A US "Coin Elf Law" in the Offing?

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There are strange rumours floating around the portable antiquities blogosphere. I have heard it alleged that the dealers' lobby group, the ACCG had been discovered lobbying a congressman to introduce legislation that would exempt coins from import restrictions and the CCPIA. This morning Dealer Dave let something slip on the Moneta-L list which almost inclines me to believe that there is something in these rumours. If so, it would make it official, the ACCG would be trying to tell Congress that ancient coins do not come out of the archaeological record at all but are instead made by the Coin Elves under the mountains (apparently near Munich).

I wonder if the US Congress will swallow that as easily as they did the story about Saddam's fictional WMD? In that case they ended up sending many thousands of brave young men over the seas on a fruitless and destructive hunt to save the world from them in which many lives were lost. While challenging the origin of dugup coins will not have such serious consequences as some of their other reputation-damaging mistakes, certainly if Congress passes any "Coin Elf legislation", it will do no good whatsoever for the vision of the US from outside.

Maybe the Congressmen - before allowing themselves to be persuaded to compromise themselves by the industry's lobbyists - might like to come over here and see for themselves where coins come from. To check the facts on the ground. Maybe Chicago Ron can arrange a metal detecting holiday for them.

"Diggers": SAA Letter to National Geographic Channel

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A bit late and rather long for dumb-down TV producers, but for what it is worth here's the letter from Society for American Archaeology President William F. Limp to the Executive Board of the US based National Geographic Channel:

I write to you as the president of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) to express concern about the new reality television show, “Diggers,” which will premiere on the National Geographic Channel on February 28. We ask in the strongest possible terms that you take steps to alter the message of the show, which, based on our review of the material on the program’s website, is contrary to the ethics of American archaeological practice, highly destructive, and possibly illegal.

But the question the TV company are concerned with is merely 'is it good TV'?

[...] the involvement of The National Geographic in this show is particularly troubling to SAA (as evidenced by the numerous letters of concern that we are receiving) because of the iconic position that your organization holds in our nation’s consciousness. The National Geographic is viewed as the national authority in many areas of scientific inquiry, interpretation, and understanding of mankind’s shared heritage, including archaeology. It also plays a central role in public education regarding the importance of preserving the historical and archaeological record.

Certainly the bru-ha-ha around this programme can only be good for viewer figures. I would say the task now for SAA and AIA is to turn this to a national debate about just what it is the Americans expect out of the historic heritage in the ground, and bodies like the AIA, SAA and NGS. Is the aim of US society as a whole today to actually get something from the heritage of the past something more than a source of a quick thrill, some vaguely-'cultural' multimedia edutainment, and a material commodity or two like any other to desire and acquire? Is the metal detecting reality show "Diggers" setting a trend or representing one? That seems to me to be a question the SAA should be asking itself.

This is, too, a question for the UK's Portable Antiquities Scheme - which of course as usual is determined to remain on the margins of public debate on heritage and keeping well out of the discussion.

Vignette: Not only in it for the history

The Disappearing ANS Weiss Collection

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I see, despite all his current worries, Arnold-Peter Weiss has been nominated for the Board of Trustees of the American Numismatic Society. Good for him.

"A donor to the Society, he is a generous contributor to the ANS collections, Gala, annual appeals, and is one of the founding members of the ANS’ Augustus B. Sage Society".

I am a bit puzzled though, did the ANS have as this Dec 3rd Google Cache suggests an Arnold-Peter Weiss collection? If so, where has it gone? Here's one of his coins in the ANS Collection. It still says: "Gift of Arnold-Peter Weiss". These are his too, according to Google cache (notably made on 3 Jan 2012 23:51:07 GMT), but look at the page NOW. They've already deleted his name. Oh, that is not very nice of the ANS is it? Nor, would I say very transparent or ethical. What does that mean? That only now the Trustees have some "reasonable doubts" about something? What and why? Or what? What's going on?

But they have not nobbled the 2007 story of ANS Trustee Dr. Arnold-Peter C. Weiss donating a (complete?) "Celtic" hacksilver hoard from Spain "dating circa the fourth to third century BC. It consists of 135 pieces of coins and cut jewelry used as money (Fig. 1). This exceedingly rare donation continues Dr. Weiss’s interest in adding to the ANS cabinet items related to alternative money and bullion sources used in early trade". Sadly the newsletter does not say where the object was found, by whom and how it left Spain and entered the USA (see now here). The link in the article now goes to a coin from a hacksilver hoard - without any mention of whose donation it was. There's gratitude for you.

There is slightly more information about the previous history of another of his donations though, this one in early 2005:

A donation of historical importance came from one of the ANS Trustees, Dr. Arnold-Peter C. Weiss: a group of 19 items comprising a fifth-century BC hoard from Egypt which includes a large silver cake ingot (fig. 1). The provenance of this group, which represents one of the few known examples in the United States, is a private collection (from Valais, Switzerland) purchased in the 1950s.

See also the account of a later 2005 donation by Dr Weiss which may be related, or the same. Despite the assurances that this is a pre-1970 UNESCO Convention export from Egypt, the links here too go to catalogue entries of items without (now) any public information who generously donated it to the ANS collection.

Then there is the "group of sixty-six Eastern European Celtic coins" Dr Weiss donated in 2006. If you click on the link in this article, you find the donor's name appears to have been removed by the ANS from the entry here too. Wallachia, Transylvania, and to some extent Banat are all in modern Romania - which has legislation making such coin finds state property, when did these 36 items leave southeastern Europe and how?

It seems the absence of Dr Weiss' name from the online records of the ANS collection is due to deletions which have taken place very recently (the dates of the Google caches) and it seems not unlikely that the ANS has been engaged in what they might see as "damage control", for example that they now have some kind of "reasonable doubts" about the propriety of accepting some of the objects donated in the past by this ANS member. If so it is notable that of less importance is the actual state of hygiene of their collections than the appearance that they are sqeaky-clean. But then, on the other hand, it is also worth drawing attention to the fact that as things stand today, Dr Weiss has not been convicted of any wrong-doing whatsoever.

Readers of this blog who have followed the links I give will be well aware of the frequency with which US coineys apply the notion of "innocent until proven guilty" to their collecting, saying it is up to the accusers to prove guilt. We have seen though that this principle is not always applied by their associations. In July 2011 Salem Alshdaifat (Holyland Numismatics) and Morris Khouli (Windsor Antiquities) were summarily removed from the list ("suspended") of sponsors and members of the Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild because they were in the news as accused of customs irregularities (the case has yet to come to trial). It seems the ANS is reacting in a similar way just days after vague and rather (at the moment) low-profile accusations about Dr Weiss' acquisition of two coins (actually only one of them) appeared in the press. Where is the justice in that? Dr Weiss has been an extremely generous donor to the ANS but the moment a grey cloud appears, they turn their backs on him? If the reason for the deletions is that the ANS is now having "reasonable doubts" about the origins of the coins he gave them, why were those doubts not expressed earlier, when the donations were accepted? This is down to due diligence. What has changed about what the ANS now knows about the origins of Dr Weiss' coins (as opposed to any other coins donated by other ANS members at the same time)?

If they are deleting his name from the acquisition records because of unproven allegations and an impending court case, I think the ANS reaction here is shabby and disgraceful. If I were an ANS member, I'd be cancelling my subscription right now and would be reconsidering any decision to donate them research material if that is the way they treat their sponsors to maintain a facade.

It is also quite interesting in the light of recent events to read Dr Weiss' Sept 2009 comments on the Art Newspaper article 'Hispanic Society to sell historic coin collection?'. He describes the intention to sell this "irreplaceable cultural collection of historical coins related to Spanish history" as "truly despicable" and an expression of "greed".

This type of asset for the US academic community and public can never be replaced. The arguments of context of cultural property are so powerful in this matter that to see the collection broken up and distributed is a sad remark on what a non-profit organization should stand for. Even if the Spanish government buys the collection intact, the issue of transferring legally acquired cultural material from the shores of the USA forever, is problematic. Is this country just going to continue to sell all our cultural assets and material abroad? We could learn some lessons from the British, Austrians, Germans and French in this regard.

Eh? and not the Italians and Greeks, who fight to keep their country's cultural property from going to foreign collectors and do not shrink from getting help from other states to get it back when it does?

Note how these coins, and in particular their arrangement into a collection, has become "our" (ie US) cultural assets. Note also how agitated the American gets here about them being "sold abroad", yet US collectors apparently have no compunction whatsoever about buying other peoples' cultural assets for their own personal entertainment and profit.

[Despite ANS opposition, the Hispanic Society's coins are now up for sale]

UPDATE 3rd Feb: On checking the links, I find that about 22nd Jan the Google cache page containing the details of Dr Weiss' donations to the ANS was deleted too, so no longer works. "Phew", eh, ANS? Several other of the links I gave here now do not work either. My readers will just have to decide whether this blog is a more reliable source of information about what the online sources had to say about the contents of the ANS collection on 12th January than what the ANS now seems concerned to keep from the public. ("DOWN the memory hole with him!") What was it the coineys were campaigning for recently? More transparency ? Surely they'd better start in their own back yard and their own coiney organizations. Ask: what (else) has the ANS got to hide here?

Vignette: ANS "un-person" Dr Weiss (after Chasing Aphrodite, edited)

Conspiracy Theory in New York

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(Continued from the post above) But how could the coineys discuss anything without involving a muddle-headed conspiracy theory? So let us look again at the article of Jeff Starck about the NY coin seizure ('Officials seize two ancient coins at NYINC, Detain owner of coin with $2.5 million opening bid', Coin World online Jan. 09, 2012), looking for the inserted creepy stuff.

Three times we hear of "individuals identifying themselves as law enforcement officials". The writer is presumably invited to think that they might not have been. The article goes on:

"exactly who seized the coins, and why they targeted Weiss (who is a partner in Nomos AG), is unclear. Despite multiple telephone calls to law enforcement agencies in the New York City area, Coin World has been unable to confirm the identities of the authorities making the seizures and detaining Weiss".

Did they arrive in black helicopters? The article does not say. The plot deepens, because officials at New York County District Attorney's office would not confirm or deny what eyewitnesses report, and the spokesperson for the New York Customs and Border Protection office did not return Coin World’s telephone call. At the time of printing, they had also unable to reach anyone at Dr Weiss's office to determine his "status", as if they had all just "vanished".

[I think, if what I am hearing is correct, they should have recognised one of the arresting officers, he's quite famous in antiquities crime fighting circles.]

The author of the article stresses that the seizure was just one day before the sale, just two highly visible coins were taken. He depicts it in the broader context of "the ongoing fight over cultural property as it affects coins" [he forgot to say "unlawfully exported"]. He tells his readers that this has been "the most visible action"...

since the recent announcement of broader import restrictions of ancient Greek coins, which was made Dec. 1 in the Federal Register.

Federal Register Vol. 76, No. 231 / December 1, 2011 to be exact, referring to coins issued at places that lie within the boundaries of the modern Greek state. Coins struck in Sicily (which the US coiney authors of the article should know is actually in Italy these days) are not covered by the MOU to which the article refers. This is scare-mongering of the highest degree with minimal respect for the intelligence of the reader.

Vignette: Black helicopter over the Waldorf Astoria hotel (after a photo by Digital Flowers)

Coin Elves

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I have just spent a bit of time trying to find one of my old posts to put a hyperlink to it in a current post (to explain my use of the term "coin elves" and the ideas behind it). It has slipped well down the Google search page among other later posts of mine which refer to it in passing which is a pity as I think that - despite its deliberately flippant style - it makes an important point. Anyone a bit puzzled by the talk of "coin fairies" and "coin elves" here, please take a look at it.

Sunday, 12 April 2009
To all you young collectors out there.

Vignette: Arthur Rackham, "elves"

For the Collector's Christmas Stocking?

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A new edition of Neil MacGregor's 'History of the World in 100 Objects' is out in time for Christmas and is apparently selling quite well, the synopsis call "original" the approach to the history of humanity:

using objects which previous civilisations have left behind them, often accidentally, as prisms through which we can explore past worlds and the lives of the men and women who lived in them.

Basically a rather odd use of the word, given that relics of the past have been treated in this way since at least the seventeenth century antiquaries, or as some would have it, going back to the Middle Ages and the cult of relics. The trade review by John Adamson, "Sunday Telegraph" says:

'A History of the World in 100 Objects...has been a triumph: hugely popular, and rightly lauded as one of the most effective and intellectually ambitious initiatives in the making of 'public history' for many decades'

Publisher: Allen Lane, ISBN: 9781846145117

The Portable Antiquities Department of MacGregor's BM will no doubt be bringing out their bumper book of goodies next year: "A Social History of Britain (5000BC to 1712) in 100 Found Objects".

Focus on CCPIA: Montana Dreams of European Antiquities Free-for-All?

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Warren Esty, "Professor, Montana State University" claims

"I am the greatest expert in Montana on the scholarly use of ancient coins and I have published numerous professional articles in the most prestigious journals".

In his public comment, he informs the CPAC that his "work could not have happened" if legislation restricting the import into the US of only those coins which had been legally exported from the source country "were on the books". This would, he says, have prevented US museums and collectors "who assemble the material for study" from being able to do so.

He says that [ancient] "coins have regularly been exempt from [...] legislation because they are not uniquely valuable to cultural heritage -- in fact they were produced in many millions and most types are available by the thousands". They are available in their thousands because hundreds thousands of them have been - and are being - dug out of archaeological sites and put on the collectors' market - that being the prime reason they are recovered. The digging out of these coins destroys information from the sites and assemblages they come from which is of unique value to cultural and historical heritage - that is why laws exist to prevent this type of exploitation of the archaeological resource. Coins of course are not exempt from the legislation of any of the source countries which controls their export - such as Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria or Cyprus. The 1970 UNESCO Convention (Art. 1, [c] and [e]) allows its member states to consider coins as falling in the scope of the items protected, and to which articles 3 and 6 therefore applies. The United States is a state party of that Convention, and has been since 1983 (so probably a large part of the period Prof. Esty has been collecting coins).

Professor Esty claims:

No other country restricts its own citizens from importing these types of coins. The entire EU does not.

Well, that is not at all true, all states which are party to the 1970 UNESCO Convention, by acceding to it indicate that they consider "illicit" (Art. 3) all transactions not in accord with the principles it lays down.

What an odd view they apparently have in the mountains of Montana about us 'backward' Yuropeans. A word of warning to Prof. Esty - next time he goes to Greece not to pack his suitcases with dugup antiquities if he plans to travel from there to another EU country instead of returning to his 'anything-goes- USA'. He may end up staying in that other EU country rather longer than he'd initially been planning, because unless he has the required export paperwork, he runs the risk of being arrested by the countries he claims do not control the movement of antiquities (both ways) across their borders.

How can anyone say that within Europe there is no requirement to pay any attention to export licences for antiquities (or anything else, maybe)? The newspapers and blogs are full of mentions of people who have run into trouble with alleged infringements of this legislation through the unauthorised movement of antiquities across international borders. Ayman Dikman arrested in Munich is an obvious example, then there is the reported case of Edip Telli ("Blind Edip"). One might mention the guy apparently arrested, or not, in Bulgaria a while back in connection with some Egyptian antiquities (you know who I mean), in the same context the arrest and trial in the UK of Jonathan Tokely-Parry, still in Great Britain the hapless Malcolm Hay (we never found out what happened in this case), then we have the Macedonians reportedly arrested in Greece earlier this year, the Bulgarians reportedly arrested last year, then there were the men arrested at Heathrow over an EidMar coin (which Prof. Esty should have known about, surely).

The truth is that, although few are caught, few arrests are made (fewer arrests than there are confiscations), these laws do exist, it is illegal to import illegally exported goods of all kinds across borders within the EU. It is not at all true for a mathematician in far-off Montana to tell the CPAC that despite international cultural conventions and EU ones too there is an unlicensed antiquities free-for-all in the EU (with the implied implication that there 'should be' in the US too?). I guess there might be more than one American who thinks that "Yurope is a [single] country".

According to Prof. Esty's online bibliography, "numerous professional articles" on numismatics is 16 (mostly on the statistics of die-linkage). I wonder whether his other (more numerous) papers are based on data which he would have to admit publicly could not have been compiled if certain legislation had been "on the books" at the time he was gathering them? What would we call the kind of scholarship which obtains data from illicit sources? Now this legislation is "on the books", will Prof. Esty still be boasting about this research and his data gathering methods?

The guy sells dugup coins - including a group of barb rads "from England" I am sure it is just due to a lack of space that he does not mention the PAS numbers or details of the UK export licence he has for them ($189).
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Making Money from Antiquities - at What Cost?

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David Gill has a timely piece reminding us that "attitudes towards selling and collecting antiquities were very different in 1990", just two decades ago. This has significant repercussions for the market today and causes one to cast a suspicious eye on collecting histories which - even in the case of highly significant ("art") objects - cannot be traced much further back beyond the previous owner. Read his piece "Looking Back to Athena Fund II" and Bruce McNall's (2003) autobiography "Fun while it lasted" (available from Amazon for a reasonable price). (Really) "Smart money" would probably prefer something else in preference to something that emerged on this sector of the market. That is probably why dealers and collectors with one or more of the very many "pieces" which surfaced there and then would probably prefer to keep it quiet rather than honestly reveal the actual history of the items they are now trying to flog off.

Vignette: Athena and her pot (red figure vase)

The "Chamelon Antiquities" Supplier Game

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"Hi Group", blithely warbles your friendly internet dealer "Alex" [Alex Stanichev, Winettka, United States]:

Here is the link to all the fine ancient coins and artifacts ending soon. http://stores.ebay.com/cameleoncoins-and-artifacts

Let us have a look, and perhaps we can play a game. The dealer does not for a single one of these items give any information about the place it "surfaced". The buyer is expected obviously to part with his money no-questions-asked. Which ones of them (including the fakes) could not have come from a heavily looted country like Bulgaria and adjacent regions of the Balkans and Danubian limes? (Stanichev is a Bulgarian name - there is a famous politician with the same surname at the moment). Do the ones for which such a source is not likely fall into any sort of a group?

Most of these so-called "minor antiquities" offered by "Cameleon" are of metal (copper alloy mostly), how are they located and gathered up? Cameleon coins and artefacts has for a long time specialised in supplying the so-called "minor antiquities market" with complete pottery and glass vessels all of Roman date. Where can one most frequently dig up complete Roman pottery and glass vessels? Ask an archaeologist.

How are these objects getting into (UNESCO 1970 Convention member state since 1983) the United States of America? Ask the US Customs. The choice of name "Chameleon" may not be accidental. How come they (like the products of a dozen or so gentlemen of the Trade with similar commodities) have been openly sold under the noses of US archaeologists on EBay under that name since the end of March 2004? Ask US archaeologists. The AIA supports an MOU with a country like Bulgaria now, but we'd all like to know what active public outreach they had been doing before that about the open no-questions-asked sale of material like this in the long years of the open sale of material like this under their noses.

Vignette: Ćmielów chameleon.

Artefact Seized, Returned to Belize

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US antiquity collectors are keen buyers of artefacts illicitly obtained from digging on archaeological sites on their own continent too. Again "no questions asked" supply is the main vehicle by which the market functions. An early classic Maya period polychrome ceramic bowl was returned to Belize by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently. Reportedly it was confiscated by U.S. Immigration and Customs agents from a New Mexico man trying to import the stolen artefact into the United States. It is illegal to buy or sell Maya artefacts in Belize all artefacts found are the property of the Government of Belize and any finds should be reported to the Institute of Archaeology. The identity and fate of the individual involved in the illicit transfer of stolen property is not revealed.

Source: News Belize

How Some Fresh Dugups Ended up on the US No-Questions-Asked Market

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Rick St Hilaire has another revealing post on the Holyland Numismatics case based on Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) documentation in the public domain (Khouli +3 Case Update: Search Warrant Affidavit Describes HSI Investigation). The material discussed includes a warrant on July 12, 2011 to search the premises of "Holyland Numismatics", in the Michigan home of one of the defendants. (Let us note the author's caution on the presumption of innocence in a case not yet brought to trial.)

It appears that the search warrant petition was filed following some sales of Egyptian artefacts (boat figures and statues) which allegedly took place in 2009, some questions involving ancient coin imports in Detroit in 2010 and apparently a review of Alshdaifat’s email account.

St Hilaire reports that at the end of December 2010, HSI documentation alleges that Salem Alshdaifat carried coins through the Detroit Metropolitan Airport on his way back from Amman, Jordan. They were accompanied by an invoice from 'Nafertiti Eastern Sculptures Trading in Dubai' (NEST) to Holyland Numismatics for Byzantine gold coins and Byzantine gold tremissis coins totaling $234,875 originating from Syria. At a second check, Alshdaifat reportedly offered a second set of invoices listing Byzantine gold coins and Roman-Egyptian billion tetradrachms.

When Alshdaifat returned later with two mail packages of similar coins in an attempt to convince federal authorities to release the detained coins, customs officials seized these packages too because they were without entry paperwork, declared the affidavit.

All that without an MOU with Jordan or Syria, just as the 1970 UNESCO Convention stipulates. It is not recorded if the dealer got them back in the end.

In the documents cited by St Hilaire, it is alleged that an examination of email records showed that the dealer had (unsurprisingly) communicated "with sellers, purchasers, dealers and transporters of cultural property" but also - it is alleged - that this included "stolen and/or smuggled cultural property.”

A January 2009 email exchange was described where Alshdaifat allegedly offered a hoard of coins “[u]ncleaned at $4.5 each.” The email continued: “[T]he hoard came from Egypt and [is] now in Dubai[.] I asked my partner to ship directly from Dubai to you. [T]his hoard came from Banha, I think we bought coins that we sold you befor[e] from Banha, it is very big Roman city. [Y]ou can wire the funds to my bank account.”

(My hyperlink - it is interesting how many of the artefacts in the news recently are coming from the same region of Egypt) Obviously the partner in Dubai referred to is NEST from which it is alleged in the affadavit that antiquities would be shipped to Holyland's customers on the dealer's behalf. What is not revealed is who bought these items knowing full well from the email quoted above that they had been freshly and illegally taken out of Egypt from the delta region. Was the sale made to a dealer or collector? Was this ever followed up by HSI? Was this person questioned to see what else he had been buying and from whom? We do not learn.

Hilaire goes on to discuss a second email dated February 22, 2010 from Holyland Numismatics to an unknown client. It reportedly said:

“[F]or a hoard from Egypt this is real[l]y a[]lot :) , you got a small group[], we usually don[‘]t see them at all in Egypt, I was told today that they found in the same spot while they are making the hole bigger another group[] around 800 coins, they are still working in the area, I hope it will[] be bigger than what I think. [N]ext week I will get those 800 tog[e]ther with the 2000 coins. [I]t is much easy to sell uncleaned, I notice[e] that they already tried to clean some, but I told them to stop[.]”

The HSI investigating agent, without supplying specific details, added that Alshdaifat’s email account allegedly showed that he “has offered customers hoards of coins taken directly from Petra, Jordan and from Kyrene, Libya.”

What is not clear is whether he would "get" these coins direct from the people who he seems to imply he is in contact with who are digging these objects up, or whether this transaction would have involved the Dubai office.

I think if the truth were known, we would find that the sort of activity that seems to be suggested in this firm's business correspondence actually underlies a very large amount of the international commerce in dugup ancient coins, especially in the US (which of course has no native sources of such items). How many dealers and collectors are willingly snapping up coins and other artefacts knowing full well that they were obtained in flagrant disregard of the legislation protecting the archaeological heritage from looting and depletion?

This case as it develops has great potential for revealing some of the mechanisms by which the US market is supplied with fresh dugups, and really should get collectors of such items thinking very hard about the connection of their hobby to illegal practices and the destruction and depletion of the world's archaeological record for commercial gain. Not that they will, of course.

Vignette: the Holy Land on a medal

Dealer's View on What the PAS is For

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Dugup ancient coin dealer Joe Blazick now complains on a coiney discussion list about a certain heritage blogger:

He is a disruptive force that causes nothing but trouble. I have been the target of this a few years ago when he attacked me on his blog and then had the nerve to have the head of PAS email over my legitimate purchase of less than 100 uncleaned English dugups.

Wow, what a nerve eh?

What I wrote about was a case where somebody was boasting in a commercial offer that they'd got a batch of dugups from an English detectorist which had not been through the PAS system, hardly an "attack" (have a look at the other references to subsequent events on this blog). The problem was the obvious (and symptomatic) feeling of entitlement this dealer exhibited in a documented case of handling objects that were obtained for sale "outside the system". What is the CAUSE of the trouble? Somebody hoping to get away with some dodgy dealing practice involving archaeological artefacts or somebody drawing attention to it in an effort to show this kind of thing needs to stop?

I think this is the real source of the problem coineys have with what I write elsewhere, that they are on the side of the dodgy dealer practices which they presumabbly see as the only way that new coins will come onto the market they are so interested in patronising. It is symptomatic that not a single Unidroit-er came back with a reflective "but Joe...".

Here's a question. The answer might be revealing:

What do US collectors think the actual function of the PAS is? To facilitate collecting, or to regulate the manner in which artefacts enter collections?

What do the PAS tell US collectors their function is?
neither is it at all a "nerve" to expect the head of that organization to actually do what he and his organization are there, being paid (a lot of public money), to do.

It is not "disruptive" to point out that in the case of coins from the UK, this is not what should be happening when we have a PAS in position thirteen years which has cost the taxpayer thirteen million pounds to PREVENT this from happening and all dugup coin collectors and dealers say that it's wonderful. Obviously only as long as it stays out of THEIR business.

Numismatic TV deals?

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Joking aside (see post above) we are told so often by the no-questions-asked coineys that their brand of numismatics is an independent academic discipline in its own right which allows "the general public" to learn about the past. I personally consider that a dubious statement (and in any case no justification for the destruction no-questions-collecting leads to). So let us ask: how many TV programmes have there been in the last forty years on national television which have had dugup ancient coins as their sole subject? Programmes in which ancient history is discussed and disseminated entirely on the basis of the numismatic evidence (Ok, to make it easier together with classical written source, but NO other types of archaeological evidence used)? To what extent could numismatics be used in any sustainable way in public broadcasting to present to the public what coineys say their collecting represents? Maybe the ACCG would like to attempt to get such a TV deal (like with the History Channel for example) and appoint a charismatic presenter from among their number who could pull this off? What about it Wayne? Why moan about TV archaeology, lets see some cutting edge TV ancient numismatics.

When is Artefact Looting not Artefact Looting?

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A 59-year-old man has been arrested in Tenerife for illegal possession of firearms and endangering life and property but also retaining cultural property for his own use (having at home "pre-Hispanic relics"). The affair started with a fire in a house in Tacoronte, and the fire services evacuated the inhabitants in serious condition to the University Hospital. In the burnt house were found many skulls and other human remains which however turned out not to be of recent origin, and authorities from the Historical Heritage Museum of Tenerife were called in. Meanwhile it was determined that the fire may have been started deliberately, and after he had recovered from his wounds the man was taken into custody under suspicion of having started it himself.

The antiquities collection included a ceramic "decorated anthropomorphic object" some complete and reconstructed vessels, as well as many rim fragments and handles. Lithic material was also found, a complete quern and fragments, basalt and obsidian manufacturing waste and tools. The bones had been placed on a shelf and all bore a number, other small items had been mounted on panels and hung on the wall with labels indicating the origin so that each of the panels corresponds to a different site. The objects were all in an excellent
condition. A number of firearms without proper paperwork were recovered from the ruins of the house, these too were of "old" type, presumably collectors' pieces.

The details here are not very clear, and the man is not named so it may be difficult to follow this one up. Leaving aside the circumstances of the fire, whether it was arson or an accident, it seems we have here a clear case of a collector falling foul of the law.

He is for example facing arms charges for having old weapons and ammunition in the house. But instead of antiquities preservation laws, he seems to be liable for facing charges under firearms legislation. Although I do not know about this specific case I know of similar cases in Poland. Metal detectorists here do not as a rule go out trashing archaeological sites, the vast majority of them use the machines to search for militaria of the World Wars period. Leaving aside the question of how legal that it (the law is ambiguous, I personally favour a liberal interpretation of the term "zabytek archeologiczny" here), these collectors run into problems when they find firearms and ammunition. Turning the latter into a collectable is a problem for them, hardly a year goes by without two or three Polish metal detectorists losing limbs or life attempting to disarm shells or whatever (of course the law stipulates reporting them, but then the sappers destroy them so there's nothing left to collect). The guns are a separate problem. Polish law does not distinguish between a rare find of a WW2 gun found where it had been hidden in 1941 by partisans in a swamp still wrapped in oilcloth and sometimes restorable to working order and a gun-shaped mass of corrosion products which is what is normally found on the battlefields which cover the country. There is no way these things can ever be used to injure anyone, but by Polish law, a gun is a gun. And to have one at home you have to have special papers, and all sorts of restrictions. Most collectors of gun-shaped rust clods don't bother getting (or for one reason or another are not eligible for) papers. The problem is however if they are investigated as a customer of a metal detectorist in one of the anti-looting 'stings' we sometimes have over here, the police seeing an "arsenal" of gun-shaped rust clods not infrequently says "a gun is a gun" and another collector loses his collection. Other policemen see "rust" and after checking that there is nothing actually usable, leave the collector alone. At the moment lobbying is going on to amend the law to remove the ambiguity.

A particularly stupid situation is on internet sales. If a finder puts up a complete gunshaped rust lump on an internet auction in Poland, it will get taken down. You can't sell complete army surplus WW2 mauser rifles for re-enacters on them either. But you can sell the parts - and the manuals telling you how to put them together. OK, the firing pin is filed off and the barrel blocked (or a solid replica) but a gun is not a gun when its in pieces.

Coming back to Tenerife, the newspaper seems to be suggesting we are dealing with not so much a "heap of artefacts on a table" collection, but a collection that has been ordered more along the lines of a private museum. If the bones were numbered, it suggests there was a catalogue somewhere. The finds were labelled with their exact provenance (to site at least) - though whether sticking them on boards was for decorative effect or a space-saver is unclear. It seems a reasonable assumption that this gentleman had gathered these finds himself. To what extent we are dealing here with a mere collector and to what extent an amateur archaeologist is not clear either. But if he should be considered among the latter, here we have the downside of national archaeological protection legislation. In some cases (and I am not saying that IS the case here) we may well have cases where somebody doing the type of fieldwalking and earthmoving-site-observation which is a perfectly legitimate activity in one part of the EU getting locked up for it in another. I am unfamiliar with the legislative situation in Tenerife, perhaps there was an ability to gain a permit to do such work in collaboration with the museum, perhaps not. I think however one possible interpretation of the sketchy facts about this case might lead us to discuss some of these issues in a wider forum. In Poland for example an amateur fieldwalker cannot get a permit to do archaeological fieldwork, because of the way the legislation governing their issue is written. I think this needs changing, because if fieldwork is going on and the fieldwalker is unable to legally inform the heritage services of this, there is no possibility for the latter to benefit from it or influence what is done how.

Anon (europapress.es), 'Detenido en Tenerife un hombre que guardaba en su domicilio múltiples restos prehispánicos', Agencia Europa Press Islas Canarias, September 11, 2011

My Sir Mortimer Artefact

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After my mentioning my fascination with Sir Mortimer Wheeler and pointing out there's a cunie on sale at Bonhams that used to be owned by him and his first wife, Kyri incites me:

take the plunge paul, buy your first piece. After all it has great provenance. you will see how rewarding collecting antiquities [ethically of course] can be.

yes, provenance (collecting history) is a good one, pre-1970, though no information on how Sir M. got it. Certainly I would have no problems with somebody (else) buying it, it even has a decent low estimate (I really cannot follow the logic of the estimates in that catalogue, some are remarkably low). OK, but how "rewarding" actually would be having it in my home? I cannot read the thing, I could fondle it, perhaps sit in a darkened corner with it grasped tightly in my hands and with my eyes shut try to imagine myself back in ancient Mesopotamia or something. But once you've fondled it and done the "imagine who touched this all those years ago" bit and looked at it admiringly from all sides, and showed the neighbours who feign interest, what else is there to do with such a thing? That's what I do not really understand. It's not even pretty.

OK, here's my Sir Mortimer "relic". A long while ago I set out to buy a copy of every book he'd published, I almost managed to do it too, tracking down some rare "Early India" volumes and some of the difficult early Welsh items for example. Most of them are in storage in the cellar, but one came up to the house with me. It was published in 1966 and is not one of Wheeler's best known works.

I found it in a bargain bin in a second hand bookshop by Bristol University. It's still got the price pencilled in: "Ł1.50 scored". I'd read this book earlier (thought it was boring at the time) but did not have a copy. So when I saw this one, I picked it out of the bin, opened it in the middle but found some jerk had been scribbling over it in biro. At first I thought it was a printer's copy, in some places the marks were proof-reading marks showing errors in the typesetting, but then as I studied it, I found that some of it was a discussion with the author, some of it downright rude. The writing was barely legible. Anyway, the book was ruined.

Then as I rejected the idea of buying it in disgust, automatically I opened the front cover to see if the scribbling vandal owner's name was on the flyleaf. It was not, but instead was an inscription which gave me a start. I recognised the handwriting immediately, having spent a while a few years earlier researching the 1930s Verulamium archive for a project I was once doing.

A little nonsense book for Max and Agatha with love Rik

Now obviously the person who'd put that copy in the bargain bin had no idea who this "Rik" was (Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler) nor who the Max was who'd scribbled in a way which suggests the "love" was not particularly reciprocated, still less Mallowan's wife Agatha (Christie of course), with whom Jacquetta Hawkes' biography suggests "Rik" may have had some kind of a romantic attachment at one stage... I suspect if the shop assistant had known, it would have been on another shelf at the back of the shop. The one with the glass doors.

It was a long walk to the cash till as I recall, an irrational fear overtook me that perhaps somebody had seen the expression on my face as 'd opened it and before I got to the till and got my money out, they would snatch it from me and say, "sorry sir, there has been a mistake, this is not for sale". Should I be honest and tell the shop assistant that the book was probably worth a good deal more than one pound fifty? (I think I would have paid any price for it). Much to my discredit, I did not. It now sits on my shelf among a lot of other older books for which I paid considerably more, but this is the one that I keep anxiously pulling out and showing my family and saying when I die, it does not matter what they do with the rest, but remember, THIS book is special. I think they've got the message.

I suppose this is the same thrill as the coiney gets having spotted that something on ebay is a rare variety which neither the seller or other buyers seem to have noticed (I've discussed a US pastor with an uncanny knack for doing precisely that on this blog earlier). Watching the last seconds of the auction ticking away with their heart thumping, "has somebody else spotted it?" is the same as my long walk to the cash till. The feeling of self-congratulation, to have recognised something that was lying under everybody else's noses "for what it is" must be the same. So yes, that's a reward - a happy memory of a moment of serendipity.

But I can do more than fondle my artefact and bore people to death with my tale of how I found this "treasure".* I can read Wheeler's words in an actual copy I know he held in his hands, moreover (if I were interested in him) I would have a bit of an insight into the mind and character of Max Mallowan from his scribbled comments (though would not be surprised to hear he'd done this to a great many other books too). Sadly Agatha did not make any comments in the book I can see.

Whatever Peter Tompa and the rest of the finger-pointers say, in collecting old books and prints etc no resource is destroyed (unlike the digging of archaeological collectables out of archaeological sites). I have not enquired what happened to Mallowan's library when he died (Wallingford, Oxfordshire, August 1978), certainly if the bulk of it went to an institution, some less important books, less relevant to his own work would appear to have been split off and some four years later at least one of them turned up in a bargain bin in Bristol, and at the moment is in Poland. Habent sua fata libelli.

*[my "treasure" I suspect actually has more value as a bibliophilic collectable for most people because of the connection with Agatha Christie - even though physically it is less tenuous than the two archaeologists - "Mortimer who?"]

US Kitchen Table Numismatics and Numismatic Scholarship: A Summary

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This seems a good place to summarise some scattered posts on several blogs looking at the question of the degree to which Kitchen Table Numismatics (heaps of decontextualised coins bought by collectors) can constitute a discipline as that term is usually understood. Coin collectors, and especially US dealers, claim that the collecting of coins has an academic value which far outweighs the degree to which the trade in dugup artefacts depletes the archaeological record. They claim that if the flow of "freshly surfaced" coins is in any way disrupted, this will be to the detriment of "numismatic scholarship" affect our ability to "understand the past". Furthermore anyone who is not a "professional numismatist" cannot, by definition, "understand" (collectors love playing the misunderstood victim) and simply has no business saying anything about the trade in illicitly obtained and the smuggling of antiquities.

I made such a comment when US dealer Scott Semans suggested that "now" to get coins through US customs they will "have to be" labelled as something else. In other words smuggled. My questioning that prompted another dealer to interrogate me somewhat impudently issues (DW: Sunday, August 21, 2011, Clean Trade according to Barford ) on my "credentials in professional numismatics". Now note the emphasis here onpaper credentials (see below):

"Well, Mr. Barford, it now seems appropriate to inquire a bit further into the question of who you are [...] I have three questions I would like to ask, not that I really believe there is any possibility you would respond with an honest factual reply. First: Do you hold a baccalaureate (or higher) degree in archaeology from any accredited university?" etc.

What in other words ACCG's Dave Welsh was suggesting was that only if I were another "professional numismatist" (ie US dealer) would I understand why coins "have to be" smuggled into the US. Well, I am not, and it is true I do not understand why anything"has to be" smuggled into (or out of for that matter) the United States. But I was annoyed by the attitude of superiority and entitlement displayed by the dealer and responded in like tone, subsequently asking the same questions of the numismatist who had asked about mine to reveal the qualifications by virtue of which he constantly represents himself as a "professional numismatist" (Sunday, August 21, 2011, 'The "Science" of the Clean Trade ?'

The reply to this was rather pathetic. I really should not have asked, and it turned out that behind the bluster was a few popular magazine articles in his youth, some rather superficial stuff on his website and he'd sold a lot of coins and was able to tell one from another (DW 21st August 2011: 'Numismatic Qualifications'

"Coin dealing" (as Mr. Barford puts it) can indeed become a scientific activity, to the extent that one involved in it goes beyond simple commerce and becomes involved in making numismatic discoveries and educating collectors. I have discovered several coin types previously unknown to science. Here is one example:

(I asked him in a comment to explain why he thinks finding this new variety is so significant but this so far has gone unanswered). This long post raised a lot of issues. I dealt with the side issues on my subsidiary ("ghetto") blog:
(PB: Sunday, August 21, 2011, 'Dealer Dave not Happy', [about speaking out about conservation issues, and a look at what he presented as his 'research'] and on the same day: 'Dealer Dave's Numismatic Qualifications' [looking at what he'd presented as his own qualifications after attacking mine] These posts were written more in retaliation and do not add much to the argument which is why they are on that blog and not my main one). What is important here is Welsh's assertion a dealer in America is a "professional numismatist" because there are few opportunities to be a numismatist professionally in any other way there (which is not something that I'd have expected).

In the post on my main blog therefore something starts to sketch itself out (Monday, 22 August 2011, 'Qualities of a Professional Numismatist'). Welsh has all along accused me of total ignorance about anything connected with coins. In this post I reveal that far from what he thinks, I have indeed had contact with and worked with numismatists, both in an academic context as well as collaboration in editing a numismatic journal. It seems Welsh was unaware of that. In explaining that, it slowly dawned on me that what I was familiar with as "professional numismatists" was totally different to the way the ACCG coineys were using the term, because they are based in the US where the system is different. It gave me immense pleasure to find one area where my poor little central European Republic which I so heavily criticise at times was actually for once superior to the mighty USA. For the first time (because looking at it 'from the inside but from outside') I appreciated how comparatively neatly numismatics fitted into the general scheme of things over here (easy to take for granted when its around you I suppose) compared with the situation over the other side of the Atlantic. We are talking about two entirely different systems of doing numismatics.

Well, Welsh was having none of that (DW: Monday, August 22, 2011, 'The Gospel According to St. Paul Barford')

In responding to my last post it seems that archaeoblogger Paul Barford may have actually taken leave of his senses...

. Of course, he argues, the American system is BEST, he presents the view that all those Polaks obviously don't know anything about the material, their "paper qualifications" and titles are worth nothing, they are just external expressions of some contemptible foreign "academic rituals". But that is not the case. This is more chauvinistic bluster and tub-thumping, because the truth is, the Mr Welsh who considers his webpages "scientific research" in all probability has very little first hand knowledge of the current state of Polish numismatics.

Obviously Welsh had not actually understood what I wrote, so I tried again. The crux of the matter seems to be that Welsh seemed to misapprehend what I had said:"Mr. Barford is apparently afflicted by what is at best confusion, and at worst delusions, as to what really constitutes professional numismatic expertise and qualifications". I had pointed out that academic numismatists as I know it from Poland is more holistic and integrated with other disciplines in its approach, is analytical, far from merely telling one coin from another which it seems to me is the main emphasis Welsh was putting on the discipline. So I pointed out (again) the distinction (PB: Tuesday, 23 August 2011, 'US Coiney "Numismatics" : An Analytical Discipline or Merely Ordering Raw Data?'). Obviously at issue here are two views of what constitutes numismatic scholarship, and its not a matter whether the person doing it has letters after their name or teaches students or not. But then the conclusion is that if one model develops from another (so Poland was where it seems the study of ancient coins in the US seems to be way back in the 1930s) then although it consumes by the dealers' own admission, a vast proportion of the freshly-surfaced coins on the global market it seems there are grounds to ask, comparing the two models whether (PB Tuesday, 23 August 2011), 'Professional Numismatics in the USA Underdeveloped?'. I think from having listened to what the ACCG dealer has to say (and been notified of some of the rants ongoing on the forums from which I am blocked) there do seem to be grounds supporting this - somewhat surprising I must admit - assertion. It would however explain a lot of what we see.

Mr Welsh clearly does not understand (again). He the went off on a tangent (DW: Tuesday, August 23, 2011, 'Who owns Numismatics?'):

In a recent rant in his blog, anticollecting archaeoblogger Paul Barford confirms that he simply does not know what he is talking about regarding the science of numismatics, Numismatics is not and never has been defined or controlled by academia or archaeologists.

What he now writes about bears no relation whatsoever to what was being discussed. He is simply now trying to deflect discussion onto some sidetrack, as is usual amongst collectors when you look too deeply into something. I tried to get discussion back on the original topic which is the nature of the "numismatic scholarship" which allegedly would be endangered if it was only done with curated material and objects legally exported from the source country (PB: Wednesday, 24 August 2011, 'What Kind of Question is "Who Owns Numismatics?"...'). It turns out (a point I admit I'd not actually registered before) that the ACCG coineys do not include institutional numismatic scholars in their presentations of the current state of numismatics in the USA. This is weird, and something worth exploring further.

Basically therefore, we are back to square one again, with an interesting difference, this whole string of posts was begun with Welsh demanding details of my PAPER qualifications for daring to make any attempt to assess the effects of the commerce in dugups on the archaeological record. For the past three posts he has been stressing that paper qualifications mean nothing. So what on earth was that initial challenge all that about then?

It seems to me at this stage, ten posts on the 'same topic', I am wasting my own time and anyone who actually set out to read any of this. Instead of discussing an issue, we are arguing round in circles with no real focus any more. I have found that Coineys in general seem to have problems focussing on an issue, and looking at it in more than a superficial knee-jerk manner in a wider context. Mr Welsh seems to exemplify that trend to an inordinate extreme. This thread is a pretty egregious example of that trend. Its exhausting, (very) time consuming and frustrating trying to cut through the crap to the issue in hand. Despite all the sidetracks, I have however found it helpful to get a few ideas straight in my head and given me something to explore further, I neither at this point know or care whether Mr Welsh has gained anything at all from it. But thanks anyway.
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US Coiney "Numismatics" : An Analytical Discipline or Merely Ordering Raw Data?

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It seems coineys in the United States and I differ profoundly in our evaluations of what we understand by the word "professional discipline". In his rather nasty and hasty reply ("The Gospel according to St. Paul Barford") to my recent comments on what in terms of its status as a discipline I consider the words "professional numismatist" to mean, ACCG representative Dave Welsh writes:

Archaeoblogger Paul Barford may have actually taken leave of his senses: I caution all observers to realize that Mr. Barford is apparently afflicted by what is at best confusion, and at worst delusions, as to what really constitutes professional numismatic expertise and qualifications.

Perhaps it is Mr Welsh and his fellow numismatists in the US who are instead confused about the issue. The reason behind that insulting remark?

It seems to this observer that Mr. Barford has once again confused academia and its academic "qualifications" with genuine professional expertise.

Now this is comical when (if anybody is still following his pathetic thrashing around for self-justification), we remember his grounds for assessing me in his earlier attempt at interrogation were not practical "professional expertise", but paper qualifications.

Yes, I think if we are looking at something like numismatics in terms of it being a real discipline or not (which is what this discussion revolves around), then whether it is one that can be taught and assessed within an academic context is indeed one of those criteria. What is represented as such but is not is surely nothing but pseudoscience. How else can a discipline be defined?

Welsh then defines "professional expertise" as defined (in the discipline of numismatics) by ability to sort through a bulk lot of ancient coins. We are obviously talking about different things here. Whatever Welsh thinks it is, when I talk about a professional, I mean somebody with qualifications that go beyond mere hand-eye coordination. I think most of us equate the word "professional qualifications" in a discipline as consisting of something on paper, exams passed, courses completed, academic publications in peer-reviewed journals, that sort of thing. Throwing a pile of potsherds down on a table in front of a student who has completed the 'Prehistory of Poland 101' course and examining them on their ability to decide which are TRB neolithic and which Lusatian Culture (or whatever), is what we do at the end of the first year of a five year course. It's not a professional qualification, but a first year exam topic. Would Welsh consider a field-walking arrowhead collector in the States to represent a "professional discipline" comparable to his because he can sort them into types, from Agate basins to Yonkees? Or a British metal detectorist sorting 'grots' and 'partifacts' from 'trash'? Being "able to sort stuff into the right piles/boxes/coin slips" does not seem much on which to base a claim for such sorting to be a professional discipline. Nor fundamental to any discussion of the ethics of the antiquities trade.

Which is nothing but confirmation of what I was saying earlier about the great gap between what the US coineys consider to be "science" and what the rest of us would consider to be a science. Welsh is clearly talking here about a basic ability to sort data (as I say, sorting 'heaps of coins on a table' ) and not much else. I am talking about a discipline which consists of an ability to analyse data and interpret them within a methodology as I pointed out in my little essay on what real professional numismatists do with coins in the country where I am based and which Welsh now ridicules.

Welsh adds insult to injury when he says of what I wrote:

I do not think [...] very many of those whom he reveres as "academic numismatists" would do well in such a simple test of elementary qualifications.

That seems going a bit far. I doubt whether Mr Welsh has ever even heard before the names of the people I quoted in my earlier post, let alone met them at any international numismatic conference he's been to, and here he is judging and denigrating them. I would not be so dismissive of their abilities, I have seen some of them in action on excavated material, and would be interested to see how Dealer Dave would fare against them, especially when dealing with the material with which they would be more familiar than he. We do have rather high academic standards in this country (especially compared to what passes for 'education' in the US, speaking from the experience of having just had a bunch of US exchange students and their professor over here for a term) and Welsh in his self-advertising buffoonery is here overstepping the mark.

Certainly I do not expect I could (or would want to) sort a pile of Mr Welsh's coins to a degree that would satisfy him, but then I doubt whether he could say much about a pile of Early Slavic sherds, or an excavated Romano-British pottery assemblage (I bet he cannot even tell the difference between South Gaulish and Central Gaulist terra sigillata, let alone cope with the other imported finewares and amphoras found in Britain). Unlike him, however, I would not find that a justification for calling him names and saying he is "deluded" and knows nothing. I happen to have gained a fair working knowledge of certain artefact types because that's what I worked with at one stage of my working life. I cant do snail shells, or bird/fish bones or seeds, while there are others for whom its as falling off a log. But sorting things like that is a practical 'craft', not part of the analytical job of the archaeologist. Sorting the potsherds into piles and identifying Rhenish and Gaulish colour coat is just the beginning, counting and weighing them, assessing abrasion and sherd size are all technical operations - equivalent to what Welsh evidently considers the pinnacle of "professional expertise". In many units however this is work carried out by supervised volunteers and students and the main pot specialist does not dirty his hands with it. (Of course they earlier themselves served 'apprenticeship in the craft' by sorting). What the pot specialist does is look at assemblage composition and taphonomy and from that analyse the results in terms of the use, discarding and deposition of the material across the site, not in terms of individual assemblages, but the intrasite patterning of assemblages. In big units, the specialist takes tables of numbers from the sorting, and turns them into analytical reports.

Perhaps here is the root of the problem we have getting through to collectors what the issues are, they are seeing this all the time as a function of individual isolated objects which are to be "sorted" (merely identified), because that is all they do with the material they buy and sell ("oh, look a Gallienus not listed in RIC!"). They are fetishising the object rather than seeing the analytical and methodological issues, because in their own use of the material they do not analyse and have no methodology more sophisticated than an art-historical/typological approach developed in the 1870s. As a result they perhaps cannot imagine what else could be done with them.

I expect the toothless old peasant orchard owner who drives in to Warsaw from a village near Grójec in his battered old van to sell apples on the market near me would be able, if the boxes got mixed up, to separate by eye the 'jonagolds' from the 'chempions' and all the other local breeds of apple (we have a few, some not found anywhere else in Europe) without mistake into their correct piles by size, colour, appearance of the skin and density and other characteristics barely distinguishable to the average customer. Has that toothless, dirty old man an expertise that in the eyes of Mr Welsh and his fellows would merit the term "professional" and does that mean that he is an expert "malalologist" on the same "professional" standing in the eyes of a US "numismatist" as (or maybe better than) an eminent professor specialising in fruit tree husbandry at the Main Agricultural Academy here in Warsaw? Or is he just a market stallholder who knows what he is selling - a shopkeeper?

Vignette: coin collecting like stamp collecting, ordering "things". It is a little-known fact that FDR had six digits on one hand...

"All Ancient Coins can be seized by US Customs from outside USA - Now!"

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"All Ancient Coins can be seized by US Customs from outside USA - Now" proclaims "Bixbite: Ancient Coin House on Amazon" on a numismatic forum near you.

What he's done is reposted Patrick G. Lee's text from the Wall Street Journal as his own, apparently without really understanding what the CCPIA actually says (after all he's just a coiney - bulk seller by the looks of it). But he's not the only one getting hysterical. It seems artefact collecting is full of them. "The Government Uses Any Excuse To Seize Your Treasure! " write watery-stuff blog Mermanaut.

Fortunately other bloggers, by far the majority were much less drama-queen about the case and had far more sensible titles showing a better ability to comprehend what is going on outside the cocoon of collectors' and dealers' hysteria: Court Rules U.S. Customs Rightfully Seized Ancient Coins.

Vignette: ACCG's representation of the coins affected, inadvertently indicating the damage coin zappers do to what they get their hands on.

AIA Policies on Portable Antiquity Collecting

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Collectors are frequently heard to moan that "archaeologists" ("here in the USA anyway") are "radicals" who allegedly want to "ban private ownership of antiquities". Like most of us hearing such repeated allegations, I was wondering where they are getting this information from. I wrote to the AIA a while back asking for clarification, but the query went unanswered. I wonder if a collector writing to them with such a query would also get ignored, that seems bad PR.

So what actually are the policies of the Archaeological Institute of America towards private ownership of archaeological artefacts, either found within the USA or those bought on the international market from foreign lands? The Institute's webpage does not have a separate page covering this topic (which is odd, because for many US citizens buying an artefact on the Internet or going out and searching is obviously a more accessible means of direct- tactile - "contact with the past" than participation in the excavations and fieldwork projects the Institute sponsors). On the page Policies and Documents, however we find the following texts referring to this problem:

Resolutions on the Importation of Antiquities (Resolution in support of the Draft UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property; adopted by a vote of the AIA Council, December 30, 1970). This is the usual "we support the...." stuff, but collectors might note a little towards the end: "The Archaeological Institute of America urges that, in accordance with the provisions of the UNESCO Draft Convention, concerned countries take practical steps to facilitate the legitimate export, import and exchange of archaeological materials and antiquities". In other words, facilitate a legal market for antiquities so people can acquire them without going through illicit channels. That hardly looks like a postulate of an organization intent on stamping out private ownership of antiquities.

Resolution on the Acquisition of Antiquities by Museums (Adopted by vote of the Council of the AIA, December 30, 1973). Again the same sort of pattern: "It is recommended that all nations establish effective laws and develop proper control over export so that illicit traffic may be stopped at its sources. However, wherever possible, within the limits of national law, consideration should be given to legitimate and honorable means for the acquisition of cultural property. It is hoped that nations will release for acquisition, long term loan, or exchange, cultural property of significance for the advancement of knowledge and for the benefit of all peoples". The same comments apply, the AIA postulates facilitate a legal market for antiquities so people can acquire them ("for advancement of knowledge and for the benefit of all peoples") without going through illicit channels. There is certainly no evidence here that the AIA is intent on stamping out private ownership of antiquities.

Resolution on the Presentation of Undocumented Antiquities at the AIA's Annual Meeting (Adopted by vote of the Council, December 30, 1973, and revised 2004) "....must conform with the AIA Resolutions on the Importation of Antiquities [...] in accordance with the he AIA’s Resolution Concerning the Acquisition of Cultural Properties Originating in Foreign Countries (1973), "the Annual Meeting may not serve for the announcement or initial scholarly publication of any object in a public or private collection acquired after December 30, 1973, unless its existence can be documented prior to that date, or it was legally exported from the country of origin". Note there the word "initial" which is explained in the next document.

1973 Annual Meeting Presentation Policy (PDF) In 1978 the editors of the American Journal of Archaeology (AJA) adapted the 1973 Annual Meeting Presentation Policy to apply to articles published in the AJA. See Editorial Statement, AJA 82 (1978), p. 1. The policy has been clarified in the AJA 86 (1982), pp. 1–2; 94 (1990), pp. 525–527; and, most recently, in N.J. Norman, "Editorial Policy on the Publication of Recently Acquired Antiquities," AJA 109 (2005), pp. 135–136. It is worth noting that in collecting circles this publication policy of the AIA towards items which have been illicitly obtained in public and private collections has been consistently misrepresented in the creation of a straw man argument. I suggest collectors and "collectors' rights" advocates READ what the policy is before attempting to interpret what it "means".

Code of Ethics (adopted December 29, 1990, amended December 29, 1997). Pretty short and to the point, two of the three principles refer to portable antiquities:

2 Refuse to participate in the trade in undocumented antiquities and refrain from activities that enhance the commercial value of such objects. Undocumented antiquities are those which are not documented as belonging to a public or private collection before December 30, 1970, when the AIA Council endorsed the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Property, or which have not been excavated and exported from the country of origin in accordance with the laws of that country;
3 Inform appropriate authorities of threats to, or plunder of archaeological sites, and illegal import or export of archaeological material.

There is nothing whatsoever here about any sanctions against (including participating in the trade of?) possessors of "documented antiquities", or those dug up and exported according to the laws of the source country - presumably this being demonstrated on the basis of "documents". So again, nothing about any kind of a "ban" on the private possession or trade in artefacts.

Code of Professional Standards (adopted on December 29, 1997). This covers many aspects of professional behaviour, the only reference to artefact collecting is the first point of the first section: "Professional archaeologists should adhere to the Guidelines of the AIA general Code of Ethics concerning illegal antiquities in their research and publication."

Now, and rather oddly, what actually is missing here is any detailed guidelines/policies towards collecting of (or trading in) artefacts taken from the soil in the territory of the USA. Arrowhead collectors, pot-diggers, coin shooters, civil war relic hunters and the suchlike. No published policy on metal detector use in the USA for example. Certainly the first principle of the Code of Ethics applies: "Seek to ensure that the exploration of archaeological sites be conducted according to the highest standards under the direct supervision of qualified personnel, and that the results of such research be made public" (but here the definition of "archaeological sites" is an important factor in interpreting this principle). The third principle of the second section of the Code of professional standards also might be applicable to metal detecting "meets" (and underwater salvage operations) for example: "Professional archaeologists should not participate in projects whose primary goal is private gain". It seems to me that this is a serious gap in the coverage of the topic by the AIA, whose policies are primarily focussed on artefacts on the commercial market and mainly those coming from other countries.

Then there is a Frequently Asked Questions page about artefact collecting (with the focus on museums) on the Site Preservation page, answering some of the commonly-raised objections heard by collectors:

Q: What is at the heart of the disagreement of between museums and private collectors and the AIA?
Q: So, what's the connection between collectors and looters?
Q: What are the necessary bona fides that an object should present to ensure context and provenance?
Q: Does the AIA want to abolish art museums?
Q: Isn't it better for an object to be acquired by a museum with curators, conservators, air conditioning, security, and an engaged public than to languish in much less favorable conditions in the country of origin?
Q: Doesn't the world deserve to see these objects? Aren't they part of the cultural heritage of all of us, not just of those who live in the area where the object was found?
Q: With local stewardship can come serious risk. Does the AIA really think that the Taliban should have been in charge of the Buddhas at Bamiyan?
Q: Isn't this disagreement between collectors and archaeologists really the work of a bunch of radical archaeologists who have lost touch with the public?
Q: What about the orphaned object that is out of the ground and circulating in the market with its context already destroyed and it provenance uncertain? Shouldn't this object be acquired and given a good home?
Q: In many cases there are multiple copies of certain antiquities, some with so many duplicates that they cannot all be displayed. What is wrong with the trade in multiples?
Q: Why is the AIA trying to prevent scholarship by refusing to publish information about unprovenanced material? Isn't that censorship?
Q: Should all antiquities be repatriated?

The answers to these questions again reveal the issues concern illegally obtained and illegally exported items, not the collecting of artefacts themselves.

The upshot of this is that all those claims in collecting circles about the AIA being a group of "radical" archaeologists who want to see an end to the antiquities trade and collecting of artefacts have no basis whatsoever in the published policies of that body. I doubt they have any basis in anything, except the clear tendency of the entire antiquity collecting milieu to make up foundationless myths on the basis of which they build up a picture of themselves as "victims" deserving public sympathy. I am sure, as is the way with conspiracy theorists in general, they will attribute the lack of a written statement to the organization having "a hidden agenda". Anti-semitic conspiracy theorists have something in black and white - their "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", perhaps it is time for the supporters of the no-questions-asked trade in portable antiquities to produce a "Protocols of the Elders of Archaeion" to persuade others of the truth of their allegations.

We seem to be observing another manifestation of the typical situation when discussing things with US collectors. On the one hand we have rational observers differentiating between a legitimate and legal antiquities market (in artefacts obtained and taken from the 'source' countries by legal means, or documented as having been in some collection prior to 1970) and dealings in illegally obtained and "undocumented" antiquities, ones about which there are doubts about their licit origins. These people say material of these two different types should be treated differently. On the other hand we have those - almost all of them representing the trade and collecting milieus - who equate the two, see them as the same market. For them, anyone who wants to curb the sales of the illicitly obtained and "undocumented" material just "surfacing" on the market from goodness-knows-where-and-how is against the whole market and collecting as a whole. Through insisting we see all antiquities as equal, these people are in fact refusing to accept that there is a legitimate and legal manner to acquire and use antiquities.

Certainly the AIA takes a very clear stand on the illicit trade in artefacts. There is no evidence whatsoever that their policies in anyway oppose the legitimate and responsible collecting of archaeological artefacts.