The Collector Abroad

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I came across this the other day, a type of collecting after my own heart, a guy ("Eyestrain" from Montreal, Quebec) set out to get as many tourist fake antiquities (coins that is) at source as he could: Tourist Fakes: The Quest - Part I (follow links for the rest). It's a nicely-written travelogue about an interesting quest.

Not all collectors however fell in with the spirit of things. One Ripley wrote from California:

Eyestrain, I think you have a fabulous idea, to plan your vacation around. Keep us posted. Yeah, I know Italy is starting to enforce its policy of not shipping ancients out of Italy. However, this can be easily circumvented. As for plunder, these things are still on the planet Earth. So they did not go anywhere.

(Ripley by the way has a signature that quotes the Book of Revelation 19:11). Again 'Ripley' writes another comment in the same vein five days later:

Interesting Eyestrain. I recently had to dodge Italian snooping in order to get a nice ancient into the USA. This was back in March, I do believe that even the Roman imperial coins are now subject to thier greedy paws and snooping.

Bible-bashing Californians who buy them and remove them from the country by 'circumvention' (a euphemism for ...?) do not of course have "greedy paws" because they consider themselves an elite to whom the laws do not apply.
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Canada: 18 000 Stolen Coins Did Not Make it onto the North American Market as Planned

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This Friday evening at a ceremony at the Canadian Museum of Civilization the Ministry of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages returned the largest ever Canadian seizure of stolen cultural property to the Republic of Bulgaria. Going back were 21,000 coins, pieces of jewellery, and other objects that were illegally exported to Canada and seized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Vezhdi Rashidov, Minister of Culture of the Republic of Bulgaria, was present to accept the artefacts from the Government of Canada. Madame Irina Bokova, Director General of UNESCO, came over for the event. The usual speeches were made.

"The RCMP is pleased with this successful outcome. Our team in Montréal has worked long hours to investigate, locate, and retrieve these Bulgarian artifacts," said Bob Paulson, RCMP Deputy Commissioner.

In 2007, Canada Border Services Agency officials detained two imports of cultural property sent by mail from Bulgaria. These imports were referred to Canadian Heritage for further assessment, and the RCMP was asked to investigate. As a result of its investigation, the RCMP seized about 21,000 ancient coins, pieces of jewellery, and other objects in November 2008. In January 2011, the importer formally abandoned the cultural property, clearing the way for the Court ofQuebec to rule under the Criminal Code for the return of the seized antiquities to the Republic of Bulgaria. These objects, many of which were illegally excavated, cover more than 2600 years of the history of Bulgaria. This collection includes more than 18,000 coins, as well as a number of artifacts including bronze eagles, rings, pendants, belt buckles, arrows and spearheads, and bone sewing needles. They represent a mix of Hellenistic, Roman, Macedonian, Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Ottoman cultural heritage.

The "importer" involved in this attempted smuggling was not named. But there are not too many coin dealers selling this kind of stuff in that part of Canada, are there?

Canada and Bulgaria are signatories to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property, under which participating states agree to assist each other in the recovery of illegally exported and stolen cultural property. In Canada, the Convention is implemented through the Cultural Property Export and Import Act [1985], administered by the Department of Canadian Heritage. The Department works closely with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canada Border Services Agency to enforce and administer the Act and combat the illicit traffic of cultural property.

Huge numbers of such artefacts flow through the US market annually. In fact a substantial portion of the market seems to have been initiated by the flow of masses of cheap dugup coins precisely from Bulgaria. The USA and Bulgaria are signatories to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property, under which participating states agree to assist each other in the recovery of illegally exported and stolen cultural property. In the United States, the Convention is implemented through the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act 1983, administered by the Department of State (unlike countries like Canada, the USA has no Ministry of American Heritage). Despite this, very few shipments of looted coins and artefacts stripped from archaeological sites by gangs of criminals have ever been stopped at the US border, or investigated, located and retrieved by US law enforcement agencies (DHS, FBI etc).

Lesser, but still substantial numbers of such artefacts flow through the UK market annually and are openly sold alongside (and sometimes masquerading as) local finds obtained by metal detector use according to Britain's all-too-lax laws. The UK and Bulgaria are signatories to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property, under which participating states agree to assist each other in the recovery of illegally exported and stolen cultural property. In the United Kingdom, the Convention is implemented through the Dealing in Cultural property (Offences) Act 2003, administered by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise. Despite this, very few shipments of looted coins and artefacts stripped from archaeological sites by gangs of criminals have ever been stopped at the UK border, or investigated, located and retrieved by UK law enforcement agencies.

So well done Canada for doing what neither the UK nor the USA can be bothered to do for fear of upsetting the local collectors and dealers.

Source: Government of Canada Returns Its Largest Ever Seizure of Cultural Property to the Republic of Bulgaria

Vignette: RCMP commemorative coin (8000 minted).

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Collectors' Rights and Ancient Art

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"First she crushes the glass with a meat axe. Then she penetrates the canvas with a sharp object. First a short slash, then long slashes placed with extreme precision. This new artistic strategy is a settlement of accounts with the tradition that has dominated painting since the Renaissance, in which illusion or trompe l'oeil is used to create spatiality. Mary Richardson does not wish to paint the illusion of space but to create real spaces. By shattering its framework she has given painting a third dimension".

Further to my comments on Ai Weiwei's "artistic" vandalism of ancient artefacts, Peter Tompa disapproves my expression of my opinion ("Archaeoblogger Paul Barford has now become an art critic"). Tompa seems to see this vandalism of ancient artefacts as part of "a long artistic tradition of transforming the old into the new", and apparently disapproves that "Barford will have no part of it".

How oddly this sits with the coiney mantras that if they did not buy dugup coins no-questions-asked, they'd all be melted down into tourist trinkets. Is that not "transforming the old into new"? How about heavily tooled coins, collectors are very disapproving of this, but again, its "transforming the old into new". Perhaps we could see some 'hobo-denarii' moder coin-toolers carving imperial portraits into amusing caricatures - "transforming the old into new" (like putting a fez-like hat on an emperor on a contextless coin). Then there is the wearable ancient coin jewellery ( "transforming the old into new" - there is an ACCG board member who has a family business doing just that). What about an Authentic Third Intermediate Period Mummy cases turned into drink cabinets for a Beverly Hills mansion ("transforming the old into new"), or the lopped off foot of a mummified human cadaver from an Egyptian tomb transformed into scary something to frighten the neighbour's kids with?

Then there's transforming a Roman cameo glass vase into a pile of glass sherds, but the British Museum did not see this as an artistic act and reconstructed the Portland Vase. Michaelangelo's Pieta has its nose back after an artist hammered it off, those Papal stiffs at the Vatican simply do not respect artistic expression. The Rokeby Venus has had the transformative slashing repaired - obscuring the artistic expression of suffragette Mary Richardson . More recently Rembrandt's "Night Watch" has had traces of attempts to artistically "transform old into new", once by slashing with a bread knife, a second time by spraying with acid, removed. Then there was the simultaneous slashing and acid attack on another Rembrandt, his Danae, a foiled attempt at transforming the "old into a new". Or if we are talking of 'ready mades', we could dwell on what happened to Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, which perhaps Tompa would prefer to remain as seen in Nimes in 1993 after an act of expression involving the item's original function? Tompa thinks this sort of thing is not vandalism but "art". Most museum curators tend to disagree with this "collectors' rights" advocate on that point, as do I.

I thought collectors prided themselves with being mere custodians, looking after the past, stewards? That by collecting them they are "protecting" the objects? Is that not what they say? And yet "collector's rights" activist Tompa considers the smashing and defacing of artefacts merely as part of "a long artistic tradition of transforming the old into the new".

Tompa asks (I think he means it to be rhetorical):

isn't Ai Weiwei's transformation of the old artifacts in some ways better than letting such common artifacts gradually turn to dust in some forgotten storage facility?

He asserts that pottery "in the supposed care of the archaeological community" in excavation archives and museum storerooms "turns to dust" anyway, so better let Ai Weiwei have it to create "art" with. Tompa seems unaware that thermally fused silicate material such as ceramic is extraordinarily stable in normal (and even abnormal) storage conditions. Not only is it not turning into dust, but very little material in the care of the museum community will be getting dunked in brightly coloured enamel paint, or ground up into dust packed into IKEA jars just for the shock value of it. But of course we can assume that Ai Weiwei did not obtain these pots on loan from a state museum, instead we assume he'd have bought them on the antiquities market and presumably therefore they come from the looting of archaeological sites (the complete pots coming probably from cemeteries and tombs). It is notable that US antiquity collector Tompa has absolutely no qualms about this "property" from the antiquities market being treated by its "owner" in this way, after all, he says these are "such common artifacts" which presumably means that it simply does not matter.

So not only do I find myself in disagreement with dugup collectors about what is "ancient art" but now what is "art" generally in a modern context (or is this Tompaism more related to the post-modernist excesses we see expressed in other areas of coineydom?) .

Photo: The Rokeby Venus' back "transformed into something new". I am not as sophisticated an art critic as Peter Tompa and his Washington socialite buddies, it is true, but to me this is not the right way to treat a precious survival from the past.

"Artist" Ai Weiwei and the Damage Caused by Antiquity Collectors

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Ai Weiwei (born 1957) is a controversial Chinese "artist, social commentator, and activist". Several times now US lawyer Peter Tompa has castigated archaeological preservationists that they do not react to the Chinese government's treatment of this person (he's under arrest) - though I do not really see the connection or why we should. Looking up the background to a comment by Larry Rothfield however leads me to the conclusion that I would like to see him arrested if that's the only way he can be prevented from wantonly damaging ancient artefacts as a means of drawing draw attention to himself. A blog post by Yanda on the "Artist and his model" blog is sufficient justification.

Many of Ai Weiwei’s works from the past decade, for example, are made of local materials and of antique Chinese objects: tables and chairs from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, wood, doors and windows from demolished temples and traditional houses, freshwater pearls, tea, marble, stone, bamboo etc. – ‘ready-mades’ translated into a conceptual, post-minimalist idiom. Alternatively, for his colored vase series, he takes Neolithic vases (5000 – 3000 B.C.) and paints them careless with bright industrial colors. Then he places them in an Allan McCollum style. The vases are authentic antique vases which could just as easily have stood in a collection in a historical museum in China. It is argued that it "is not contempt for China’s history and tradition that lies behind this harsh treatment of the fine old antiques – on the contrary. His use of the vases should rather be seen as a Dadaistic gesture, as black humour and as a political comment [...].
Ai Weiwei points to the loss of culture by transforming the historical objects into something new".

Yeah, right.

Painted Vases, 2009

Dunking complete authentic ancient pots into enamel paint is not "art". It is cultural vandalism, pure and simple.

Then we have his 1995 "work" Dropping a Han dynasty urn, 1995:

The destruction does not stop there:

In his ‘Dust to dust’ series he first crushed Neolithic-age pottery to powder and stored the gritty remains in a clear IKEA glass jar. Here, the funereal act of memorializing an old urn in a modern urn coupled with the implied violence of the grinding gives the work cerebral and visceral force.

Dust to Dust, 2008

Stuff and nonsense, there is no 'memorialisation' going on here, any more than driving a bulldozer through a graveyard smashing the headstones would be. Thus is sheer provocation.

As is this treatment of a vase from the Tang dynasty (618-907)

Coca Cola Vase, 1997
Another one (not, I think, Tang but older):

"Urns of this vintage are usually cherished for their anthropological importance. By employing them as readymades, Ai strips them of their aura of preciousness only to reapply it according to a different system of valuation. However, this is not the well-worn strategy of the readymade famously applied by Duchamp to his urinal Fountain, wherein the object lacked cultural gravitas until placed in an art context. Instead, Ai’s chosen readymades already have significance. Working in this manner, Ai transforms precious artifacts—treating them as base and valueless by painting, dropping, grinding, or slapping with a logo—into contemporary fine art. The substitution of one kind of value for another occurs when he displays the transformed urns in a museum vitrine, reinstilling value but replacing historical significance with a newer cultural one".

So in a way Ai Weiwei is treating "anthropological" objects in the same way as private antiquity collectors, applying their own notions of value on objects which as a result are stripped of other kinds (e.g, archaeological). By asserting private ownership over these items, collectors deny the rights of other stakeholders to determine what should happen to them, and affirm their right to do whatever they like to their "property". That is even to the extent of altering in whatever way takes their fancy or destroying them should they so wish. Which is what Ai Weiwei is doing to the antiquities that fall into his hands.

I really do not accept that "causing destruction to bring attention to destruction to stop destruction" is a useful way to protest (which is what the guy claims to be doing here) the destruction of the cultural heritage. That seems like protesting the threat to polar bears by filming them being fed with exploding fish and capturing the image of blood and guts on the virgin snow.

Pictures from here and here.
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Decline and fall of the American Antiquities Market?

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Larry Elliott, Economics editor of The Guardian (Decline and fall of the American empire, Guardian 6th June 2011) raises questions about America's future:

Detroit

"the economic powerhouse of the 20th century emerged stronger from the Depression. But faced with cultural decay, structural weaknesses and reliance on finance, can the US do it again?"

This is a question not as off-topic as it might seem. The US is the largest market for the world's dugup antiquities and it is also abundantly clear that the accumulation of such items in US hands has a connection with issues of identity, entitlement and feelings of self-worth of citizens of that country. Obviously conservation is not just about "the past" but future trends. So what signs are emerging about what those trends may be? Interestingly, Elliott (a graduate from Fitzwilliam, Cambridge) sees some interesting parallels with the Roman Empire (so that will - or might not - please the coineys).

The US is a country with serious problems. Getting on for one in six depend on government food stamps to ensure they have enough to eat. The budget, which was in surplus little more than a decade ago, now has a deficit of Greek-style proportions. There is policy paralysis in Washington.

The assumption is that the problems can be easily solved because the US is the biggest economy on the planet, the only country with global military reach, the lucky possessor of the world's reserve currency, and a nation with a proud record of re-inventing itself once in every generation or so. [...]

Let me put an alternative hypothesis. America in 2011 is Rome in 200AD or Britain on the eve of the First World War: an empire at the zenith of its power but with cracks beginning to show. The experience of both Rome and Britain suggests that it is hard to stop the rot once it has set in, so here are the a few of the warning signs of trouble ahead: military overstretch, a widening gulf between rich and poor, a hollowed-out economy, citizens using debt to live beyond their means, and once-effective policies no longer working. The high levels of violent crime, epidemic of obesity, addiction to pornography and excessive use of energy may be telling us something: the US is in an advanced state of cultural decadence [...].

There has been a long-term shift of emphasis in the US economy away from manufacturing and towards finance. There is a growing challenge from producers in other parts of the world [...]. The feeble response to today's growth medicine suggests that the US is structurally far weaker than it was in the 1930s.

Stirring stuff. Will we see the bottom drop out of the antiquities market in the same way as it appears at the moment to be dropping out of the US housing market? Will the remedies which Elliot predicts America will have to find mean turning further towards models of the past, or will it encourage a vital move away from the traditions and cultural models leading to the decline? Perhaps a new seeking of a new American identity on which to build, paying less attention to the deep past and multiple roots and forging a common identity based in the soil of the continent rather than celebrating foreign values? Only time will tell, but it is worth considering whether the assumption that the global and US antiquities trade will always persist in their current form is justified. If not, then perhaps we should be trying to predict the directions of change, and whether they can be guided in a direction which is sustainable and less damaging to the world's heritage.

Photo: US Stewardship failure: Historic Building in Detroit

The Problems with Illegally Transporting Ancient Coins

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I came across this 'Factoidz' article 'The Problems with Illegally Transporting Ancient Coins' by chance yesterday, while there is perhaps nothing much new here, and I would place the emphasis of some parts of it elsewhere, it is good to see the subject "out there" in the popular media. It is also nice to see colleague Nathan Elkins mentioned.

While many are happy to see displays and pictures of ancient coins, many people are bent on owning a collection of them. This leads to many looting from archeological sites and taking coins to sell on the black market. [...] By buying coins from black market sources, collectors are inadvertently hampering the study of the past according to most archeologists and de-valuing the coins as primary sources of history.

I would have mentioned that there is emerging evidence that it would also be supporting organized crime. Clicking on the source of the illustration brings the reader to Reid Goldsborough's well-known (or should be) text 'Looting, Smuggling, And Coins' which argues:

There should be a government-regulated free market of antiquities and coins in source countries around the Mediterranean, as there is in the United Kingdom.

Eh? What government regulation is there of the British antiquities market, surely some mistake! More misinformation about the PAS. has the existence of a government regulated free market of antiquities and coins put a stop to the looting of archaeological sites and illegal activity concerning artefacts in Israel?Goldsborough continues:

Governments would confiscate material shown to have been uncovered illegally at off-limits, bona fide archeological sites. The remainder of the material would enter the collector market, not secretly as happens today, with much knowledge of the past lost, but openly so the material could be fully studied. Governments of source countries would further benefit in the form of sales and export taxes just as with other goods sold or exported.

Well, isn't it the case that current laws confiscate confiscate material excavated illegally at off-limits archaeological sites? What is a "bone fide" archaeological site, who defines it and how (for the purposes of this market)? Also I fail to see how imposing a tax on antiquity exports is going to help cut down clandestine exportation. This can only work with some form of import control at the other end, as most collectors willingly buy antiquities on the open market without paying the slightest attention to the precise formalities of them leaving the source country.

So we come back to the same problem of the lack of responsibility of the collectors (the ubiquity of customers of the dodgy dealers) for providing the incentive for trading in licitly-obtained material. it is these collectors that are providing the motor for the looting and illegal export of material.

Goldsborough finishes with a flourish:

Saving Antiquities for Everyone is an advocacy organization that, despite its name, promotes the mainstream archeological position, which includes banning the private collecting of ancient coins and artifacts. Ancient Coin Collectors Guild is an advocacy organization that, despite its name, promotes the mainstream position of coin dealers, which includes the preservation of the right to sell and buy ancient coins. Neither organization is advocating the rationalization of laws in source countries and the furthering of knowledge this would lead to.

Firstly SAFE does not work for the "banning" of collecting, the mainstream position is that the market should be restricted to that which is licitly and sustainably obtained. Inasmuch as most of the antiquities market today seems to be quite the opposite (unsustainable and damaging) of the desired form, then it seems reasonable to oppose all elements within it which would tend to make that situation much worse as the market expands. But by all means let us work together to see a rationalisation of laws, we could start with the largest market country, the US rationalising its own laws not only as a receiver of antiquities, but a source of antiquities. Alongside legislative changes however we need to see a massive change in attitudes and a taking of responsibility by dealers and especially collectors to reduce the problems with illegally transporting illicitly obtained ancient coins.
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ACCG Lund Defence Fund

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As reported widely in the US media, through what he describes as a miscommunication, a member of the US coin-collecting brotherhood is in serious trouble with the authorities in Israel and has lost an entire ancient coin collection to them and it seems to me that he is is dire need of some support from fellow ancient coin collectors. As we all know,

The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild is a non-profit organization committed to promoting the free and independent collecting of coins from antiquity. The goal of the guild is to foster an environment in which the general public can confidently and legally acquire and hold any numismatic item of historical interest regardless of date or place of origin. ACCG strives to achieve its goals through education, political action, and consumer protection.

Dr John Lund is doing research for an upcoming book and unthinkingly took a binder containing a collection of ancient coins with him when he travelled on business to Israel which has been seized by Israeli authorities. We are told that the book is called "Bible Coins of Interest to Christians". This meant that Lund's lost coin binder contained a collection of "many coins, including Greek, Persian, Roman and Egyptian coins in addition to Jewish coins". These objects were he stresses legally purchased and exported "on previous trips around the Mediterranean region" and legally owned in the United States where he lives (in Utah). The Israelis are challenging this, so this seems like a forthcoming battle right up the ACCG's street. It challenges everything they say about ancient coin ownership, "collectors' rights" and property rights.

This was the second batch of antiquities from his collection which Dr Lund had had confiscated by the Israelis in a fortnight. According to an Israel Antiquities Authority press release, he was detained in Jerusalem about "two weeks" before his arrest at Ben Gurion airport and had had a collection of "hundreds of antiquities" (including coins) seized when authorities searched his room. Again, coins he says were legally owned and brought as private property through Israeli customs from his home in America.

Lund said he had been questioned at customs about the items when he entered Israel and allowed to pass without any problems. The problems arose when he tried to take the same collection of objects back home. He claims that nobody had explained to him anything about Israeli law on the passage of such items across international borders. Lund said he's concerned for American tourists in Israel who are in the dark like he was.

"Innocently, all over the place, people are buying items, hauling them out of the country and not even aware that they're technically smugglers," he said. "I think Israel has an obligation to let us know that".

Well, although I think Israel does that already some may agree with Dr Lund (a collector of 'Biblical coins") that more could be done. I think therefore this is somewhere the ACCG could supply advice notes for collectors who might be faced with similar problems during their travels abroad. Just how do the laws of popular US holiday destinations affect the ability of collectors to own ancient coins while abroad? I think this case shows all too transparently that collectors need to be informed, and who better to accomplish this task than the Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild.

Dr Lund now has to get his property - including his "biblical coin" collection - back from the Israelis, because if he does not this is a huge blow against the "rights" which US collectors claim.

Lund plans to appeal to the U.S. Embassy and find a lawyer versed in international antiquities laws to fight the charges, which he says stemmed from a simple miscommunication..

It seems to me that this is a task for Peter Tompa and his firm Bailey and Ehrenberg, the legal firm in the nation's capital with a lot of experience of fighting governmental injustice and intransigence specifically in the field of the legality of coin imports and exports.

So, I assume that in the next few days in their efforts to uphold US "collectors' rights", to promote the free and independent collecting of coins from antiquity and "foster an environment in which the general public can confidently and legally acquire and hold any numismatic item of historical interest regardless of date or place of origin" we will be seeing the creation of an ACCG John Lund Fighting Fund. Maybe a topical Benefit Auction - legally owned and previously collected "Biblical coins" only is in order? Let us see some expression of coiney collecting solidarity - or are the ACCG going to concentrate on those dealery things like the MOUs and leave a US collector to be pushed around and victimised by a foreign government?
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Shekels, Shekels, get yer Shekels Here!

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Utah tour guide John Lund acknowledges that in the course of his work leading a trip of US tourists to Israel earlier on this month, he

facilitated the $2,000 purchase of a silver Tyre shekel, also known as a Judas coin, for one of the tour participants.

Lund claims to be writing a book on "Biblical coins of interest to Christians" but seems not to know enough about these coins to be able to tell a tour party member to save his money because he can buy a decent example of that shekel back in the states for about a quarter of the price.

V-Coins search Results For: Shekel (or siglos or siklos or tetrashekel) (Tyre) Including a rather interesting number from Sayles and Lavender

The Temple Tax “30 Pieces of Silver” Shekel of Tyre
Prices around 400 - 500 dollars for a decent one. Half decent ones much cheaper.
No wonder some of his firm's clients were running out of money if he was failing to give them advice on the most effective way to shop. After all this gentleman is called a "Fun for Less Educator".

Vignette: a Coin Replicas, Inc. (Charles Doyle http://www.coinreplicas.com/), replica shekel, gentler on the pocket and the archaeological heritage than the real thing.

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

The Antiquity Dealers' View on Stewardship

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Coin dealer Wayne Sayles explains to a list member on coin dealer Dave Welsh's coiney microforum Unidroit-L his views on stewardship of the archaeological heritage. The occasion for this was that member's questioning of the ACCG challenge to the US government over the import of illegally exported dugup artefacts. Sayles suggests:

In my view, import restrictions are not the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it. The mentality that imposes import restrictions on any and all utilitarian objects simply because archaeologists want to be exclusive stewards over them IS potentially the beginning of the end.

First of all nobody is planning "import restrictions on any and all utilitarian objects" bought fresh from the factory in Turin, just certain types of dugup and ethnographic collectables. This is because their production involves the depletion of a resource.

So the problem is not that archaeologists want to be stewards of "them" (objects) but the archaeological record which is trashed in the production of the commodities that Sayles wants to be allowed to import even if it has been illegally exported from another country.

This is the fallacy which collectors want to propagate, that this is about the "ownership" of objects as property, but the truth is that it goes deeper than that. What is the problem for the archaeologists is the origin of the objects dealers like Sayles and his collector clients want to own, to buy and sell. The archaeologist wants to protect archaeological sites from illicit exploitation as a source of illicitly-obtained collectables. The actions of the ancient Coin Collectors Guild in opposition to the CCPIA show that collectors of the United States are not only willing to lay hands on such illicitly-obtained finds, but in fact positively desire to get their hands on them. If this were not the case any curbs on the import of illegally exported antiquities would have no affect on them whatsoever.

Vignette: Stewardship, not just about the squirrels in the park...

Senator Schumer accepted ACCG award, but attempts to halt coin sales

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On January 30, 2007, the dealers' lobby group the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild awarded Senator "Do What Torturing You have To Do" Chuck Schumer (Democrats -New York) its Friend of Numismatics Award. Senator Schumer was involved in the questioning of the bilateral cultural property agreement with China on the grounds that coineys suspected there "may have been irregularities in how the State Department processed a Peoples Republic of China (sic) request involving a wide variety of cultural artifacts dating from Neolithic times to AD 1911".

Senator Schumer and Jeff Hamond of his staff hosted a meeting where the concerns of New Yorkers, including collectors and the small businesses of the numismatic trade, were raised directly with a high ranking State Department official.

Schumer and now Gillibrand (Democrats -New York). In receiving this award, Senator Schumer joined Senator Kit Bond of Missouri and Congressmen Green, Petri and Ryan from Wisconsin and others in accepting this token of appreciation from the ancient coin collecting community for their help and support for the no-questions-asked market in dugup antiquities.

Of course supporting US dealers selling dugups no-questions-asked is not a problem for Senator Schumer, he'll lend his name to that, no problems there about American people stealing the archaeological heritage from the brown-skinned guys abroad. He has no problems therefore with US collectors putting money into the pockets of culture criminals and organized criminal groups involved in antiquity smuggling to the US. But modern commemorative coins, now THERE is a problem worthy of his attention, there's something to fight for. Gotta stop collectors putting money into the pockets of small US businesses producing commemorative coins and medals. Obvious.

Collectors' Vandalism of Islamic Art,

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Souren Melikan has a piece in the New York Times (Century-Old Vandalism of Islamic Art, and Its Price, April 15, 2011) about the way so-called cosmopolitan ("cultural property internationalist") collectors dismember unique handwritten manuscript books to separate the attractive pictures from the text which does not interest them and call it "Islamic art". To me, this is a very precise parallel to the way that so-called cosmopolitan ("cultural property internationalist") collectors encourage the dismemberment of unique archaeological sites and the separation of the attractive objects from their context which does not interest them and call it "Ancient art". Its the same thing, the same vandalism. This is how Melikan's article begins:

A chorus of praise greeted the “record for an Islamic work of art at auction” achieved when a painted page torn from a royal Iranian manuscript, the Shah-Name or Book of Kings, brought £7.43 million at the Sotheby’s auction of the Stuart Cary Welch collection on April 6. Little was said about the destruction of the greatest manuscript from 16th-century Iran, intact until 1957 when the French collector Maurice de Rothschild who owned it died.

The extraordinary manuscript commissioned for the library of Shah Tahmasp (1524-76) was acquired by Arthur A. Houghton Jr., a bibliophile whose interest lay in rare English books. He was presumably advised by Mr. Welch, who had long been buying manuscript paintings from Iran and Moghul India. Soon after, Mr. Houghton began breaking up the manuscript. In November 1976, seven pages appeared at Christie’s. Many more would follow, sold through art galleries and at auction, notably at Christie’s London on Oct. 11, 1988.

This astounding example of calculated vandalism perpetrated by a cultivated man is perhaps the most extreme where Eastern art is concerned. But it was by no means unusual. Ripping apart the thousands of precious painted manuscripts removed from Iran, India or Turkey and taken to Europe in the 19th and 20th century was routine among Western dealers. It allowed them to make a bigger profit[...]

Manuscripts from Moghul India, where Persian was the language of literature and administration, suffered a similar fate. In the Sotheby’s sale, a page painted with a scene featuring a ship sailing in choppy waters had been cut from a manuscript. The upper line reproduces a couplet by the 14th-century poet Hafez (not identified in the catalog) and the lower line has a couplet by another poet that does not rhyme with the former, which Sotheby’s does not mention. This botched assemblage, carried out in the 20th century, would be unthinkable in a manuscript of Persian poetry. Pompously dubbed “a page from the Salim [the future emperor Jahangir] album,” the beautiful but mishandled painting brought an astonishing £193,250.

The late Mr. Welch, who studied neither Persian nor Arabic, used to say that it is not necessary to know the languages to look at the paintings. To look perhaps, but to see, and to understand their meaning, it is. Had he mastered a reading knowledge of Persian, the American collector might have realized how intricate the connection is between the image and the written word.

I think the same goes for the commercial dismemberment of the archaeological record, it is clear that the dealers and collectors one talks to about it have not the foggiest idea about how the 'text' of an archaeological site is 'read'. They think its all about who gets to hold the 'pictures'.

In the context of this discussion about destroying archaeology to get out the geegaws, I was struck by the juxtaposition of the names Houghton and Wel[s]h. I assume that the Arthur A. Houghton ("junior" - this one?) is not related to the Arthur A. Horton of CPRI, but who knows? One ripped up manuscripts to sell the dismembered bits on the international market, the other has misgivings about the CCPIA intended to curb the treatment of foreign archaeological sites in the same way, the distinction seems to me to be a fine one. (There is a Corning glass connection).

Melikan talks of the effects of the way foreign collectors treat this cultural property in the following terms:

Detached from their volume and framed as “Persian miniatures,” book paintings are reduced to an arbitrary construct suiting the desire of collectors unaware of the nature of the art. The artificial construct fits into the overall reinvention of the Eastern world by the West.

He refers to the "misapprehension of historical reality that goes together with this reinvention", which again seems to me a perfect parallel to what happens when artefact collectors (such as the coineys) set out to rewrite history on the basis of a few decontextualised and visually attractive "pieces of the past" in their grubby hands.

Collectors of ancient dugups claim a special and privileged familiarity with ancient cultures which somehow magically infuses into them from possession, but Melikan highlights a number of examples of complete ignorance of these matters exhibited by both collectors and the cataloguers of the auction houses which sell these decontextualised "art works".

More on the Shahnameh:
Metropolitan Museum NY: 'The Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp',
and its destruction here - Thomas Stone: 'The Houghton Shahnameh, The Whole Is Greater Then The Parts but Sometimes the Parts are more Marketable--Book Destruction for Profit'

Vignette: Decontextualised and put on sale: a framed page of the sixteenth century folio 'Faridun in the Guise of a Dragon Tests His Sons' attributed to Aqa Mirak "part of the scholarly collection of Islamic and Indian Art assembled by the late Stuart Cary Welch" (REUTERS/Toby Melville)

Dr David raises an Eyebrow

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Dr David Gill expresses surprise about the collecting history of a fish plate sold recently which apparently has the ability to have been in two places at the same time. This either raises the possibility of a parallel universe from which non-looted artefacts materialise into ours (a high-tech version of the coineys' "coin elves" myth), or as Gill surmises the difference between what he calls "creative collecting histories" and those verified by proper due diligence.

Vignette: Dr David Gill raises an eyebrow.

A Numismatic Collecting History

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The current catalogue of the Baldwin's sale of British coins reveals that many of them are being sold with the collectors' tickets which in some cases reveal a collecting history going back to 'pre-decimal days'. One coin in particular, lot 602 London mint halfgroat of Richard III has what the auctioneer describes as "a fantastic provenance":

ex Samuel Tyssen collection, Leigh and Sotheby, 6 December 1802, lot 213, sold for £3/4/- to Dimsdale
ex Thomas Dimsdale collection, Sotheby, 6 July 1824, lot 482, sold for £13/5/- to Rev. Martin
ex Rev J W Martin collection, Sotheby, 23 May 1859, lot 128, sold for £2/19/- to Capt Murchison
ex Capt R M Murchison collection, Sotheby, 27 June 1864, lot 105, sold for £13/16/- to Addington
ex Samuel Addington collection, purchased en bloc in 1883 by H Montagu
ex Hyman Montagu collection, Sotheby, 7 May 1888, lot 159, sold for £15/10/- to Rostron
ex Simpson Rostron collection, Sotheby, 16 May 1892, lot 99, sold for £11/15/- to dealer Webster
ex John G Murdoch collection, Sotheby, 31 March 1903, lot 380, sold for £9/2/6 to dealer Ready
ex Bernard M S Roth collection, Sotheby, 19-20 July 1917, lot 232, sold for £10/10 to dealer Spink
ex J Shirley-Fox collection, died 1939, sold in a private transaction before this date
ex George R Blake collection, sold through B A Seaby Bulletin, June 1956, item BL75 for £30
ex Raymond Carlyon-Britton collection, portion sold to B A Seaby c.1958
ex B A Seaby Bulletin, January 1959, item X161 for £42/10/-
ex B A Seaby Bulletin, September 1961, item H427 for £62/10/-
ex B A Seaby Bulletin, January 1963, item H1423 for £95. accompanied by ticket at this price
ex Eric J Harris collection, sold to A H Baldwin & Sons Ltd in 1995

Of course with something like that, there is no need for the current dealer to pretend he does not know where it comes from, it has a verifiable collecting history which gives it a respectable enough pedigree. Nothing to hide.

Several of the other coins have interesting collecting histories - which rather begs the question why other collectors of dugups are so lax in retaining this sort of information (see above).

Lot 754 has some interesting marketing material, linking it to the recent box-office success "The King's Speech" for those unable to make the connection themselves... (AND the upcoming Royal Wedding).

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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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?

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.

April Fool from CPRI

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It seems to me that the Santa Fe-based "Cultural Property Research Institute" (an antiquity dealers' advocacy group masquerading as an inefficient "research institute") has got its dates wrong. A text they have released (State Department in Contravention of the Law?) can only be seen as an April Fool joke accidentally published two days early. Still, I suppose that's better than all those promised pieces of "research" which are months overdue.

Among the gems of deadpan humour contained in this obviously satirical text, the reader will spot the following:

- "has disregarded the criteria established by the law that created it", the enquiring reader will ask what might they be, and in what way do they benefit the world's cultural heritage?

- "the Act was intended not just to save objects, but to save context and heritage". Where does it say that? Where? It actually says nothing of the kind in the CCPIA (which in general it has to be admitted is a badly-written text, but that is no excuse for the CPRI making things up).

- "limitations placed by the Act on the ability of the US Government to enter into agreements with other countries to impose import restrictions", eh? This is in an act intended to IMPLEMENT the 1970 UNESCO Convention on what? Oh yes, "on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property", so why did the US government issue an "implementing" act limiting its own ability to actually "implement" the actual measures of the Convention? Why would the US government fail to enter into an agreement with another country who requests it to actually implement the measures implicit in becoming a state party to the Convention? That's just plain daft, but then all of this US pretence to be implementing the Convention is plain double daft. Let the US just end the farce and withdraw from the Convention they have for nearly three decades obviously had no intention of fully honouring. Let the existing Wild West ethos of much of the US antiquity market show itself for what it is.

- "a provision requiring U.S. restrictions to be part of a "concerted international response" had been violated" eh? So where actually is this mythical "provision"? Where? How can you "violate" a provision that is not there?

- "in a manner that discriminated against Americans and that moved the trade abroad". Like keeping Chinese artefacts from being illegally exported FROM China? Isn't that what the 1970 Convention "on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property" supposed to do? What did the Americans think it was supposed to do when they became a state party? And how funny, an American law which affects Americans in America and not foreigners living outside America.

"Seminar summary at http://www.cprinst.org/Home/issues. Full transcript available soon". Can they manage it by April 1st?

The comedy is continued by that master of black humour, D.C. lawyer Peter Tompa, who asks "A related question is whether the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs is listening or whether Assistant Secretary Anne Stock and her staff remain tone deaf as ever". Listen to what? The inventive rantings of the lunatic fringe of the US no-questions-asked market in dugup antiquities? That is a real joke.

What on earth is New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand thinking of aligning herself with these people with their all-too-transparent antisocial aims? Maybe readers in the States might like to write to her office and ask her http://gillibrand.senate.gov/contact/.

Vignette: Hilary and lookalike Kirsten (left) show their appreciation of the 2011 CPIA April Fool joke at the expense of the skeletal US International Cultural Property Protection program, such as it is.

Old Coin Collection Found - under a Road

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One news item, just out, for the Coineys. They are so keen to point out that their hobby ('avocation') of collecting dugup ancient coins and artefacts has its roots in Renaissance and Enlightenment antiquarianism. They therefore want to want to establish a position of prestige with regard to archaeology which they see as a younger (daughter) discipline, but also to point out that dugup ancient coins on the market today "could have been" on the market for centuries and not recently looted items. This of course does not take into account three factors, the growth in numbers of collectors in the days when the population of the western world as a whole was much less than today, the growth in popularity of the hobby, and that artefacts have been dropping out of the 'pool' of those available on the market by mechanisms such as donation to public institutions and destruction or loss.

A recent find by archaeologists from West of Scotland Archaeology Service (WoSAS) draws attention to the later mechanism. Five ancient coins were found in archaeological supervision of landscaping works conducted in Port Glasgow, Scotland in redeposited topsoil mixed with hardcore from the adjacent road surface. They were found along a grassed verge during the removal of turf and seem to have been brought to the site with material that was imported onto the site during road construction. We are not told, but I wonder whether these coins were not found during a metal detector survey of this deposit?

A point of interest is a deposit adhering to one side of each of the coins which appears to be glue or resin. This suggests to the excavator that they may have been mounted at some time, which in turn could suggest that they may represent part of a former private antiquity collection. "Two of the coins appear to be very similar, and while one has a resin deposit on the obverse, on the other the resin is on the reverse, suggesting that the intention may have been to display them side-by-side, which would support the interpretation that they form part of a collection". Three of the coins are "ancient Greek" in type, but the other two are Late Roman in type. The coins have a suspicious look to them however, they are of types that should have been struck in silver (and the corrosion products in the photo do not really look like corroded base silver should look). One of the Macedonian ones has what seems to be a casting flash on the edge while the third "Greek" coin has very flat relief undifferentiated from the background and a soapy look typical of the cast fake. It seems that the collector who acquired these items on the antiquities market at some time (we are not told at what date the soil layer was dumped) did not have a very discerning eye.

The excavators suggest it was part of the scattered collection of an "antiquary", but I think the possibility that they formed part of some teaching material used in a local school cannot be ruled out.

Scotland Lacks Numismatic Expertise?

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I was interested in a comment at the end of the article by Chris Watt ('Scotland’s buried heritage looted by treasure hunters', Herald Scotland 17 Feb 2011) which indicates that numismatics is given low academic priority in Scotland:

Most discoveries in Scotland involve small artefacts like coins, but the Treasure Trove report warns that expertise in this area is now lacking due to the retirement of the country’s leading numismatist. The National Museums of Scotland has not replaced its coin expert, the report said, meaning that officials face the prospect of bringing a coin-dealer up from London to handle Scots finds.

Surely if there are no local numismatists capable of doing the job, it's probably easier to send batches down south. Does it have to be a dealer though? Why not knowledgeable collector (we are always being told by the coineys that there are such). Anyway in the majority of cases, can't this be done online these days? So the ACCG could help out too.

I suppose now we'll be hearing the coineys alleging that if the state gathers such finds for the public collections, this hinders the growth of coin collecting in Scotland, which deprives the nation of such expertise. I wonder though how many Scottish collectors are patrons of eBay and V-Coins regardless of what happens to local finds that are reported. And where do the finds that are not reported go? According to the coiney arguments, if the state takes them off finders reporting them, the rest must be melted down to create "tourist trinkets", eh?



Vignette: map for US collectors of dugup ancient coins who have difficulty in distinguishing "England" from "Britain". Scotland is the orangy bit at the top.