Ancient Near East Placemarks for Google Earth

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I had this installed earlier, but somehow managed to delete it, and on finding it again thought others might like to know (it was Chuck Jones who originally put me on to it some while back, thanks). ANE Placemarks for Google Earth by Olof Pedersén Professor in Assyriology at Uppsala University.


When you have it installed, preservation-minded people can zoom in on individual sites and have a look at the number of looters' holes in some regions. All you collectors out there who thinks every one of those sites should have a 24/7 guard squad on them as the 'only way' to stop illicit material appearing on a market near you, zoom in and look at each of them and think of the logistics and costs.

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Where does the Buck Stop?

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A Californian dealer lets the violent side of his nature come out when talking about my blog post (below) about the Jordanian lorry driver caught on the Egyptian border with antiquities hidden in cheese. He writes:

Bravo! Apparently they [Egyptians] are quite capable of detecting smuggled antiquities, which is all that Mr. Barford is concerned with. I hope the miscreants involved face condign punishment - immolation at the stake is no longer fashionable, thus perhaps a long stay in a very unpleasant place of confinement whose filth befits the degraded state of their souls.

Confined together with those lost souls who buy them, eh? ("Two minute due diligence" anyone?) This is rich coming from the milieu which is actively campaigning to overturn US measures intended to curb dealers buying illegally exported artefacts. Note how he tries to put the blame for the presence of illegally obtained artefacts solely on the smugglers, and not those that make smuggling lucrative.

Of course it has not been shown that the lorry driver knew there were antiquities in the cheese loaded into his truck. The mention of the police in the original article does suggest this man may have been stopped as a result of a tip-off.

Also, as I have stated a number of times, I am not "only concerned" with catching the smugglers. It is QUITE clear that it is not they alone who are to blame, but the no-questions-asked market which allows them to profit from the activity. If there were no buyers for certain types of smuggled goods, the smugglers would stop smuggling them. The case is overwhelmingly clear that if we are to break the chain of illegal transactions involving antiquities, authorities should be investigating the whole chain of transactions, tracing the trail back to the suppliers and looters that supplied the smuggled goods, and the people to whom they were being sent whose money finances the whole sorry business.

Jordanian Lorry Driver Detained in Antiquity Smuggling Case

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A few days ago I was discussing here what appears to be the case of smuggling from Jordan to Israel of items bought from antiquity sellers, yesterday - according to the Luxor Times - a Jordanian lorry driver was detained, apparently on suspicion of smuggling Egyptian items into Jordan:

The Customs Administration of Nuweiba port, south of Sinai, in co-operation with the police managed to stop Karim Hassan Abd Elfatah, Jordanian driver, who was driving a refrigerator car loaded with cheese, when the x-ray scan detector showed 33 rolls contains 29 pharaonic statues and a large collection of Pharaonic and Islamic pottery beside a quantity of gold in a secret caches in the car. The driver is in custody and a report was filed on the incident and the defendant has to stand in front of the General Prosecutor.

Further (and different) details from Al-Masry Al-Youm:

Egyptian authorities arrested a Jordanian truck driver as he attempted to smuggle 107 Pharaonic and Islamic artifacts from Nuweiba into Jordan at dawn Thursday. The suspect had 40 metal statuettes, 52 amulets, five wooden masks and other artifacts including a copper vase and four metal shields. Security forces found the artifacts in a number of cartons and rolls in the truck as they inspected it at the Nuweiba port on the Red Sea, according to a security official. Director General of Nuweiba’s Antiquities Department Abdel Rehim Rayhan said in statements to state-run news agency MENA that the seized items are subject to antiquities protection laws. He added that security forces also found 17 silver and gold pieces that are not antiquities and do not fall under the laws.

It is not stated where the guy was driving from, or where (in Jordan?) he was going, but the route chosen avoids crossing Israel. The port at Nuweiba is pretty compact, do they really have x-ray scanners capable of picking up antiquities in a truckload of cheese?

"Inept, lying propagandists devoid of anything remotely resembling ethics"

Who knows what is possible in an article reported by Paul Barford. Never have so many been [...] so grievously misrepresented and misquoted by so few – nor have their originally cogent remarks been so unethically twisted by such inept, lying propagandists devoid of anything remotely resembling ethics.

Says antiquities dealer Dave Welsh about the Huffington Post article I and a few others discussed earlier. He does not enlarge on that, merely copy-and-pasting a blog post of sidekick conspiracy theorist Peter Tompa to his monologous antiquitist microforum. Tompa seems not to have had an issue with the representation of the views of the people presented there, but merely observes that New York attorney William Pearlstein never articulated the view that Daniel Grant says he did.

"There are several levels of inquiry that a prudent dealer, museum curator or collector should undertake" [...] Among these, he claimed, is researching published material, such as academic journals, auction houses and museum catalogues, as well as the New York- and London-based Art Loss Register (where valuable reported stolen objects are listed). Prospective buyers should also see import and export licenses for objects -- were they legal to take out of the source country, were they legal to bring into the U.S. -- and obtain a history of the piece's ownership (known as the provenance) "as far back as you can in the chain of ownership." They might also contact the relevant cultural ministry in the country from which the object originally came "to find out if the piece is thought of as stolen by the source country."

yes, I think we can see where the lawyer of a numismatists' trade organization might have problems with a lawyer (formerly it now appears) representing a sister trade organization (the National Association of Dealers of Ancient and Oriental Art) saying such things. The same goes for a US coin dealer - one actively campaigning against US measures to cut illegal antiquity imports into the US and also a declared believer in his ability to do a two-minute due diligence (time appropriate for doing it through holding the coins and feeling their vibes rather than perusing the documentary evidence for their collecting and export history).

Dear, oh dear, the very idea that a prudent dealer, museum curator or collector might research the collecting history of the items they are interested in, try and find out if they have been reported stolen, and - horror of horrors - "see import and export licenses for objects -- were they legal to take out of the source country, were they legal to bring into the U.S." !!!!! You mean, other US collectors do THAT??

[You can almost imagine Tompa and Welsh sitting huddled in a dark corner fondling patinated figured discs of metal muttering and sobbing to themselves (to be read in an Andy Serkis voice),

"it's NOT true, its NOT True ! Nasty little hobbitses, with their lies, their nasty black lies. Collectors, they are our Friends, they don't behave like hobittses... No, it's not true, its a Mis-represent-ation!"].

Meanwhile, the ethical dealers in the US of Ancient and Oriental Art shake their head in bewilderment at the histrionic performance put on by the coin dealers and their fellow travellers attempting to establish the "rights" to deal in illegally exported material, trying as hard as they can to distance themselves from the unsavoury spectacle.

So, if Mr Pearlstein did not ever say what Mr Grant asserts, one wonders what the lawyer would have actually said "due diligence" consists of when buying antiquities and ancient artworks from foreign lands and whether it corresponds to the coineys' "two-minute" version?

Due Diligence at the Eleventh Hour?

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Lot# 45 Attica. Athens. Decadrachm, Estimate: US$875000

Attica. Athens. c. 465-460 BC. Decadrachm, 41.86g. (2h). Obv: Head of Athena right, wearing crested Attic helmet decorated with three olive leaves over spiral palmette and three-piece drop earrings. Rx: A - Θ - Ε Owl standing facing, wings spread; olive sprig at upper left; all within incuse square. Fischer-Bossert, unlisted dies. In itself, this coin is one of the finest of all Greek coins in existence. It is, according to Wolfgang Fischer-Bossert, one of three coins tied for the finest known, with only one of the other two being in private hands and the second in a museum, and it is one of the most significant issues ever struck by the Greeks. The head of Athena is struck in high relief. The smile produces an apple-cheek face, which blends with a slightly elliptical archaic eye. A fair amount of the crest is present and all of the pearls along the neck and under the helmet are complete, as well as full detail on all of the leaves, the helmet and the complete hairline and complete ear. The owl, which normally has large planchet defects in the chest, in this case is completely and fully struck, including the chest, the tail, and even the feet which are absolutely sharp. Only the very top of the A is off the flan and there is a tiny bit of corrosion in the right wing and an even smaller miniscule spot in the lower part of the left wing. Near Mint State. This coin was graded by NGC with a photo certificate, but not encapsulated. If the buyer requests the coin encapsulated, NGC will oblige. When NGC does register sets of ancient coins, the person owning this coin would no doubt have the number one register set. NGC Cert. #3443360-001. NGC Grade is Choice AU*, Fine Style, Strike 5/5, Surface 4/5.

The coin is proudly displayed on the cover of the catalogue of the US numismatic auction house that is selling this artefact:


But just recently (but not until after bidding had reached at least 700 000 dollars), this has appeared on the seller's website:

Lot# 45 Lot Withdrawn - This lot has been withdrawn from the auction. Recent new information has come to light which points to the possibility that the coin is not authentic. Further investigation and research is needed. Both Heritage and Gemini have the utmost responsibility to ensure the authenticity of every lot sold and our decision to withdraw this lot is in line with that policy. We regret this new information was only discovered at the eleventh hour and apologize for any inconvenience resulting from the withdrawal of this lot. We remain committed to only offering the very best coins, in which our clients can have full confidence when it comes to quality, authenticity and value.

They would have even more confidence if the coin could be traced back by a collecting history to the point when (and where) it left the ground, removing any uncertainty whether it was a genuine coin found in the ground, or one that had been knocked up in some workshop recently and passed off as one. As one collector has noted:

In the last few years a few mint examples of the Athenian Decadrachm have come to market. Interestingly, and alarmingly, they have all been mint examples and with no previously known die examples. And all have a lack of provenance. Red flags abound.[...] Be careful out there

( ...; otherwise you might end up buying looted stuff unawares". He might have added that last bit himself, but he did not).

So where did this coin "surface"? Why did the auctioneers not raise this question with the seller earlier, rather than waiting until the "eleventh hour"?

There are several mentions in the very long text about this coin in the seller's catalogue of Dr Wolfgang Fischer-Bossert's, The Athenian Decadrachm (NNM 168, New York 2008) and his 'More Athenian Decadrachms' (SNR 88 2009)" but not a single mention of this, the finest example above ground, being actually mentioned in those works... Did Fischer Bossert not know of its existence even though it had been (presumably) sitting in some "old collection" somewhere or other? The long text is about the "hubbing" method used to produce the dies of this coin "produced in an amazing way reminiscent of modern industrial procedures". Yes.

So, this person who was willing to pay upwards of 700 000 dollars to purchase this coin, did he do so only after extensive correspondence with the seller convinced him that the object really had been obtained licitly and had a perfectly good pedigree going back decades, or did he put forward the money regardless of where the object came from - only to be able to have "the number one register set" of ancient coins all to himself?
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Blanding Artefacts Sentence Cut

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Readers might remember the curious case of a US District Court judge (Clark Waddoups) who says looting of the archaeological resource in the United States of America is "justified", even if in contravention of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act. He was the one who sentenced the first two defendants in the Four Corners looting case, setting a precedent of lenience which makes a mockery of the whole procedure of investigation and apprehension of people engaged in looting archaeological sites for collectable items for personal entertainment and profit. The two had admitted to multiple felonies of excavating, possessing and selling prehistoric pottery and personal ornaments in contravention to US law. As part of the plea, Jeanne Redd had agreed to give up all of the artefacts in her collection, surrendering 112 boxes of artefacts, including reportedly human remains. As part of a plea bargain, she had pleaded guilty to seven felonies: two counts of violating the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, two counts of theft of government property and three counts of theft of American Indian tribal property. Each carried potential fines of $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison. Daughter Jericca Redd, admitted to three felonies for digging up a seed jar, a vase and a pottery vessel in 2008, on the Navajo reservation. They both got probation and a fine. According to the Deseret Times:

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups terminated the remaining 18 months and six months, respectively, of probation for [...] Jeanne Redd, and daughter Jerica Redd. Both had paid fines in full and had complied with all conditions of their probation, according to court records.

It is a good job then that Judge Waddoups did not require that the two restore the integrity of the archaeological record at every single point from which they dug thousands of artefacts a selection of which was in those 112 boxes. That of course is considerably more difficult than persuading jovial Judge Waddoups to let them off. In fact it is impossible. Through their deliberate, selfish and illegal activities these women have destroyed that evidence for ever. And the US legal system apparently does not really give a hoot, after all, its not really "US cultural heritage" (sic) is it, its just "injun pots" involved isn't it? No wonder collectors and dealers over there cannot be persuaded to respect other countries' heritage protection laws when it seems civil society over there apparently has so little respect for their own.
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The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum

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CHASING APHRODITE: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum by Los Angeles Times reporters Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino. Looks like it will be a good read. Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino are the two investigative reporters for the Los Angeles Times (Frammolino is no longer at the paper) who broke the story. The blurb says:

"...a dramatic tale of object lust, curatorial avarice, bribery and deceit at the Getty Museum. CHASING APHRODITE (May 24, 2011; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) details the knowing acquisition of stolen works of art at the Getty and other American museums. The ensuing international controversy prompted the departure of much of the Getty’s senior leadership and continues to make headlines around the world. [...], offering the kind of fly-on-the-wall account that most museums would do anything to avoid. Felch and Frammolino were able to access confidential documents and elicit remarkably frank interviews that provide a fascinating look at the rarely-seen inner workings of museums. Mining their confidential sources within the Getty, the authors reconstruct a narrative that moves the reader through an exotic and morally challenged world of high art and low impulses. Felch and Frammolino provide a unique account of how officials of the J. Paul Getty Museum grappled with the question of acquiring looted Greek and Roman antiquities over 30 years".

Vignette: yes I know its Daphne, not Aphrodite (Robert Le Fevre 1810).

What to do with a Collector's Piece Nobody Wants?

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Some antiquity collectors will add anything at all to their collections to increase the thrill. This includes desiccated human remains, I have discussed a number of cases of these, Egyptian mummies, Injun skulls, Peruvian corpses bought and sold on the antiquities market by collectors. This raises the question of the respectful manner in which to treat them when they are no longer "needed" in a personal artefact collection. One Idaho museum had to deal with this problem recently.

Police in eastern Idaho are investigating a mummified hand turned over by Museum of Idaho officials [...] [they] haven't been able to link the hand to any missing person cases. It's unclear how old the hand is, but [...] dating and DNA testing might offer clues. Museum Executive Director David Pennock said the museum likely received the hand within the last five years. "It's never been a part of our collection," he said. "Someone dropped it off." He said when the museum first received it workers called other museums for suggestions but got no help."It's just one big question mark," he said. "I think it was assumed that we could find the people who knew what to do with it. Obviously, nobody really wanted to deal with it." He said the hand was forgotten until several weeks ago when a worker found it in a small box. "Just poking through some shelves, there it was," Pennock said, noting it was then decided to turn it over to police. "We are absolutely uninterested in having it," Pennock said. "We just assumed they'd know what to do with it since we didn't know what to do with it".

Vignette: What motivates collectors to add mummified human remains to an "ancient art" collection? Anything deeper than cheap thrills?

Arrests in UK Underwater Artefact Hunting Case

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Two men are reportedly being questioned in connection with the seizure of artefacts from a home in Ramsgate, Kent (Jamie Stephens, 'Artefacts seized from Ramsgate home', KentOnline, 6th April 2011). They were seized by Kent and Essex Police working with English Heritage as part of a recently launched heritage crime initiative.

It is believed the artefacts were looted from the historic wreck of HMS London, a 64-gun warship blown up accidentally in peacetime, just a year after its launch, off Southend (Samuel Pepys wrote about the event in his diary at the time). The wreck was rediscovered in 2008 and the routes of shipping channels through the Estuary changed to prevent further damage and allow archaeologists to investigate.

A 44-year old man from Ramsgate and a 54-year old Dover man have been arrested in connection with the theft of items from a protected wreck in the Thames Estuary. Both men are being questioned at a police station in Kent.

Mark Harrison, Policing Advisor of English Heritage, said: "The police acted very swiftly and English Heritage archaeologists were also on site to assess the significance of the seized articles. "This kind of close partnership is important to tackling heritage crimes like these and we are very pleased that it is producing results".

The 150 artefacts found in the house include a 2-tonne cannon, a Trinity House bell estimated at £50,000. A sum of £7,000 in cash was also seized in the raid.

Vignette: You can visit wreck sites without looting.

So good, we're pillaging it twice....

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The ever-so secretive Central Searchers have a jolly good piece of new land in Catworth, Cambridgeshire, a very productive site. So on Saturday 9th AND Sunday 10th they will be holding a two-day artefact grabfest there from nine to five. The land apparently has some protected areas on it but they will be just searching (honest!) the non-protected wheaty bits. There's a hundred acres of it, and last weekend they searched it too. Then they pulled all sorts of archaeological finds out of the land, by the bucketload, so many that participants requested the organization to go back and plunder it again. The "site" (that's what it says on the website) produced a multitude of hammered coins, 3 seals of vesica form, two matrix seals and two seal rings, some Roman fibulae and coins and an Anglo-Saxon sceatta. It is reported that in that one day detecting alone, three or four hammered coins had been found each by a number of people. The site was well and truly plundered then. The coming weekend they will be looting the archaeological record in an adjacent 40 acre field too, in which they have already found a few Roman bronze coins and a hammered coin. The whole area around the village is covered in ridge and furrow and other earthwork sites. The field the artefact hunters will be plundering their way across apparently has "some nice crop marks", so that clinches it, there are archaeological features in the field. Perhaps nobody told them that a field survey plotting in detail distribution of finds of all types in the ploughsoil over the cropmarks can tell us a great deal about the sites and features they represent. All that information is immediately lost unrecorded when a crowd of greedy collectors selectively removes part of the record. Although a snack van is mentioned as being booked for the grabfest, no mention is made of the PAS being in attendance.

"Differnt" kind of Artefact Hunting Organization

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A metal detectorist "Mark Shacks" (real name?) has set up a new "metal detecting club" of Hidden History Discoverers, using as a logo the Christie's copyright images of the Crosby Garrett helmet no less. Anyone can join. Once joined they may view the permission page to see if there is anywhere in their area that they can search, they have written to councils all over the country and obtained permission for their members to artefact hunt on their land. If there is permission, as a member of Cumbrian Seekers who already have permission to detect there they can go on the land. As an example of one of these agreements, on RallyUK there is a sample letter to him from one of those local councils, one a very long way away from "Cumbria":

Hello Mark, Thank you for your enquiry. The best piece of land is the open ground at Rushbrooke Road, Stratford-upon-Avon, please see the attached copy of a map which shows the area you can use edged in bold. The Members of the Council require a fee of £20.00 per day for using Stratford District Land - this fee is currently under review and will probably be increased from 1 July 2011. We also require a Public Liability Insurance Certificate for £5m+. Should you decide to come we would send you an Application Booklet to complete and return, which also specifies certain conditions that you would need to comply with, which are as follows:
(1) You will reinstate any digging straight away and it mustn't be to a greater depth than 50cm.
(2) Any digging must not be left unatteded for any time.
(3) Please specify which days you want to detect on - we will not give a blanket consent.
(4) Please note that until we confirm the acceptance of your completed Application Booklet you do not have our permission to proceed.
I hope this helps, should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Regards [*********] Customer Access Officer (Administration)
Stratford on Avon District Council, [...]

A major problem here is that there is no Rushbrooke Road in the town, there is a Rushbrook Road, but it has no open land on it. It seems an odd mistake for the district Council's Customer Access Officer (and what on earth do THEY do?) to make.

One wonders whether Mark Shacks is contacting councils rather than farmers knowing that they might not have had any contact with the Portable Antiquities Scheme, so they do not know about reporting finds, nor the Code of Practice for Responsible Detecting so they are unaware of what might reasonably be required of people detecting on Council land. You will note that the helpful council official was more worried about what holes would be left, rather than what the holes are being dug into and what is taken out of them. Like whether any of them will ever get seen by a local museum.

What kind of "hidden history" is being sought on random pieces of council-owned land, and how is that "history" disseminated to the citizens of the region being emptied of the evidence of the local history the land contains?

Also, do councils have they the legal right to authorise people to remove publicly owned artefacts? Suppose for their five pounds membership fee and twenty to go a-digging on council land they found a two-million pound Stratford-Upon-Avon helmet? The residents of Stratford might have a few questions of their councillors...
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Vignette: "Hidden History" seekers, or just plain loot seekers?

Antiquities: "the only area of the art world that deals entirely with stolen goods"

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There is a well-written piece in the Huffington Post today by Daniel Grant about the antiquities trade ('Is It Possible to "Collect" Antiquities These Days?'). As the URL (.../daniel-grant/antiquities-collecting-due-diligence ... ) indicates the article is actually about transparency and the verification of collecting histories of items bought and sold on the antiquities market, a process covered by the term 'due diligence'. It is obvious to all those who are not actually artefact-hungry collectors or dealers that this process is vital to keeping illicitly-obtained artefacts where they belong, unsaleable on the shelves of dodgy dealers who bought artefacts of questionable and undocumented provenance no-questions-asked. This is particularly important if we accept that, as Grant begins his article:

Antiquities is "the only area of the art world that deals entirely with stolen goods." Perhaps that is an exaggeration -- certainly, many ancient objects were never looted from historic sites or even dug out of the ground -- but it is a bit of hyperbole that has a growing level of acceptance, to some degree with the public and overwhelmingly with archaeologists. Clemency Coggins, professor of archaeology and art history at Boston University, who made this comment, describes herself as a moderate on this issue because she believes that some antiquities can be legally owned. However, in her ideal world, antiquities dealers would "get out of the business".

Well, to be honest, however much I would like to believe that this catchy phrase is finding a "growing level of acceptance, to some degree with the public", I really do not. Not in the UK where "responsible" mining of what are now called "portable antiquities" on archaeological sites for their personal private collection is promoted as an acceptable, nay praiseworthy, manner of "engagement with the past". Not in America where twelve Congress men and a New York senator blithely side with those who want to see illegally exported antiquities sold on the US market with no administrative hindrance from the do-gooders, and suffer no political backlash for doing so (where are the bumper stickers?). For one reason or another, and despite public awareness of things like sites in Iraq being riddled with holes, and rows of headless buddhas in SE Asian temples, the average guy in the street does not connect this with the collectors of "ancient art" or the nice man that came to the school last year to show the kids what a Roman coin looks like and... let them hold one. I really do think however that all who care about preservation of information about the past which archaeological sites and monuments embody should work harder to propagate public awareness of these issues and lead to a growing level of acceptance in the general public that there is something very wrong with the way current policies treat the no-questions-asked market in dugup antiquities, and antiquities in general. After the comment about decent people getting out of the antiquities business, Grant continues:

One might assume that the trade in antiquities would be diminishing on its own. Almost every nation on the planet (the United States is a notable exception) has enacted laws to limit or prohibit the export of cultural property older than some specified number of years. With Mexico, it's pre-Columbian objects; with Pakistan, it's art and antiques dating before 1857. Presumably, no more comes out of these and other countries, leaving a dwindling supply of stuff that hasn't already been donated to museums.

However, there is always more stuff, and antiquities dealers abound, ready to sell it. Collecting antiquities, as critics charge and supporters acknowledge, may well encourage looting, smuggling and corruption, but is there a way to do it legally?

Ever since the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import and Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property -- and particularly since 1983, when the U.S. signed the treaty -- dealers and museum curators have been prompted to do "due diligence" in investigating whether objects brought to their attention have a clear and legal ownership or something more murky. What constitutes due diligence is not fully agreed upon, even by people who don't believe the antiquities trade should be outlawed.

Surely that should be the other way around, people who are engaged in the trade suggest its should be a mere "two minute" formality (often no more than an unspoken "do you trust me? Yes, I trust you, now show me what you're offering"). That is all many of them are willing to do.

It is indeed true that the US is a very notable exception to the general rule about the export of cultural property. Obviously US law sees the US has nothing at all in the nature of a national culture that it would be beneficial to the nation if it was kept in the USA (I find that a bit sad). In the same way therefore many Americans (dealers and collectors in particular who have a personal interest in getting their hands on it) criticise other nations who have and want to keep some for their own citizens, present and future, to enjoy and draw inspiration from. They call them "cultural property nationalists', "retentionists" and generally represent having a material interest in an ancient culture as a bad thing (unless you are of course a cosmopolitan American collector with dollars and ['Constitutional']collectors' "rights" - in which case you have an automatic "right" to buy the stuff whether or not the source country approves of the way you do it).

Photo: Clemency Coggins, Boston.

Huffington Post on the Cleveland Apollo

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Daniel Grant's article in the Huffington Post, discussed above, centres on a discussion of the Cleveland Apollo and it worth looking at what he says as a reminder about the issues surrounding this object:

The due diligence of the Cleveland Museum of Art was brought into question by a variety of archaeologists around the U.S., because of a number of ancient Greek and Roman antiquities in its collection. Its 2004 acquisition of a bronze Greco-Roman (there is debate over the actual date and origin) statue of Apollo was intended to be included in a current Louvre exhibition of the work of sculptor Praxiteles, but the Greek government threatened to withhold all loans to the French museum if this particular work was included.

The controversy stems from the fact that there are wide gaps in the sculpture's recent history of ownership and that it was purchased from Phoenix Ancient Arts gallery in Geneva, Switzerland, one of whose owners (Ali Aboutaam) had been convicted in absentia by an Egyptian court for antiquities smuggling (sentencing him to 15 years in prison). The very same day the museum publicly announced its purchase, the other gallery owner (Hicham Aboutaam, Ali's brother) also pleaded guilty in a U.S. District Court to falsifying a customs document for an ancient silver vessel. (A lawyer for Hicham Aboutaam claimed the dealer "inadvertently broke a law by making a mistake filling out a form.") Catherine Reed, director of the Cleveland Museum at the time, noted that Aboutaam's legal difficulties were "coincidental, rather than pertinent" to the authenticity and legality of the purchase of the Apollo.

There is no documentation of where the statue came from originally or when it came into the collection of the German Ernst-Ulrich Walter, although he swore in a written affidavit that it had been on his family's estate since at least the 1930s. In 1994, Walter claimed he sold the piece to a Dutch dealer, whose name he did not recall, and eight years later the Apollo was in the hands of the Aboutaam brothers. "We'd love to know more" about the period 1994-2002, Reed said, adding, "We have clear title."

According to Ricardo Elia, associate professor of archaeology at Boston University, due diligence isn't just "a pro forma nicety" but an integral part of scholarship, which he claimed was lacking in the Cleveland Museum's acquisition of the Apollo. "When you don't know where the piece came from and when it left the country, how do you know it's authentic?" he said. "The Cleveland piece may be Greek or Roman or a 19th century copy. Why spend millions of dollars on something so uncertain?" He added that the museum should have walked away from the Apollo in the same way that someone walking down the street should turn away from a sidewalk hawker holding out what he claims is a Rolex wristwatch.

Indeed, but not because it might be a fake, but because it might not.

Vignette: The controversial statue acquired by Cleveland.

The Money Equation

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The money which people are prepared to pay out no-questions-asked to purchase antiquities is clearly the motor which drives looters out there to go and dig for something they can make money from. The fuss made by the media every time somebody makes a financially rewarding Treasure find in Britain with a metal detector seems, according to some observers, to be leading to an increase in the number of people buying metal detectors in Britain and using them to find Treasure. In the same way, knowledge that there are dealers who will pay sums of money for dug up antiquities encourages people to go out onto a local archaeological site and "try their luck". Even if digging on archaeological sites and taking and buying and selling artefacts from them is illegal. Collectors and dealers bend over backwards to deny the equation:

Ma = Lg
where

Ma is people paying money from antiquities and
Lg is people going out to look for them to make money
Market = Looting

It really seems however quite an obvious equation, which is why responsible people buying antiquities should avoid purchasing items in which licit origin is not 100% reliably documented by a responsible seller.

Rocks from Space and the Antiquity Trade

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The New York Times (April 4th 2011) has an interesting article by William J. Broad on "Black-Market Trinkets From Space" which is about meteorite collection. Here we see the same conflict as in "portable antiquities" between collectors and dealers and those that want to use this finite resource for their research.

The market for meteorites has blossomed in the past two decades, largely encouraged by the ease of selling them widely brought about by the Internet (another parallel with so-called 'minor antiquities"). The problem is that, again like archaeological artefacts, many countries place export restrictions on certain types of geological specimen (among them meteorites). While some traders deal in legitimate exports, many do not bother about such things as export licences:

“It’s a black market,” said Ralph P. Harvey, a geologist at Case Western Reserve University who directs the federal search for meteorites in Antarctica. “It’s as organized as any drug trade and just as illegal. The rampant looting of meteorite sites and skyrocketing prices for the fragments, he said, “dramatically reduce who can get samples to do the research.”

The article discusses the discovery in February 2009 by Italian mineralogist Vincenzo de Michele and Mario Di Martino (Italian National Institute for Astrophysics in Turin) of a rich and historically significant meteorite crater (the Gebel Kamil crater), in southern Egypt, just north of the Sudanese border and the effect the voracious appetite for new fragments has had on their research.

Just as scientists appeared to be on the cusp of decrypting the evidence to solve an ancient puzzle, looters plundered the desolate site [...] a few months later, in June, meteorites from the crater were for sale at a show in Ensisheim, France. [...] scavengers have disseminated them widely: on Star-bits.com, one of many sites that sell a variety of meteorites, the 10 fragments with rich patinas are said to be from Gebel Kamil. The costliest of the 10 — a two-pound rock, just large enough to cover the fingers of a man’s hand — is priced at $1,600. Eric Olson of Star-bits defended the marketing as legitimate and beyond Egyptian law. “I didn’t buy them from the Egyptians,” he said in an interview. “I bought them second- and thirdhand.” The scientists say they have relatively few samples compared with the booming illicit sales. “We have at our disposal a very limited number of specimens to study and exhibit,” said Dr. Di Martino. He and other members of the Gebel Kamil crater discovery team, he added, don’t have the money to buy them on the flourishing black market. [...] Dr. Di Martino said it was futile to try to save its otherworldly riches from the looters. “Considering the social, political and geographic situation there,” he said of the remote corner of southwestern Egypt, “it will be completely useless to protect the area” — unless the authorities put in “a permanent garrison of marines and/or a minefield.”

The market for "minor artefacts" took off in Europe and US with the production of portable metal detectors for hobby use in the 1970s, this utterly changed the market, and further changes came with the rise of internet trading in the first half of the 1990s. The US and European coin market also received a huge and transforming boost by the flood of archaeological finds which appeared on the market from 1990 onwards coming from the looting of archaeological sites on an industrial scale (in some cases using earthmoving machinery) in the Balkans and southeastern Europe (Bulgaria being especially badly affected). This is not a exceptional event, the same thing happened in meteorite collecting:

The black market has exploded in size mainly because of a rush of new meteorites arriving from North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Starting in the late 1980s and 1990s, explorers and nomads discovered that dark-colored meteorites stood out against flat, featureless areas covered by sand and small pebbles. And dry desert air helped preserve the rocks from space. The pace of collecting began to soar after explorers scrutinizing the sands of Libya discovered a number of meteorites from the Moon and Mars. These rare types formed during cosmic smashups, eventually fell to Earth and fetched high prices.

The point about the new African and Arabian peninsula finds is that they appeared on the market in bulk, meaning that pieces of some of them could be bought for a few dollars apiece. It became possible for somebody to build up a collection of formerly rare space-rocks for a moderate expenditure, no more than you'd pay on an average collection of coins or postage stamps, thus with the ability to entice new members into the collecting world. Like the "minor antiquities" which now form the basis of the current antiquities market they facilitate the cash-flow process for the dealers specialising in such material, they are the bread-and-butter of the trade. The problem is of course that the bulk appearance of the market of fragments from some previously preserved 'strewfield' (the name for the pattern of fragments of the fall on the ground - studied it can tell us much about the angle, speed and fragmentation patterns of the event) meant bulk stripping of sites where these items had lain preserved in situ for millennia. Again another parallel with archaeology, the sale of bulk finds ("minor items") sold for "a few dollars" destroys a finite resource for ever. Not all meteorite collectors are as impervious to the arguments of preservationists as antiquity collectors:

One buyer expressed remorse after reading about scientific angst over the thriving market. “I’m very ashamed,” the buyer wrote on a blog. “I’m surely a part of the problem.” Still, many collectors defend the hobby as advantageous for scientists, saying the market is producing many discoveries and creating many opportunities. Amateurs often turn to experts for analysis and authentication and, in return, share the extraterrestrial haul. “The scientists do not have time to go hunt for their own meteorites, so somebody has to do it for them,” said Anne M. Black, president of the collectors association. “It’s common sense.”

And like the British archaeologists who praise and partner artefact hunters and collectors, in meteorology we see the same phenomenon - for the same reasons.

Some scientists applaud the new market. “I see it as a good thing on balance,” said Carl B. Agee, director of the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico. “It’s beneficial mainly because of the huge diversity of meteorites not previously known about and not accessible.”

Again though, the collecting of the fragments without any recording of the pattern of their scattering (and like many of the NW African ones where they fell at all) hinders the study of how and when these items entered Earth's atmosphere, and the processes acting on them as they did. Again, all this contextual information is totally lost in most cases when the fragments have been collected by amateur and commercial hunters, rather than as a piece of planned research according to a defined methodology.

The parallels for archaeology are very close indeed. There is however one very significant difference: the collecting of meteorites is all about provenance (the findspot on earth) and collecting history (how that provenance is established and can be verified by knowing precisely through whose hands the specimens have passed). Antiquity dealers and collectors take note.

Vignette: LOOTED A 60-gram fragment of the Gebel Kamil meteorite.

Who Said That?

"lets remember that detecting carried out responsibility actually enhances. Many new sites have been located and archaeologists called in to continue the work. So.. the more this happens the better "

PAS has never said that (I hope!).
The initiators of PAS never said that.
The government has never said that. Well, not yet anyway.
So who said that?

The same person who, missing the point entirely, said a line below:

Our shared enemy is the nighthawk or should I say the site burglar.. a real thief of our heritage.

Hmmm. I think the enemy here is the reliance of supporters of the unsatisfactory status quo (on artefact hunting and collecting in Britain) on myth and stereotypical thinking, instead of actually asking searching questions about their beliefs.

The person who said both of these things is a well-known British archaeologist and he said it on a well-known British archaeological forum, and none of the other British archaeologists there raised a peep of protest.

[Long gone are the days when I would have followed that statement with an exclamation mark].

The "Rights" that are Relegated to Insignificance

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Coin dealer Wayne Sayles moans now about the US Treasury for not supporting what he calls "collectors' rights" (Relegated to Insignificance, 3 April 2011). Let us be clear that what he sees as an attack on those "rights" is a measure introduced which restricts ancient artefacts (including coins) being imported from Italy into the United States to those which have been legally exported. Is "cultural property internationalist" coin dealer Sayles really campaigning for the "right" to buy illegally exported artefacts?

Another little gem of information he let slip yesterday was that somebody told him that in considering the 2011 renewal of the MOU, the President's Cultural Property Advisory Committee actually voted against considering dugup coins as archaeological material. One wonders why they would do such a thing, and how it is that information like this is leaked (Bradley Manning, move over, you might be getting a cell-mate soon if much more of this sort of thing goes on in US government committee circles). Is this new leak anything to do with Robert Korver's recent resignation from the Committee?

Vignette: exactly what "rights" does this dealer claim to have? The right to buy artefacts illegally exported from other countries? Why DO so many antiquity dealers in the US oppose so vehemently the legislation which only really affects those attempting to obtain illegally exported artefacts and other cultural property from other countries?

"Lead Codices" Saga continues: the Jordanian Response

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On Sunday, the Jordanian government announced that it was beginning moves to retrieve dozens of artefacts believed to have been stolen from sites in north Jordan and smuggled to Israel an Israeli merchant.

"The Jordanian government has obtained data and documents from a British expert which prove that an Israeli merchant has illegally smuggled important artefacts from northern Jordan to Israel,” Director of the Antiquities Department Ziyad Saad told a press conference. He said that the stolen antiquities included 70 lead codices, scrolls and copper plates, all of them date back to the early Christian era of the 1st century A.C. The artifacts are believed to have been stolen from Jordan between 2005 and 2007, officials said.

The identity of the "British expert" was not revealed. Thus the sorry saga of the so-called "Lead codices" which have been in the news recently gets even more complicated. The current owner Hassan Saida, an illiterate Israeli Bedouin truck company owner from the northern Israeli village of Um-al-Ghanam (now) claims that the artefacts were originally found about five years ago in a cave in the village of Saham in Jordan, close to where Israel, Jordan and Syria’s Golan Heights converge and near to the site at Umm Qais (ancient Gadara/ Antiochia Semiramis), a popular tourist destination. Allegedly

a flash flood scoured away the dusty mountain soil to reveal what looked like a large capstone. When this was levered aside, a cave was discovered with a large number of small niches set into the walls. Each of these niches contained a booklet. There were also other objects, including some metal plates and rolled lead scrolls.

So, a story like many which account for the appearance of decontextualised artefacts on the global antiquities market. Accidental discovery not reported to the authorities, objects smuggled out of the country, various attempts to authenticate them and market them. A writer David Ellington has got involved in attempting to prove their authenticity as ancient objects. His efforts are hindered by the appearance of the codices themselves. Already in March, as news was breaking about what the press was hailing as a momentous discovery, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), dismissed the books as a forgery and as being a "mixture of incompatible periods and styles … without any connection or logic. Such forged motifs can be found in their thousands in the antiquities markets of Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East". So they are, many of the images that can be seen on the photos released to date look as if they are drawn from coins and pictures in books of antiquities (including a garbled legend obviously miscopied from the tombstone of a certain Abgar [note the name] in Amman Museum).

Photo: a comedy codex (Yahoo news)


Photo: Some of the imagery on a copper plate apparently part of the cache being studied by David Elkington: (Elkington via Palaeojudaica)

Of course none of these doubts would exist if the objects had been reported to the authorities upon discovery as Jordanian law requires and the alleged findspot immediately examined by archaeologists, and the objects subjected to proper study. Instead they were smuggled out of the country and now apparently are on the market with various scholar being approached to offer opinions on selected aspects of the objects. Those that do so obviously have no scruples about dealing with smuggled antiquities.

According to the Telegraph, Saida's Bedouin business partner:

met a villager in Jordan who said he had some ancient artefacts to sell. The business partner was apparently shown two very small metal books. He brought them back over the border to Israel and Saida became entranced by them, coming to believe they had magical properties and that it was his fate to collect as many as he could. The arid, mountainous area where they were found is both militarily sensitive and agriculturally poor. The local people have for generations supplemented their income by hoarding and selling archeological artefacts found in caves. More of the booklets were clandestinely smuggled across the border by drivers working for Saida – the smaller ones were typically worn openly as charms hanging from chains around the drivers’ necks, the larger concealed behind car and lorry dashboards. In order to finance the purchase of booklets from the Jordanians who had initially discovered them, Saida allegedly went into partnership with a number of other people – including his lawyer from Haifa, Israel. [...] The artefacts have been seen by multi-millionaire collectors of antiquities in both Israel and Europe – and Saida has been offered tens of millions of pounds for just a few of them, but has declined to sell any.

when David Ellington's book comes out maybe Saida (photo right from Daily Mail) was planning on changing his mind.

If we follow the recent Telegraph and Mail stories, we may attempt a reconstruction of events. Is it the case that a truck driver working for Saida saw a business opportunity when approached by a dodgy dealer in Jordan who proffered what he took to be ancient artefacts with the story about them being discovered in a cave (the cave somebody showed a journalist and is pictured in a Daily Mail photo looks to be artificial, perhaps a tomb) and there being more available for purchase? Did he then take them across the border where his employer agreed that there was an opportunity to make money from 'liberating' what they took to be genuine artefacts from getting into the hands of Jordanian archaeologists? Is it the case therefore that over a period of time these objects were bought from the Jordanian - unaware that the man was in fact peddling fake artefacts recently made in Jordan probably with an eye to the tourist market? Were they then smuggled piecemeal across the border in the normal manner in which small illicitly obtained ancient artefacts are removed from their country - either hidden about the person of the smuggler, or hidden away in a place hard for customs and border officials to locate and search? Then the new owner would presumably have started looking about for a buyer, Sotheby's approached in 2007 was reportedly not interested due to the problems of the origins and nature of the objects and the owner's title to them. Then writer David Ellington became interested and after a while there was an initial flurry of international interest. Then when the nature of the objects became clear, questions started to be raised. Meanwhile is it not the case that a Jordanian artefact faker is counting the money he got from two Israeli truckers, and Mr Saida is going to find himself with some unsaleable lead scrap on his hands? If these things had been bought from a "reputable dealer", at least the buyer could sue for his money back when the fraud came to light.

The only people who have not yet had a chance to examine this material thoroughly are precisely the people who should have been the first, the Jordanians on whose territory these objects were allegedly found. They are now forced to attempt to get full access to them by legal means, which would be difficult enough if they were real, I suspect there could be serious legal problems when the verdict is out that they are not necessarily so, and so in point of fact no offence would necessarily have been committed in moving them across a border. I hope if they have been recently smuggled out of Jordan, the Jordanians do get the artefacts back. I hope they publish photos of them all and the results of the examination which I am confident will show they are a modern pastiche and act as a warning to all who try to pull a fast one and attempt to invest in illicit antiquities. (Let Mr Ellington go ahead by all means and publish his reasons for deducing they are not, though bearing in mind that he is describing what seem likely to be illicitly obtained artefacts). Let the Jordanians question the truck driver(s) mentioned by the Telegraph, who reportedly illegally failed to declare what he had bought as dug-up antiquities, and let everybody learn that the no-questions-asked buying and selling and transporting of dugup artefacts across international borders carries a multitude of risks of many types, of which falsification of history is one.

See:
Rogue Classicism (David Meadows): Lead Codices Silliness (March 30th 2011) and Lead Codices – Once More into the ‘Reach’ (April 3rd 2011)

Palaeojudaica (Jim Davila): Hebrew-inscribed-metal-codices watch, a fake (April 1st 2011), quoting a letter by Peter Thonemann.

Olga Craig: 'Could this couple's Bible 'codices' tell the true story of Christ's life?', Telegraph 3rd April 2011.

Nick Pryer, 'Is this the first ever portrait of Jesus? The incredible story of 70 ancient books hidden in a cave for nearly 2,000 years', Daily Mail 3rd April 2011.

Abdul Jalil Mustafa, 'Jordan in bid to regain artifacts stolen by Israeli merchant', Arab News Apr 3, 2011.

ADDENDUM:
See now Tom Verenna, 'New Roundup on Lead Codices and Additional Information', April 3, 2011,

Robert Deutsch: "A Follow up by Robert Deutsch on the ‘Lead Codices’" on the 'Zwinglius Redivivus' blog, 5 April 2011

and Peter Thonemann, "The Messiah codex decoded", Times Literary Supplement, 6 April 2011.


Vignette at top:Ziad al-Saad at an April 3 conference about the bid to retrieve the artefacts (India Times).

Archaeology, the PAS and Treasure TV

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You heard it here first folks. Now it is in the newspapers: Jonathan Owen, 'Anger as TV show endorses metal-detecting 'plunderers'; Archaeologists criticise British Museum for opening archive to new series', Independent on Sunday, Sunday, 3 April 2011.

Diana Friendship-Taylor, the chair of Rescue, otherwise known as the British Archaeological Trust, said: "We are, frankly, astonished, that the British Museum is prepared to lend its considerable weight to the furtherance of a method of historical inquiry which belongs in the distant past, and which has as much relevance to the practice of modern archaeology as the use of the cranial trepannation has to modern medicine. The apparent endorsement of this destructive activity by a body such as the British Museum will do nothing to lessen its impact on our buried archaeological heritage." [...] While metal-detector enthusiasts have unearthed some of Britain's most valuable historical discoveries, their actions can create "collateral damage" to the sites they plunder, preventing serious archaeologists from studying artefacts in situ...

highlighting the difference it seems between serious archaeologists and frivolous ones (the ones who care about protecting sites in situ from damage and those who shrug their shoulders and say: "come, show us the goodies"). Nice to see the P-word again in a British news story about "UK MD".

The British Museum last night dismissed concerns about the TV series. "The museum has made it clear that its co-operation is dependent on the issues involved in the discovery of objects by the public – especially metal detectorists – being dealt with in a responsible way," it said.

Which means what, precisely? "Don't-do-it"-responsible? Or "show-us-the-goodies-you-take"-responsible? There is a huge difference when we are talking about ARCHAEOLOGICAL (and not goodie-fondling) outreach. RESCUE apparently has "also questioned the effectiveness of the British Museum's Portable Antiquities Scheme,[...]. Rescue claims it does little to stop artefacts vanishing into private collections or being sold on the internet". Good for RESCUE. Let's add the word "most" there, and would be true, but of course that's not the point RESCUE should be depicted as making (who knows what they actually said to the news?), the point is not so much what happens to the already decontextualised artefacts, its the trashing of the sites and assemblages they come from which is the most important thing. This is about conservation of archaeological information in the richness of its variety and complexity and not just what happens to a bunch of crusty coins ripped out of a hole in the ground. That the "Independent's" journalist does not get this is also of course the fault of the PAS who for well over a decade have been outreaching to the public, and passing on loads and loads of press releases to the media. Somehow this message does not seem to have emerged from them, does it? And if the press does not get the message, what hope is there that their readers will be any the better informed?

I also wonder whether the RESCUE spokesperson really said that she believes "metal detecting" is an outdated "method of historical inquiry", since of course it is nothing of the kind. It is artefact collecting, pure and simple, its no more a method of historical enquiry as collecting phonecards or postcards and stamps with pictures of historical sites on them.

Archaeology, the Press and the Treasure Hunter

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A comment was posted below the article in the Independent discussed above by one "Alan" a metal detectorist (and I bet I know which one, hi, Tet) moans:

Why do people (and the press) always have to concentrate on the negative side of the hobby ? Yes there are villains armed with metal detectors, but there have also been 691,566 items recorded on the PAS database, by responsible detectorists. Items which would otherwise be still in the ground".

Well, this is entirely the problem isn't it? First of all any longterm contact with the British press coverage of "metal detecting" will show it is currently FAR from balanced, but I would argue the imbalance is the other way. We hear much more from the newspapers of the fluffy-bunny-partnership brand of talk about the issues surrounding portable antiquity mining and collecting (views deriving almost entirely from the stable of the PAS) and very little is said about the ethos of treating archaeological record as a source of collectables for private entertainment and profit. There is no balance whatsoever there, the general public is kept very much in the dark about the concerns many people have about current policies. Good for RESCUE for daring to say what they think. Let's see more of this open debate of these issues in the press. Secondly, is it the "negative side" of the hobby to discuss what is suitable treatment of the topic of artefact hunting for the public media? I can think of many more negative aspects of the hobby than using it to present archaeology as a big hunt for gold and silver for big cash rewards.

Thirdly we see the old deceit that the "only" problem with "metal detecting" is that some people do it illegally. That of course is not at all the main problem with mining archaeological assemblages and sites for collectables. This is a smokescreen argument of no importance for the wider debate. But again, this is precisely the way the debate is presented by the British press, who do not know any better because that basically is the creed on the basis of which the PAS functions.

One has to laugh when you see a "responsible detectorist" say that if we did not have metal detecting, all those items would still be in the ground. Well, that's like saying all those elephants, seals and whales would still be alive in their natural habitat if we did not have poaching and culls. The idea of preservation of the archaeological record in Britain, as in Iraq, Egypt, Belize and just about anywhere in the world except in an artefact hunter's head actually does consist on the various elements of archaeological assemblages and sites remaining in the ground. Again we see the tyranny of the object-centric view, to which the myth of plough and agrochemical damage, or scrap metal hunting locals, or undersea disturbances is added by the treasure hunter as some kind of justification for the finds (funnily enough, just the ones they want to collect) needing to be 'rescued" and "given a good home".

Those "691,566 items recorded on the PAS database" alone represent 691,566 holes in the archaeological record somewhere. But on the same sites, many more holes were dug to retrieve contemporary metal artefacts, including metal objects which are archaeological artefacts, metalworking waste, strip fragments, nails, studs, totally illegible coins etc etc which are removed from their context and not "recorded on the PAS database" because they are not kept by the collector who is only interested in adding objects (not shapeless, broken old tat) to their collection.

Collecting is collecting, proper investigation of the contents of an archaeological site is another thing entirely. Its what archaeologists do. It is what distinguishes archaeology from geegaw collection. This of course is a distinction supporters of the PAS simply do not admit (which perhaps tells you something about supporters of the PAS maybe?).

I'd say that on most of the metal-containing sites I have worked on, about 80% of the metal bits at least from archaeological deposits are the kind of stuff that you will not find in collectors' collections, you will not find on the PAS or UKDFD databases. So 691566 items that were shown to the PAS represents a vastly greater number of holes in the archaeological record (and no, I am not talking about cartridge cases and beer can ring pulls).

But then even when we look at the recordable minimum of an assemblage, by no means is it being shown to the PAS. The Heritage Action counter is of course summarily dismissed by artefact hunter and PAS alike (how could it not be if they are to remain true to their creed?). Nevertheless I have never seen any attempt to produce a rival model, or justify rejecting the HA one, and I really can see no reason to question it, indeed I am beginning to think it is a serious underestimate.

The HA counter tells us that instead of Alan's 691 566 objects in the PAS database for it to have been a 100% success, there should now be something like 4,154,816 recordable items there. So it's been about sixteen percent successful. That is a pretty expensive 84% failure. Not only is the PAS "not stopping" people deliberately digging stuff up, not only is it not stopping "artefacts vanishing into private collections or being sold on the internet", if the HA model is correct, it has not actually been even learning about the existence and then disappearance of five sixths of them.

Basically, I think if we are to look more deeply into these issues, it really is pretty difficult not to have a somewhat negative approach to the phenomenon of the plundering of the British archaeological record for collectables for personal entertainment and profit and the rather pathetic policy response to the issues which England has adopted.

Archaeologists, they are not all "Angry"

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I discussed an article ('Anger as TV show endorses metal-detecting 'plunderers'; Archaeologists criticise British Museum for opening archive to new series') in the Independent above. Well, not all archaeologists see any problem in this. David ("Badger") Connolly up north of the border thinks its all a conspiracy.

People may remember the earlier thread... here. Well.. the wonder is... who is doing what to whom... why and how.

That thread begins:

Sounds like a spoof to me.. They are always trying to wind up Paul Barford.

So Mr Connolly really still thinks the document I saw was a spoof set up by the PAS to entrap me? That seems a rather odd thing to believe of the Portable Antiquities Scheme... As far as I know (though I suggested he should), Connolly made no attempt to see the document to which I referred in my post in order to see if he still thought it a "spoof". Those who have seen it do not believe it was a spoof.

Then in the comments page under the original article somebody else shyly signing themselves as "An_archaeologist" comments: "Responsible metal detecting, with properly recorded find locations [...] and with the permission of the landowner, is fine".

Hmmm.

Is it? What about responsible tell-digging in Iraq if you locate where the hole you are digging is with GPS and ask the local sheikh? Responsible Buddha statue decapitation in Cambodia? Responsible shabti-retrieval in the fields of Abusir, Egypt? Responsible pot-digging in Blanding USA? Is NOT GPS ing where the stuff comes from and NOT asking the landowner really the only problem with the treatment of archaeological sites as "mines" for collectables an_archaeologist can see? Where is the difference between looting sites for collectables in Britain and anywhere else? Is the British archaeological record in any way which the rest of us cannot see more impervious to damage by artefact hunting and collecting than that elsewhere? Surely the difference is only in name, call it looting and its bad and foreign, call it "metal detecting" and its British and "fine"?

Presumably then an_archaeologist who thinks artefact hunting is fine will agree that we could solve the looting problem in Egypt tomorrow, liberalise the laws about artefact hunting to match those in the UK and set up a voluntary reporting scheme a la PAS and call the activity something else and problem solved ! No need to petition the Egyptian government to protect the sites, let them just ask the Brits how to deal with the problem.

Ridiculous. No wonder "an_archaeologist" did not want to use their real name.

Why I do not Have Advertisements on this Blog

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I am told continually by Google Blogger that I can "earn money" or Brownie points or something if I allowed advertising here. There is a very good reason why I do not, their idea of suitable advertising would include antiquity dealers and metal detector suppliers, as has just appeared on the online version of the Independent on Sunday article about the PAS-Treasure show.

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