effective bolster of legitimacy for the current regime.
Stopping the smuggling of antiquities into the US is instead a measure of the legitimacy of the US antiquities market.
As for the culture-speciic metaphor, if you look up what it means...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid
...that is just crass. What is the matter with these people?
Be fair - Warren Esty actually described himself as "the most prominent scholar in Montana who contributes to knowledge of ancient coins", which is quite possibly true, and a reasonable statement to include in his submission.
Ross Glanfield
Be fair - Warren Esty actually described himself as "the greatest scholar in the whole of Montana who contributes to knowledge of ancient coins", which is quite possibly true, and a reasonable statement to include in a submission to CPAC.
Ross Glanfield
James-Ross Chapfield-Glanman or whoever you are, the phrasing is, you must admit, curious: "I am both a collector of ancient coins and the most prominent scholar in Montana who contributes to knowledge of ancient coins". Nothing like blowing your own trumpet, puff-puff. The CPAC will, I am sure, be having a chuckle at the expense of some of the contributions.
Yet Dr Esty offers nothing of any substance, appealing to his own "authority" like that he merely says:" The arguments for limiting the import of artifacts are incorrect and actually limiting import is wrong" with no attempt to qualify those statements.
Continuing his stylistically gauche contribution, Esty then goes on to draw the CPAC into his confidence:
"you and I both know that wars and revolution lead to looting on a huge scale (well-documented in recent Egypt)"....
duh, and why is this Egyptian MOU being considered right now? Wide-awake Esty suggests that this "is not anything that some "understanding" can fix or impact in any way". Once again we see the persistence of the reality-warped American idea that it they who will "fix the world". Nobody's talking about fixing any "revolution" (nota bene which took place three years ago) but what is being attempted is intended to deal with some of the fallout - that which affects the ancient sites and museum stores. And what actually is "wrong" with trying to deal with smuggling of ancient material by criminals exploiting Egyptian social unrest to make a profit from illegal activity? Dr Esty does not explain that.
The point is though, isn't it, more so than many other areas where there has been coiney opposition to the MOUs, that coins are not exactly the first collectable artefact that comes to mind when thinking of ancient Egyptian culture. Yet every single one of the naysayers comes from the US coin fondling community. It seems these are the only US collectors who refuse to accept that the situation in Egypt today needs action from responsible collectors to tidy up this bit of the market. Only the coin collectors. We will see how many papyrologists for example join your campaign over the next three weeks.
No need to excite yourself - James Chapman is simply a convenient nom-de-net.
And I am not part of the anti-MOU campaign, which your last line might be read as implying.
Ross G.
And for the record could you correct "the greatest scholar" in my 17.13 post to "the most prominent scholar" (as in the 17.04 post) if possible?
Ross G.
"Convenient" nom-de-nets have many uses. I really do not see why when people want to discuss a serious subject seriously, they cannot use their real names, so we all know who we are talking with. It seems simple courtesy.
Unfortunately once you press 'send', there is nothing anyone can do to edit the content. I only get the opportunity to accept the whole post, or reject the whole post.
But don't fret. No coiney will get so far down as to read your comments.
Glad to hear that you are not part of the "anti-MOU campaign", though what I'd PREFER to hear is you saying that as a collector, you are actively opposing the campaigners and trying to talk them round to reason. I'm planning to start a bit of a campaign myself against the naysayers, watch this space.
So be it.
Ross G.
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