Focus on Metal Detecting: What Are they "Preserving and Restoring"?

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US Metal Detectorist "Chinchillaman" in a comment sent to another post seems not really to understand why I have severe reservations about artefact hunting ("metal detecting") in its present form, he says he "preserves and restores" the artefacts he finds, which is basically the same argument used as the coineys who buy and sell ancient artefacts like they were potatoes or baseball cards. It is the "preservation" of the decontexctualised artefact themselves in their eyes (the "Good Collector" model) which justifies their decontextualisation and (in the case of the foreign artefacts their illegal removal from first the archaeological record and then the country - looting and smuggling in other words). I do not think many readers make it to the comments here, so just to have it out in the open, this is what I replied:

I am glad to hear that you "preserve and restore everything I find". Don't you think however that the collectors who pay good money for the stuff these "Diggers" dig up will "preserve" them in their own collections (and also "restore" them to the same standards if the objects need treatment)? ["restore" them to what? What is the artefact hunter's idea of "restoration" and what is his definition of "conservation"?]

The fundamental point here is not really what happens to the artefacts themselves, but the historic sites they come from. Do you "preserve and restore" the latter by digging into them to hoik out collectables? After you've taken away what collectable items you want, what is left for those who come after you, except holes (albiet - I am sure you will tell me - properly filled in)? You are taking away history from these historic places.

Furthermore, it seems to me that you are not only doing that but decontextualising the artefacts you remove. The ones from three years digging that you proudly show off on your other videos. I could not see any numbers of labels visible on any of them, so how can somebody who comes after you relate a pile of loose artefacts on your table with any catalogue and records you may have as to where each individual piece comes from?

What permanent information do you leave behind you for those interested in researching the same sites (perhaps using different - more subtle methods than your spade) in the future. Or do you think that they are exclusively "your" sites (finders-keepers) to do with as you wish? Obviously tens of thousands armed with metal detectors and spades and driven by such attitudes and not bothering to keep more than minimalistic records is highly destructive of the historic resources of your country, and in no way can be considered "historic preservation".

It is no kind of "preservation" of the full historic values of a dugup historical artefact if there is no documentation allowing it to be linked with a findspot.

In removing historical evidence from sites and not documenting the collection properly, an artefact-digger is not creating from them any kind of meaningful historical resource, but merely an accumulation of show-and-tell geegaws.

That is the problem of "the morality of artifact hunting" when it is directed towards the "me-me, all mine" and not, "me and the information I am gathering for and making available to others". That is the ethos of the Portable Antiquities Scheme over in England, and that is why I say that collectors rights' advocates surely should be clamouring to get one set up in the US before they clamour to get their spades into sites currently protected by legislation (the "Task Force" type people I write about elsewhere here). Why aren't they? What does this suggest to an observer about the ethos of dug-up artefact collecting in the US? Together with "rights" go responsibilities. No?

I pass over the "artefacts crack up in the cold" argument. Alaska is hardly Absolute Zero. Vignette: After Ali's Art Adventures (Ali Spagnola) 

Not "Just America": New Antiquity Laws in Israel

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 According to the Israeli Antiquities Authority, “until recently antiquities dealers and other entities have exploited loopholes in the law whereby they brought antiquities into the country for the purpose of ‘laundering’ them.” In Israel owners of stolen artifacts can obtain documentation that would enable them to be sold in the open market as “artifacts… ostensibly of Israeli provenance.” I have written many times about this on this blog and discussed a few worrying specific cases. The Jerusalem Post article on the Egyptian sarcophagi story (Oren Kessler, 'IAA seizes stolen Egyptian sarcophagi in Old City', 4th March 2012) like several other parallel accounts, announces a dramatic turn of events concerning this aspect of the Israeli antiquities market. In the past the legislation concerned items dug up IN Israel only, so artefacts dug up in neighbouring countries (Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Iraq for example) if they could be brought through the borders could be 'legally' exported with an Israeli Antiquities authority export licence. Not any more they cannot. The Antiquities Authority says it is battling to end the practice of smuggling artefacts through Israel.

Shai Bar-Tura of the Antiquities Authority’s Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery said that starting April 20, Israel will only allow the import of antiquities certified to have been legally exported from their country of origin. “The new regulation will provide us with the tools needed in order to prevent the importation into the country of antiquities that were stolen or plundered in other countries, thus enabling us to thwart the international cycle of robbery and trade in stolen archeological artifacts,” he said.

While many other countries have similar legislation, it is nice that this news comes out the day ACCG Executive Director Sayles gets an article in the Huffington Post saying the US is the "only" country in the world which has such legislation which "discriminate against" collectors that want to buy antiquities unlawfully exported from other countries.

 I do not expect this is news that "Cultural property Observer" will be covering.

Is it "time for President Obama and Hillary Clinton to "Put an end to Koroupas"?

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Over on the  Huffington Post   the lobbyists for the no-questions asked dealing in recently "surfaced" antiquities from the ancient world are continuing their programme of misinformation. Veteran dealer and activist Wayne Sayles tries to raise support by playing the victim. He carefully avoids saying what he is actually lobbying for, he tries to give the general reader the impression that what he is talking about affects all coin collectors of world coins, rather than those which are archaeological artefacts. He also deliberately neglects to point out that the law he is complaining about implements a convention which 121 nations have also signed and implemented, trying to give the impression that it is only US buyers who are unable legally to purchase smuggled coins. This is just deceitful.

Huffington post's readers fortunately can check for themselves the texts of
1)the ‘Convention on Cultural property Implementation Act’ (CCPIA): 19 United States Code 2600 et seq. (look at 2606 in particular for the two types of documents importers have the choice of supplying within 90 days)
 http://exchanges.state.gov/heritage/culprop/laws/pdfs/2600.pdf and,

2) the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property
http://exchanges.state.gov/heritage/culprop/laws/pdfs/unesco01.pdf

If readers look at these documents, they will quite clearly see for themselves that Sayles has omitted mention of the most important fact about them, they both refer only to restrictions on UNLAWFULLY EXPORTED (ie smuggled) artefacts.

Perusal of these documents shows the author of this text is describing restrictions on the import into the US of SMUGGLED archaeological artefacts and coins as in some way “unjust” to US dealers and collectors (presumably only those who actually want to buy smuggled and illicitly traded items of this type, I assume that there are some collectors and maybe even dealers who would instead like to be sure that ICE was doing its best to keep stuff like this off the US market).

Since 121 nations have become party to the 1970 Convention, it is of course totally untrue to say that only the US considers trade in such objects as illicit, that is the definition adopted by the 1970 Convention (Article 3). Many of the other countries have - where such measures were not already part of their legislative system - instituted implementation legislation like that of the US.

Huffington Post readers can find these laws online: http://www.ifar.org/art_law.php (the sections referring to Legislation of International Ownership and Export ). Examples might include  Japan’s Law Concerning Controls on the Illicit Export and Import of Cultural Property’ and the British ‘Dealing in Cultural property (Offences) Act’ which both (in different ways) go even further than the US requirements. Israel is also introducing new legislation of this type this month in order to cut down the illicit antiquity trade.

It is also totally untrue to say that US attention paid to export procedure dates from the Iraq emergency laws http://exchanges.state.gov/heritage/culprop/chart2.pdf

The accusations against Maria Kouroupas, alleging a "conspiracy" against the victimised collectors, apart from being slanderous, are a wholly inaccurate representation of the way the system works. But by the time the Huffington Post reader has compared the documents to which I link above with what Sayles says about them, I assume they will have got the measure of the man, and the degree to which they can rely on him to present reliable information about what the ACCG are fighting and why.

 Now why would a confederation of US dealers try to drum up support wherever they can (even from 12 Congressmen and at least one Senator) to prevent the US government implementing a cultural property preservation programme which attempts to keep smuggled ancient artefacts off the US market? Why, if they are engaged in such an activity can they not honestly present it for what it is, and not dress it up in the language of discrimination and victimisation, and dishonestly hiding from public opinion the true nature of the measures they are opposing ? I think the Huffington Post reader can work that one out for themselves, once given access to the facts.

Is it "time for President Obama and Hillary Clinton" to "Put an end to Koroupas", or is it time for the US Government to take decisive action against something else?

Vignette: Sayles once wrote a book on deception in the coin market. 

The "Dubai Connection" Apparently Still Active

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Nevine El-Aref, 'Two ancient Egyptian sarcophagus covers seized in Jerusalem', Al-Ahram Tuesday 3 Apr 2012 reports: 

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has seized two painted sarcophagi covers from a shop in the Old City of Jerusalem. According to a statement sen[t] out by the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities, the two covers were stolen and illegally smuggled out of the country after being modified to look like replicas. They first travelled to Dubai, and then from there to Jerusalem. [...] The covers are now stored in a climate-controlled room at the IAA. Archaeologists have dated one to the 16th century and one to the 14th century BC, and are in good condition. Each lid is carved from wood and decorated with colourful religious scenes.

Those dates would be  XVIII dynasty (early Tuthmosid and somewhere about the middle of the period).  Another report ('Israel seizes sarcophagus lids stolen from Egypt', April 03, 2012 ) makes the dating a bit more clear (and also suggests that the Dubai connection is surmise):

 The Israel Antiquities Authority says inspectors have seized two stolen Egyptian sarcophagus covers at a bazaar in Jerusalem's Old city. The two plaster-covered wooden lids had been sawed in two, causing irreparable damage. The covers were adorned with decorations and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. The authority says one dates between the 16th and 14th centuries B.C. and the other to between the 10th and 8th centuries B.C.

So where were they dug up, or are they part of the "missing two percent" it now transpires were stolen from storerooms? It would be highly interesting to know when they passed through Dubai, and through whose hands. Egyptian ministry officials have asked for the return of these artefacts. "Mohamed Ibrahim, the minister of state for antiquities, told Ahram Online that the ministry has sent an official letter to the Egyptian Embassy in Jerusalem to take all legal and diplomatic procedures to return both artefacts".

"Repose for the Mummy"?

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CultureGrrl Lee Rosenbaum has a brief piece on the Ka Nefer Nefer fiasco. U.S. District Court Judge Henry Autry has just dealt the U.S. Government a serious blow in its increasingly aggressive legal posture on behalf of foreign governments in cultural-property disputes. And the blogger say the "mummy" (actually it is only part of it) gets some "repose" in an American museum.

SLAM director Brent Benjamin "stood his ground, insisting that Egypt had not proven its claim of ownership [...] The Museum's investigation revealed no evidence that the Mask was owned by Egypt under applicable Egyptian law at the time of excavation, that the Mask was stolen from Egypt, or that the Mask had unlawfully entered the United States. [...] The judge bought SLAM's argument...

Here is a You Tube video Lee Rosenbaum made of the way it is currently displayed in a corner of a gallery:

 

It seems the US museum is contemplating expansion, perhaps in readiness for the acquisition of more trophy loot.

Lee Rosenbaum, 'Repose for the Mummy: St. Louis Art Museum Wins Ka-Nefer-Nefer Court Case', CultureGrrl April 2, 2012

Cremers on SLAM

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I must say that I agree with Ton Cremers here:

One Response to “Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hilaire: Ka Nefer Nefer Case Resumes After Lengthy Hiatus”- Saint Louis Art Museum – Of course the Saint louis Art Museum knows that this mask was stolen from a warehouse in Saqqara. This museum should be blacklisted, and treated like an outcast in the global museum community. It is not without reason that this museum is not a member of ICOM. The SLAM did not buy this mask in good faith, for if it did the mask would have been returned without a moment’s hesitation after it became clear that the Aboutaams manufactured a provenance. It shows bad-faith that the SLAM refuses to return the Ka Nefer Nefer mask. Ton Cremers.

I also think it is worth recalling the contribution of our Dutch colleagues, Ton Cremers, Maarten Raven (a curator at the Rijksmuseum Van Oudheden in Leiden and joint field director of the Dutch excavations in Saqqara) and Michel Van Rijn (who, nota bene was soon after forced to close his colourful website by none other than....). It was they who in 2006 alerted the world to this convoluted affair.

More Stolen Antiquities on Show in US

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If Zahi Hawass is found guilty of allowing illegal movement of antiquities out of Egypt for exhibitions in the US and Australia, it follows that the organizations currently in custody of such objects are equally guilty of participation in an illegal process. In the case of the Tutankhamun exhibitions, this would I believe mean  companies like Arts and Exhibitions International and AEG Exhibitions (also did the Vatican Museum, Titanic, Princess Diana exhibitions). Perhaps therefore they should return all profits made from the exhibition of what now seem likely to be ruled as "stolen artefacts" over to the Egyptian people? I assume they are insured against losses from just such a situation arising.