Ukrainian Archaeologist: "The Situation of the Archaeological Heritage in Eastern Ukraine is Catastrophic"

Serhiy Telizhenko, Scientific Secretary of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Candidate of Historical Sciences carried out research in the Luhansk region until the illegal Russian invasion of the area. He describes the situation with the Ukrainian archaeological heritage in the eastern regions, where fierce fighting is currently taking place, as catastrophic. According to him, many archaeological sites have been significantly damaged, or even irretrievably lost. However, he does not give up hope of returning to his native Luhansk region with new excavations. “We will have to return there. We simply did not have time to explore many things and, I am afraid, we will not have time to do much,” he says. Currently, the scientist works in the West and South of Ukraine.

Археолог Сергій Теліженко: «Ситуація з археологічною спадщиною на Сході України – катастрофічна» [Archaeologist Serhiy Telizhenko: “The situation with the archaeological heritage in Eastern Ukraine is catastrophic”] National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine press release 25.08.2026  катастрофічна». 

Maryna Tereshchenko  “Окопи копають на місці давніх стоянок”: археолог Сергій Теліженко про розкопки у Кремінній та спадщину під вогнем [“Trenches are being dug on the site of ancient sites”: archaeologist Serhiy Telizhenko on excavations in Kreminna and heritage under fire]Tribun August 18, 2026. 

More Arrested in Greek Antiquities Bust

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The number of people arrested over the weekend in the latest antiquities smuggling ring bust has gone up to 44, aged between 25 and 74, including pensioners and municipal workers Greek police said on Sunday. Arrests and antiquity seizures took place in a number of locations across northern and central Greece on Saturday and Sunday, said the force. Police had been investigating the group's moves for months. The suspects have already made depositions to an examining magistrate. Reports indicate that police had now recovered over 8000 ancient coins, mostly bronze (Kantouris says "9,200 silver and bronze coins") and ranging in date from the 6th century BC to the Byzantine period. These were on show over the weekend in Poligiros police station, Halkidiki Prefecture (560km north of Athens).

In raids on the properties of the arrested people, 19 metal detectors were also discovered, probable evidence of how and where the coins had been obtained.

The artifacts had been dug up during illegal archeological explorations, mainly in the regions of Macedonia and Thessaly, it said, adding that officers were working to identify items already sold abroad.

The raids also led to the discovery of some 300 "small artifacts", including three golden objects and a substantial quantity of ancient jewellery and bronze statuettes, as well as wooden icons dating from the Byzantine period.

Photos of some of the objects seized, in Poligyros police station
(Nikolas Giakoumidis / AP Photo)

It is reported that:

More than 200 police officers raided 55 buildings in 13 prefectures, mainly in northern Greece in an operation that began on Saturday, the statement said. A 66 year-old man believed to be the mastermind was also arrested. "The 66-year-old received the artifacts and after evaluating them, put them on sale in foreign countries through a network he had developed," police said. The man, a retired customs employee, frequently visited Bulgaria, Germany, Switzerland and Britain.

Kantouris adds that this man, from Gerakarou, "along with his two brothers, a daughter-in-law and another relative, formed the core of the group, while the other 39 would excavate in several places in northern and central Greece at the ringleader's request".

"We conducted 55 separate searches on Saturday," regional police chief Vassilis Kanalis said in northern Polygyros, 580 kilometers (360 miles) northeast of Athens. "This was the culmination of a great investigation which began six months ago." [...] "We are talking about a huge treasure, which ... was smuggled and sold abroad in small quantities," another regional police chief, Constantine Papoutsis, said. In the past six months, the ringleader made several trips abroad - to Bulgaria, Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain and the U.S. - presumably in search of clients. He traveled often, sometimes twice a week. "The case has a lot of depth. There are likely other persons involved, whom we will look for," Papoutsis said.

Sources:
AFP, 'Greek police recover ancient coins, smash smuggling network', Google News, 4.03.12

Angeliki Koutantou, 'Greek police arrest suspected smugglers, seize treasures', Yahoo news 5.03.12

Costas Kantouris, '44 arrested in Greece for antiquities trafficking', Miami Herald 4the March 2012.

SEE NOW also Sam Arkeolog 'Police arrest at least 44 illicit antiquities dealers, with thousands of coins, in Greece' 4th March 2012 (from which it emerges that firearms and drugs were among the items seized in the raids).

Upper Photo: Have you recently bought something like this from a dealer near you? Some of the coins seized, as seen in Poligiros police station (AFP).

Dealer Dave's Definitions: Looting

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Dealer Dave the Californian coin shop proprietor, commenting on an article by Keith Kloor which he found in Science Magazine, purports to supply his readers with a translation of what he calls "Archaeologese" used in the article, which he claims is a reflection of the "pervasive reliance upon "doublespeak" that is undisguised propaganda" among preservation-conscious archaeologists and which he says appals him. Funnily enough, I have exactly the same observation about the way the "collectors' rights" lobbyists try to present their case for opposing preservation. So let's have a look at one of Dealer Dave's definitions.

Dealer Dave, like all ACCG dealers swears blind that he's wholly against "looting" and would "never buy or sell looted coins". Now he has given his definition of the "Archaeologese" term "looting", perhaps he should explain what he himself understands by the term, saying he never sells "looted coins". The problem is that no evidence is offered on his shop's website that the coins he is offering for sale fall outside the definition he gives: "Looting - excavation of an artifact by anyone other than an archaeologist", for example a metal detecting hobbyist in the UK, a Bedouin wandering across the Libyan desert, or a goatherd tending the flocks on his father's land in central Greece). To fall into the narrow definition of the term he himself proposes (or what he states he understands others to mean by it) in order NOT to be "looted", all the coins on his website would have had to be recovered by archaeological excavations. Were they? If so, by whom, when, where, and who financed the work, and who authorised the dispersal of the excavation archive (finds)?

So, if this is not the definition he himself applies to the commodities he offers, it seems to me that when Dave Welsh says he "never sells looted coins", he must be using another definition of the term "looted". Perhaps therefore in the interests of transparency, having laid bare and ridiculed what he thinks others mean by the use of the term, he should tell us what his definition of it is, using the examples of the collecting histories of the dugup "New Coins" he is currently offering on his coin shop's website. Can he do that?

Fincham on Olympia Theft and Coiney Wrongheadedness

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Derek Fincham has a comment on the Olympia theft which is worth highlighting:

Last week was a bad week for antiquities protection, as thefts of antiquities from both Montreal and Olympia in Greece were revealed. [...] Both instances are troubling examples of thieves overcoming museum security. But, to borrow a phrase from Prof. Merryman, no thinking person would use these thefts to argue that (1) Western museums should repatriate all their antiquities; or (2) Greece should sell its "surplus" antiquities to alleviate its culture funding difficulty. Both propositions are wrongheaded. They are a reason why cultural heritage policy has such difficulty getting off the ground, if the discourse can't even acknowledge and admonish thieves as thieves.

Well, it's not any "discourse", it is mainly just selfish US collectors and dealers that see opportunities to score points off the current misfortunes of the source countries. They will not admit that stolen artefacts are stolen and not theirs to own "by rights".


UPDATE 20.2.12
The point about the western museums was initially a bit unclear to me, Dr Fincham (pers. comm.) confirms that what he meant was: "I saw folks argue that the Montreal theft means western museums aren't safe places for antiquities either, the implicit argument being that they should all go back to their nation of origin. It misses the point. Theft is theft".

SAFE on Olympia Theft

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On the SAFE Corner blog, Senta German has a nice post on the Theft at Olympia (Monday, February 20, 2012). The presentation is very clear and unequivocal, likely to appeal to those who genuinely care about the past, with sections on "Why Did This Happen?" and more importantly - what you'll not find on any collectors' blog on antiquity issues - "What Can I Do to Help? Thank you Senta.

US Support for Yanukovych's Government Spills over into (lack of) Cultural Property Debate

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This is how Ukraine treats the political opposition. This is a photo of Julia Tymoshenko in her Kiev jail cell after her recent political show trial organized by pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. She is reported by her family to be seriously ill and mistreated (for example she is deprived of sleep like US Guantanamo prisoners because the light in her cell is never turned off) and she has been refused access to medical treatment. The Polish government recently pledged support for her family's efforts to appeal the conviction which many see as wholly politically motivated.

Yanukovych promised to revive the Ukrainian economy if elected, he has not done so, things are getting worse. In a diplomatic cable which was leaked by Wikileaks, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine in 2006 reported back to the DoS that he had learnt that Yanukovych’s party is partly composed of “pure criminals" and "criminal and anti-democracy figures". One would have thought that this is the kind of government that the United States would not be having any truck with. Not so.

The Museum of Russian (sic) Art in Minneapolis, Minnesota is currently hosting an exhibition of "Antiquities from Ukraine: Golden Treasures and Lost Civilizations" (October 1, 2011 - February 19, 2012). Artefacts "dating from the Neolithic age to the Byzantine (sic) era, unearthed in present-day Ukraine" are presented in the exhibition of "this private collection from Kyiv, Ukraine" in conjunction with Yanukovych's government and "The Museum of National Cultural Heritage PLATAR".

Note the name of this "Museum". Elsewhere we read:

The amazing PlaTar Collection, showcased in Ancient Ukraine, covers at least six thousand years of Ukrainian history! The organizers hope the exhibit will introduce the U.S. to the wonders of Ukraine, from the little-known Neolithic Trypilian culture through the medieval Kyivan Rus’—a remarkable historic foundation for the modern nation-state of Ukraine.

we recall that US collectors state that private collecting of antiquities is a way to combat "nationalism(s)". Yet here we have a private collection which does precisely the opposite. It is interesting too that it is being promoted by (and is promoting) the government which came to power declaring it was going to "fight Ukrainian nationalism".

The PlaTar Museum is of course nothing of the sort. It is the private collection of the late Serhiy Platonov, a successful businessman and Serhiy Taruta, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Industrial Union of Donbas Corporation and a friend of the Platonov family. Ukraininan archaeologists maintain that the majority of the archaeological artefacts included in this collection came onto the market from so-called "Black Archaeology", in other words illegal looting of archaeological sites. By buying them, these two collectors maintain "saved them from being sold abroad" (but how many other artefacts from the same looting they they did not see or want vanish into countless foreign collections?). What they were doing however was financing the continuance of the looting. Besides the scale of the damage done to the archaeological record of Ukraine, it is no great comfort that the objects passed into state hands when Platonov died.

This exhibition was shown previously in early 2011 in the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, whence it travelled to the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Houston, Texas (June - Oct 2011), followed by The Museum of Russian Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota. So it is getting quite a bit of exposure and earning Yanukovych's government political kudos, business orders and - most probably quite a bit of cash. All this at a time when in the Smithsonian there was debate about whether exhibitions of this type involving - in their case salvaged and not - even looted material should go ahead in American museums. As far as I can see, there has been absolutely no debate in America about the display of items from the PlaTar collection in US museums. Perhaps there are political reasons why the US can oppose the treatment of the global archaological/cultural heritage by the Indonesian government with more firmness than in the case of Yanukovych's Ukraine?

There is not much point the AAMD holding out for more museum loans in return for playing nice and not buying unlawfully exported artefacts when it turns out that US museums are quite happy to mount exhibitions of material which comes from private collections which includes material coming from "Black Archaeology" in its collections. If they are willing to show this kind of material, and the US public is happy to go along to such exhibitions without a murmur, then what is the point of any bilateral cultural property agreements at all?

How ironic that Julia's imprisonment is due to alleged corruption, yet in a country with such a depth of poverty, stinking rich businessmen who are accused of buying enormously valuable and potentially illegal artefacts (like a number of other collectors in Ukraine in recent years) not only were never properly investigated, but are now being praised by the same government. That is not corruption? Let the Ukrainian government publish the full collecting history of every object sent in that exhibition to the US.



I wrote - too briefly it now seems - on the PlaTar Collection in my article 'commerce de vestiges archeologiques dans l'est de l'Europe' in "Halte au Pillage!" (Paris 2010)

Photo of Jailed Julia (from an article about her daughter appearing before US senators with an appeal for help). Smiling Julia from forumua from the days before she was imprisoned like Rapunzel in Yanukovych's prison system.

Focus on Metal Detecting: Karlsruhe Exhibition, "Antikenhehlerei: Das Milliardengeschäft mit der Vergangenheit"

They dig for ancient "treasure", loot everything they can to make money and throw the rest away carelessly: looters destroy the cultural heritage of us all. On their trail are both archaeologists and criminologists. An exhibition on "Kriminalarchäologie" is being shown in the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe until the end of May. It aims to show recent successes of the investigators against international criminal dealings with antiquities and stolen goods - and their failures.

Polic Chief Commissioner Eckhard Laufer, is the Hessian State Criminal Office for the Protection of Cultural Property in charge and is behind the organization of the exhibition.

There is an interview with him here by archaeologist Diane Scherzler. Laufer says the trade in antiquities is one of the world's largest black markets with a high number of unreported cases. He says that "UNESCO estimates that the sum from the sale of illegally acquired cultural property is six to eight billion € per year". He adds that this could even "be already in the tens of billions, as grave robberies have increased in recent years". Noting the destruction caused to archaeological knowledge he likens it to police crime scene work. If someone removes evidence, the archaeologist can no longer evaluate the remaining traces on the site, as is the same in the case of the removal or disturbance of the evidence studied by a criminologist at a crime scene.

Commissioner Laufer says that in Germany, illegal excavations in Germany are often held as a "treasure hunt", with individuals going out equipped with metal detectors looking for relics from the past. Most of those involved do not see it as a profit-making venture, and some of them are unaware that they are guilty of breaking the law and causing damage to archaeological monuments through their interventions.

Other illegal treasure hunters have often been many years in the business and operate intensively, they know exactly the market price of a find. They are not interested in fame, and do not want to reveal the place where something came from. For this reason they tend to stay in the background and use a front man to approach dealers and museums with the finds they want to sell. This middleman then makes contact with potential buyers and will try to sell the item with a commission. For example, an illegally excavated "hoard of coins that can bring thousands of euros: Everyone is trying to capitalize on it".

Today, Laufer says, trade is mainly conducted on the Internet. For a long time Ebay was a market leader in Germany. This however came to an end when, at the insistence of the archaeological heritage protection services and the police, sellers there were required to provide evidence for the origin of Antiquities. Then the market there broke down.

Advice for Buyers

Asked about ancient items seen for sale on eBay or at an auction and which an individual might like to purchase after ascertaining it is of legal origin, Laufer says that in Germany it is relatively easy.

Archäologisches Kulturgut hat immer eine Herkunft, es fällt ja nicht vom Himmel.

Archaeological heritage always has a source, it does not fall from heaven (or presented to dealers by Coin Elves). In Germany, the conservation laws stipulate that all finds must be reported. Each such recording - which is made by the state - thus leads to the creation of the relevant documents.

Man sollte deshalb immer nach der Herkunftsgeschichte eines antiken Gegenstands fragen: Gibt es dazu Angaben, die belegen, dass der Gegenstand legal geborgen wurde und gehandelt wird? Das kann auch eine Exportgenehmigung des Ursprungslandes sein. Gibt es das nicht, raten wir davon ab, diesen Gegenstand zu kaufen.

"Therefore, one should always ask about the origin story of an ancient object: Are there any data supporting that the object was recovered and traded legally? This can be also an export authorization of the country of origin. If it has none of these things, we do not recommend buying this item". He also advises of course against buying ancient objects offered for sale to tourists in foreign countries. There are many fakes and such objects are generally not released commercially in many countries - and it is illegal to buy them without documents from the state legitimising the purchase, and if they are beihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifng taken out of the country, an export permit. He warns that "viele Länder mit antiken Hochkulturen haben da strengere Gesetze als wir ("many countries with ancient civilizations have stricter laws than we do").

There is also an interesting SWR radio interview here with Muller Karpe on the same page which also contains links to related material, worth exploring.

Hat tip to Paul Zoetbrood

Vignette: Metal detectorist artefact plunderers need to hide their faces in civilized parts of Europe.

PAS Treasure Show Comes to Florida

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Jennifer Edwards, 'Crews to dig up backyards for TV show, raising objections from city archaeologist' St Augustine Record January 6, 2012.

It's catching, the PAS were reportedly involved last year in the filming of a programme about "Britain's Hidden Treasures" (thankfully yet to be screened) now the same sort of escapade is being planned for the States. In St Augustine the announced arrival of a casting producer for a planned 13-episode reality TV series tentatively titled “The Recovery Project” has raised concerns. Reportedly she was seeking "property on which to dig for clues to the past". Film crews would also be going to 13 different cities, including Boston, Tombstone, Ariz., and Chicago. when made the show would probably find a market "on one of three major networks: The History Channel, Spike or the Discovery Channel".

Desiree Mandelbaum* says the digs are essentially treasure hunting, a search for objects like bullets or buttons that will tell a story of the past. [...] Mandelbaum said it’s a fun way to learn something about history and that producers would make sure “not to disrupt anything that’s been put into place in St. Augustine.” “We are definitely going to stay away from archaeological zones,” she said. “And the host of our show has been digging up artifacts for 20 years, so he’s not some random digger. I know they want to ... show that St. Augustine isn’t an area where you should just go dig.”

by doing just that? Eh? During the filming, hosts will dig into people’s yards, parking lots, basements — “anywhere objects might be buried,” the producer said, adding that "the show is a chance to learn more about the country". (“There’s so much American history that we don’t know,” Mandelbaum said.)

City of St. Augustine Archaeologist Carl Halbirt, quite apart from the fact that random digging disturbs archaeological deposits, says this sort of thing sends the wrong message to the residents of St. Augustine.

“As a resident, you are a steward to the city’s heritage. Digging for artifacts is not preserving the city’s heritage.”

Tell that to PAS supporters like Raimund Karl and Peter Tompa.

*"Mandelbaum’s other projects have included episodes of the reality TV shows “The Biggest Loser,” “Super Nanny,” and other TV series such as 2010’s “Parental Control” and 2009’s “Reality Hell,” according to the Internet Movie Database. “I’ve worked on a lot of different shows,” she said. “It’s really, really fun.”..."

The Intellectual Consequences of Knocked-off Nok "Art"

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There is a brief article in New Scientist about an excavated terracotta Nok Culture head which is "one of the best-preserved examples of its kind ever discovered". I think it means in an archaeological investigation, museums and galleries are full of them. The terracottas (especially the knocked-off heads) are eagerly acquired no-questions-asked by collectors as they are among the earliest figurative art in sub-Saharan Africa. The excavated head was found (some 60 cm down, the article insists on telling us), by archaeologists Peter Breunig and Nicole Rupp of the Goethe-University Frankfurt during the 2010 field season at Kushe, a small village about 150 kilometres north of the capital Abuja. The Nok culture flourished in the region of modern Nigeria from about 1000 BC to AD 500 ("when it mysteriously died out").

The Nok terracottas are a mystery. No one knows for sure what they were used for. They may represent dead members of the Nok community and could have been a votive offering at a shrine. Alternatively, the figurines may have been grave goods. Africa has seen a resurgence of archaeological activity to investigate Nok culture. Part of this has to do with interest in Iron Age societies in Africa, which is surging as anthropologists consider how technologies - especially those based on iron - spread. The Nok are considered to be one of the earliest, if not the earliest, people to smelt iron on the African continent. However, the research is under threat. Over the past half-century countless Nok terracotta specimens have been looted from hundreds of sites in central Nigeria. The booty has found its way onto the international art and antiquities market, ending up in the hands of private art collectors.

Of course from an archaeological point of view of less importance than the fact that the objects are disappearing into private collections is the fact that so they can "surface" onto the market, the sites which hold them are riddled with holes dug blindly by looters hoping to find saleable items. Any area of the site producing them will be the focus of renewed digging hoping to find others in the vicinity. The potential for the destruction of any and all archaeological context is clear.

Once out of the ground, and country, the potential for these loose artefacts to tell us anything much of use for the real research questions the modern discipline would like to pose of Nok sites (about social structure, economic regimes etc.) simply cannot be addressed by an "art-history" approach to the decontextualised collectable geegaws on the "art" market. Indeed the possibility of even that being contaminated by skilful forgeries made to look old is very high indeed in the case of Nok "art" in particular. There is no possibility of there being a "Good Collector" of such items.

Source: Curtis Abraham, "Look into the eyes of a rare ancient African sculpture", New Scientist (Short, sharp science), 6 January 2012.

Photo: Archaeological artefact, not Knocked-off "art" on a dodgy market (Image: Nicole Rupp/Institute of Archaeological Sciences, Goethe-University Frankfurt).

Professor Karl, The PAS and the Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz (V): The Rhinoceros in the Room, Statistics and Facts

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One aspect of the issues covered in Profesor Raimund Karl’s polemic text ("On the Highway to Hell: Thoughts on the Unintended Consequences for Portable Antiquities of § 11(1) Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz") is wholly absent. This is what the PAS “statistics” represent. We may have some very encouraging results from increasing customs vigilance at international airports, we may be getting twice as many rhino horns confiscated from smugglers than five years ago. Wonderful, eh? But tell that to the rhinos. The fact is the rhino horn industry is not lucrative because of the pointy bits of keratin seized, but the ones that are not detected and seized. The slaughter of rhinos to supply the needs is not related to the number of seizures and convictions. On the contrary, the more smuggling we stop, the more rhinos the traders have to shoot to keep up with demand. Furthermore, as in the case of the PAS, we can find out a lot about the age groups, state of health and (through DNA) family relationships of the rhinos shot (thus providing details which might conceivably benefit the rhinos) by examining the captured horns before they disappear into the incinerator. In fact some of these data might be more easily obtained from material supplied by poachers than professional going out in the field to collect them themselves. Is this then a reason to not stop rhino poaching? Extending the model Professor Karl seems to be proposing in his paper to this issue, the way to benefit from this is to lift restrictions.

I say the analogy with the PAS is a good one (think about it). It seems to me that in the paper under discussion, like most collectors do too, Professor Karl sees this as an issue of (legal) access to and ownership of antiquities, rather than a conservation issue.

The British public who fund it has long been conditioned by the “archaeological outreach” of the PAS to believe that what the PAS database statistics represent is a great “success’ in heritage management, a solution to the “metal detecting problem”. Is it? Are the rhinos being saved by counting the horns stored in customs warehouses and incinerated? Is that conservation? I would say not, I don’t know what the PAS think, they never venture that far into explaining why they do what they do and what they think they are achieving. “Look at the numbers” they say. Professor Karl looks at the numbers, and nods his head in approval.

Professor Karl has at least once in his life looked at this blog. Reportedly he was “shocked” – so he cannot be unaware that there are those out here who insist that the PAS statistics are just the tip of an iceberg of unrecorded artefact hunting of (I say) massive proportions. In my case, I’ve been saying the same very openly for 12 years now. Others say the same thing (usually quieter). So Dr Karl, as a lecturer in heritage management, really cannot pretend he is unaware of this controversy. Where is that reflected in his paper? OK, he may think I am utterly wrong, but that is no reason to pretend that all is sweetness and light and Britain has the answer to the “artefact hunting problem” and places like Austria should be copying its approach – which is what basically his paper seems to be saying (and it is not just me who reads it in that manner).

To recap, I think there are good reasons to believe that four out of five metal detected artefacts in England and Wales (PAS country) are going unreported, and unrecorded. Four out of five simply disappear somewhere. Now, too bad that in Austria it might be 4.8 out of five metal detected finds disappearing, but IS there really such a difference?

(And before Professor Karl says again that I am "wrong" about this, let him think very carefully how he is going to prove it - maybe another questionnaire? This time among the detectorists in his own country - Wales? The country where their Minister says the PAS has been a great "success" - has it? By how much would he say I have to be wrong for the situation to be OK, and am I really that far wrong?)

Vignette: Rhino (photo by Steve Bloom)

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"

Metal Detecting Under the Microscope: So, that would be "No" then?

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The "metal detectorists" of the UK all say to a man (woman) that they only do it because they are really really passionately interested in the history. So, on that basis it was pretty understandable that a request should be sent to one of their forums to help gather information on heritage crime:

The Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS) at Newcastle University, together with Bradley Research and Consulting, the Council for British Archaeology and Loughborough University have been appointed by English Heritage to establish the extent of crime and anti-social behaviour facing designated heritage assets, including ancient monuments, historic buildings and other important sites and features.

The true extent of heritage crime has proved very difficult to measure. By taking part in this survey you will help English Heritage and other agencies with responsibility for protecting the nation’s heritage to understand better the risks and vulnerability of different heritage assets in different settings. The research also seeks to identify the characteristics of the main victims, and the main perpetrators, of heritage crime.

By ‘heritage crime’, we mean any offence which harms the value of England's heritage assets and their settings and could include crimes such as theft, removal of objects of historic interest, criminal damage, arson and offences of anti-social behaviour leading to harm to historic buildings, monument or spaces.

The types of heritage assets that our research will cover are:
· World Heritage Sites
· Scheduled monuments;
· Listed Buildings
· Protected marine wreck sites
· Conservation Areas
· Registered Parks and Gardens
· Registered Battlefields
· Protected military remains of aircraft and vessels of historic interest)

Many metal-detector users may, through the outdoor nature of the hobby, be aware of local issues, including instances of criminal behaviour affecting the sites known to them, we would like to ask you a few questions about possible heritage crime known about by your organisation.

We note there is no typology of heritage crime here limiting it just to sites a collector might find visually attractive or attract bad publicity if its filled with holes.

Forum members were not exactly falling over each other in their eagerness to help report the "minority of black sheep wot is criminals and wot gets are hobby a bad name". The whole idea of gathering information about the real scale of heritage crime revealed fears among forum members that that this information might be "used against the hobby". This rather obscures the fact that this information is to be used against those who are criminally damaging Britain's heritage and one wonders why artefact hunters fear that if they reveal what they know, this might affect them and their fellows too.

Coiney Models of Raubgrabung

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Peter Tompa once again demonstrates how little he understands about the conservation of the archaeological record. He attempts to create a partial typology of illicit excavations and then "rank them from the most troubling to the least" - though without defining for whom they are "troubling" and from what viewpoint. This seems a rather pointless exercise when the list-maker - encumbered by his stereotypical dichotomic view of an imaginary opposition of "("radical") archaeologists" with the antiquity collector and dealer - really has not troubled to think through what the issues are and what factors are involved. According to Mr Tompa, the "least troubling" type of illegal artefact hunting involves:

"Illicit excavations from private land that already has been disturbed by ploughing."

So that is like the deserted sites of Roman urban complexes such as Verulamium, Wroxeter and Irchester. I presume he means that "nighthawking" on sites like this is "no worse than a traffic offence" on the coiney scale of seeing the world (one has visions of Mr Tompa habitually driving his souped-up red Ferrari ninety miles an hour up Constitution Avenue dodging between the cars moving more sedately). What about Bulgarian Archar, another (once) finds-rich archaeological and - the odd exposed wall excepted - largely featureless site under ploughed fields? Many thousands of artefacts from here have now been scattered in the trays of various dealers and collectors whose money encouraged and financed the utter destruction of large parts of this site.

I have discussed this uninformed "just fields" approach of US coin collectors before (it seems though that the duller of mind among them do little to find out just what it is they are talking about even when the shortcomings of their arguments are pointed out). Mr Tompa fails to take into account (and it is difficult, if you think it through, to avoid the suspicion that deliberately-so) the whole issue of the difference between sites protected by law (as archaeological reserves, or sites of Special Scientific Interest) or those set aside in conservation schemes. He concentrates on what the layman sees on the surface at the expense of paying any attention to the structure of the deposits below the surface. It's like saying we don't need to be concerned with poachers who shoot the rhinos with dirty patches on their skins, "they don't look very nice anyway".

So here we have the second of the two coiney models of looting. The importance of the activity is either (a) determined by the monetary value of the items hoiked out of the sites (so we should not be bothered by looters who supply the market with lots of five-dollar coins from Roman sites), and (b) how lumpy and bumpy the ground is that is looted. Both of these models totally ignore the archaeological damage done. Both of them ignore the conservation aspects of the problem, which is deliberate sleight-of-hand of course as it is the fundamental issue - so best avoided if you are a coiney.

Punishing Illegal Artefact Hunting in England and Wales

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This is what happened to the car of a metal detector user caught red-handed illegally looking for artefacts on a site protected by law. A court ruled his motor was to be crushed following his sentencing. A Judge at Cloud Cuckton Crown Court ordered that the Audi A3 belonging to defendant 21-year old Barry Thugwit, of Lower Darkmess, Barsettshire be forfeited when he was sentenced to three years in prison last month. He had previously admitted metal detecting on protected sites using the car on three occasions between June 21 and 24 of this year. The vehicle, which was seized following his arrest, was handed to the police after the order from court and a decision was made to crush it. Detective Inspector Lancelot Goodguy, who ran the operation that led to the arrest of Mr Thugwit, said: “This car was used to facilitate the metal detecting and was forfeited to the police by the judge. By crushing it we are sending out a very clear message to others that we will not tolerate culture crime Barsettshire".

Source: Bedfordshire on Sunday, 'Ever wondered what happens to a drug dealer's car? Judge sends out a clear message that this is a crime that will not be tolerated',20/11/2011 (slightly amended).

Meanwhile in wilder Wales, metal detector users seem more prone to use other methods to deal with the 'black sheep' in the metal detector-using artefact hunting community. Such is their feeling of a bond with 'their' sites, that they declare publicly that they are willing take the law into their own hands to punish offenders without involving law enforcement. According to one "Detecting Wales" list member, people were suspected to be artefact hunting a hoard findspot by night and without the permission of the (hunting-shooting-and-fishing) landowner:

They were spotted by the game keeper who has night vision glasses. I think I will join him on a night time hunt, see who it is. I should be able to spot them, in the light of their burning car.

The use of violence among metal detector using artefact hunters in competition for access to 'productive sites' is an aspect which I wonder if Felicity Winkley will be covering in her NCMD-backed survey of the attitudes of metal detector using artefact hunters "to landscape and objects' findspots".

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Probation ordered for Blanding teacher in artifacts case

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Emiley Morgan, 'Probation ordered for Blanding teacher in artifacts case', Deseret News Nov. 18, 2011.

David A. Lacy, 58, a Blanding school teacher was "indicted in May 2009 on nine counts of selling, stealing or offering to sell a number of archeological artifacts, including a turkey feather blanket, a basket mat fragment, a female apron/loin cloth, one complete woven sandal and two partial woven sandals". These he was accused of having taken in violation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and selling to an undercover informant in December 2007. This case has ended in the same way as those of 25 other individuals in the same area, caught in the same 'sting' and accused of stealing Native American artifacts from public lands and selling them. He pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of trafficking stolen artifacts and Native American cultural items. On Friday he was sentenced in the District Court Friday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Samuel Alba who "ordered him to spend one year on probation. As a condition of his probation, Lacy is not to enter government property for any reason other than travel".

The Four Corners case reveals how lightly the United States authorities treat the crimes of looting archaeological sites and grave-robbing even in their own land. It is a "one" on the ruler scale of Philistinic concern; slapped wrist and go and stand in the corner, and don't get caught doing it again. Pathetic.

So dealers are doing their level best to spread the word by giving most of the nation "Ancient Coins for education" using coins of dubious provenance donated to the scheme by other dealers and collectors. Does Blanding High offer a native version: "ancient pots and looted grave goods for Education"? What kind of message does this sentencing hand out to the next generation of potential artefact hunters and site looters?

Vignette: spare the rod and lose your archaeological record, but who cares, eh?

Christie's Fouled in Web of Lies

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Christie's not only employs smarmy sarcastic types in their public relations department, but also cannot always check out the stories about the origins of the objects it sells at such a glorious profit (Martin Bailey, 'Head sold at Christie’s stolen from Libya', ArtNewspaper 31 Oct 11). According to this, the Italian buyer of a head of a women with piggy eyes has voluntarily relinquished the work because it turned out after the sale on 14 April that it had been stolen in Libya in 1990.

It was bought at auction by an Italian for £91,250 and has now been recovered in Italy by the carabinieri.[...] At the time of the sale, an archaeologist contacted Christie’s to warn that lot 261 was the head of a statue at the Sabratha Museum, west of Tripoli; it had been detached and stolen in 1990.[...] A Christie’s spokesman said: “Additional information was brought to our attention after the auction. We subsequently cancelled the sale and are assisting all relevant bodies with the return of this object.”

The provenance was given as “private collection, Switzerland, circa 1975; acquired by the present owner in Switzerland in 1988”. In other words, the recent seller claims to have owned it two years before it was stolen. So I would say Christie's would be helping with more than merely the "return" of the object to the Museum, but the investigation of the crime of its theft, where an obvious first step would be establishing where the seller got it from and why they lied about the date he acquired it.

The Italian buyer voluntarily relinquished the head and is being reimbursed by Christie’s.

and why not the seller? If the surrender was 'voluntary', why were the carabinieri involved?

David Gill reflects:

Why is Christie's appearing so frequently in such cases? Perhaps those in senior positions in the auction house should start to ask some searching questions about their department of ancient art.

Personally, I'd suggest they have a look at certain aspects of the public relations department too.

Numismatic News Nonsense on Bulgaria

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Mark Fox ('Bulgaria Seeks Import Restrictions', Numismatic News/Numismaster October 31, 2011) writes about the Bulgaria bilateral cultural property agreement request. I cannot say it is a very impressive summary:

Several prominent coin dealers and auction houses, including Classical Numismatic Group (CNG) and Harlan J. Berk, Ltd., have already alerted their customers about Bulgaria’s request for an MOU with the U.S. and its possible implications on the hobby if implemented. Use of this public venue to influence the outcome of the upcoming deliberations is also supported and urged by the American Numismatic Association. Without proper records tracing their chain of ownership to before the dates the MOUs were implemented, ancient Cypriot and Chinese coins, including some issues of medieval Chinese, as well as ancient coins of “Italian type,” are all subject to possible confiscation if imported into the US. In practice, it matters little if, for example, a collection of ancient Cypriot coins assembled a century ago in Germany are shipped to the U.S. If there is no paperwork to prove that they had left Cyprus before July 16, 2007, (the date the latest MOU with Cyprus went into effect), then the coins are vulnerable to seizure.

But, the CCPIA states very clearly what paperwork is needed to enable this without a hitch. Dealer Dave Welsh says it cannot be "blue crayon on the back of an envelope", but what is needed is not much more sophisticated than that. More to the point, Fox points out that:

"The area of what now is Bulgaria was home to numerous ancient peoples who struck coinage under the direction of early Greek cities (such as Apollonia Pontika, Mesambria, and Odessus), Thracian tribes (as in the Derroni and Orreski) and kings (Kotys I, Seuthes III, Lysimachus, etc.), various Roman emperors, and later by Byzantine and other medieval rulers. For many new collectors, the first ancient coins in their collections were likely unearthed in Bulgaria, whether they were coins of Lysimachus, Roman provincial issues struck for the city of Marcianopolis, Nicopolis ad Istrum, Serdica, or Philippopolis, or Roman imperial bronzes minted during the time of Constantine or later.

And it is precisely the scale of the looting and smuggling which has led to this proliferation of these coins in foreign markets which is the source of this concern. How many of them were excavated and exported in accordance with the law of the country they were dug up in? Fox admits the aim of the MOU is laudable, but "to hinder important numismatic research afforded by coin collecting is a hard pill to swallow for most". This serious research surely can be carried out on the hundreds of thousands of freshly dugup coins that have already entered the US market (or are they all useless for research purposes, if so, why?) or those that enter it from legitimate, documented sources. What other "serious research" relies on data of illegal origin?

My Bulgarian Comment

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Having moaned about everybody else's I thought it was time to put my money where my mouth is and write my comment to the CPAC on Bulgaria and Belize. It turns out that the limit of "2000 characters" is "2000 characters and spaces" so what got sent had to be scrunched-up version of what I'd drafted earlier this morning.

So here's what I'd intended to write, it is a bit abrupt and does not mention everything I wanted to say but it will do. It did not quite come out the same way on the website either, but no matter, the coineys are sure nobody actually reads them.

I support the request from Bulgaria to do as much as possible to curb the movement of illicit antiquities across US borders by increased scrutiny of imports as per Art. 3 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention and the CCPIA.

Bulgaria’s rich archaeological heritage is seriously threatened by looters who, in defiance of antiquity preservation laws, are systematically and clandestinely stripping sites (particularly Thracian and Roman ones, as well as the Greek colonies on the coast) of collectable items many of which are destined for sale on foreign markets. US sellers for almost two decades have been openly offering „minor antiquities” stripped by metal detector and bulldozer from sites like this (and even candidly identified as such) in huge quantities. The artefacts are sold in the US in bulk-lot bags (coins) or by the kilogramme (fragments of artefacts) which are then sorted and sold on individually. A whole sector of the „minor antiquities” trade in the US and the dug-up ancient coin trade in particular, have been founded on the amount of fresh material entering the market from these sources. Despite the vehement protests of those involved in this trade and supplied by it, it is time for the US to get tough with this abuse taking place across its borders to help make international controls on the movement of illicit artefacts more effective.

Bulgaria applies the measures envisaged in the Convention to combat this looting. While it is true that the efforts of the authorities to prevent the destruction of the heritage are seriously hindered by economic, socio-demographic and political factors, this is no reason for the international community to turn its back on a plea for help. The seizure of illicitly-exported material of this type at the US borders would not only be in accord with the measures envisaged by the 1970 Convention, but the consequent investigation of those at source and destination of each instance of attempted illicit activity will obviously be of potential assistance in unravelling chains of international criminal activity.

Closer scrutiny of archaeological and ethnographic material of Bulgarian origin crossing US borders is a non-drastic means of providing this help and respecting the obligations of the USA and other states parties under the 1970 UNESCO Convention.

Well, let us sit back and see what happens.

The Belize one (apparently it is code 80f644db) was shorter but in much the same vein, without the 'criminal' theme...

Gentle reader, you have but a few hours to make your thoughts known to the CPAC.

SAFE's "Say Yes to Bulgaria" Petition

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The US is a state party of the 1970 UNESCO Convention and as should do its part to prevent the illicit trade in antiquities from other states parties (irrespective of article 9). What is happening now under everyone's noses on the US antiquities market (in which artefacts removed from archaeological sites in Bulgaria have figured prominently) fills me with disgust. It is well past time for the US to step in and do something about this.

And it is. It is telling that it needs Bulgaria to actually ask and SAFE start a petition before anyone over there will lift a finger to do anything about this totally open trade in looted archaeological artefacts.

SAFE also has a poll on its webpage which poses a question "Are all nations obligated to protect one another's cultural heritage?". There are four choices, one especially for the naysaying extremists.

CPAC Comments: Lost for Words? A How-to Guide for Conservationists (and coineys)

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[I vowed never to get involved in another US MOU campaign, it costs me too many nerves and personally, as I have said many a time, I do not believe the US are using the 1970 UNESCO Convention in any laudable way. However the fact that this next one is one I have long dreamt of, the looting of archaeological sites in Bulgaria is a something I take very personally, and has historical connections with the rise of the US "minor antiquities" trade, it seems I cannot ignore this].

In my analysis of the coiney contributions to the debate yesterday, it became clear that virtually none of them actually addressed the issue at hand and this is because they were to a large extent cutting and pasting (if only mentally) from the [I now think deliberately] misleading propaganda given out by the dealers and their lobbyists.

So after being pretty negative about the coineys, I thought a positive contribution would be to give the people on my side of the fence something to help them put together something addressing the same issues. There is of course no reason why coineys cannot use this too, to make sure that they are addressing the actual issues in hand, please feel free, let's get some proper debate going on in place of the sad apology for one propagated by the ACCG and Moneta-L and their ilk.

In the public notice, comments were specifically and exclusively requested on Section 303 (a) 1 A-D of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, 19 U.S.C. § 2602, pursuant to which the Committee must make findings. This Act is pretty badly written as prose and its layout and section numbering are tragic, but not too many minutes work suffice to untangle it. But some people are too busy to do that, so I thought it might help somewhat if I set out the main issues it raises and some guidelines to what one might consider saying in response. I am going to use Bulgaria as the example, but please use this to write a similar response for Belize too. Show the world you care.

Let us start off by noting:

(a) there is no "conspiracy",
(b) the aim is not to stop "collecting" but to halt at the US border, as far as is possible, the import of archaeological material and ethnographic objects which have been illicitly exported from Bulgaria [including, as far as possible, those cynically 'laundered' by being sent via other countries - such as Dubai],
(c) the United States has been a state party of the 1970 UNESCO Convention for 28 years, and according to article 3 of the Convention, any such transactions were all that time (and are) illicit in terms of the Convention (a fact most coineys conveniently ignore).
(d) for the same reason (190 countries are states parties) there is no "discrimination" here. The US is simply implementing the Convention it accepted in September 1983.
(e) the Act is intended to implement the Convention for all types of cultural property covered by the term "archaeological material and ethnographic items", most of the comments to the CPAC have concerned excluding one type of archaeological material (collectable numismatic material) from its scope. There is no authority for that either in the text of the Convention or the CCPIA.

Section 303 (a) asks (in fact, the US President) five questions. Let's go through them in detail.

303 (a).1A: Is the cultural patrimony of Bulgaria in jeopardy from pillage? Sadly, the archaeological sites of almost all (if not all) countries which have a 'productive' archaeological record are subject to this threat. Tragically this applies particularly to Bulgaria where whole sites such as the Roman city of Ratiaria (look it up on this blog) have been stripped on an industrial scale to produce "minor" artefacts and coins which have been OPENLY sold on the US market through internet shops and auction sites (eBay in particular - there's quite a bit about that on this blog too) for year after year with nothing being done about it by UNESCO-Convention-state-party the United States of America. How many arrests have there been in the US for this in the past twenty years? Yes, the cultural patrimony of Bulgaria is indeed in jeopardy from pillage, and much of it done by looters affiliated with criminal groups who organize the transport of the loot to foreign markets (Shentov, O., Todorov, B. and Stoyanov, A. 2007, 'Organized Crime in Bulgaria: Markets and Trends', Sofia, Center for the Study of Democracy - this thought-provoking report figures the antiquities trade alongside trade in drugs, prostitution and human trafficking, and vehicle thefts).

Coineys: here you have to answer "no, the archaeological heritage of Bulgaria is not in peril because of looting", but you are on your own justifying that in the face of all the evidence, and what the Bulgarian authorities are now saying in submitting this request. Also it seems to me you would have to come up with some pretty hard evidence to trump the conclusions of the Bulgarian archaeological authorities monitoring these sites lying behind this request.

303 (a).1B: Has Bulgaria taken measures consistent with the Convention to protect it?

It should be noted that the CCPIA refers ONLY to measures consistent with the context of the Convention which it implements. The Convention has a number of articles devoted to what states parties should do to protect the cultural patrimony of its territory. Bulgaria complies with the following: Art. 2, 1-2; Art 3, Art. 4, Art 5 (which the US has not); Art. 6 (which the US has not); Art 8; Art. 9 (it has just done so, please also note the obligations of the US already now invoked at the end of that article!); Art 10 (a) and (b); 14 (despite the typical economic difficulties common to most states in that regard, and we know the US also has its own problems there with regard the preservation of the archaeological heritage from looting)
[Articles 7, 11, 12, 13, 15 do not apply to this question, articles 16 onwards to the state party's relations to UNESCO - equally irrelevant here]Coineys: here you have to answer "no, Bulgaria taken measures consistent with the Convention to protect its archaeological", and give your reasons for saying so. Please though distinguish between intent and effect. The Bulgarians have for decades been faced with political difficulties and financial restraints, and criminal gangs with bulldozers and a lot of determination to profit from a lucrative market. Should their cultural heritage be penalised (stolen by outsiders) because of it?

303 (a).1C (i): Would the application of the import restrictions proposed be of substantial benefit in deterring a serious situation of pillage?
The ACCG claims that there are 50000 collectors of dugup coins in the US. ACCG officer, coin dealer Dave Welsh asserts confidently that it is "credibly estimated that roughly half of all ancient coin collectors in the world reside and half of the world's numismatic trade is carried on" in the United States. If true, that obviously means that if illicit exports can be prevented from getting to this half of the market, this would cut down the profits that ensue from such an activity. Most of the other countries of the other half of the market are already parties of the Convention and the sale of illicitly-exported archaeological artefacts is already illegal there (for example Britain with its 2003 Dealing in Cultural property (Offences) Act). Obviously vigorously prosecuting these policies in each of these state parties (Convention Art 3 and 13a-b) will substantially reduce the possibilities of smuggled goods finding a market.

Coineys: here you have to answer "no, the application of the import restrictions proposed will not deter a serious situation of pillage", and then trot out the old argument that it has never been proven that no-questions-asked collecting actually has any relationship to looting. I doubt whether the CPAC will accept that, but you can try.

[303 (a).1C (i) additional point: "if applied in concert with other nations having a significant import trade in such material" other nations already have legislation rendering trafficking in illegally and illicitly exported items of this nature illegal. While it is true that with no-questions-asked one can buy such material in countries such as the UK and Germany, it is not, in fact, legal to do so (see here, point 2 - the lawyer has not yet provided the list of countries). It is like driving faster than the speed limit, staying parked longer than the time limit, or jaywalking, you can do it, and generally nothing happens - unless you are caught doing it.]

303 (a).1C (ii): Are there available (to Bulgaria or the USA) other measures less drastic that would achieve the same aim?

Well, what is proposed is that US customs look at the paperwork concerning export of certain types of cultural property. That is hardly "drastic", it's what customs officers are for - to check that what is coming into a country complies with the law. In this case, articles 3 and 13a of the 1970 Convention should be being applied by the customs services and border guards of the US as a state party of the Convention since September 1983 in the case of cultural property from all other countries party to the Convention. Is there anything less "drastic" than customs officers taking more care to do what customs officers should be doing anyway? Once again, it is worth stressing, in terms of the CCPIA, articles with kosher paperwork pass through without a hitch and dealers and other importers should be encouraged (Art 6c, 7b, 10a and 13a) to strive for kosher paperwork.

Coineys have in the past suggested that a "less drastic" measure would be to have the source nations set up something which they characterize as "like the UK's Portable Antiquities Scheme and Treasure Act" which would allow lots of artefacts to enter the market licitly - in other words simply redefining what is "pillaging/ looting". Apart from the fact it is not their place to imperialistically tell other sovereign nations what they "should" do to suit US collectors, this is irrelevant. The setting up of such schemes and attendant legislation are not within the scope of the measures covered by a Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property. What we are talking about here is export controls. The home of the PAS and Treasure Act, the UK, has quite stringent export controls on all dug-up archaeological material. A collector buying fresh dugup coins from Great Britain which have been exported without an export licence is committing an act as illicit as if they came from Greece or Bulgaria(and those coins too should have been stopped at the US border). The PAS and Treasure Act do not create an "export free-for-all", and certainly do nothing to protect the sites of England and Wales from looting by artefact hunters.

303 (a).1D: Would the application of these measure be consistent with the general interest of the international community in the interchange of cultural property among nations for scientific, cultural, and educational purposes?Obviously, yes. The large-scale importing of stolen and illegally exported cultural property by one country from another - while no doubt profitable for individuals - is not in the general interest of the international community. This, surely, is particularly the case when it seems it encourages or facilitates international criminal activities. Stopping the traffic in illegally exported cultural property would not have any negative impact on the "general interest of the international community in the interchange of cultural property among nations for scientific, cultural, and educational purposes" since this can surely be satisfied better through mutual licit and legal interchange of such items through the legal art market, museum loans, travelling exhibitions and other means. we should bear in mind that the Bulgarians themselves are part of the international community.
Coineys would have to show that curbing the large-scale importing of stolen and illegally exported cultural property by one country from another is not in the general interest of the international community, and that this would have a wholly negative impact on the "general interest of the international community in the interchange of cultural property among nations for scientific, cultural, and educational purposes". You are on your own there.

So that is five relatively simple questions that the CPAC is currently asking for some public comment on. The answers seem relatively straightforward. Given the scale of the damage already inflicted on the accessible parts of the Bulgarian archaeological heritage through the no-questions-asked buying of the ancient coins dug up by the bucketful from Bulgarian sites, I think the CPAC owe it to the international community to recommend the President apply import restrictions on archaeological artefacts (and let us not forget the ethnographic material - where stolen icons must probably figure highly on the list of priorities) as soon as practically possible. Let it also roundly condemn those that want to continue the disgusting bulk trade in freshly dugup archaeological material like this no-questions-asked.
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Vignette: How to...