Ancient Egyptian Hardstone Vessel Scanning: Just Going Round and Round in Circles (long one)

That's two hours of my life I'll not get back. Ben van Kerkwyk, Australian-born, U.S.-based researcher and content creator with a tech (IT?) background, apparently loves the sound of his own voice and is sure that what he has to say is so interesting, we all need two hours of it to be taught about the vases he and his mates have been playing about with. But presented in that format all he does is frustrate those who want to get to grips with what he's trying to say. Not all of us have the time, though I am sure the clickbait crowd whose comments appear below the video feel fulfilled. So far it has had 110,333 views in two days. A hit among the sensation seekers, obviously.

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The Tiny Ancient Artifacts Changing History! Ancient Egyptian Hard Stone Vases - Huge Updates

Posted on You Tube by UnchartedX Feb 26, 2025

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There are a lot of numbers produced, superlatives. The word "primitive" is overused excessively - maybe he should think of a synonym, that does not denigrate or manipulate. It functions as a rhetorical sleight of hand. By slapping that label on the ancient Egyptians (or whoever), he sets up a strawman: “These ‘simple’ folks couldn’t have done this, so… advanced tech from somewhere else!”. It’s a lazy shortcut that dodges the hard work of understanding how they actually did something. The Egyptians were not bumbling primitives waiting for a sci-fi savior.

Mr van Kerkwyk obviously thinks he's being very "objective", "scientific" and "professional", yet alongside his efforts to play that role, there is a lot of arkie-bashing. Of all of us, Flint Dibble once again comes in for ridicule a couple of times (and look at the offensive remarks in the comments below the video) as if Dr Dibble was the only archaeologist who has misgivings about their methodology, data collection and what they are claiming. (no, whatever the outcome of their faffing around with them, these vases will not "rewrite history"!) But Flint Dibble was an archaeologist who tried to engage with the Hancock-Mystery-cultists (and it is a cult). So they want to "punish" him and Ben van Kerkwyk is happy to oblige. I wonder though what kind of collaboration he expects in the future when he has the results he needs.

It's actually difficult to tell from this video-update what those results are. True, he gives links to some other videos with films of guys measuring and talking about vases, both his own and other people. Together they come to an additional 4 hours and 28 minutes and contain a lot of waffle and other redundant material, downtime, "amusing" (puerile) soundbites, but above all repetition. So it is really an effort to plough through them to extract the information that matters. It is this failure in communication that really hinders understanding whether he's come up with anything at all. The time taken to sift out what might matter (below) is just too much and in that case a lot of us are just not going to bother.

So point number one. If he wants people to take this seriously, my suggestion is to produce a monograph (could be a proper publisher or in pdf(etc) format. Each vase they've scanned should be fully documented. Let each have a discrete number. Then each have the following information set out in the same format.

Present owner,
Data hygiene:
Provenance (place found, any details of context),
Collection history (optical = what the dealer says/ what's on the COA),
Collection history documented (checking where any of that at all is independently documented - and if not, stating so).
Dates examined, scanned,
where, by whom, circumstances.
RESULTS (could link to data files held as supporting information in digital form),
comments on accuracy/problems etc of measurements (whether cleaned up or raw etc).
Interpretation.
Recommendations for further work.

That way we could sort the wheat (if there is any) from the chaff. As I and others (including the maligned Dr Dibble) have been saying, data hygeine is of the utmost importance. Most of the vases measured have come from the antiquities market. Some of them have come from dealers that some of us who look at that market consider to be 'dodgy dealers' ... I don't care what it says on a COA or a dealer says, unless there is independen documentation of the claimed collection history the object is ungrounded. Because a maxim to bear in mind is that fully truthful dealers are pretty rare in the Trade, some dealers lie some of the time, other dealers lie all of the time. How can you tell just by looking at them, which is which?

Mr van Kerkwyk rather pathetically dodges the 'provenance' (grounding) issue .

of course not Of course, not everybody wants to take this data for what it is, and several people seem to strongly dislike the implications of it. Some have even gone on personal crusades to debunk the findings any way they can. Well, I say "any way they can," but given all the open-source scans and hard data, the only real method that has emerged is to simply yell "fake" on the internet [...] No one is able to argue with the actual data, so it generally boils down to noisily trying to discredit the origins of the artifacts and distract the audience from the significance of the findings.

('data' are plural). I do not see what the guy can't understand here. A collegue who had a prehistoric flake from Poland struck from an odd green glassy material could not simply go to the Internet to buy a sample of Moldavite for 30 zloties or so to do spectral analysis to confirm her suspicion of the origin of the raw material, all sorts of green glassy materials (including bottle glass) are sold as Moldavite. Getting a verifiable (and legally obtained) bit from the four different strewfields cost her a lot of work and time, but any analysis of a fragment from the market would always be open to challenge - and therefore useless as data. In the same way stone vases of unknown date and provenance cannot be used as a source of data about ancient techniques. Why can't Mr van Kerkwyk grasp that? .

That's essentially what the whole provenance argument is. It’s a fancy word used to suggest that most of these vases are nothing more than modern fakes. A couple of reaction videos have taken this approach, implying that because we don’t know the exact circumstances of when, where, how, and by whom all of these ancient artefacts were extracted from Egypt, they must just be modern fakes—meaning we can ignore all this pesky data and hard facts about precision. There’s so much stupidity in this statement that it’s tough to know where to start.

As a keen observer of the antiquities market and collecting, I would say the stupidity is on the side of the utterly gullible and self-deluded buyers who obviously are looking at the market without seeing. Van Kerkwyk continues:

First of all, I don’t think the people making this accusation fully understand how provenance or the antiquities market actually work (sic!) or they’re deliberately misrepresenting it. They seem to act as though any artefact not in a museum, such as one in a private collection, must either be stolen or fake, and on that basis, they try to discredit everything about it. Even Flint Dibble shamefully took this approach. In a discussion about vase analysis with Matt Bealle on Twitter, he petulantly responded by throwing shade on the origins of the artifact, suggesting Matt stop buying looted vases

Yep, I think EVERY archaeologist who cares, in talking with any artefact collector SHOULD be urging them to make sure that they are not buying looted artefacts. I don't care if they buy fakes (though will warn them of that too). Then van Kerkwyk forgets he was going to address provenance issues and like a jerk launches another derisively-phrased attack on Dr Flint Dibble ("a sneaky attempt to smear this process", "remember, he studies seeds and foodways in ancient Greece—not the artefacts of ancient Egypt", "so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he just doesn’t know"). And so on. Then he remembers:

Returning to the provenance topic: [...] Of course, many artefacts do have impeccable provenance. And in a shocking turn of events, the people on the internet yelling “fake” never seem to acknowledge that artefacts with impeccable provenance also exist in private collections. In fact, several such vessels have been analyzed by the VaseScan project. Adam Young owns a large vase dated well into Pre-Dynastic times by carbon-14 analysis of the burial it was found in. It was legitimately given to a Czech ambassador in the 1930s as a gift. People die, estate sales happen, and ultimately, artifacts end up in an auction house and on the market. In this case, it was eventually acquired by Adam.

Matt Beall also has several vessels with impeccable provenance, and several of those show incredible precision. Take this one, for example — it dates back to 3650–3550 BC. That’s a stone object, essentially perfectly round, over 5,500 years old, predating the lathe by over 2,000 years. It’s made out of serpentine. The provenance is from the Royall Tyler family estate — he lived from 1884 to 1953 and was collecting in the 1920s. And if you measure it? The lip has a deviation of just 1.5 thousandths of an inch between the X and Y axis. That’s super precise, super old, and a truly unique artifact.

The latter has a Sands of Time COA. I cannot see where it was supposed to have been between 1953 and its acquisition, is there any documentation at all beyond the "optical" collection history? There should be, but Van Kerkwyk does not say. Note how van Kerkwyk quotes the dealer's inferred dates as gospel. Now this Czech ambassador attribution has been TOTALLY misreported by Van Kerkwyk. It is here in the important video by Night Scarab "Impossible Granite Vases in Ancient Egypt?" that would repay watching again in this context (and his later ones; this one, here especially )

"in fact one of the vases in the current collection also comes from very deep Antiquity and has impeccable Providence"
" so this one was brought out by The Czechoslovakian Ambassador to Egypt in the late 1800s and provinence is indisputable"
This Provenance is either erroneous or made up. Here's why (one) there had never been a country called Czechoslovakia prior to 1918 historically there was Bohemia today's Czech Republic but in the 1800s it was part of Austria-Hungary, (two) very few ambassadors if any at all were in Egypt in the 1800s. Before the founding of the League of Nations, ambassadors were rare and only sent to major powers. Missions to lesser countries like Egypt in the 1800s were headed by consul's agents Etc. The first Czechoslovakian Consulate in Egypt opened only in 1920 and it became an embassy in 1956. If this provenance story stems from some mistake it has to be corrected. As stated the story can't be true

Not only that, I find it difficult to understand how a stone object from a context disturbed in the "1800s" could have a C14 date.

Excavated Objects
Not unreasonably, I assumed that this update was going to present the results of the recent scanning of the items scanned in the Petrie Museum in London, among which will be 'grounded' ones. Sadly, this is skipped over in a few words, pending the completion of analysis. What we learn is that about half the scanned hardstone vessels (n=??) were "high precision", the rest were not. We await the proper presentation of more details.

Then there is a tantalising bit about some SEM examination of some sherds which produced some loopy results - among them one relating to the fixation these pseudoarchaeologists have with strawman arguments referring to "copper chisels". A sherd of white quartzite vessel (quartzite was VERY rarely used for these Old Kingdom vessels - what would its source have been?) has a groove that van Kerkwyk says "must have been made" by a tubular drill (one of his own fixations - but in fact it does not have to have been) has "no traces of copper". If we go to the video about this after an overlong sluggish padded-out presentation of how a SEM works and "how well qualified the guy working it is" we eventually get the information on these sherds (40:23 - 41:47). It transpires that these too are owned by private collectors and they are said to be "from Saqqara" - presumably looted from the passages under the Step Pyramid, or perhaps "liberated" from the museum store there. So how did these colle3ctors get their hands on them?

Let us just deal with three points. First, derisive comments from Van Kerkwyk aside, the guy has obviously still not yet worked out how this relates to what he's doing and very muddled...
1) The ones in private collections, galleries, museums, online that have no independent documentation putting their origins in a particular closed archaeological context cannot be used as "evidence" of anything.  It does not matter how may microns they deviate from something else, or whether the ratio between the base diameter and that of the hole going through the lug is pi-to-the-power-of-something, it is not relevant to anything. It is as simple as that. All it means is that somebody somewhere worked out how to turn out these vessels in a wide variety of materials using a machine that had a very stable axis, was rotating powerfully and at the right speed to produce the effect needed. My guess is that instead of a cutting tool, the shaping was done by abrasive material that, when the shape was achieved, was switched for finer grades to get the polish. Possibly this meant that they could be turned out quicker and the process perhaps was more simplified than it would be with a cutting tool. But that's a guess. 

2) This nonsense about the ("primitive") ancient Egyptians "not having a lathe until the year X" really needs rejection. What these buffoons mean is the first PICTURE of a lathe in use is from a certain date (about 1300BC?). That means the first picture is from that date, not the thing. The condom existed long before the appearance of the first picture of one in use. But in fact Flinders Petrie wrote a book on ancient Egyptian materials and techniques that was still required reading when I studied ancient technology in my archaeology course and in it.... he said that the Old Kingdom hardstone vessels showed that lathes were in use from at least the early Old Kingdom (also the same is in various popular websites that it seems the vase-fondlers never found). So I really do not see why they think they have discovered the wheel (pun intended).

3) Let me make it easier for the poor waifs. My hypothesis is the ancient guys were not half-morons with two left hands. My hypothesis is that if we can find enough examples of the 'precision' vessels in closed stratigraphic contexts, the presence of these vessel sherds and their nature and properties would be rather clear evidence that in the Old Kingdom, or possibly earlier, somebody somewhere worked out how to turn out these vessels in a wide variety of materials using a lathe. They could have made thick chunky vessels in soft stone like limestone, but decided it would be nicer to make somewhat more challenging vessels, so they applied themselves, worked out how best to do it, and did. What's the problem? Where is the "advanced technology"?  It's not rocket science. 

 

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Pseudoarchaeology and "Primitive" Reasoning

Kula exchange items (Malinowski)   

 Over in pseudoarchaeology land, mouthy Jimmy Corsetti over in Trump's  America has what-he-thinks-is a "@BrightInsight6":

The term “Hunter-gatherers” is inherently simple/primitive. Gobekli Tepe, which may be the worlds oldest Lunar-Solar calendar, is anything but that. It was clearly created by those with advanced knowledge and capability. Archaeologists cannot see the forest through the trees

First of all hunter-gatherer is a subsistence strategy such as cash grain farming, fruit farming, dairy cattle raising, beef cattle etc. None is inherently more of less 'primitive' than any other in terms of simplicity, backwardness, or a lack of sophistication. That is an indictment of Corsetti's own lack of knowledge in the area rather than archaeologists.

In fact applying a label "primitive" to hunter-gatherer societies overlooks the intricate knowledge, planning, and adaptability groups employing this manner of subsistence exhibit. Far from being rudimentary, hunter-gatherers rely on a deep understanding of their environment, accumulated and refined over generations, to sustain themselves. If we look at it with an informed eye, it isn’t merely survival it is a dynamic, skilled way of life that demands both intellectual and social complexity.

It requires detailed knowledge, hunter-gatherers must be able to identify edible plants, track animal migration patterns, predict seasonal changes, and understand ecological relationships to avoid overexploitation. This isn’t instinct; it is expertise, often encoded in oral traditions, stories, and practices—essentially a living database of environmental data. Anthropological studies, like those of the San people in southern Africa or the Inuit of the Arctic, reveal how such groups store and transmit detailed information about hundreds of species, weather patterns, and terrain, rivaling any modern field guide. I bet Jimmy Corsetti has only a fraction of such knowledge about the resources near his home.

Planning is equally critical to this lifestyle unless a group is not going to be highly mobile and moving from one destroyed ecosystem to the next (which would seem not to be an option at sites like Abu Hureyra and Gobekli Tepe. Sustainability isn’t accidental, it requires foresight. Hunter-gatherers often organize their movements around scattered resources, timing expeditions to coincide with peak abundance, such as fruit ripening or herd migrations. The !Kung of the Kalahari, for example, coordinate group hunts and gathering trips, balancing immediate needs with long-term resource preservation. This might involve leaving certain areas untouched for years or rotating hunting grounds, practices that reflect a strategic calculus akin to modern resource management.

Specialization and social organization further complicate the "primitive" stereotype of people like Corsetti. This also is covered in the anthropological literature - he should read some. While not as rigid as in industrial societies, roles often emerge: skilled hunters, expert gatherers, toolmakers, or healers. Among the Australian Aborigines, for instance, individuals might master specific techniques—like crafting boomerangs or reading subtle landscape cues and then sharing their expertise within the group. Expeditions to distant resources, such as ochre deposits or coastal shellfish beds, could require coordinated efforts, negotiation with neighbouring groups, and even some form of exchange networks, as seen in the exchange of goods across vast distances in prehistoric times. An analogy in recent times is the persistence of the Kula ring ceremonial exchange system of Papua New Guinea studied by the Polish ethnographer Bronisław Malinowski ("Argonauts of the Western Pacific" 1922).

I really think it is not the "archaeologists" (who HAVE read the abundant literature and are among those who are ACTIVELY creating the academic research on this) who have here got the wrong picture of hunter-gatherer subsistence. It most certainly is not the primitive stumble through nature that Corsetti seems mistakenly to have imagined it. It is instead a sophisticated, knowledge-driven system tailored to its context. The assumption of simplicity stems more from a bias inherent in our society towards technological complexity than from any lack of ingenuity on the part of the indigenous groups the pseudoscientists wish to accuse them of to bolster their own notions of superiority. The tools of past and recent hunter gatherers and marginalised indigenous communities (I bet most pseudoarchaeologists could not even name them and say how they were made and used) may differ from ours, but the mastery of their world by such groups is no less impressive.


. See also: Nicoletta Maestrim 'Complex Hunter-Gatherers: Who Needs Agriculture?' Thought.co May 26, 2019.

Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel, Targeting Archaeology of Historical Ruin Site

 

Scoring three times:
Once for irresponsibleand destructive detecting on historical ruin site on pasture, Once again for lack of recording of the results of the intervention with the archaeological record, trashing it with no mitigation of the damage,
and once again through showing artefact hunting (looting) for the selfish, destructive hobby it is.
Nokta Triple Score Pack only $499, value of damage done, priceless.

🎯 With the Triple Score you do score three times.

Nokta Triple Score Pack only $499!

Find your nearest dealer: https://t.co/NhfRnsDAFx #Nokta #TripleScore #MetalDetecting pic.twitter.com/LU6i9ErHhm

— Nokta Detectors (@noktadetectors) December 26, 2024

https://x.com/noktadetectors/status/1872236771330933133

Heritage of Sovietised Mindset Thirty Years on

 

Effects of Soviet Blok mind-control. Former Communist East Germany’s support for the nationalist AfD is a reminder that the most meaningful political divide is not between left and right but between authoritarianism and liberty (Business Ukraine Nagazine)

UK Metal Detectorists Dream of Making Marketable Finds Like This.

 

        Investing in artefacts         
Stanley Gibbons Baldwins. 

A coin that was thought not to exist will be sold next month, its second sale since it was discovered in a Berkshire, UK field by a metal detectorist. Dominic Chorney, an ancient coin specialist at Stanley Gibbons Baldwin’s, told the Daily Mail: “While we often sell extremely rare coins at Baldwin’s, it’s unusual to offer something completely unique and of national importance. We’re all excited to be auctioning this beautiful piece of British history” ( Colin Ricketts, 'Metal detectorist’s Celtic coin find set for £70,000 auction' justcollecting.com 19th Feb 2025 ). The coin was struck in the name of Caractacus (1st Century AD), an important British leader who battled the invading Romans.

It was thought that no Caractacus coins survived. However, in 2019 this coin was discovered near Newbury by a metal detectorist. It shows a horseman and the name Carat on the reverse, now thought to refer to Caractacus. The obverse shows a cereal head with the name Cunobelinus, Caratacus’s father. It was sold in 2020 for £88,000. On March 12 it will be sold again by Stanley Gibbons Baldwin’s with an opening price of £70,000.

And a coin that is unique and of national importance will probably stay in private hands. 

What is the Matter with Metal Detectorists? Whence this Pettyness?

Over on a tekkie-blog near you: Posted on February 21, 2025 by John Howland “The best revenge is massive success” - the topic? "[Here is] a reminder for that Holier-than-thou cadre in the heritage mob’s ivory tower of those who we know about (so far) who’ve been nabbed with their sticky mitts in the cookie amphora".  Oh dear. Howland seems to have an obsession about this. 

1) "the infamous Ralph Pinder-Wilson case; the British archaeologist who was sentenced to death for thieving gold coins from an excavation in Afghanistan in 1982":
  Here he is writing about the Pinder-Wilson affair Dec 16th 2014, he gets it wrong (which I pointed out at the time). Howland returned to it not long ago... (Let them who are without sin… etc, etc… , Detecting and Collecting Blog, December 5, 2022). Again, I pointed out.... UK Detectorist Accuses "Thieving Archaeologists". Howland is a really s-l-o-w learner, here I set out again to try to get him to abandon his cardboard cutout view of reality... 

To NO AVAIL...In this new text he once again repeats his false narrative. The guy has no idea. 

But his second "case study" is equally wrong-footed.

2)"Prof Daniel Amick’s sticky finger exercises [...] for his part in a scheme to plunder artifacts from an archaeological site in New Mexico”. You'd think he'd check before coming out with provocative phrasing like that. If he'd looked into this, he'd have found a mention of an artefact hunter by the name of Scott Clendenin:

Clendenin, an arrowhead hunter who lived in Truth or Consequences, N.M., made regular trips to Jornada Del Muerto[...] Clendenin would document the location of any artifact he found using a GPS device and then pocket it, court documents alleged. Periodically, Clendenin allegedly would pass the information to Amick [...] According to court documents, Clendenin is believed to have harvested thousands of prehistoric arrowheads, some of which he sold on eBay.

It was these artefacts that were involved in this case. Amick was apparently handling artefacts found by an artefact hunter. A fuller story about the case, including the switching of the relevant laws is given in a text ("From ATADA’s email: The“Loyola Professor”..." ATADA News) by Jeb Taylor online since June, 2011. John Howland did not see it, nor did he spot the far more important issue here:

"Unfortunately, the ramifications of this event will have lasting effects that may negatively impact both amateur and professional archaeology. Initial inquiries to professional archaeologists suggest that many of the will no longer risk recording artifacts from private collections or working directly with amateur archaeologists."

3) Antonin DeHays is a Maryland historian described as a private researcher, so I am not clear what his case has to do with archaeology or metal detecting. 

4) Likewise military historian  Alexander Bateman, of Harrow, there is no connection I can see with archaeology or metal detecting.  

5) Britain’s amateur archaeological fieldwalking brigade the flint tool and arrowhead searchers are subjectr to the same conditions as metal detectorists. The point Howland is trying to make is lost on me. 

The last comment makes no sense at all: "Is it any wonder then, that Britain’s archaeological nabobs are keen to deny the existence of what might well be called Dayhawking? Too late for them though. That cat’s out of the bag!"
What's out of the bag is that some metal detectorists really need to take a deep breath and think a bit. 

Somebody Somehow Switched Treasure Coin Image?

 A tale of two coins and some dodgy metal-detector-speak from the British establishment: 

 
I am really puzzled by what the British are up to. A while ago the BBC published a text about the first time the new Treasure criteria, a metal detector find from near Thetford, was applied (Katy Prickett "Viking king's coin find of 'national significance'", BBC News, Norfolk 2 September 2024). Leaving aside that the justification given sounds bonkers to me (and how will it be assessed in court - on what basis?), the rather muddy and ill-defined coin photo supplied with the attribution "Andrew Williams/Norfolk County Council" in the press release looks decidedly 'off' to me. Look at that spidery lettering. This is also the image shown in the PAS database entry Record ID: PAS-D68238 (created on Wednesday 3rd April 2024). 

Now there has been a Treasure Report launch event, and in the reporting of that, what seems to be a totally different coin is shown (|Feb 11th 2025) as being 'that' one. The lettering, beading, central field rim and flan edge look entirely different. I assume that the gold colour of that image is simply an artefact of the inexpert photography technique of its creator ("can't get the staff these days?", but the images are not comparable. A Museums Association article ( Geraldine Kendall Adams, "Norwich Castle Museum to acquire first find declared ‘treasure’ under new definition" Museums Association 13 February 2025 ) still has the photo of the 'spidery' coin, while a sugary AP article by Jill Lawless of February 11, 2025 ('With metal detectors and patience, amateur treasure hunters unearth pieces of British history' - yuk) has an AP Photo by Alastair Grant showing the cuddlier one. So when were the images switched and why? Why is the public being misled by the authorities over just what it is these "metal detectorists" are digging up?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, these two raise more questions than they answer and an explanation seems in order. PAS? British archaeologists? 

History-Destroying "Haul" Flogged off to Buy Drinks Down the Pub

                 UK Artefact hunter, happy to destroy                            
 history in the ground (BBC)           

A haul of Roman coins discovered in a field in Leicestershire has been sold at auction for £4,400 ( Dan Martin, 'Haul of unearthed Roman coins sold for £4,400' BBC News, 19th Feb 2025). The damage down to the site taking them out and selling the loose coins off has not been given by the British dumbdown media:

Metal detectorist David Dunn unearthed 50 coins, which date back to the 3rd Century, in a farmer's field near his home in Sapcote in July 2023. The coins were bought by a collector in the US on Tuesday. Mr Dunn said he had been excited to watch the coins go under the hammer. He said: "I am really happy with the result and as I said before the sale, I will give the majority of the money to the farmer. "What I like about metal detecting is that we are preserving history and I will continue to detect, but I will go to celebrate with a couple of drinks."

The money is not his to "give", the coins are the property of the landowner. Unfortunately it says that the tekkie dug the coins up, once again no archaeological team recovered it and any associated evidence. In such circumstances the evidence was erased and no "reward" should be paid for that. ARTEFACT HUNTING IS NOT "PRESERVING HISTORY" any more than stealing manhole covers is "protecting them from damage" from people walking over them. What an idiotic idea - but it is the same one.

The 42-year-old, who has been metal detecting as a hobby for two years, found two coins in a hole when he picked up a faint signal in a field he had visited "numerous times" before. He then dug down a further two feet (61cm) and found more of what were later identified as antoninianus coins.

Found unexpectedly "in a field he had visited "numerous times" before" is yet another indication that metal detecting is not archaeological survey. No matter how accurately we get "findspots" of loose items, taken together they DO NOT provide a reliable picture of the archaeology of that site. The information is patchy and there is no way of extrapolating from it to get a reliable picture. And it is stupid (British archaeologists) to think there is. Secondly 60cm down is BELOW PLOUGH LEVEL. This guy was digging blindly into stratified deposits, taking out one bit of the record, destroying what was around it and trashing the site's archaeology. Jobsworth British archaeologists will not tell you about that - in my view that'd be not doing their effing job at all to not strive to get that point in over and over again as "finds" (looting of the archaeological record for profit) in every single hooray-Henry article like this.

Also if chummy here's been over this field so many times, where is all the other stuff he's taken from its archaeological record? How much of that and the associated contextual information is "preserved" and in what form? Arkies won't say.

The selfish finder and couldn't-care-less landowner, having hoiked this bit of archaeology, can't be bothered to look after the material properly in the country. And having their heritage shipped off to that private "collection" (bet its a dealer) in MAGAmerica, how does that help the citizen of Sapcote in Leicestershire?

Bit of an 'aul fer flogging off, though I 'int in it fer th' munny - onest  (BBC)

Too Hot to Handle: Artefact Collector Got Tired of His Trophy Object?

Credit: Greek Police

A metre-high headless marble statue of a woman was found dumped as rubbish in Thessaloniki, Greece (CBS News '2,000-year-old statue found dumped near garbage cans' 18.02.2025). According to the first assessment by the archaeology service, the object is from the Hellenistic period (between 323 and 31 BC)

Police in Greece said Wednesday they were investigating how an ancient Greek statue came to be dumped in a black plastic bag near garbage cans in the northern city of Thessaloniki. The organized crime unit said it was investigating "after a 32-year-old man went to the police to drop off a statue he had apparently found inside a black bag near dustbins." [...] It will be transferred to the crime investigation team in northern Greece for lab tests, then to the antiquities service for evaluation and conservation, according to the statement.

Little Oakley Detectorist John Keen.

Brandon_Penny, 'John Keen continues with passionate metal detecting talks' Essex County Standard 15th February 2025

                          John Keen in a hat indoors showing off                       
          his detector at his recent Harwich talk 
    (Image: Credited)

Over the last 14 years John Keen, 76, from Little Oakley, has found a multitude of treasure, from gold and silver coins to a flint tool used by our ancient ancestors over the last decade and a half. The passionate metal detectorist is continuing to promote his finds and has been described as a "fabulous ambassador". John now finds himself doing various talks about his hobby. Most recently, John gave a talk at All Saints Church in Harwich and continues to enlighten people with his rich knowledge of historical artefacts and metal detecting. He has now done around 15 talks, which came to fruition after he was encouraged by the editor of Treasure Hunting magazine, Julian Evan-Hart. The magazine has featured many of John's articles, including a nine-page feature - one of their longest ever articles.

I'm pretty sure I recognise that field - Asshole, NO GPS or recording equipment shown. If it's where I think it is, the archaeology is just below the surface here.

Cleveland Museum Drops Lawsuit Over Statue

       Out-of-Place artefact (Twitter)         

In a significant move, the Cleveland Museum of Art has dropped its legal challenge of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and surrendered an ancient bronze masterpiece, a sculpture of Marcus Aurelius, that is currently the subject of a criminal investigation concerning its looting from Bubon, Türkiye.

In August 2023, the office of New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg had seized the sculpture from the Cleveland Museum of Art (though it actually physically remained at the Museum). The district attorney’s office was conducting a criminal investigation into the looting of antiquities in Turkey that had been trafficked through New York and this was included in the case as one of those items. The headless life-size sculpture, "Draped Male Figure", identified as a sculpture of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius has been valued by Museum assessors at more than $20 million. The Manhattan district attorney’s office, led by Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, is investigating the looting of the sculpture from Bubon, Türkiye. 

The museum had bought the sculpture in 1986 for $1.85 million from Edward H. Merrin Inc., a New York art gallery. It’s estimated the sculpture dates to somewhere between 150 and 200 B.C. [...] The statue has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in the 1960s, the Indianapolis Museum of Art from 1971 to 1974, the Minneapolis Institute of Art from 1976 to 1980 and Rutgers University in 1981.

None of whom had any qualms about it, apparently.

In the aftermath of the seizure, instead of gracefully relinquishing the challenged item, or producing all the documentation showing its legal excavation and provenance, legal acquisition by a seller in the source country and legal export (which are what is in question), in October 2023, the museum filed a lawsuit against the Manhattan district attorney’s office to block the seizure of the statue, which it considers one of the most significant works in its collection of approximately 61,000 objects.

The lawsuit sought a judicial declaration affirming the museum’s rightful ownership of the statue. A museum spokesperson, Todd Mesek, stated that the institution "takes provenance issues very seriously", highlighting its longstanding commitment to cultural property matters and transparency in how works are presented in its galleries. The museum also noted that it has voluntarily returned pieces in the past when provided with persuasive proof that they belonged elsewhere. However, in this case, the lawsuit argued that the district attorney’s office had failed to provide convincing evidence that the statue was stolen property belonging to Turkey. The lawsuit emphasised a lack of scientific and archaeological evidence regarding the statue’s origins, with some studies even questioning whether the statue had ever been in Turkey.

Reference: Adam Ferrise, 'Cleveland Museum of Art sues New York district attorney over seizure of statue valued at $20 million' Cleveland.com Oct. 19, 2023.

National Council for Metal Detecting Drops Its Guard, 38000 Membership: Implications

 

The  National Council for Metal Detecting ("Dig with confidence") has always been coy about its membership figures, such a number can be compared with the number of "Responsible Detectorists" recording finds with the PAS. 

Now there is news about the NCMD creating its own parallel "recording system", to replace the now-floundering private UK Detector Finds Database and muddy the waters of discussion of how many freshly dugup artefacts are being recorded. 

New NCMD Portal
The NCMD Mobile app enables members to record their finds and find spots for their own reference. This data is (sic) currently only available to the individual member, however we are developing a portal so that you can share any finds you want, directly with your local FLO. We are working with the PAS to ensure that the data will integrate into the new PAS system.

Other news is that in April 2024 there was an inquiry into Metal detecting in which the government requested feedback from organisations within the detecting community and the ever complaining NCMD sent a respose that is on their website, and it is that which unwittingly gives us some information:

"many of us have been metal detecting for more than 25 years, so we were extremely surprised at the comments suggesting that the relationship between archaeologists and detectorists has improved significantly over that time. We would beg to differ and have highlighted a number of key points that we feel clearly demonstrates the reasons for this view. We would also like to make you aware that we have had a flood of calls and emails from across our 38,000 membership that mirror this view and in particular, the consensus is one of concern that this inquiry is extremely one sided and that the detecting community is not being fairly represented in it. Telling us that everything is fine, and that the inquiry is in our best interests doesn’t make it so, and the suspicion that abounds tells its own story."

and so on in the came vein. Ever the victims...

But it tells us that there are 38000 detectorists in the United Kingdom (rather than just England and Wales) who are represented by the NCMD (and have their insurance).

There is also the rival FID (the Federation of Independent Detectorists) established in 1982 by Colin Hanson and this also issues third party insurance and claims (has claimed) to be "the Worlds largest metal detecting organisation". Yet it has not released any membership numbers to back that up.

But the issue is that when we lost track of the apparent increase in numbers of UK metal detectorists it was in the 20-25k range... but that was some six years ago. Now it seems it is substantially bigger. By maybe 13k+... That is a substantial increase.

And when we put the latest Treasure "record figures" on the graph showing what I call the 'Treasure blip' (and yes, I must get around to redrawing that graph, as obviously nobody else is going to do their OWN version)... we find that although the PAS say its a record, it is fully part of the same downward trend I warned about in 2020. The jobsworth PAS is totally oblivious to that and its implications. The Treasure blip is now a Treasure Gap. 

What are the brits going to do about it? 

Oh, and the number of finders? The 2023 report says (p.5 Table 2) that the total number of finders reporting stuff in the last year was "3,877" which includes metal detectorists, but is not exclusively metal detectorists. So the NCMD has 38000 members, yet less than a tenth of that number have reported a single find in the last year. Don't let anyone tell you that obvious lie (LIE) that "the majority of metal detectorists in England and Wales are Responsible and follow the Code of Best Practice". It is simply NOT TRUE. So I do not understand why so many people in the UK keep repeating it.  They are simply disregarding the facts and actual numbers. I have no patience with them. 

finders who had their

finds recorded on the

PAS database

How Long Can this go on? PAS: "Record Increase for Treasure Finds in England, Wales and Northern Ireland"

Norfolk not emptied yet... [and the Independent needs to employ some better editors] 

Charlotte McLaughlin 'Record Increase for treasure finds in England, Wales and Northern Ireland' The Independent 11.02.2025 ("3 min read" if you read slowly)

A record number of treasure finds have been reported in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a report has found. There were 1,377 cases of treasure in 2022, an increase of 305 on the previous year, and 74 more than 2019, the year that had previously seen the most treasure reported. Norfolk continues to hold the title of the most treasure finds with 95 discoveries, including more than 170 objects being reported, according to the Treasure Act 1996 Annual Report 2022.

OK, so it keeps going up, which means increasing depletion of the archaeological record, year after year. Why are the numbers going up? Is it because of the new criterium of definition of what "Treasure" now is? (Actually no, because it came in in 2023, and it seems the new definition has so far been [see below] invoked only once, but in 2024). Is the number/frequency of people going out increasing? Are metal detectors getting better, or are people getting better at metal detecting? These are questions the PAS does not have any answers to as their "liaison officers" in fact do nothing of the kind.

There's more PAS-iness in that article:

The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) [something - report? PMB], published on Tuesday, saw 74,506 archaeological items reported in the UK (sic) in 2023, a sharp increase on 2022’s figures of 53,490. The report said most of the objects were found by people metal-detecting at 95% and in agricultural regions, where they could have been lost to ploughing and farm activity if not discovered. Michael Lewis, head of Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) and Treasure at the British Museum, said: “2023 was an incredibly successful year for the Portable Antiquities Scheme and it is great to see such a high number of finders, showing us their discoveries to advance our knowledge of Britain’s past.

Whoopee. What advances our knowledge is those objects in context, not loose in a pile on the FLO's table. As for the echoing the two-decade old tekkie mantra: "in agricultural regions, where they could have been lost to ploughing and farm activity if not discovered", what can one say? Maybe all those sharp minds in Bloomsbury could come up after all this time and "liaising" with some better argument points to support looting than the old, old ones we've heard so many times before.

 And once again, detectorists get a pat on the back from good ol' tekkie pal Mike Lewis, who DOES NOT then say to Independent's readers how many thieving bastards are going out with spades and the landowner's permission and all that, but simply pocketing all they find (with the exception of what is declarable by law). This year too it is probably higher than last year...
COUNTER AS A REMINDER OF WHAT THEY ARE NOT TELLING YOU. 

A picture
OK, PAS show a VERY odd looking coin of "Guthrum" in the article, from "Near Thetford" (Breckland District, Norfolk) - but recorded not by the local FLO but "PAS" PAS-D68238 . And in its record the PAS goes on and on and on about the typology of this bit of stamped metal with the odd style (really reminiscent of a certain eastern European school of fakers to my eye, but what do I know, eh?). And, lo and behold:

"This coin is of considerable historical and numismatic significance. It is being submitted as potential Treasure as it meets the requirements of the Treasure (Designation) (Amendment) Order 2023 by being more than 200 years old at the time of discovery, being made of metal, and providing ‘a significant insight into an aspect of national history’. It meets these latter criteria under the following two categories: Historical significance, Treasure Act 1996 Code of Practice, section B.36 (connected to a person or event). [...]

Here we go... Reading the long text about what this loose artefact tells us that we did not actually know... I wonder what a coroner will make of it - indeed on what grounds are they to assess to what degree that is the case, or not? [Treasure case tracking number: 2024T380].

Whitewashing History

Why are people so afraid of accurate history?

Why are people so afraid of accurate history? pic.twitter.com/YevTj0WDSp

— Piyush Mittal 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇬🇪🟧🌊🌈 (@piyushmittal) February 12, 2025

Iraq repatriates trafficked artifacts from Japan and Switzerland

"The recovered antiquities are not
just pieces, but rather part of the national identity,

and they are a witness to the antiquity of Iraq's civilization"

-Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein has declared that Iraqi antiquities had been recovered from Japan and Switzerland:

"Based on the recovery strategy adopted by the ministry, tens of thousands of smuggled antiquities have been recovered," Hussein said during a joint press conference with Culture Minister Ahmed Fakak Al-Badrani on the delivery of a set of Iraqi antiquities to the Ministry of Culture

 

Meanwhile the attempt to reverse the flood of increasing numbers of clandestinely excavated artefacts smuggled out of the country into the hands of greedy and totally unscrupulous foreign dealers and equally greedy and unprincipled collectors and investors are placing local ressources under a great strain. Director General of the Museums Department, Laith Majeed, has explained,

                                  .                          

"The museum is unable to accommodate all the antiquities, so there is an urgent need to establish a large new museum," noting that "one of the strategic plans set is the opening of the Grand Iraqi Museum to display antiquities and heritage artifacts".

"Many antiquities have been recovered, and two years ago the largest recovery process took place from the United States of America with 17,000 artifacts, in addition to the recovery of 337 pieces from Lebanon," he added, stressing that "the recovery operations are ongoing and there are important artifacts that will return to the Iraqi Museum from several European countries".[...] "Antiquities smuggling gangs are spread all over the world, and the issue of antiquities smuggling is an international problem, so there is international cooperation by Interpol to follow up on smuggled antiquities and arrest smuggling gangs," he included.

Except there are few actual arrests taking place. Where is the court case about the "17000 artefacts", who was brought to account over that?

These articles however miss the essential point, national identity, national pride (standing up to those that steal from the people of Iraq) are one thing, the actual physical damage done to the archaeological record by this looting is completely ignored here. And it is the destroyed stratigraphy, now unable to be 'read' to tell the untold stories of the land's past - and not the mere objects from it (mute witnesses to only a sliver of that fuller story) - that is the real issue ignored by the politicians and back-slapping journalists. THIS is what needs to be addressed.

The only way of doing that is to smash the market and marketeers. We do not see that here, just some tut-tutting, handwringing about "where will we put it all?" and vague warnings that someone-somewhere-in-a-faraway-land might in some mythical revenge get "arrested" for their misdeeds.

Yet, besides these crooks, the people that dug up the stuff, who acted as middlemen and dispatched the stuff to foreign markets ignoring local law are right under the authorities' noses in Iraq. Punish the artefact hunters, make them see this as a highly risky venture, not worth attempting. They'll only get cheated by the dealers anyway. 

Faking the Wunderwaffe

Over on Twitter, Crater Locators @CraterLocators are reporting

There has been a plague of artefacts supposedly related to V2 rockets and V1 flying-bombs (our expertise area) for sale on eBay: given loose provenance and clearly not from either weapons at all. Dressed with ageing materials and imagery to create a false narrative

Interesting. Excavating V2 test launch sites in Poland and appropriating artefacts from them is illegal. I don't know about the other launch sites elsewhere on the continent. But I assume the ones being offered on eBay are supposed to be fragments from ones that exploded in the UK.

National Council for Metal Detecting Goes Bulgarian

From the NCMD ("Dig with confidence") website:

New NCMD Portal The NCMD Mobile app enables members to record their finds and find spots for their own reference. This data is currently only available to the individual member, however we are developing a portal so that you can share any finds you want, directly with your local FLO. We are working with the PAS to ensure that the data will integrate into the new PAS system. If you haven’t already got it, the NCMD app is available to download free from your app store. You must be a member of NCMD to download and use the app. Join Here

Middleman Pleads Guilty

ARCA: "In a complex case, Ashraf Omar Eldarir pled guilty yesterday to smuggling hundreds of Egyptian artefacts into the United States, many of them so freshly excavated they still smelled of wet earth when officials seized them".  

It only took five years from when this blog started writing about this troubling provenance.

See: Lynda Albertson, "Facing Justice: Ashraf Omar Eldarir Pleads Guilty in High-Profile Smuggling Case" ARCA Blog 11th Feb 2025.

"[...] After ARCA's list of identifications went public, practically all digital mention Egyptian artefacts tied to this Eldarir in Europe and in the United States, began to be removed from receiving dealers' websites. Dealers with webpages selling Eldarir's antiquities sometimes removed the tainted objects altogether from their listings or modified the listed provenance using less damning indicators, replacing the background detail on ownership with phrases such as "private collector, New York" and omitting any of the fabricated details of collection holders or their ties to princely collections.
Eldarir’s case is one among many that highlight the persistent problems of artefact smuggling. For his role in these affairs, sentencing guidelines estimate that he could likely have to serve three to five years behind bars as well as possible denaturalisation, sending him back to the very country that he so prolifically robbed.
His sentencing date is currently scheduled for 12 June 2025."

February 2025's Fluff Media Article on the Pleasures of Looting the Archaeology in UK

 North Cornwall Metal Detecting Group dig (Picture: Warren Wilkins)

Despite the Portable Antiquities Scheme being there to do "outreach" on the "importance of context" (which they don't in fact do in any meaningful way) in Britain "metal detecting" (Collection-driven trashing of the Archaeological Record) has seen a surge in popularity in recent times. "Reporter Warren Wilkins went to find out what its all about (Warren Wilkins, 'Metal detectorists dig up treasure trove of finds' Voice Saturday 8th February 2025). But failed.

The usual unoriginal stuff.... "first to hold an artefact that hasn’t been touched for hundreds or even thousands of years".... "what a pleasant pastime it is".... "quest to find buried treasure"... "The first thing I discovered wasn’t buried treasure but how much more difficult metal detecting is than you might think"... "I saw a glint of something but my eager anticipation was soon replaced by disappointment as I realised-- it was a piece of foil".... [yawn, youve read one of these "clueless journo promoting looting" texts, you've read them all] (wot, no mention of Andy and Lance?).

North Cornwall Metal Detecting Group has 1,500 members and attracts around 40 to 50 people on an organised dig. Yet Mr Warren cant make the mental effort to step aside from the "glittering prizes" to asking what effect thgis is having on the archaeological record of the place they're searching, or the actual ethical issues of people pocketing Cornwall's common heritage. Not a word of it in this feelgood text.

Adrian said: “Every bit of land is owned by someone, and you must get permission to metal detect on their land. [...] “I normally I have to knock on the door of 30 farms to get permission to metal detect on their land. “The farmer will receive a fee for allowing the group on their fields for the day. “Anything that is sold for over £1,000 the farmer and the person who found it receives a 50/50 share of the value of the item that is classed as treasure.”

That's unclear, they split 50/50 all sales over a thousand quid, or just the Treasure ones? What if a finder takes home a misceellany of items (say George V gold sovereign in good condition, some large flan medieval and early modern hammered coins found [he says] at opposite ends of a farm, an inscribed brass heraldic ring and a few other items that when he sells them off individuially over the course of the next few weeks or months come to a total of £1,128, does the landowner get a cheque for over £564? Because the value of thew items removed from a field is NOT the single high value find, but the cumulative value of all the objects removed. A glance at the 'finds valuation' page of the main metal detecting magazines shows that even relatively common artefacts could be worth 1-200 quid each. If you take a pocket full, that's potentially over £1,000 - and there's "around 40 to 50 people on an organised dig". Did the farmer get a fee of £40,000 to let the looters on? If not, how does he know he's not been cheated? Did the landowner sign off on EVERY item removed to show the finder has their permission to remove that item? If nbot, when it is sold, how can it be determined that an object is not from Nighthawking? Mr Warren seems unaware of any of these issues.

.

..

Archaeologists Under Sanctions

 

Ukraine has published a new list of archaeologists and institutions excavating in Crimea which are submitted to sanctions: УКАЗ ПРЕЗИДЕНТА УКРАЇНИ №68/2025 Про рішення Ради національної безпеки і оборони України від 4 лютого 2025 року "Про застосування персональних спеціальних економічних та інших обмежувальних заходів (санкцій)" [DECREE OF THE PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE No. 68/2025 On the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine dated February 4, 2025 "On the application of personal special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions)"].

Appendix 2 sets out the Legal Entities on the territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation to which which personal special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions) are applied: The Russian version of the "State Historical and Archaeological Museum-Preserve" Tauric Chersonese" in Sevastopol; the State Budgetary Institution of the Republic of Crimea "Eastern Crimean Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve", 7 Sverdlova Street, Kerch and the State Budgetary Institution of the Republic of Crimea "Central Museum of Tavrida", Simferopol, 14 Gogolya Street. Among them are museums that currently contain artefacts (and perhaps documentation?) from other Ukrainian museums that were overrun by troops of the Russian Federation - which can be called "stolen" or "evacuated" depending on who you are and your viewpoint. There is also disquieting information that, like other institutions in the Russian-occupied zone, they are (might be) deaccessioning material that they regard as superfluous to the current needs of a "Russian cultural institution" (I use the term loosely).

Appendix 1 details individuals to whom personal special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions) are applied. There are 55 of them, I have met at least one of these people, know of another five, I think, from the literature, but it is unclear to me who the others are (whether archaeologists or staff of the listed institutions). As is the nature of the document, academic titles and host institutions are not given. Also it is unclear if they all work in Crimea - for example excavating sites or working with portable antiquities under the Russian occupation (forbidden by international conventions - such as Hague and UNESCO 1970)  Seven are from the older generation, born between 1940 and 1955. Most of the people listed were born in the 1970s and 1980s. Interestingly, the citizenship (so birthplace) of 16 of them is given as Ukrainian (plus Russian Federation) suggesting that they at least were working in Ukraine before the 2014 invasion and decided to stay. While on the one hand there is a clear ethical choice (dictated by the above-mentioned conventions), in the case of arkies, there is another ethical/moral duty - to "the archaeology" (archaeological record) and here in some cases there may be conflicting influences.

Some Ukrainian archaeologists have left the occupied areas, some taking their unfinished research with them, and are employed in other institutions in Ukraine and abroad. I know of a number of cases where positions have been created here and elsewhere for such scholars. However, the funding for academic archaeology is rather scarce in Europe at the moment, so many Ukrainian archaeologists leaving their home towns due to the external conditions have little hope of continuing their work until this War is over and won. Слава Україні. 
 

 

Archaeology of All of Our Days

 This is Vovchansk, Ukraine. Its population was 17,459 before the Russians decided to "liberate" them.

Ukraine did not get the help it needed, when it needed it, to make the Russians respect the borders of the neighbouring sovereign country. And this is what they are doing on foreign soil, obliterating life, lives, homes, anything Ukrainian. Ethnic cleansing in the way the Russian Empire (from the territorial annexations of Ivan the Terrible onwards), the Soviet Union always did. The rapes and decapitation are a relatively new addition to the old repertoire of brutality and terror. These wall stubs, shattered pavements rubble and broken trees are the archaeology left by all of us. In future they'll ask "how could people stand by and just watch this happen to an ally?" How could we? I have just translated the obituary of another Ukrainian archaeologist colleague fallen in this senseless war. How could we? Why did we?

MAGAmerica's New "Panama Crisis" and Archaeology

Panama, two seas away from MAGAmerica

   Frog from Venado Beach in a US museum       

In a meeting yesterday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly issued an ultimatum to Panama’s president José Raúl Mulino over the Panama Canal. Reportedly, he said that without immediate action to address what he called “Chinese influence”, the US will take “all necessary measures to protect its rights”. Does the USA government plan to invade Panama? (see Trump dreams of empire expansion). 

If they do, no doubt there will be more looting of the archaeological sites of the area, it's worth noting a rather disturbing series of field projects by US archaeologists in the region from the end of the 1940s and 1950s onwards that dug up lots of stuff (some of which ended up "somehow" in US museums) but were rarely properly published. Some ended up as grey literature in the form of students' theses in US university archives, some were publicised by breathless-discovery (and gold) themed articles in magazines like National Geographic, but where are the monographs? And where are the full site reports in the local language - which is Spanish and not US English?  

An example of this is the ("Cocle Culture" [?]) site at Venado Beach, an unpublished site "discovered by the U.S. Navy in 1948 while bulldozing off the topsoil in order to enrich the lawns of the 15th Naval District". The subsequent excavation is rather poorly recorded, with the finds dispersed - some of them having been dug up by US servicemen stationed at Fort Kobbe. There are a number of items in US collections that were "gifts of" (ie come from the antiquities market), for example of the "Veraguas-Chiriquí Region/ culture" (Panama and Costa Rica, 500 - 1000AD) in Birmingham Alabama,  a pendant in Brooklyn, a frog pendant in the NY Met. and so on.  Maybe it is time to decolonise these museum collections.

           Cocle bowl, Panama              

Then we have US dealers openly selling stuff from the still poorly understood  [Gran] Coclé culture - exemplified by this 'tribal art' page from a Chicago dealer about the delights of Coclé culture  pottery. This San Francisco  dealer offers a polychrome fruitera pedestal dish 600-800 AD for $2,500 ("Ex. private collection, Cedar Rapids, IA"), a Hollywood CA seller who has what they assert is a "Large Ancient Pre Columbian Cocle Culture Hand Painted Vessel Jar Pottery with COA" for US $1,250. Then there is Bob Darge (Artemis)'s "Gran Cocle Polychrome Footed Plate w/ Crocodilians ca. 500 to 1200 CE. ("Mineral and earthen deposits on the underside and foot, and manganese deposits throughout. Provenance: ex-private USA collection acquired before 2000" [so what?]). This one passed through US hands and is now up for auction in Paris - they say it is a: Cocle culture, Montijo, Panama, 700-1100 A.D. "polychrome globular olla with fantastic animals ("Provenance: Private American collection, acquired 2004, Herbert L. Lucas, Los Angeles (#246), acquired prior to 1993 Fine Arts of Ancient Lands, New York" [so what?]).

And so it goes on. 
 

References

Lothrop, S. K. (1954). "Suicide, Sacrifice and Mutilations in Burials at Venado Beach, Panama". American Antiquity. 19 (3): 226–234.

Doyle, James (2015-08-18). "Unearthing Gold Masterpieces from Venado Beach, Panama". The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Wardwell, Allen (1973). "Some New Acquisitions of Pre-Hispanic Gold". Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago. 67 (1): 16–20. doi:10.2307/4111236. ISSN 0094-3312. JSTOR 4111236.