Egyptian Museum "Kerfuffle"

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Kate Phizackerley briefly mentions the kerfuffle caused by complaints emerging from the otherwise silent Egyptian Museum staff in Cairo that it is "unfair" to read MSAA press releases with a critical eye (Bloggers and Egyptology) May 04, 2011. She is referring to the comments of Yasmin el-Shazly on my blogging about my attempts to understand what has been happening to the antiquities from the Museum collections (here and here). Phizackerly notes:

MSAA officials are clearly unused to investigative journalism and independent blogging. Until recently, bloggers who criticise the Government have been arrested in Egypt. Indeed, the Military Council has continued the practice. [...] So its really not surprising that MSAA officials are unused to people critically examining press releases and announcements and it is obvious they find the experience uncomfortable. [...] I suspect as Egyptian media become more inquisitive that MSAA officials will realise that they are not, in fact, being treated unfairly. I doubt they will grow to like people checking press releases for consistency - few organisations do - but maybe they will understand that the process is a fundamental part of democracy.

Obviously museums should be fully accountable to the public for whom they claim to be curating cultural property. Here, one gets the feeling that nobody sees any need to account for the many discrepancies and questions in the official reports of what has been happening in the Egyptian Museum. I hope there is an official enquiry when a new government is brought in into both the events of 28th January as well as subsequent actions taken by the bodies concerned and responsible dissemination of information and that a full report is prepared and published. What is there to hide?

[The comment by Tim on Kate's blog is of interest, though unlike him, I am not so sure it is true that the "shield" of dictatorship has been lifted at all in the area we are discussing].

514 archaeological pieces seized from home of a collector

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In Spain in an operation code-named "Professor" the National Police in Jaén seized a total of 514 pieces of art and archaeological interest in the town of Úbeda, in the home of a 63-year old collector who has been charged with the offence of receiving stolen property and offences against property. Among the items seized are coins, vases, lamps, sculptures and urns, one of them (an ossuary it seems) with human bones inside, columns, capitals, and other Iberian and Roman items. At present, experts are examining and cataloguing the pieces, while the Police investigation continues to try to ascertain the provenance of objects which seem to have come from the looting of archaeological sites.

The man also had in his possession a sculpture stolen from a public building in Úbeda.

Amelia Brenes, 'Recuperadas 514 piezas arqueológicas expoliadas en casa de un coleccionista', El Mundo, 5/5/11

Vignette: home museum

Habib el-Adli sentenced

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Former Egyptian interior minister Habib el-Adli has been sentenced by an Egyptian court to 12 years in prison and a fine of about $4 million, ending the first of a series of corruption trials of top figures of the Mubarak regime.

Mr. Adli, 73, was arguably the most powerful cabinet minister under Mr. Mubarak. He personified his government’s repressive tactics, presiding for 14 years over an internal security force of 400,000, about the size of the Egyptian Army. It focused exclusively on suppressing dissent and unrest, specializing in detention and torture without trial. Those who sought to apply the teachings of Islam to political life often fell under especially harsh treatment, regardless of whether their tools were violence or the ballot box. During the 18 days of protests that culminated in Mr. Mubarak’s resignation, Mr. Adli oversaw the brutal attacks that sought to drive peaceful demonstrators from the streets and left about 800 dead. And when the security forces failed to break the protests, he was widely blamed for the sudden disappearance of all police officers from the streets, making way for a wave of looting before neighborhood men organized to restore security.

This was the background of the looting of both the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the unguarded sites elsewhere in Egypt. If the vandalism in the Museum was indeed (as many now suspect) carried out under the orders of somebody, it would be to El-Adly and those under him that we should look. He has not however been accused of any connection with the looting of cultural property. Mr. Adli now awaits the conclusion of a second trial on charges of overseeing the killing of civilians by security forces during the January 25th revolt.

David Kirkpatrick, 'Once-Feared Egyptian Official Sentenced to 12 Years and Heavily Fined', New York Times May 5, 2011.
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What happened to the metal codices?

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The Christian Science Monitor has an article by Taylor Luck, ('What happened to the metal codices that promised Christian revelations?', May 5, 2011). This warns

"the tiny books have stirred debate over the Christian 'secrets' they could contain and who can sell them. Now, they may never be decoded".

Not one word in the article that there may not be anything there to be 'decoded' because many scholars have concluded they are silly fakes. The problems, apparently, are being caused by that intransigent source country from which, by all accounts, these objects were taken (illegally if they are genuine antiquities). The very idea ! How can a country ask that illegally exported items are returned? What spoilsports! Now:

the looming legal battle may prevent the books from ever reaching a museum. With mounting pressure from the Jordanian government and the media exposure generated by the claims, Elkington and Mr. Saad say Saeda is looking to make a quick and easy sale. "If these books are sold to private collectors, the world will never see them," says Elkington.

Make a quick and easy sale of what? Fake antiquities sold to a lorry driver by Jordanian con-man, or illegally exported antiquities? It seems to me neither is particularly saleable, well - not at least without kicking up a bit of media hype...

I suppose also they have a greater value as "mysterious books yet to be decoded" than "obvious fakes once you start to look at them" which I think may explain why the owner has reportedly stopped showing them around.

UPDATE: Please see David Gill's comment below and follow the link for some useful discussion of the objects.

Vignette: Israeli transport company and lead codices owner Hassan Saeda wants (you) to believe the objects are authentic antiquities.

My Love letter from UK Detectorist

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I got this the other day from Mr Two Sheds Lincoln on Canvey Island, its about my earlier text on the use of the handheld pinpointer in artefact hunting:

So not having to dig a bigger hole to locate the item is not saving time? Of course if the hole was not deep and narrow - and thus dark inside, the person recovering the item would have a better chance of judging its context and associations - rather difficult in the dark by the light of an LED.

Removing the soil around a target gently and systematically - rather than jumping straight to the spot to hoik something out - allows closer observation of its situation and possible associations.

Surely to avoid damage to the object, the best thing is to remove a larger piece of soil around it and gently reduce it from the outside than try to lever something from the side of a hole. You know, that "best practice" everybody used to talk about.

So Mr Lincoln, what is the explanation of metal detectors that have back-lighting to the control panel? For use in very deep narrow holes?

Despite this attempt to persuade us otherwise, it still seems to me that people going out with these probes are fixated on the idea of getting out the metal target as quickly as possible to get on to the next one.
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UK Metal Detectorist Claims Local Romans were 'Birthers'

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We hear so much about the connoisseurship of collectors of dugup bric-a-brac and how their study of the items they collect enlarges our knowledge of the past. Wonderful, until you start looking at the facts behind this glib assertion. Most metal detectorists for example can't write coherent sentences in English, which rather suggests they might have limited abilities to use books. But who needs that awkward book-learning anyway?

So here we have an example from Suffolk. It is a rather crude (tripod?) stand mount and was dug up on a commercial artefact hunting event apparently near Framlingham, Suffolk, but the finder refuses to tell the PAS exactly where ("I sent pictures of it to Judith Plouviez without telling her exactly where it came from but letting her know that it came from her "patch". that seemed to make her piss boil somewhat"). Responsible artefact hunting that is not.

The finder's description indicates that he has concluded that "the Romans" when in Britain were "birthers", that in the first and second century AD in the province of Britannia, you had to provide a long birth certificate to the authorities before being able to make sharp pointy things. I wonder what the document would say, "born in the Roman Empire"?

But apparently our home-grown historian has determined:

"History shows that in the 1st-2nd century the native British metal workers were banned by the Romans from making weapons including knives and so turned to the manufacture of other items".

'ence the tripod stand in native style no doubt. Ah, this is which "history"? Sallust? Livy? Pliny? History read on the back of a cornflake box?

Swedish Treasure Trial Underway

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A while ago I posted a text on the Gandave (Gotland) hoard looted from under the noses of an archaeological team by nocturnal thieves. One of the men accused of the crime turned out to be a Stockholm coin dealer (I wonder if a member of the PNG/ IAPN and ACCG?). Anyway, their trial is just beginning. The charges the defendants face include preparation of aggravated crime against relics and aggravated crime against relics, which carries a penalty of up to four years in prison. The defendants have denied the charges.

The suspects were linked to the crime scene by the discovery of a broken crucifix left behind in the looters' holes. Several days later somebody watching internet sales discovered traces of the purchase of what was obviously part of the same crucifix. The police raided the home of the purchaser, a man from southern Sweden, and retrieved the stolen artefact. From the buyer the trail led the Police back to a well-known coin dealer in Stockholm.

During a raid on his property on Gotland, investigators came across muddy clothes, metal detectors, shovels, backpacks and a car especially equipped with night vision. After examining computers and GPS equipment, police also found links between the defendants and two other places where looters had struck on Gotland.

Wednesday's trial is important because it is the first time since the laws on relics were made more strict in the 1990’s that one of these cases have been brought to trial. “We have seen many investigations over the past few years that have had to be dropped due to lack of evidence,“ said local police officer Mikael Åslund to daily Dagens Nyheter (DN) In 2009 there were 18 reports of unauthorized digging on Gotland, three of which are part of the prosecution’s evidence in the ongoing trial against the five men.

But since the police apprehended the looters in November 2009, there have been no more reports. “It is our feeling that looters have gone under ground, “ Östergren told DN.

I presume rather than clandestine illegal digging going on in a more clandestine and illegal manner, it means the clandestine illegal diggers have stopped - being aware that they can be traced through people keeping a track on the sales of items of dubious provenance.

Rebecca Martin, 'Looted Viking treasure trial gets under way', thelocal.se 4 May 2011

A Rising Star of Egyptian Politics?

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Victor Kotsev is a journalist and political analyst based in Tel Aviv and writes in the Asia Times Online (New currents in the Egyptian Revolution, May 3rd 2011) about the "new faces in Egyptian politics".

Among the less known rising stars is Dr Zahi Hawass - an archaeologist who is currently serving as minister of state for antiquities affairs. He has become something of a celebrity in both Egyptian and international media in recent months, and seems to be banking on the country's ancient history as a powerful unifying factor of national identity. The latter pattern is hardly a new development, and Mubarak himself had exploited pharaonic imagery widely in his campaigns. In a country which saw its golden ages thousands of years ago, a political and social narrative exists in tension with Muslim and Arab solidarity, glorifying the alleged descendents of pharaonic Egypt, and looking for them in rural areas which are supposedly more "pure" from later Arab influences. It is a tall tale by most accounts, but a powerful one. Particularly after the attacks on the Egyptian Museum of National Antiquities during the January protests, Hawass has gained in popularity. A court process against him has so far had little impact on his career. According to a source, while he is still not a major player in Egyptian politics, he stands to become one in the coming months and years.

Hawass for Egyptian president?

Where was Mohammed Adel Arrested?

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A while ago Dr Zahi Hawass announced in a somewhat offhand way that the Egyptian authorities had locked away some of the people "who were caught with antiquities from the Egyptian Museum". There was a case in the newspapers about one Mohammed Adel, is he one of the people locked away for stealing from the Egyptian Museum? The Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) has denied recent reports about detention of activists and protesters. The statement confirmed that "the army has always protected the revolution and will continue to do so until all its demands are achieved". Meanwhile, families of detained youths who were arrested and tried in front of military courts say no steps have been taken to reinvestigate the cases of their sons.

Mohammed Adel, a CitiBank accountant and a protester who was detained by the army on Jan. 28, was sentenced to five years in military prison with charges of attempted theft. [....] According to his mother, Adel was protecting the Egyptian Museum from thuggery and looting when he was arrested by the army. Daily News Egypt contacted Adel's mother Nariman Ahmed on April 14 when the SCAF released another statement promising to investigate other detention cases, and she said that no steps were taken to release Adel. "There is too much stalling from the SCAF's side," Ahmed told DNE on Tuesday. "We filed an appeal against Adel’s detention 10 days ago because his signature is required on his appeals application, and now we have 60 days to officially present the appeal to the military prosecution," she explained. Ahmed says that the military prosecution will revise the appeal on day 61. "That's too much time … he was arrested, interrogated and tried in only few days. It is unfair to see my son slowly losing his future and his life," Ahmed added.

Without wanting to judge the rights and wrongs of this specific case, the impression we were given of these looters was that they were uneducated yokels completely unaware of their surroundings, misled by the glittery stuff in the shop into thinking they were in the Museum itself. Nobody mentioned that one of the people jailed is a Citibank accountant. He was "arrested, interrogated and tried in only few days", I wonder where he was arrested, how he was interrogated by the army, and how he was tried and convicted for "attempted theft" (so had no stolen items on him when caught). He says he was trying to protect the museum, somebody says otherwise, but it is necessary for someone to carry the can for the robbery, so convictions followed. Just who is convicted of involvement in this crime, and who is still at large?

UPDATE: A slightly different tale about this man can be found here Updated list of Tahrir protesters Detained By Army from which I reproduce his photo. What was "case no. 2 for year 2011, military crimes" about?

A Closer Look at the New Kids on the Block

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Here's a closer look at the two copper alloy statuettes that re-appeared yesterday from somewhere, alongside two established to be on the list of missing objects from Cairo Egyptian Museum. All four were in the hands of some criminals who were "caught red handed" doing something or other somewhere.

They've been photographed on some big pieces of white polythene foam (the last lot had as the background Agfa photographic paper). This is the sort of inert foam you'd find in a conservation lab for packing.

On the left is a figure of Harpocrates about 18 cm (+/-) in height the state of which suggests it has been heavily but unevenly chemically stripped and maybe an attempt has been made to chemically repatinate it. If this is cleaning it looks like the sort of thing that might have happened thirty years ago. The cast is indistinct, rather blurry and disproportionate and schematic. The metal underneath the corrosion does not seem very eroded, except perhaps on the headdress. Is it a genuine antiquity? It looks very much like a bizarre bazaar piece.

On the right is an Osiris on a base with a tenon. The casting is sharp and precise, bears traces it seems of gilding. The patina is completely different, a thin layer of oxidation seems to lie over smooth metal, there is no differential corrosion where the gold (if that is what it is) contacts the copper alloy. It has been polished by handling. Is it a genuine antiquity?

From the photos it is difficult to say if these objects are ancient, the fact that a commission of the Egyptian MSA is still looking at them suggests they think they might be (in the Al-Ahram article it says specifically that on the basis of his initial examination Dr Tarek El-Awady says they are both genuine). What however is clear is that if they are, they come from two separate environments of deposition. If the Harpocrates had thicker corrosion products on it, it would have come from burial in a damper environment, while the Osiris looks as if it has never been buried, perhaps in a desert tomb/cave or whatever.

I do not think either of them are fresh dugups, my guess is that if they are ancient they come from a (genuine) old collection, or a museum/antiquities store - OR they found their way into Egypt from the foreign antiquities market - a possibility that we cannot rule out, it depends who these "criminals" were and what kind of activity they were involved in.

It is apparently a futile hope that we will be told much more by the Egyptian authorities, so for the moment these two objects and the origins of the other two which somehow wandered out of the Museum will remain a mystery - at least until there is a new government and hopefully we will see a government enquiry into the way this crisis came about and was dealt with as there are many unanswered questions.
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Hawass: Ka Nefer Nefer mummy Mask Returns Next Week

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Nevine El-Aref, 'Egypt steps up bid for Nefertiti bust', Ahram Online, 3 May 2011

Hawass told reporters that in the next week, an ancient Egyptian statue which was illegally smuggled out of the country will return from Switzerland as well as the Ka Nefer mummy mask from the United States.

Did he? Will it?

Museum Theft Suspects Caught on Camera

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Some museums have working security cameras in them, such as this maritime museum in Florida. Have a look at this video, do you recognise these two people?

http://youtu.be/TsRzilht8YA

Pass it on.

On 18th August 2010 a gold bar salvaged from the wreck of a 15th Century Spanish Galleon was stolen from the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West. While the theft was caught on the museum's CCTV system the item remains un-recovered and both the museum and their insurers are appealing for information on the object's current location.
- A $25,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the gold bar's recovery -

The rare 11in. long bar weighs approximately 5lb and was identified by treasure hunter Mel Fisher in 1980 amidst the underwater remains of the Santa Margarita. This beautiful and iconic piece of cultural heritage bears a unique symbol identifying its original owner and is stamped in roman numerals denoting its 16-carat purity.

The bar had been displayed at the museum in a see-through safety box which afforded visitors a unique opportunity to both touch and lift the object directly. The thieves broke into the museum shortly after it closed to the public.

If you have any information regarding the bar or the suspects depicted above, please contact

The Art Loss Register, Christopher A.Marinello, +44 (0) 207 5782 or email chris.marinello@artloss.com

Interesting comment below the video too.

Artefact Hunting Equipment: the Pinpoint Probe

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What kind of equipment would a professional artefact hunter use? Well, to get those artefacts out of the ground quicker for example they might use a pinpoint probe like this one from Garrett.

This one is being used by a US metal detectorist (dermatitis alert here) and had vibration features and a LED so you can use it in "low light conditions" (nudge-nudge, wink-wink). You even get a manly hip-holster with it to help you look the part as you swagger out at the next rally. Or you could get one shaped like a pistol for that real Wild West gold prospector look. But don't laugh, here's a video of a ground-stabbing guy (that turf's not going to grow back) using one of the latter to find a really, really old (1782!) coin ...

This is obviously just a part of the equipment an artefact hunter might use to speed up the hoiking of artefacts out of archaeological sites and assemblages. Obviously nobody is going to be groping around on sites on their knees using this instead of a metal detector, such as one of the new generation "depth advantage" site-wreckers, but used together with one, it speeds the process of destruction no end.

More Museum Confusion (Part 1): "it's quite simple really" - Well, no, no its not...

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The sorry saga of the mixup over what objects went missing from the Egyptian Museum and what has come back continues. A while ago we were told in an SCA press release (repeated by a number of newspapers as well as included on the blog of the present Minister Dr Hawass) that the shabti JE 68984 had returned to the Museum, having been found in a big black bag at the Shubra metro station by a Ministry official on his way to work (NB, Dr Hawass has now changed the number on his blog, cf the original SCA news briefing) .

I wrote about this, but then compared the photo given in the press reports with that on the Museum's list of missing objects and found that JE 68984 when photographed before the theft had no split in it, whereas the recovered one does. My conclusion was that the thieves had not looked after the objects properly and I was concerned about the condition of the rest. Vincent Brown then looked more carefully and found that there had been a mixup, the shabti that had been recovered was JE 68982 and not 68984. I wrote a text suggesting that when there are only four items to check off an illustrated list of thirty or so (and the Ministry published a photo of the Museum's director and a commission of other guys doing exactly this), it should not be so difficult to have got the identity correct and suggested that this - taken with other features - was symptomatic of an organizational shambles.

Last night Cairo based Egyptologist Nicole Hansen put a text up on the Facebook page about the Museum, relaying - so it would seem - a message from Yasmin El-Shazly head of documentation there. I am going to cite it in full but in two parts, the first here (the second - because of the unrelated subject matter - I will answer in a post below). Part one reads as follows:

I saw Yasmin el-Shazly tonight and found out there is a very reasonable explanation for the shabti mixup. The press release about the return of the shabti was written by someone who hadn't seen the shabti, nor who worked at the museum. They... just selected any photo to illustrate the story. Just like you see many news stories illustrated by file photos that have nothing to do directly with the story itself. This was a news release, not an academic paper.

Phew. The press release was written by somebody who did not know what on earth they were writing about? How is this supposed to deflect the comments I made about the disorganization in the release of information? But what we are now being told makes no sense at all. The press release came from the office of the Minister. We have photos of the four retrieved objects being displayed in the ministry. The objects returned were all photographed, somewhere, by Rania Galal. There is a photograph of all four of them laid out together on a white background on Hawass' blog. The little vignette here is blown up from that photo. Though its fuzzy I think it can be seen that the object has the split down the front that characterises JE 68982 and not 68984. JE 68982 was clearly the object that was lying on Zahi Hawass' desk on March 12th. JE 68982 is the shabti which is illustrated in the newspaper articles, NOT because somebody took a stock photo at random from an archive, but because this was the object photographed along with the other three by Rania Galal. I really do not see how Yasmin El-Shazly (was she there at the Ministry when the press release was written?) can claim otherwise.

The photograph was of the object that was retrieved, but in the press release - written by somebody entrusted by the Ministry or maybe museum, for some reason the object was called "JE 68984". Here is that number used by Discovery News, Egyptology News, Luxor Times, and so on and so on, it's not just me that is making this up. The mistaken information comes from an official Egyptian news source and I really do not see why there has to be a long international discussion about the fact that the shabti was wrongly identified. What however is clear is that the whole point of publishing lists of stolen artefacts is so that they can be correctly identified.
Here is a photo by Rania Galal, taken in (I think) Zahi Hawass' office, showing Dr Tarek Al Awady, the Egyptian Museum's current director picking up the shabti with the second (horizontal format) version of the missing objects list on his knee. After this he is quoted in many newspaper articles giving the incorrect identification of the recovered shabti, telling the world that it was shabti JE 68984 that was returned when in fact it was JE 68982 that was returned:

“The second returned object is one of the 10 missing shabtis of Yuya and Tjuya (JE 68984). It is still in very good condition; it does not require restoration and will be placed on display again immediately, stated Dr. Tarek El-Awady, Director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.”

If this is the case, why, if there was a mixup of photos in Hawass' office, was the Director of the museum also giving the same wrong information to the press? Could he not read his own notes?
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More Museum Confusion (part 2), "notorious" in some circles maybe, but not for that

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As I mentioned in the post above, Cairo based Egyptologist Nicole Hansen put a text up on a facebook group of 1000 members about the Cairo Egyptian Museum. It is apparently a message from Yasmin El-Shazly head of documentation at Cairo Museum. I cited the first part about an alleged mixup of photographs above. Here is what she writes in the second part:

By the way, Yasmin also asked me to relay the following message, because Paul censored and did not approve her message when she replied to his attack on her on his own blog: If any of you, especially Paul due to his background in medieval European coins that makes him more knowledgeable about the artifacts in the Egyptian Museum than the museum's own staff, find any inconsistencies or errors in the list that she compiled of the stolen artifacts, then kindly send them to Yasmin directly so she can correct them.

Well, first of all, I am not at all sure which of my posts here qualifies for the label "attack on her". She wrote critically of me on the Facebook page mentioned above - as is her right - I answered her here, as is my right. I also wrote to her perfectly civilly privately - which she either did not receive or is ignoring.

Certainly if she sent something through blogger here, I did not receive it. I would encourage her to send it again. I certainly would not have "censored" or rejected her reply, even if I disagreed with it. We are on the same side after all. So Yasmin, send it again, please - or to the email address I sent you and I'll post it for you.

But Yasmin, I really must take exception to the comment: "Paul due to his background in medieval European coins that makes him more knowledgeable about the artefacts in the Egyptian Museum than the museum's own staff". In your earlier text you labelled me "notorious", so that suggests you actually know something about me. What is this nonsense about Medieval coins? I am not a coiney !! How dare you !! (that's in ironic script) The coin collecting fraternity also will be mightily angered that you count me as one of their number as I gather I have a certain notoriety among a section of them, and its not for my "background in Medieval European coins"...

Certainly I do not claim to be "more knowledgeable about the artefacts in (or missing from) the Egyptian Museum than the museum's own staff". Like the Museum's staff and many other people (look at the news coverage you are getting) I am concerned about what happened on 28th January, I am concerned that there is so much confusion about what actually happened and who actually was involved.* Why is it wrong, in your opinion, to ask questions when something is left unclear - especially when it seems that the lack of clarity is deliberate?

And by the way, it was Vincent Brown, not me, who was the one to spot that the artefact in the photographs was not the one the press release says. I just assumed that if the Egyptian authorities say it is the one they say it is, it is.

Like it or not, interest in ancient Egypt, the Egyptian Museum and the global antiquities trade is international. On 29th January we all saw a shocking video of bits strewn across the floor of your museum. While I am sure most members of staff of your museum knew full well what most of the bits on the floor were, it was left to bloggers here (Margaret Maitland in particular), unaided as far as I am aware by anyone from the Museum, to try and work out what pieces were affected. From the beginning, we were told one thing and all saw something quite different. This was the beginning of the attempts of some people to try and piece together the conflicting pieces of evidence to reach some kind of understanding. Even today the museum staff seems to be doing very little to aid that process, and whatever information emerges still seems intended to sow the seeds of confusion. Like your "wrong photo" shabti-story (see above). You complained that you are getting too little support, how about first a little openness with those you expect to support you?

But certainly, I hope people send any "inconsistencies or errors in the list" of the missing artefacts, which Yasmin, it now turns out, compiled so she can correct them. It would be helpful if she could give out with such a request/ suggestion / offer an email address to which they can be sent...

*(for the reasons I indicated when I wrote to you privately, if you did not get it, send me another email address and I will try again).

Vignette: denar of Mieszko II king of Poland... (it's a fake, not a dugup, so OK to collect )

Egypt: Four More Artefacts Recovered

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Four authentic ancient Egyptian artefacts, two of which were reported stolen from the Egyptian Museum 28th have been retrieved today (Nevine El-Aref , Four more artefacts are back in the Egyptian museum, 2nd May 2011)

Today the tourism and antiquities police succeeded in retrieving four ancient Egyptian artefacts, two of which were reported missing from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir. The criminals were caught red-handed. Zahi Hawass, minister of state for antiquities affairs, assigned an archaeological committee headed by the Egyptian Museum Director, Tarek El-Awadi, to check on the authenticity of such pieces and whether they belong to the Egyptian museum. Hawass told Ahram Online that the four bronze statutes date to the Late Period. Two of them were from the Egyptian Museum that was looted during the January 25 Revolution. The statues depict the god of prosperity, Osiris, and the other two feature the god Harpocrate[s], which represents the god Osiris in his childhood. El-Awadi confirms that the other two are authentic items, but not from those on the list of the objects that are reported missing after the January Revolution. The committee is now investigating whether they are from any museum or archaeological site in Egypt. One of the statues is 37.5cm tall depicting the god Osiris and the second is an 18cm statue of the god Horus when he was a child. This brings the count of missing objects from the Egyptian museum to 31 objects out of 54 reported missing.

Well, except Hawass said on 12th April: "We are still missing 37 objects from the Egyptian Museum, but I hope that soon we will be able to find them all and return them to the Museum", and added the fan stock 62006 to the "still missing" list as was pointed out on this blog.

The two recovered statues probably are (no confirmation yet) Harpocrates JE 67925 (Missing list second version, page 27/42 from case P19 centre E vit Z) and the Osiris is presumably JE 22040 (Missing list second edition, page 4/42, P 19 S8 vit K). So they come from Room 19 like those in the 17th March 'sting', so were presumably part of the loot taken by men who were with Ahmed Attia Mahmod, the friend of his who owns a coffee shop in the same district and a third partner (the "coffee shop gang"). These three are perhaps (among) the guys who were imprisoned on or by the 15th April (?).

So these other men (the "May 2nd gang") were caught "red handed" - why have they only been apprehended now, and what were they doing when they were caught (and where)? It looks like these men were not among those who had been in the museum - because if they were part of the coffee-shop gang they would surely have been arrested soon after the other three, not six weeks later. Perhaps these (plural) newly-caught men may be dealers to whom the first men (the "coffee shop gang") had already managed to sell some items. It will be interesting to see where the other two items are determined to have been from. Were they omitted from the list of items taken from the Museum by mistake, or was the looting of the Museum not the ad hoc opportunistic event by "stupid" and disorientated thieves, but had some connection to an organized group involved in other antiquity looting?

It is possible therefore that some of the items taken by the group of men operating in the north and northwestern part of the museum had been sold before the 17th March sting. They may even have left the country before the three men selling the remaining 12 were arrested.

UPDATE 3/5/11: The Luxor Times confirms that the two museum statues were JE 67925 and JE 22040. The calcite base (modern) of the Osiris was apparently left in the Museum.

Citizens Foil Sale of Pharaonic Statuette

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Meanwhile heartening news from Egypt, citizens are reported to have foiled an illicit transaction involving an antiquity (Hassan Ahmed Hussine, 'Sale of pharaonic statuette foiled', Al-Masry Al-Youm 01/05/2011).

Egypt's security authorities foiled the attempted sale of a statuette that investigators said carries pharaonic inscriptions. The piece is 50cm tall and stands on a 50cm wide platform. In front of it there are three other statuettes, each 21cm high. The two culprits, aged 39 and 36, were arrested after citizens informed security authorities of their possession and the intended sale. Both are unemployed. One said during initial questioning that he had agreed with his partner to hide the object in his house until the deal went through. He said they had obtained the statuette through a middleman from Luxor.

The description is most intriguing. Is the suggestion that the piece was dug up in illicit diggings in the Luxor region?

Vignette. I do not know, but maybe its something like this?

UPDATE 11.05.11
Aha! More details from the Luxor Times ('Granite statue of a Ramesside priest found genuine',11 May 2011):

A statue was seized and kept at a Police station in south Cairo and a committee was formed from the Ministry of Antiquities to check if it is genuine. The committee confirmed the authenticity of the granite statue which dated back to the Ramesside period (ca. 1300 B.C) The statue represents a priest sitting with 3 figures represents Osiris, Isis and a priest. The statue bears hieroglyphic depictions. The pink granite statue measures 56 cm high a d 28 cm wide.

They seem to love creating "commissions" instead of getting an expert opinion. Anyway, this is what it looked like - my guess, a shot in the dark, was pretty close, eh? I imagine that weights a bit, rather more than could go in a big bag on the train.


So, the seizure was apparently in south Cairo. I wonder if the two men already had established how they were going to get the item onto the market?

Archaeological Looting in Egypt, on a Greater Scale than Admitted?

The piece by Kent Weeks Can Egypt Protect Its Ancient Monuments? addresses a concern I raised here earlier. He mentions in passing the looting of archaeological sites that started with the outbreak of political instability:

"Gangs of armed treasure hunters took advantage of the chaos and began plundering ancient tombs and antiquities storerooms throughout Egypt. The robberies are ongoing and thought to exceed 400 incidents so far".

Four hundred incidents is a far higher figure than has been emerging from Egypt where the lack of news perhaps tends to create the impression that with the recreation of the Ministry of State for Antiquities Affairs and re-establishment of site guards, the crisis is over. It seems from what Weeks says, we were seeing only the beginning.

Once again we see antiquities, and reliable information about them, the pawn of political agendas. Yet if there is to be any concerted action outside Egypt to deal with the trade in illictly-obtained artefacts, the problem of the ongoing looting needs to be kept in the public eye. For this to have any credibility this needs to have more substance than the loud triumphant trumpeting repatriation of a few antiquities now and then of doubtful authenticity as we have seen in the past few days.

Where are the inventories of the looted storerooms? Why is there not an online register of what is missing? This is what the 1970 UNESCO Convention requires Egypt to do (Article 5g) if it is to hope for effective international support in getting the stolen goods returned. The outside world can't help Egypt if Egypt does not supply the information needed to help it !

How Can Egypt Protect Archaeological Sites From Destruction?

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Kent Weeks has a very well-presented piece in Newsweek called: Can Egypt Protect Its Ancient Monuments? which details some of the problems facing the country in the field of the preservation of its archaeological sites from damage and destruction. The text is well worth reading.

The archaeological sites of Egypt face many threats, one of the problems is that many of them sites are crowded into the same areas as modern activity, and the needs of looking after the legacy of the past have to be balanced with the present and future development of the country.

In truth, no one knows how many archeological sites are in Egypt: 5,000 is an oft-quoted figure, but other experts say there are many more. Some sites are tiny—graffiti scratched on a cliff face, or a small cemetery. Others, like Giza, cover several square kilometers filled with thousands of tombs and pyramids. Thebes (modern Luxor) boasts thousands of tombs, temples, shrines, and villages. The Valley of the Kings alone is chockablock with scores of elegantly decorated tombs, including that of the boy king Tutankhamun. Sites lie beneath the streets of modern cities, in fields along the Nile, in desert wastelands, and distant oases—even beneath the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. They span thousands of years and represent several cultural and religious traditions—Neolithic, dynastic Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim. In Egypt, one is rarely out of sight of an ancient monument.

Unfortunately, it is no exaggeration to say that every one of them is threatened with destruction — and theft and vandalism are the least of the problems. The graver threats are more subtle: changes in the environment, such as increasing temperatures and humidity, air pollution, and rising ground water; the expansion of industries, farms, and cities into archeological zones; and, perhaps worst of all, the growth of mass tourism and the burgeoning infrastructure required to support it.

Wider public attention has been drawn in recent weeks to the problem of their preservation by the looting which has taken place. In the last week of January, police throughout Egypt abandoned their posts, leaving hundreds of archaeological sites unguarded. Political changes left the the Supreme Council of Antiquities rudderless and confused: "Gangs of armed treasure hunters took advantage of the chaos and began plundering ancient tombs and antiquities storerooms throughout Egypt. The robberies are ongoing and thought to exceed 400 incidents so far". While the looting of sites is just one of the problems facing the antiquities preservation authorities in the country, it is one that takes up a large quantity of the resources available for the task. Weeks then turns to the organization which is charged with looking after these monuments, he describes the arsenal of resources it has to do this as limited and somewhat outdated.

The SCA is a bloated bureaucracy. It employs 58,000 people; about two thirds are local security guards, poorly paid, untrained, and unarmed.
There are also between 20,000 and 30,000 Tourist and Antiquities Police, part of the Ministry of the Interior (not the SCA), who are posted at sites and museums most heavily visited by foreign tourists. Though a pervasive presence, they are an unreliable one, as demonstrated by their immediate and wholesale disappearance early in the revolution. Many still have not returned to duty.
The SCA’s on-site inspectors, who are supposed to administer and preserve the country’s heritage, are underpaid and unmotivated. Most are young and —for the first few years, at least— enthusiastic about their job. But the low salary and near-universal reluctance of their superiors to delegate authority leads to frustration. A large number leave to become tourist guides. Instead of taking 300 Egyptian pounds a month from the SCA (about $50), they can earn six or seven times that amount as guides.

Let us note that Week's figures suggest that there are some 60 000 people who are employed as guards, to keep looters off the sites. Collectors who say "more should be done" to protect sites from looters have failed to suggest where the finances to employ even 60 000 people at a reasonable salary, let alone the number that would be required to keep an even closer watch. Surely nearly all this money could be saved and directed towards conservation if dealers and collectors would simply stop buying artefacts without any questions establishing they come from legitimate sources, thus reducing dramatically reducing the incentive to loot sites for collectables that will find a buyer even if illicitly obtained.

Looking after archaeological sites costs a lot of money, everywhere. Tourists visiting monuments (though not all sites) generate income but:

the SCA is perennially underfunded, even though archeological tourism generates considerable income. In December 2010 ticket sales to sites in Luxor alone earned $30 million for Egypt. But [since tourism is one of the country's main sources of income] much of this money goes to the government treasury.

As Weeks points out, "almost every branch of government wants some control over that income and wants as much of it as possible for themselves, focusing only on short-term gain". The pressures tourism inflicts on tombs and temples is enormous, yet no long-term comprehensive management plan to protect them has yet been agreed upon. Weeks mentions the redevelopment of Luxor to generate more tourist revenue which I wrote about on this blog last year."The plan is already doing irreparable harm to many of Luxor’s monuments, demolishing historic buildings, paving over archeological sites, moving whole villages and thousands of Egyptians far away from tourist centers and ancient monuments. Many archeologists and tourists, as well as many locals, believe that these acts are turning the largest archeological zone in the world into a gaudy theme park designed only to make money in the short term". Weeks makes some recommendations for the future:

What should be done to protect Egypt’s monuments? Here’s a list on which most Egyptologists agree:

Consult with local and international agencies and specialists to develop and implement long-term management plans.
Train on-site inspectors and give them greater responsibility.
Design better security for sites and museums.
Allocate more money for site conservation and documentation.
Take a strong stand against commercial and political interests that threaten the monuments.

Egypt’s archeological patrimony is humankind’s as well, and requires urgent efforts if it is to be saved for future generations. Egypt’s revolution, and the energy of the youth that drove it, captured the world’s imagination and gave renewed hope for the country’s future. It would be a tragedy if this were not also translated into a renewed commitment to its past.

Let us hope the new government that will eventually be created in place of military law will set about creating conditions for this to be put into action. We can help, by creating conditions in which the trade in illicit artefacts from the looting of sites and museum storerooms and galleries cannot function. That seems the least we can do to help the Egyptians protect the archaeological heritage of that part of the planet's surface.

Four Corners Fiasco: Joseph M. Smith and his Artefact Collection

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From Kimberly Alderman's Cultural Property & Archaeology Law blog:

Federal prosecutors have entered into deals in three more of the Four Corners antiquities trafficking cases. For Meredith Smith, they’ll drop the charges if she doesn’t get charged with any other crimes in the next six months. Tad Kreth had his charges reduced from 17 counts to 1, and the prosecutors will recommend probation. And Joseph Smith has had his charges reduced from 38 counts to 1, and he’ll have to forfeit the Native American artifacts he owns.

Kimberly calls this "The Four Corners Sideshow" and accuses the authorities of "overcharging" the defendants to justify the scale of the operation. She subtitles her blog "A legal resource for archaeology and cultural property enthusiasts", but I am not quite sure what sort of message she intends sending archaeology "enthusiasts" by what she writes. The United States is arguably at the moment one of the largest markets in the world for looted archaeological artefacts. As such, one would expect the cultured people of that nation would be doing something about it, reducing the damaging effects of the actions of the cowboys and dodgy dealers in their midst rather than encouraging them. But instead we can see that they cannot even deal with the destroyers of the archaeological heritage in their own country and many of those talking about the issues over there are lawyers who seem from what they write almost to side with the eroders of history. But then there is big money in collecting, isn't there?

As for the scale of the operation, what is being investigated in cases like this is usually an exceptionally clandestine process. “ARPA investigations can be as complex as murder cases,” Todd Swain said in a 2007 analysis ('Cultural Resource damage on the Public Lands, what the statistics Show' (Yearbook of Cultural Property Law 7). They do need the expenditure of considerable resources, which is what makes it frustrating that cases like this, instead of awakening concern about the ongoing looting of America's archaeological heritage, there is more criticism of the authorities for trying to deal with the problem despite the obvious hindrance the crappy US laws and lack of a centrally coordinated heritage protection system create.

Whether or not anyone was "overcharged" is debatable. I note that Joseph M. Smith , 31, from Blanding mentioned above has (had) an "artefact collection" which presumably federal authorities had reason to believe contains items illicitly obtained (I assume he'll not be losing anything which is properly 'papered' with positive proof of licit provenance). He was initially charged (together with some other people) with a number of counts of selling items which it was alleged were obtained illegally. But that is not his whole collection, and one may presume the transactions mentioned in the charge sheet are only those for which federal authorities (claim to) have documented proof. According to the Salt Lake Tribune article 'A breakdown of the artifact theft charges', they are: "17 felony counts of violating ARPA, eight felony counts of theft of government property, two felony counts of theft of Indian tribal property, one misdemeanor count of theft of Indian tribal property". Smith however admits going onto land and taking artefacts from where he should not have.

Hamilton said his client, Joseph M. Smith, intends to admit in court that he took artifacts from public lands. “But what he is guilty of is a misdemeanor.” [...] “He wasn’t like some of the others that had literally truckloads of artifacts,” Hamilton said. “He was more of a construction worker who walks through the desert.”

The additional charges were dropped because of uncertainty about the financial value of the artefacts concerned.

Then there was Carl Lavern Crites "two felony counts of violating ARPA, two felony counts of theft of government property, one felony count depredation of government property". Crites is a collector and dealer of American Indian items. Overcharged? He had just three objects in his store and collection? Or is every single other item in his store and collection papered showing undeniable licit origin? Another cultural property lawyer with an ambiguous position on this case Derek Fincham points out, there is "no obligation" in US law for them to have so (and he is right of course - US law is woefully deficient in several regards where cultural property issues are concerned). Crites however admitted to taking part in illegal excavation of an ancient (Native American) grave looking for collectable artefacts in September 2008. Was this really the first and only time he'd ever done anything like this, or was it the only occasion where Federal authorities could document it?

Then we have the Redds, James, Jeanne and Jerrica. A sad case as James - who had reportedly been in trouble with the law before over related matters, but not only - decided to commit suicide rather than face the charges. But rather oddly it was his wife that was the cause of the raid on their home in June. She surrendered a collection of over 800 artefacts in 112 boxes (it needed two trucks to take them away). Again was this collection properly papered with collecting histories showing licit origins? Mention is made in the receipt of lots and lots of artefacts, but not a single mention of any files of documentation or collection catalogue cards. She was initially charged on seven or eight counts, her husband only one of them (together with her) and the daughter with three which apparently emerged during examination of whatever evidence there was about how the artefacts in their home were obtained.

But this was apparently not the first time that the artefact collecting activities of the Redd family had brought them into conflict with the authorities ('Couple agree to pay fine for digging up Anasazi site').

In 1996, a San Juan County sheriff's deputy found the Redds and several children digging near prehistoric ruins in Cottonwood Wash near Bluff. Charges were first filed the following year. The charges included desecration of a corpse, a felony. The charge against James Redd, 52, was dismissed. Assistant Utah Attorney General Joanne Slotnik said that was because Jeanne Redd "was the prime mover and the one most interested in these sorts of relics." The state's suit alleged the Redds destroyed a prehistoric grave site listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Jeanne Redd's plea agreement argued that if an ancient grave had been disturbed, it was on private land.

Reportedly "They asserted they had the right to dig at an Anasazi ruin on private land, but a survey later showed the site was on state land" (Joe Bauman, 'Anasazi case is finally put to rest', Deserte news Jan. 26, 2003). They had been threatened by a $250,000 lawsuit brought by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration which James and Jeanne Redd apparently settled by making a payment of $10,000 in 2003. Despite this, the Redd family apparently continued to collect artefacts, and the raid on June 10th 2009 and the consequent charges were the results of this. In the case of the acquisition of at least seven of those artefacts federal authorities believed they could document illicit origins, and in the event Jeanne Redd pleaded guilty to all seven. What 'overcharging' was applied here?

Neither do I think it likely that the two dozen people investigated and charged as a result of Operation Cerberus are the only people in the Four Corners area involved in the illegal acquisition of artefacts from the looting of archaeological sites in the region. Judge Waddoups seems to express the idea that since everybody has been doing it, it would be invidious to give those actually caught doing it sentences as severe as the law lays down. But these people all know that in doing what they do they are breaking the law (I expect they themselves would add "technically"). This looting of protected sites is clearly a huge problem and - despite the existence of laws ostensibly to protect the US archaeological resource - the US judicial system now seems to be giving a signal that the US administration actually intends to do nothing much about it. They are just giving offenders a slap on the wrist, and an admonition 'not to do it again'. That's what, for example, the Redds got in 2003, but six years later and apparently eight hundred dugup artefacts later, that is what they seem to have been found to have been doing.

Vignette: Anasazi bowl, Chaco Canyon - this one not looted.

Haines Accuses Hawass

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Antiquities collector and AncientArtifacts discussion list owner Tim Haines unjustly accuses Egyptian official Zahi Hawasss of "smoke and mirrors". He says:

Hawass reports that some "stolen antiquities" were found by the authorities in Gaza, their owners arrested and jailed, and the items "returned" to Hawass [...] It is an outrage that people can be jailed for possession of such items and astonishing that a 'committee' needs to be raised in Egypt to determine that these are not authentic.

Mr Haines seems not to realise that it was not Hawass who arrested these men in another country, and when a Palestinian diplomatic mission turned up in his office with these two fakes it must have been an awkward moment requiring quite a bit of diplomacy to break the news that it was all a big mistake on the part of the Palestinian authorities. I suspect the solemn convening of a commission will have been a device to save the face of the co-operative Palestinians. Mr Haines seems to suggest it implies that the Egyptians (not the Palestinian delegation) are not as able as the smug British collector to recognise that these were not authentic antiquities.

Mr Haines might well be worried about people getting into trouble for selling reproductions as originals, take a look at what he has listed in the : Antiques - Antiquities- Egyptian section of eBay (there is a section on eBay for tacky costume jewellery and other such geegaws).

Like this one from Paul-from-England (not me, honest) honestly featured in the collectables keyrings category, not "Antiquities, Egyptian" with the fakers.\

Detectorists: "a Stake Through the Heart of this Rotten and Putrid Heritage System"

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An East Anglian metal detectorist sent this to me a while back saying it was 'going the rounds'. I initially assumed it was a joke with its "jackboot" and "minutemen" analogies, but it seems not to be because I discovered the other day that there is a near-identical copy on the internet posted last year by an American metal detectorist (scroll down) who seems to think there is a Thirty Year War going on over here. I suspect this text might be the product of US military personnel stationed in East Anglia, some of whom are known to be artefact hunters, but the fact that it seems to be circulating in UK artefact hunting circles too suggests that whoever these people are, all this expensive archaeological outreach to British artefact hunters seems not to be paying off all that well, does it? This is what the anonymous authors write:

Minutemen-UK

Minutemen-UK is a newly formed organisation ad hoc, to counter and stem the flow of anti-metal detecting disinformation and propaganda spewing like untreated sewage from the Council for British Archaeology and its callow cronies.

This educational charity (# 287815) has become increasingly aggressive towards law-abiding detectorists and treasure hunters during its thirty-year crusade to eradicate them in a purge amounting to an academic equivalent of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’.

Minutemen-UK takes its name and inspiration from the resistance fighters who were part of the American colonial militia during the American Revolutionary War. They provided a highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that allowed the colonies to respond immediately to military threats. The CBA’s pompous sounding Director, Mike Heyworth, writing in the 2010 March/April edition of British Archaeology (the CBA’s equally self-important bi-monthly rag) crowed:-

…“Members of the All Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group (APPAG) laid down amendments to the coroners and criminal justice bill, and, after behind the scenes negotiations with ministers and officials, a number of these were accepted by the government and voted into law.”

No prizes for guessing who suggested the amendments to APPAG in the first place. Heyworth goes on to outline life under the heel of archaeology’s jackboot:-

“When the legislation comes into effect, there will be a legal duty on those who acquire objects which they believe to be "treasure" to report them to the coroner, if there is no evidence that such a report has already been made. This tackles the loophole whereby there is currently no obligation to report an object to a coroner if the finder passed it on by one means or another. Most importantly, the law will include a presumption that, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, an object will have been found after September 24 1997 (when the Treasure Act 1996 came into effect) and in England and Wales. So unless someone can prove otherwise, something that could legally be treasure, is.”

When he’s not Directing the CBA’s gofers from its York headquarters (dubbed, the Führerbunker, by his less sycophantic colleagues), Heyworth unsurprisingly, is the All Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group’s (APPAG) Secretary - on behalf of the Archaeology Forum – a forum supporting the work of APPAG, and provides a secretariat function for the APPAG. So, no vested interests here then.

This latest spate of CBA-inspired malice, whilst being an affront to British justice and democracy, is simply another layer of bureaucracy that’s going to cost the already hard-pressed taxpayer untold millions to implement at no advantage to those of us who are forced into picking up the tab for these hare-brained schemes. This latest jolly wheeze from Planet York is nothing less than a job creation scheme for the boys and sundry chums - a scheme that no-one outside of archaeology wants, needs, or cares about.

Neither is right nor proper that an educational charity like the CBA (patron the HRH Prince of Wales) should campaign to resurrect the kind of legislation that died during1945-46 at the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal. One of the CBA inspired APPAG proposals flagrantly breaches Article 6.2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which reads the right of every person charged with a criminal offence to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law. Astoundingly, few (if any) Members of Parliament have grasped this fact, including the usually astute Labour MP Paul Flynn, usually a keen supporter of Human Rights legislation and who incredibly sits on the APPAG!

Therefore to help us to help you, please write to your own MP’s asking whether they support the Council for British Archaeology’s proposed amendments to the 1996 Treasure Act, Coroners Bill, and the Criminal Justice Bill and ask them what they think of ‘behind the scenes’ law making, and what are they going to do about new laws that contravene European Human Rights legislation. We’ll publish their replies on our new website (currently under construction).

We all support sensible heritage legislation, but legislation characterized by justice, impartiality, openness, and which is fair to all. The common heritage is not, and must never become an exclusive theme park for a few well connected academics, which is liable to happen if CBA and the comrades get their way.

Our common past is already partially ruled by a lofty, self-appointed, self-interested, and self-styled elite. It is a world where there is no place for free thinking amateurs who constantly capture the public imagination with their spectacular finds leaving orthodox archaeology bobbing in their wake. It is a world of scheming archaeological spin-doctors, compliant legislators and backside-kissing committees of all kinds; of secret trysts in dark corners, where, like illicit lovers they plan their grimy deeds.

DO YOU REALLY WANT HERITAGE LEGISLATION BORN OF PARENTS LIKE THESE?

Neither do we. If you are involved in metal detecting, treasure hunting, coin collecting, even archaeology, or just simply opposed to covert political tactics and are fed-up with the nefarious goings-on behind closed doors, then help us drive a stake through the heart of this putrid heritage system.

We don’t want your money, just your support with letter writing when called upon. If you want a better system that recognises the amateur contribution to our common past, and to protect your rights to go about your hobby unhindered, then lend us you support.
The Minutemen-UK

It is typical of the milieu that they cannot even get their metaphors to match, the Nazi and Commie parallels mixed with the homophobic remarks lack only a racial slur or two to reflect the worst of barstool rhetoric.

Well, we have all seen metal detectorists' attempts to "to counter and stem the flow of anti-metal detecting disinformation and propaganda" before. None of it ever gets any more sophisticated than glib denials of the facts and inflammatory innuendos and personal attacks (like we see above) a la "Candice Jarman" a typical and telling exemplar of the genre.

Let us have a look at what has got these "minutemen" reaching for their pitchforks. The problem is that if somebody is selling a piece of illegally obtained (ie unreported) Treasure on eBay (say) and the PAS (or somebody) says, "I say! what's that there my good man? Why is it not reported?" all the dodgy dealer currently has to say is: "Oh its orl right, guv, innit? My Dad dug it up in the garding in 1952 and its been in the family fer years, mate !". Nobody can at present touch them for it, even if its an outright lie and the object was in fact looted last weekend.

Basically the idea of the proposed change is that any newly surfaced item or items falling into the definition of Treasure should undergo an inquest to determine the circumstances of finding (the purpose of the inquest) and whether it is or is not therefore Treasure. When it is not, the owner gets it back with a piece of paper saying so, so they don't have to go through the process again when the item surfaces anew. If it is deemed treasure, the owner gets to sell it to the state for the full market value as determined by the TVC. By the way this is not "jobs for the (archaeological) boys", the inquest is carried out by the Coroner. That is not Nazism, it is an attempt to curb the abuse of the system that we are aware is happening through a loophole in the current law. In what way is this unfair?

This obviously refers only to currently undeclared items. Now, basically anyone who has at home an object of Treasure-quality legitimately found before 1997 really should (morally, though there is no legal compunction) have recorded such an item through the PAS anyway; only a very selfish collector would shut such an item away and keep it to themselves (and of course if this has been done and there is already a record that it was found in Joe Bloggs' garden before the Treasure Act came into force in the PAS database, there is no need for a Treasure inquest). It is of course in the finder's/collector's own interest anyway to have a record of legitimate ownership in a public repository in case the object is challenged upon sale or disposal later. So I find it difficult to understand why there would be gold or silver items of Treasure quality found in England and Wales before 1997 that now (in 2011) nobody is yet aware of. Anyway, this proposed legislation would ensure that knowledge of them gets into the public domain, and that selfish collectors who have shut them away are thwarted to keep the public's loss a secret.

Perhaps that is what the Minutemen are worried about - but should they be? If that is what they want to fight, then surely all the so-called "anti-metal detecting disinformation and propaganda" is entirely vindicated. It is as treasure-concealing selfish bastards that this "anti-metal detecting disinformation and propaganda" presents them, and the Minutemen-UK detectorists seem to be confirming this very image.

It seems to me there is a huge conflict between the one aim noted above "recognises the amateur contribution to our common past", ie collectors who contribute by showing what they've found and, "and to protect your rights to go about your hobby unhindered", ie to hide away what you've found when it suits you. You can't contribute without contributing, can you?

Millions of pounds of public outreach have done a lot to legitimise the hobby of artefact hunting and collecting in the public eye, to promote the picture that these people really want to contribute by showing what they've found, which allegedly the vast majority will willingly do if Britain spends millions of pounds providing the opportunity (only a very small minority of black sheep 'who are not real detectorists' will not act responsibly). Here we see that the reality behind this myth is somewhat different.

Note that the element of this allegedly "Rotten and Putrid Heritage System" this group is targeting is the very Treasure Act that other collectors (especially in the US) claim is the "only way forward" and the "fairest system in the world". So, which is it? Is the Treasure Act Fairness incarnate, or Nazi jackboots on the throat of the collector?

We look forward to the Detectorist Minutemen coming forward and showing their hand and shaking everybody out of their complacency about what most British artefact hunters really want - to go about their hobby unhindered by any requirement to show anybody anything much and not have to say where they got anything from. This is entirely the antithesis of the PAS "best practice" ethos of course. Collectors should note that it was the CBA which was (and is) behind the shift away from the Detector wars (thirty years AGO, Mr Stout) to the current system of liaison with responsible artefact hunters. The emphasis of course in on the adjective 'responsible', the problem is that it is emerging that the number of detector users in the UK whose activities can be counted as truly and consistently responsible is by no means as high as the supporters of "partnership" with artefact hunters would have us all believe.

Vignette: Detectorists on the march to put a stake through the heart of the Treasure Act reform