Creaming off the Best Bits: Sites Trashed, Undocumented Export from Region of Ongoing Conflict.

                Artefacts                   

Really no comment is necessary, in the usual word-soup that eBay sellers use to entice buyers, we find both "Russia" [invaders] and "Ukraine" [Victim of unprovoked destructive attack and looting], add in "ancient" and the buyer can see exactly what this sale represents in the fifth month of the war.

Lot 3 Ancient Viking Enamel Bronze Cross Kiev Russia Ukraine 1100 Byzantine 10 Condition: --not specified Price: US $110.00

Description
Item specifics
Material: Bronze
19. Pendant hoop indicted.
SEE IMAGE.
SIZE 27X36; 25X33; 19X31 (19X58) mm.
K 357. K 10.14
AC.

Ugly picture, complete garbage as a description, collection history: zero. Export permit and documentation of title - no mention.

Seller information: cream1904 (9594) Located in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, has been an eBay member since Apr 20, 2005, 25K Items sold, now selling 5,501 items. These include such things as:

Ancient Viking Scandinavian Bronze Cross Kiev Russia Ukraine 1100 Byzantine 17 $70.00

LOT OF 9 Ancient Viking Enamel Bronze Cross Kiev Russia ca 1100 Byzantine 64 $200.00

Ancient Viking Scandinavian Bronze Cross Kiev Russia Ukraine 1100 Byzantine 42 $200.00

SET OF 4 ANCIENT VIKING BRONZE-IRON TRADER WEIGHT ca 10 - 12 century AD 523 $60.00

SET OF 5 ANCIENT VIKING BRONZE-IRON TRADER WEIGHT ca 10 - 12 century AD 560 $95.00

SET OF 5 ANCIENT VIKING BRONZE-IRON TRADER WEIGHT ca 10 - 12 century AD 586 $95.00

SET OF 5 ANCIENT VIKING BRONZE-IRON TRADER WEIGHT ca 10 - 12 century AD 610 $95.00

also:
LOT OF 6 Olbia Cast Dolphin ca 5th BC OY θY Greek Ukraine 515 $95.00

Olbia Cast Bronze Dolphin ca 5 Th BC Ukraine Greek Russia LOT of 7 Dolphin 237 Price: US $72.00 (Plus another 51 of these coins in a number of lots).

There are also relatively large numbers of the small hammered 'wire money' coins current in Russia between 1360 and and the early reign of Peter the Great (c. 1710).

In not a single case is any metion made of how the items got onto the market, and how they left war-torn source countries (at a time when one of them is under sanctions). How can this be? And what is more notable is that this (and dozens of sales like this) are going on in the plain view of those US and British academics that are grabbing grant money to do remote surveys and publish summary reports independently of Ukrainian specialists working on the ground on "damage caused to Ukrainian cultural heritage". Yet they just turn awy from the sale of items in their own counbtries that are the motor for the destructive mining of archaeological sites (also cultural heritage of course) for collectable items like this. Dealers like Creamy above skim off the more seleable stuff while all the other artefacts hoiked out while looking for them are simply discarded, leaving huge holes in the archaeological record of countless undocumentyed sites. And British and American archaeologists shrug their shoulders as this happens right under their noses and in their own countries.