V-Coins: Buying a Pig in a Poke?

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I commented on what I saw in an ongoing V-Coins auction, and in particular the lack of any information allowing bidders to assess whether the object added to their collection has any documentation legitimising its purchase should it be challenged. Dealer Alfredo De La Fe has left a comment on my post "GeeGaws for Trophy-Seeking Imperialists on Sale on...". He says I am "an idiot" for raising these issues and assures my readers that:

Every single antiquity offered in my sale has verifiable provenance. It is provided to the purchaser and we have our reasons for not disclosing provenance publicly.

Verifiable "provenance" really? So what "reasons" can readers think of preventing even that fact being disclosed publicly? Where does it say that in the offers, and does that apply to all 247 lots in the ongoing auction? If not, to which does it apply and to which not? Is the information of equal quality for the various groups of artefacts offered, or do some have more detailed information than others?

Surely the fact that an artefact being offered on the market has verifiable provenance and more to the point evidence of legal export and thus import is indeed a very important selling point, indeed one might argue in responsible (and safe) collecting, JUST as important as the actual object. It is equally obvious that the QUALITY of that documentation is of paramount importance to the conscientious buyer. But here the seller Alfredo De La Fe is asking potential customers to make their choice (bid on it) unseen. How can anyone offer something valuable and important for sale that the buyer cannot see and assess the value for themselves? EBay for example forbids its sellers to do this and auctions can be - and are - taken down for infringing this rule, but it seems V-coins has no such scruples.

Let us note what is missing from the V-Coins code of ethics. There is much about not selling outright fakes, but nothing there saying "I will describe the items I offer for sale fully and accurately". Mr De La Fe by leaving this information off his descriptions quite clearly is not providing a FULL description of what he is offering, but that... it turns out... is not what V-Coins "ethics" consists of.

So, artefact collectors are being asked to buy here a pig in a poke, but they like it that way. It's a sort of antiquitist tradition, a point of honour not to ask. Mr De La Fe will provide as a surprise present for each of them a "verifiable provenance" for "every single antiquity" offered in his ongoing sale. But what is there to say that when they've forked out their eight hundred dollars its not going to be a piece of paper saying Cletus Nouveauriche bought this piece from internet dealer Silas Thugwit in December 2007 ?

What kind of verifiable provenance will Mr De La Fe be offering and why can he not say when putting the artefacts on offer?

Vignette: Buy something sight unseen: Pig in a Poke (Larry Adams)

ebay Seller Tim3rexes Claims to be Wenneb Shabti Finder

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I am not sure we should believe this, but over on the Yahoo Ancient Artifacts discussion list, ebay seller Tim3rexes based in the US confesses that he was the person who dug up the Wenneb shabtis and put some 300 of them on the market. He seems quite unrepentant about it. Whether or not the membership of this discussion list deserves the label "responsible collectors" who take the issue of looting seriously will be shown by the number of people who respond to that remark.

More seriously, the same tim3rexes (whose real name might be something like Tim Babb) is visible on the same discussion list "playing devil's advocate" in favour of "Cuneiform tablets/cone for sale". According to him, leaving them in the source countries endangers the artefracts which are better housed in the homes of western collectors (sic). In the same vein, this writer also suggested that the real artefacts should be retained in the west, but auction houses like Christies should collude in the selling of deceptive fake Chinese antiquities to China to keep them quiet. A months ago he wrote: "I guess the Nazi party is alive and well in Germany - although under a different name (cultural authorities=national socialists?)" which is just plain offensive, especially on a "responsible collectors'" discussion list. What was the reaction of the "responsible collectors"? I guess the ensuing silence of collectors was a stunned one, eh? (The same message appeared on that bastion of indiscriminate antiquity collection, Dave Welsh's Unidroit-L discussion list, and was not contested there either.)

From his feedback on eBay, we can see that Tim3rexes is a seller of coins, of course. How could it be otherwise? I wonder if he is a member of the ACCG, I think we should know.

Publication of Artefacts from the No-Questions-Asked Market of Unprovenanced Antiquities

The second part of Jame's Cuno's new book (Whose Culture? The Promise of Museums and the Debate over Antiquities 2009) comprises three texts called “The Value of Antiquities” which in effect seems intended to be an attack on the fundamentals of archaeology - though I cannot see why anyone would be so philistine to do that. So it starts off with a text by James C.Y.Watt the head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Department of Asian Art (sic) who makes known the extent of his knowledge and personal views on the value of archaeology. This is followed by Sir John Boardman about "archaeologists, collectors, and museums”. The third is a text by David I. Owen from Cornell called “Censoring Knowledge: The Case for the Publication of Unprovenanced Cuneiform Tablets”. In this it turns out he argues that archaeologists who do not publish unprovenanced cuneiform records lead to us "losing" a lot of information, and claims that this is in effect “censorship of knowledge”.

The author is one of the signatories of the 2006 statement of Harvard University archaeologist Lawrence Stager in the Biblical Archaeology Review urging the abandonment of the ethical stand of US archaeologists against adding to the value of unprovenanced items in the no-questions-asked trade by sanctioning them with an official publication (interestingly the link to the BAR page on this initiative is a dead one).

I wonder if apart from the inscribed and pictured goodies, these signatories would be so keen on publishing the vast numbers of other unprovenanced items dug out of their archaeological contexts in order to find and extract those cuneiform records – the tens of thousands of artifacts without writing or pictures on them? Once again we see the argument for toleration of archaeological destruction focusing on so-called “addressed sources” (items which by their nature were made in themselves to convey information, like coins and inscribed objects of various kinds). The vast majority of archaeological artifacts are non-addressed sources (i.e., were not primarily made to convey information). Of course in digging artefacts in general (and so of both kinds together) out of the archaeological record ‘blind’, archaeological evidence is destroyed without any returns whatsoever, and there is no way for the artefact digger to only disturb "addressed sources" without destroying in the process the context of the far more numerous non-addressed sources - not to mention seriously damaging the stratigraphical record of a site.

Objects without information about the context of finding are not just items which have lost their provenance. Their recovery and commodification in this manner has actively destroyed that information. The case that certain items with "writing and pictures" on them like coins, shabtis, cuneiform tablets, papyri can produce "some kind of information" is by no means justification for turning a blind eye to the utter destruction caused by the no-questions-asked antiquities market. Those who from the narrow viewpoint of their own discipline (numismatics, sfragists, cuneiform philology, papyrus studies) urge that we should turn a blind eye are simply refusing to accept their part in encouraging this type of trade.

The AIA publication ban has a point, it is argued that academic publication lends spurious legitimacy to these no-questions-asked purchases, it adds value to the objects. A good example of this is the willingness with which, in his desire to see new and previously unknown artefacts, Prof Wilfred Lambert (former professor at the University of Birmingham) will examine and comment on artefacts shown him by the antiquities trade (some turning up in the USA with documents contaiining his opinions). His handwritten or typed (sic) 'opinions' are seen in the trade as valuable documents, allowing clients to know what the writing or scenes represent, as a guarantee of authenticity, but also adding an air of legitimacy to an otherwise wholly dubious commodity. It is not true therefore that achaeologists as a whole are unwilling to examine such items. There are some who will. Personally, I have my doubts about the ethicality of what Professor Lambert is doing with these items, and wonder to what degree he is aware of how he is being utilised by the dealers with whom he has collaborated.

Owen’s seems a case of special pleading based on the specific characteristics of one small group of archaeological artifacts – it cannot serve as a pars pro toto argument to be applied to the whole issue of unprovenanced artefacts on the market. There is of course nothing stopping Owen from publishing the material which interests him in an English, German, Polish, Australian or Zimbabwean archaeological series. He can do it under an assumed name if he is afraid of the AIA "thought police" (or would that mean he cannot put these publications of "unknown sources" on his CV?). He can always join the IFA or EAA if he's worried about being kicked out of the AIA.

Neil Brodie on the market in Iraqi antiquities 1980-2008

Neil Brodie has recently released a draft version of a paper on ‘The market in Iraqi antiquities 1980-2008’ which makes interesting reading as it discusses the fluctuations in the antiquities trade against the political background and in particular various UN resolutions. In the period August 1990 to April 2003, despite sanctions, "the quantities of unprovenanced artefacts being offered for sale did not diminish, in fact if anything they increased in the years running up to 2003" (page 2). He notes (p. 3) that:

Since April 2003, the sale of unprovenanced Iraqi artifacts at public auction in New York and London has stopped entirely, perhaps because of the widespread negative publicity that followed on from the break-in at the National Museum, or
because of UNSCR 1483. The fact that unprovenanced Iraqi artifacts suddenly disappeared from the auction market after the adoption of this resolution is an important one as it suggests that before 2003 a large part of the unprovenanced material on the market really had been illegally exported. Otherwise, it could
have continued to be sold quite openly after that date without contravening UNSCR 1483

I was taken by Brodie's attempt to analyse the economic aspects of the sales. Despite their absence from the major auction houses however trade of Iraqi goods had not stopped (p. 4).

After 2003, outside the auction market, Iraqi artifacts continued to be openly traded on the Internet. On one day – 5 December 2006 – there were at least 55 websites offering antiquities for sale and that might have been expected to sell Iraqi objects. In fact 23 of those sites were offering for sale or had recently sold cylinder seals and/or cuneiform tablets. In total there were 78 cylinder seals and 137 cuneiform tablets listed (Table 1). […] Hardly any of the cuneiform tablets were advertised with a verifiable provenance.

This tendency was also discussed here. Brodie noted (p. 4) that the Internet market had apparently increased in volume between 2006 and 2008.

Denying the US market in Iraqi artefacts

US dealers of portable antiquities have always opposed the imposition of the emergency restrictions on the import of Iraqi antiquities (without export licences) into the US. They claim that the American market for unprovenanced bits of other people's portable antiquity heritage is entirely guiltless of any involvement in the trafficing of looted artefacts from Iraq. The internet pro-collecting propaganda is full of solemn assertions of portable antiquity dealers stating outright things such as: “so far as I am aware not even a single instance has been reported of any reaching Western art markets." They strenuously assert things like: “very few such objects ever surfaced in Western art and antiquities markets, or any other identifiable and monitored trade channel through which they could be sold to collectors".*

These dealers ask questions like: "what justification is there for asserting that Western collectors and art markets are responsible for looting in Iraq, and are therefore morally obligated to cease their activities to help solve the problem? Especially when there is still no credible evidence that the looted artifacts are being traded in Western markets, or finding their way into the hands of Western collectors?” How unfair, they suggest, that "despite all that has been said regarding the influence of Western antiquities markets upon the ongoing looting in Iraq, no one has yet presented credible evidence of any significant number of such antiquities being offered for sale in these markets. Until there is some evidence that looted Iraqi antiquities are actually reaching Western markets, there is no objective reason to take the sort of action Dr. Mayah is requesting.”

The dealers may say what they want, on the other hand we have statements from portable antiquity collectors in the US such as Nader Rastegar referring to “the flood of antiquities that we have all been witnessing” and “....though somehow mysteriously a steady stream of those items seem to be in possession of US Troops, and showing up in the USA!” So what is the truth of this matter?

Well, we find that at least one archaeological item looted from Baghdad museum seems to have been seized at a US airport within days of the fall of Baghdad. Several journalists and one American soldier were under investigation. Matthew Bogdanos refers in his book to other stuff being handed over to him in New York when he returned from his Iraq mission. In November 2003 it was being reported that looted Iraqi artefacts had been found in London by the Metropolitan Police's specialist arts and antiques squad. A number of men had been arrested, including one at a central London gallery.

At about the same time as certain biased newspapers were suggesting in the summer of 2008 that the looting of archaeological sites in Iraq was reducing, two news items suggested that the role of the US market was by no means as innocent as the portable antiquities traders were suggesting.

On the 9th June 2008 we learnt that eleven agate and alabaster cylinder seals stolen in 2003 from the Baghdad Museum had been seized by U.S. customs officers in Philadelphia in May and were handed over to the Iraqi embassy in Washington from where they were returned to Iraq. The circumstances of the seizure were - suspiciously - never made public.

Now we learn from that on 15 September 2008 in a transfer ceremony at Iraq's embassy in Washington an even larger cache of unprovenanced archaeological artifacts has been returned to Iraq's government, thanks to a multi-year initiative by U.S. customs authorities to intercept items being smuggled into the United State. Iraqi ambassador Samir Sumaida'ie took possession of more than 1,000 rare objects, many of which date back to Mesopotamian times. The objects include inscribed ceramic pieces, figurines, tablets, and ancient coins. They were seized from smugglers who either hid the objects or misrepresented their country of origin to U.S. customs officials. In handing them over, Julie Myers the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said: "These items are much more than souvenirs or art objects - even though that is how people who tried to profit from them treated them; these are part of Iraq's priceless history".Presumably, the artifacts would have been put up for sale in the US had they not been intercepted. These however are just those items that were detected and intercepted. Despite the unamimous denials of those involved in this trade this collection of objects gives ample reason to assume that many more recently-looted items will have slipped through the net and entered the United States despite import restrictions are among those currently on offer as unprovenanced Mesopotamian artefacts on the western markets. How can one attempt to deny this? Do the dealers making such claims expect us to treat them seriously?

* this one with the utterly curious suggestion “There seems to be every reason to think that a system broadly modelled on the UK Treasure Law and Portable Antiquities Scheme would find favor among the Iraqi people” (sic).

Reference Matthew Bogdanos with William Patrick 2005, "Thieves of Baghdad: One Marine’s Passion for Ancient Civilizations and the Journey to Recover the World’s Greatest Stolen Treasures". Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 1582346453.

"Fifteen minutes of fame": or fifteen years or more of vigilance

In response to the Art Newspaper story which proclaims "the end" of the looting in Iraq, Peter Tompa feigns surprise: "One would think this news would be cheered and not jeered as it has been on both the "Safe Corner" blog and on the Iraq Crisis List". He goes on to speculate: "A cynic might suspect that those most interested in arguing that looting in Iraq continues on a large scale fear that good news will mean that their "15 minutes of fame" is fast drawing to a close".

Now I am not sure who he thinks is "interested"(sic) in "arguing that the looting continues on a large scale". It is not clear if that is addressed to McGuire Gibson whose post on the IraqCrisis list he highlights, or the author of the Safe Corner post or somebody else. Personally I would like it to have stopped back in the 1990s, or never have started.* Back then there was only moderate public attention paid to it, but with the political opposition to the US-led invasion, it became hot news. There cannot now be many readers of the serious newspapers across the western hemisphere that have not heard about this and realised its connection with the illicit trade in antiquities and those who collect them. I expect that makes those collectors and those who represent them feel more than a little uncomfortable. It casts them in the role of the 'bad guys'. Of course they strive so hard to present themselves as the good guys who are busily collecting away for the greater good of mankind (sic).

I am sure that there are a lot of people therefore who will find comfort that there is an arts newspaper telling people first that the looting "never happened", and then when the evidence shows the story was not true, that "it has now stopped". I expect a lot of dealers and collectors are now counting on the fuss blowing over in the coming weeks and months, that once again undocumented and unprovenanced Mespotamian antiquities can be sold and bought as openly as in the carefree days before the invasion.

I personally suspect that especially after the post-2003 looting there is by now such a stashed-away backlog of so many of these collectables around that it will be more than any "fifteen minutes" of vigilance to make sure that as few people profit from this heinous culture crime as possible. Mr Tompa should be aware that even if the story of Art Newspaper journalist Mr Bailey is right (which actually I personally sincerely doubt), this is by no means the "end". This is only the beginning of a long period when the circulation in the trade in Mesoptamian "pieces of the past" will need to be under close public scrutiny.

[And how interesting that if one compares the original title of the article and that of Culture Property Observer's blog post, it can be seen he has inserted the word "most". Could it be that Mr Tompa has doubts whether the Art Newspaper story as written is indeed true?]

* I think, as the author of the SAFECorner post to which Peter Tompa so scathingly refers, to avoid any misunderstandings it is worth stressing that I write on SAFECorner (as here) expressing my own personal opinions and of course not necessarily those of SAFE itself. I am at a loss to see where he perceives "jeering".

Is Looting of archaeological sites the 'fault of archaeologists'?

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In a famous reply to comments by Ricardo Elia, Colin Renfrew (1993) formulated the notion that “Collectors are the real looters” . By this he means that the international trade in illicitly obtained and illegally exported archeological artifacts is supported and maintained by demand from collectors that purchase such artifacts without regard for, or even enquiring into, the manner in which they were acquired and reached the market. Collectors of course deny strenuously that this is the case. I have to admit that the logic of their arguments totally escapes me. A piece of a Nok terracotta only becomes worth digging up under the hot Nigerian sun if there is somebody in the region eager to pay the “subsistence digger” money to pass it on to the international market. A cuneiform tablet is just a lump of clay to a middle eastern peasant, but can be turned into cash if they can find a purchaser. It only becomes worth venturing into the Cambodian jungle with a hammer and chisel and a big bag to visit the overgrown temple if there is a man who will buy all the little heads of smiling Buddha which have been ‘harvested’ to end up in western galleries at extortionate prices (Brodie 1998).

In retaliation for conservationists pointing out this obvious and uncomfortable truth, collectors are trying to reapportion the blame. Three of the most commonly used ploys have been rehearsed recently on archaeological forums in the English-speaking world.

1) “If you give us the stuff we want we’ll stop buying dodgy items”. In this model, the portable antiquity collector asserts that the dog-in-a-manger archaeological “elitists” trying to spoil their fun have hidden away plenty of “redundant” collectables which they should release on the market to create a regulated market.

Doing that requires more than collectors and the trade can do by themselves. A cooperative effort involving archaeologists, academics and governments is needed. […] Why won't archaeologists take an interest in establishing a regulated licit numismatic market? That would do more to eliminate looting than you could imagine.” (Dave Welsh

In an earlier post we are told:

If it were feasible to establish internationally controlled antiquities auctions, in which objects (whether surplus to museums, or recently found by archaeologists and others) would be sold with provenance after they had been duly examined and recorded, that the illegal trade in unprovenanced antiquities would be greatly diminished.” (Dave Welsh)

And:

There are many millions of redundant, unstudied antiquities in storerooms that no one has any real interest in, nor seems to have any idea what to do with. […]The motive for archaeologists to agree to such cooperation is to understand human social dynamics clearly enough to realize that this is the ONLY possible approach that can actually bring looting of archaeological sites under control. Provenance/provenience will command a sufficient economic premium in a regulated licit market to make cooperating with the authorities the only economically rational choice for those who discover antiquities. That motive will even cause those who presently loot sites to start policing them so that they can be reserved for cooperative licit excavation, if something like the Treasure Act/PAS scheme can be adopted in source states such as Iraq. (Dave Welsh)

The basic message then is that “archaeologists must agree to this, there is no alternative”. [The rather odd idea for a PAS-clone in Iraq is worthy of discussion in its own right....].

2) “If you don’t guard the sites properly, stuff will be stolen”. In this model, the portable antiquity collector asserts that archaeologists and conservationists are simply not doing enough to keep illegal diggers off sites in most of the source countries. It is this lack of site guards (presumably like the Antiquities Police of Egypt or the guards which were present in Iraq prior to 1990) which is the cause of the looting.

The looting of sites should be treated not through laws, but through proper security measures. Would you leave money lying around unattended and rely on laws to prevent it being stolen? It is irresponsible to expose a site without providing a guard and/or security systems to protect it. If money is not dedicated to that, or volunteers employed, then it should remain undug. There is the technology to provide proper protection for even very large sites”. (John Hooker)

And:

The only solution to the looting problem is better methods in the countries where this is happening, and that can never be a total solution. All it can possibly do is to lessen the instances of it back to pre 1970 levels, or perhaps a little better than that”. (John Hooker)

Or:

I simply do not know how many times I must repeat myself that unless the governments of the source countries take some harsh measures to guard every one of their archaeological sites, the illegal digging will go on forever and you and people like you CANNOT do anything about it”. (Farhad Assar)

It is a good job that we have not reached such a desperate situation as to need to post armed guards to defend every environmental resource we value, in the bluebell woods, nature reserves and wild places. We only need them to keep poachers out of game reserves. What does that say about the antiquities market?

3) “Archaeologists must sort out foreign social problems to curb looting”. Then we have those who say looting will take place as long as there is poverty in the world. If the portable antiquity collectors do not buy these things and give them a good home, they will be “sold for scrap” and “turned into tourist trinkets”. [While this argument may apply to metal (uncorroded copper alloys, lead, silver and gold) it does not apply to Nok terracottas, Southeast Asian Buddha heads and sculpture fragments, or cuneiform tablets]. Anyhow, the adherents of this line of argument are clear, the archaeologist concerned with the circulation of illicitly excavated archaeological material in the markets of the developed countries must deal with all the other social problems in the region.

If you genuinely care about the ancient heritage of people in poor and/or developing countries […], then please begin educating those people properly, not by dumping on them your unwanted rubbish, but through the opportunities you create for them to get the same level of education you, yourself, received. Then, and only then, they may begin to think that there is some sense in saving their ancient dog- or cat-bones, coins, vases, jewellery, bronze sculptures, palaces, etc. In other words, find the root causes of the irreversible damage to the archaeological sites all over the world, including the effects of illicit and clandestine digging, and do not put the blame for what is going on in this respect at the doors of coin collectors and dealers alone. (Farhad Assar)

And:

If the advocates of protecting the historical assets of all nations are sincere about their good intentions, they must begin by educating the poor and providing for the needy in those countries in order to encourage them to appreciate and protect their cultural heritage. Then, private collecting and dealing will begin to slow down, become unprofitable, and eventually die out. (Farhad Assar)

I suspect these collectors pride themselves that by buying artefacts dug out of foreign sites they are doing their little bit to solve the problems of world poverty (but see Brodie 1998), as well as giving the displaced artefacts a "good home". Nevertheless I agree that an important approach is education of local populations persuading them that their cultural heritage has a value and is worthy of their attention and care. Mind you, what in that situation they will then think of all those that took advantage of them now and took lots of it away for their own foreign collections may only be imagined.

These three arguments have a common theme, its not the collectors’ fault that there is a market for antiquities, they claim that there is nothing they or anyone except the archaeologist or governments can do to stop it. If the archaeologist or foreign government will not adopt what collectors like the ones cited above insist is the “obvious” solution, then it is not the fault of the collector that no progress can be made with the destruction of the archaeological heritage by exploitation as a source of collectables for various people's entertainment and profit. It seems to me however that there is some rather obvious special pleading going on here.

References
Brodie Neil 1998, 'Pity the poor middlemen' Culture Without Context, Issue 3, Autumn 1998.

Renfrew, Colin 1993 Collectors are the real looters. Archaeology 46(3):16-17

Mesopotamian (non) "insinuations"

On Peter Tompa’s “Cultural Property Observer” blog, Voz Earl writes:
“contrary to the insinuations of Paul Barford, even at the lower end of the market (eBay) I see an actual decrease in the number of Mesopotamian "knick-knacks" for sale.”

Mr Earl is quite mistaken. These are not by any means “insinuations”, I state quite openly and plainly, despite the fact that there are restrictions on the trading of Iraqi antiquities and not a few moral and ethical reservations, there is a disturbing quantity of cuneiform tablets and cylinder seals etc on the market which according to the sales offer have no proper documentation showing where they are from and when and how they left the Middle East. I’d like to know who among collectors of portable antiquities would touch such stuff with a bargepole these days.

Google search it and you'll find several dozen on sale today in the US and UK alone ... I wonder if they will all still be there unsold next month? I dont really care if this is more or less than there were a decade or two ago, its a couple of dozen that should not be there if we, dealers and collectors want the world to accord the antiquities trade the status of a "legitimate business". I admit that the word "legitimate" is not the first word that comes to my mind when I see this sort of spectacle.