tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8174756573570334952.post2253790399746456895..comments2024-03-27T04:46:33.198-07:00Comments on Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues: A Collector (above) and Her Unprovenanced ShabtiPaul Barfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10443302899233809948noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8174756573570334952.post-28507984181241130732010-04-12T11:30:06.567-07:002010-04-12T11:30:06.567-07:00Hello "Alice", another new assumed ident...Hello "Alice", another new assumed identity? Why? Why not use your real name?<br /><br />Well, our definitions of "being reasonable" and "initiating a dialogue" obviously differ. <br /><br />Now I REALLY did not "<b>threaten to ruin the life of a little boy</b>" I very much resent that, no matter how angry you are that I express the fact that I do not agree with what you say and do. <br /><br />Remember that it is you who presumed to lecture me on a discussion forum on these "complexities" you claim I am ignorant of or ignoring. To me it just sounded like the usual litany of excuses to justify indiscriminate collecting. Funnily enough in some 35 years of studying the issues around antiquity collecting, I had actually come across two of the arguments you offer (I think this is the first time I've heard anyone proposing getting back lost contexts by simply analysing the chemistry of the object...) <br /><br />It is hardly "netstalking" when yesterday you posted on the Ancient Antiquities discussion group that you had won this item, and the next day sent a post to the same list accusing me of not taking into account that looters loot sites for the money they can earn selling looted finds to people who can sell them to collectors who do not know where they come from. The juxtaposition was just a little too obvious to ignore madam. Do you see my point? <br /><br /><br />Also you cited a post about the little boy without noticing apparently that at the bottom, there is the self-same sentiment in black and white. Not the first time, not the last, why did my response surprise you? <br /><br />Your second reply misses the main point, the time for the responsible buyer to find out if the seller has a decent provenance is surely BEFORE they buy and not after. If there is not sufficient, then how much of a wrench can it be to walk away from the deal? What then defines the ethical collector from the indiscriminate one? <br /><br />That is my point. The dealers are not going to clean up their act if every time they have a dodgy item, some client, maybe every second, is going to say "oh, all right then, gimme gimme". <br /><br />As I say, you have completely the wrong end of the stick if you think I stand for draconian rules and big sticks. What you will find if you look is that what I have consistently argued for the last decade or so is the need for self-discipline in collectors. A self-discipline which is lacking. You for example bought the shabti because it was "cute" and cheaper than it was. The fact that you had no way of knowing whether it had been looted recently or not did not at the time disturb you. Only when somebody commented on it does it become a problem? <br /><br />You are right, the ethical problems here are complex, but its not the ethics of little boys picking up sherds and trying to sell them to tourists, it is in the ethical dilemmas of the people at the other end of the chain. Not the people who have little cash and education, but the way those who have both use them. In my opinion of course.Paul Barfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10443302899233809948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8174756573570334952.post-22069408571238255102010-04-12T09:19:58.745-07:002010-04-12T09:19:58.745-07:00Also, no excuses. I bought this object and I did a...Also, no excuses. I bought this object and I did ask the seller on the provenance beforehand but got an unsatisfactory answer. I have never owned a wenneb shabti, but I do own a nestahy shabti. I also asked about its provennance before buying it, got a rather slippery answer then that it had been in his family for twenty five years. As for the scarab, it came from the Gardiner Architectural Museum in Quincy Illinois. I was referring on my flickr page that I had not yet written the museum to ask them if they had any further history of the object. I have since done so and they do not but have since written me and confirmed that they were the source of the object, confirming the sellers provenance. <br />You leap to a lot of conclusions to support your worldview and you cherry pick a lot of statements. Had you simply asked me to clarify these positions we could have had a good dialog here.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8174756573570334952.post-71735276157251115582010-04-12T08:54:32.304-07:002010-04-12T08:54:32.304-07:00Look, I went out of my way to be reasonable with y...Look, I went out of my way to be reasonable with you and to initiate a dialog. I have never once said unprovenanced collecting was the right thing to do. My disagreements with you never once took any stance that I was supporting unprovenanced collecting, just that I feel there are ethical complexities to the matter that are worth considering before you threaten to ruin the life of a little boy. In this action I ought to have noticed the utter disregard for other human beings that characterizes your dialog, and that allowed you to netstalk and assassinate the character of a person you have never met and who made it clear they could be easily persuaded to your views! THAT is my problem with you, Mr. barford. You are an inquisitor. You may be right but you are willing to partake of any wrong to prove your point.<br /> No, collectors are not helping the poor, but it is worth understanding that there are reasons people loot that go beyond being evil.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com