How Serious a Threat is Looting?

Looting Case Overstated?

http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2013/10/looting-case-overstated.html
by Peter Tompa

The World Monuments Fund has listed its top five threats to cultural heritage.  But "looting" does not rate any mention except when it is associated with war.  Is it possible then that members of the archaeological community have overstated their case just to further their anti-collecting agenda?


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COMMENTARY
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Peter Tompa raises a salient point here.

All parties on both sides of the conflict between archaeology and collecting condemn looting, and would like to see looters (and those subsequently involved in illicitly acquiring looted artifacts and smuggling them across source state borders) severely dealt with.

The point in question is whether the threat of looting, other than that which takes place in the uncontrollable conditions of war, is so significant as to justify restrictive measures such as those being imposed by the U.S. State Department under provisions of the 1983 CCPIA which implements the 1970 UNESCO Convention in the USA.

The perspective of this observer (and the ACCG) is that the measures imposed are in large part unjustified, and that they have been adopted through unscrupulous manipulation of the 1983 CCPIA so as to negate and evade the checks and balances, and transparency provisions intended by Congress.

The perspective of this observer is that the archaeologist directing this manipulation and her staff are covert allies of the archaeology lobby, sharing in and endorsing its anticollecting agenda.

The 1983 CCPIA provided import restrictions only as a last resort, to be imposed as emergency measures when all less drastic alternatives had failed and a serious situation or threat of rampant looting and pillaging existed. Any reasonable and impartial observer would have to conclude that import restrictions are now being imposed whenever a foreign signatory to the 1970 UNESCO Convention asks for them, without anything more than minimal pro forma ritualistic sham investigations intended to satisfy the letter of the law, so that the searching, unbiased and even-handed appraisal intended by Congress is evaded and disregarded.

Clearly this sort of deceptive bureaucratic maladministration can only occur when those responsible for directing and overseeing the activities in question believe that there is a "higher cause" which supersedes their obligations to follow the intent of Congress, and to provide evenhanded, impartial administration of the law in a manner respecting the rights of all American citizens including collectors, giving those rights equal weight compared to the interests of foreign governments.

Thus we return to the question of the threat posed by looting. Very significant damage is being done to the interests of U.S. antiquities collectors, specifically collectors of ancient coins, by import restrictions imposed by unelected bureaucrats whose administration of the 1983 CCPIA is strongly biased against collecting and in favor of the archaeology lobby. Just how significant and important is the threat "justifying" these restrictions?

It is time for an impartial examination of that threat, which does not depend upon the opinions of the archaeology lobby and which is not managed by the U.S. State Department.


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Geography

A Coin Dealer's Imagination of the Geography of the Ancient World: "It was The Communists Wot Dunnit"

http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-coin-dealers-imagination-of-geography.html
by Paul Barford

Dave Welsh comes to the succour of his new friends, the metal detectorists (The Detectorist Connection Sunday, October 13, 2013). He suggests that metal detector users and other artefact digger are not to blame for the supply of large numbers of dugup coins to the US market:

Those involved in the ancient coin trade know from observing characteristics of the coins and the behavior of the market that the great majority of coins presently being acquired by collectors must have come from past collections, and that the flood of "new to the market" material which began to surface in the 1990s had not actually all been dug up in the last few years [...], but had instead been discovered over a period of many decades by individuals in Communist nations, who did not elect to disclose their discoveries to the authorities and then took advantage of the collapse of Communism to sell their accumulations. That flood is now a thing of the past and the ancient coin market has more or less returned to the state that prevailed prior to 1990. Prices have been rising since 2005 after years of being depressed by oversupply.

What "characteristics of the coins and the behavior of the market" is he talking about? Certainly a huge flood of dugup coins from the Balkans came onto the US and European markets after the fall of Communism in Jugoslavia and the collapse of the Zhivkov regime in Bulgaria, but these were indeed fresh dugups from sites like Archar-Rataria which certainly was being looted after 1989 and not before. So Mr Welsh is suggesting that in fifteen years, the collectors-coin market of the "communist countries" have now been emptied onto the wealthier US and western European markets? Is this not precisely what export licensing is supposed to avoid?

Here's a map of "communism" (red) and the Classical ancient world (Green) the only real overlap between the two (apart from Hungary) is in precisely those areas affected by massive ongoing looting, Bulgaria, Macedonia, the Balkans and Crimea.The features he notes would presumably equally well be explained by these coins coming onto the market due to post-1989 looting following the collapse of strong state control and the rise of criminal gangs. What ("scientific") evidence does Mr Welsh have for promoting his opposing picture? Unless one believes in Coin Fairies and Coin Elves, Occam's razor suggests that in the absence of any verifiable proof that the version Mr Welsh wants us to believe, the known instances of ongoing looting provide a simpler explanation of both the 'flood' of new coins in 1989/90-2005 and its drying up after 2005 (which is about when Bulgarian fakers started turning out their fantasy products to fill the gap in the market caused by the drying up of real dugups as the more accessible sites began to produce fewer and fewer artefacts as they were exhausted).

Now, I think we'd all like Mr Welsh and the ACCG to explain the difference in LEGAL terms between these two categories of ancient dug up coins from ancient sites in a country in eastern Europe:
(a) coins dug up under a Communist regime when the law says that finds belong to the state which are illegally held and not reported and them sold to an ACCG dealer and, 
(b) coins dug up after 1990 and illegally held and not reported and sold to an ACCG dealer like Mr Welsh? 



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COMMENTARY
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As usual, Mr. Barford presents a very misleading picture of that upon which he opines, when he discusses ancient coin collecting and the trade that supplies it. Perhaps that is because his prejudices and ignorance of the subject are misleading him, but it is more likely that he knows full well what the facts are, and is simply posing rhetorical questions for propaganda purposes.

To begin with, metal detector users who licitly practise their avocation in nations that allow the relatively free use of metal detectors -- the UK for example -- certainly are not to blame for the temporary oversupply of large numbers of new to the US market coins between 1995 and 2005. Despite a carefully worded effort to explain in very clear terms why illicit metal detector users in "source states" would find it economically unrewarding to go prospecting for coins as their primary goal, Mr. Barfordblissfully ignores facts and logic and concludes his screed thus:

"Now, I think we'd all like Mr Welsh and the ACCG to explain the difference in LEGAL terms between these two categories of ancient dug up coins from ancient sites in a country in eastern Europe:
(a) coins dug up under a Communist regime when the law says that finds belong to the state which are illegally held and not reported and them sold to an ACCG dealer and, 
(b) coins dug up after 1990 and illegally held and not reported and sold to an ACCG dealer like Mr Welsh?"

The difference in LEGAL terms between these two categories of ancient illicitly excavated coins from sites in some uncertain country, possibly in eastern Europe, will now be explained:
(a) coins found under a Communist regime when the law says that finds belong to the state which are illegally held and not reported and them sold to an ACCG dealer and, 
(b) coins found after 1990 and illegally held and not reported and sold to an ACCG dealer like Mr Welsh?"

To begin with let's examine the unfounded implication unjustly made by Mr. Barford that these illicitly excavated and illicitly exported coin finds were sold to "an ACCG dealer like Mr Welsh." It can be stated without reservation that not one of these finds was sold directly to this observer, or another reputable and law-abiding coin dealer, such as all ACCG coin dealer members are.

These illicit finds were were in nearly every case instead sold to a wholesaler in the nation of discovery, who in turn sold them to a smuggler, who then illicitly exported the coins to a nation in which they could openly be sold -- very likely to Germany or Austria, which both share extensive borders with formerly Communist eastern European nations.

From there the finds were dispersed into the international trade. Some of them came to the USA, and there passed through several hands before an ACCG coin dealer member may have eventually acquired a few selected examples for his stock at a coin show.

It is important to note that after the illicit smuggling of the coin find in question, every subsequent transaction was licit under the laws of the nation in which it occurred.

Thus the answer to Mr. Barford's artfully posed question is:

There is no legal difference insofar as transactions subsequent to the smuggling of the coin find are concerned.

In case a), the finder ran the risk of being prosecuted for illicit possession of unreported ancient artifacts by the former Communist regime.

In case b), the finder ran the risk of illicitly selling the coin find to a wholesaler.

In both cases, the smuggler ran the risk of being caught attempting to illicily cross the border without declaring possession of the coins or obtaining an export permit.

The  risk that smugglers run is increasing, as the border police and Customs officers in nations which control export of antiquities become more efficient and sophisticated in their methods of search and detection, and as bribing one's way past an inspector becomes increasingly difficult and risky. The ACCG has always maintained that the best approach toward controlling illicit export of antiquities is for source states to control their borders, and heartily applauds these advances.


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The Detectorist Connection

Focus on Metal Detecting: More on "Truthiness" and Debate - Bull or Sheep?

http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2013/10/focus-on-metal-detecting-more-on.html
by Paul Barford

It is interesting to note that among the ten most popular posts in the sidebar on the left there are quite a number today referring to the concept of the "truthiness" of what artefact collectors in general (and metal detectorists and ancient coin dealers in particular) are saying (currently here, here, here, here (anyone who does not believe is mentally illl), here (false identity), here and so on). I assume that among those readers will be those who consider that what we are told by the official media about metal detecting is the Whole Truth, and those who are more sceptical and who are following this debate with a more critical eye and are keeping an eye on the deceits perpetrated by collectors, dealers and their supporters.

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COMMENTARY
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Mr. Barford, so this observer has been told by several contacts in the UK metal detecting community, has been engaged in confrontational disputes with detectorists since the days of his UK field officer service prior to his flight to Poland in 1986.

Mr. Barford's irrational antagonism toward the ancient coin collecting community appears to be significantly motivated by an assumption that collectors of ancient coins and the dealers who supply them, are primarily (or at least in large part) trading in coins unearthed recently by "diggers" in antiquities source states using metal detectors. That is an unfounded and unproven assumption.

While Mr. Barford is perhaps the most vocal and intensely critical proponent of this assumption, it is also shared by many others in the more radical wing of the archaeological community who tend to believe that "collectors are the real looters" -- the gist of Elia's and Renfrew's perspective (although apparently neither ever used that exact wording).

Thus the ancient coin collecting community and the trade that supplies it are inextricably linked with metal detecting, in the view of those archaeologists and cultural ministry officials who oppose any sort of metal detecting that is not strictly controlled and monitored by the authorities, as it is in most European nations which do not absolutely prohibit private use of metal detectors.

Those involved in the ancient coin trade know from observing characteristics of the coins and the behavior of the market that the great majority of coins presently being acquired by collectors must have come from past collections, and that the flood of "new to the market" material which began to surface in the 1990s had not actually all been dug up in the last few years (as Mr. Barford and like thinkers believe), but had instead been discovered over a period of many decades by individuals in Communist nations, who did not elect to disclose their discoveries to the authorities and then took advantage of the collapse of Communism to sell their accumulations.

That flood is now a thing of the past and the ancient coin market has more or less returned to the state that prevailed prior to 1990. Prices have been rising since 2005 after years of being depressed by oversupply.

In reality, ancient coin collectors and the trade that supplies them have never significantly affected the motives and actions of detectorists -- whether licit as in Britain, or illicit in nations such as Bulgaria. Most individual unearthed coins are not in collectible condition, and have little or no market value. Great numbers of these are melted down each year in nations such as Turkey, whose farmers uncover them while plowing their fields. Bronze is a valuable commodity.

There are a few discoveries each year of significant coin hoards, which were intentionally buried in a container that survived long enough for its contents to form a concretion mass. While coins on the outside of this mass are normally corroded and not collectible, those inside have been protected and in many cases are in relatively pristine condition after professional conservation. These are the fine specimens that collectors seek, but such hoards are few and far between.

Detectorists instead look for anything buried that is made of metal. In most cases found objects are considerably larger and easier to detect than individual coins, with surface details that are not nearly as small scale.

Such objects are more tolerant of corrosion in retaining value to collectors. Some found objects will be collectible coins and detectorists will collect or trade them, however these are incidental finds rather than the discovery expectations that motivate the metal detecting hobby.

While neither coin collectors nor detectorists ever desired to become interlinked in this manner it is clear that they are, and that the present situation is actually a complex interplay between collectors and detectorists, united only by a common enemy -- and their enemy, the radical wing of the archaeological community who hold that "collectors are the real looters" because they are guilty of providing a market, and that metal detectorists are in reality looters whose activities should be prohibited or strictly regulated.

A fourth participant in this overly complex interplay is cultural ministry officials and in particular, the U.S. State Department. On the whole, this sector of officialdom tends to be supportive of the radical wing of the archaeological community, although there have been some notable exceptions. There has also in many cases been a hona fide effort made to be fair and impartial, which is sometimes difficult to reconcile with the perspective of the radical wing of the archaeological community.

At this point it is not at all clear how the coin collecting and detectorist communities should conduct their affairs to coordinate and energize their opposition to the radical archaeological community. An effective approach would no doubt be seized upon to "prove" that this coordinated opposition was conspiracy and collusion to "loot," "smuggle," and otherwise profit from "ripping out of the ground" archaeological objects, thereby irrevocably destroying their sacred context. A dialogue is needed.


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