German Cultural Heritage Legislation

The cultural property nazis could be coming for you soon

All collectors should be aware of this disturbing development: New German Cultural Heritage Protection Legislation   Germany has passed some massively controversial cultural heritage legislation. An experienced dealer heralds this as

"a sad day for collectors in Germany, and a warning to collectors and the trade everywhere, regarding what is likely to happen when the Socialist perspective of left-wing "heritage preservation" advocates is accepted by government. This is very bad news for German antiquities dealers and collectors. In particular, I expect it to have a very serious adverse impact upon the German trade in ancient coins. In discussing this earlier, I mentioned that I expected one consequence of this legislation to be a shifting of the numismatics, antiquities and art trade from Germany to London. There is already a significant reaction against such arbitrary governmental proceedings in the two most important English-speaking nations".

But will it be enough to stop the erosion of our rights? We need to fight this, but how? If the market moves to London, how will that affect export laws when that is now outside the European Union?

Artifacts Reinterpreted

Pottery discs at a Roman site in West Sussex once thought by archeologists to be "gaming pieces" are now believed to have has sanitary use: "Fishbourne Roman Palace pottery 'was toilet paper' BBC 26 January 2013

The objects have been in the Fishbourne Roman Palace collection since the 1960s but curator Dr Rob Symmons said their definition never seemed satisfactory. A breakthrough came when a French expert examined similar items and found partially-mineralized excrement.[...] "Just before Christmas, a paper was published in the British Medical Journal by Philippe Charlier, who is an anthropologist in France, and he has come up with some fairly compelling evidence that they were used for wiping one's bottom." Dr Symmons said Charlier not only found a "residue" on similar pieces, but also said the items were often found near latrines. The anthropologist also cited an ancient Greek proverb which said "three stones are enough to wipe one's arse". And he found an image on a Greek cup of one of the stones apparently being used. [...] it was well-known that Romans used sponges on sticks dipped in vinegar as an alternative to toilet paper, but this new theory had come as a revelation.

History of Urbanisation

This map visualizes the history of urban settlements over 6,000 years.

History of Urbanisation

The data shown in the map comes from a Yale-led study published earlier this month in Scientific Data, which compiled the most comprehensive dataset on historical urban populations to date.  

Department of State Involved in Illegal Antiquities Trade?

British antiquities expert John Howland states that

government officials and/or departments connive with bent archaeologists to have valuable artefacts popped into Diplomatic Bags (contrary to international conventions) to evade import and Customs' controls. It has happened before and is probably a widespread practice and not solely the preserve of crooked British archaeologists out for an easy buck.

But of course it is not just British archeologists that work in most of the source countries for items on our market. There is a US archeological presence in most countries with ancient civilizations and in most of them is also a US embassy or consulate. Are diplomatic pouches sent by the staff of the Office of Foreign Missions the means by which many illegal artefacts are entering the market and evading the import controls imposed by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs? It would be ironic if the one was trying to deprive collectors of these items, but within the same government Department was an established network keeping the trade alive with government approval.

Raid on Dealer in Israel

The Israeli Antiquities Authority raided a store selling ancient artifacts and coins and has charged the owner with violating Israel's new registration laws.  It is unclear from the story whether there is any actual evidence the store was selling recently looted material.Obviously registration schemes hard to comply with will lead to more seizures of artifacts without proof they were actually looted.  Moreover, if dealers are to register the antiquities they hold, so should archeologists.  Requiring archeologists to maintain proper registries will help protect against pilfering of archaeological stores.

Khmer Civilisation: Vast Medieval Cities Hidden in Jungle

Angkor Archaeological Park, a Unesco World Heritage Site,
stretches over 400 square kilometres and is home
to Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in
the world which appears on the Cambodian flag.

Cambodian archeologists could not find them, but cutting-edge laser technology was used by French explorers to discover a number of new sites near Angkor Wat (Lara Dunston, "Revealed: Cambodia's vast medieval cities hidden beneath the jungle", the Guardian 11 June 2016; Katie Forster, "Archaeologists in Cambodia find vast medieval cities hidden under jungle" Independent 12 Jun 2016)

Laser technology has been used by archaeologists in Cambodia to reveal multiple vast medieval cities buried under the tropical forest floor – some of them believed to be larger than the country’s capital Phnom Penh. Researchers believe the metropolises are between 900 and 1,400 years old and lie not far from Angkor Wat, an ancient temple complex in north east Cambodia. Dr Damian Evans, an Australian archaeologist funded by the EU, will publish these findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science on Monday, according to The Guardian.  Further investigation into these discoveries could result in groundbreaking developments in our understanding of south east Asian history, said Dr Evans. “We have entire cities discovered beneath the forest that no one knew were there,” he said. One of the cities whose existence has been revealed through analysis of data collected in a 2015 aerial study – the most extensive of its kind covering 734 square miles – is located at Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, an archaeological site about which, until now, relatively little has been known.

An elephant statue in Sra Damrei, part of Cambodia's 'Lost City'
of Mahendraparvata, where a vast city has been discovered
under the forest floor (Getty Images)

In a similar study in 2012, Dr Evans and his team uncovered part of the ‘lost city’ of Mahendraparvata on Phnom Kulen.  Now they have found evidence of an even bigger area which was once densely inhabited – and could form part of the largest empire on earth at the time, some experts have said.

“This time we got the whole deal and it’s big, the size of Phnom Penh big,” said Dr Evans. “Our coverage of the post-Angkorian capitals also provides some fascinating new insights on the ‘collapse’ of Angkor. “There’s an idea that somehow the Thais invaded and everyone fled down south – that didn’t happen, there are no cities [revealed by the aerial survey] that they fled to. It calls into question the whole notion of an Angkorian collapse." [...] Dr Evans, a fellow at École Française d’Extrême-Orient in Siem Reap, used cutting-edge light detection technology known as lidar to conduct his research in the region. He used lidar scanners to fire lasers to the ground from a helicopter and measure how long it took for each pulse to bounce back, creating an extremely detailed 3D model of the Earth’s surface. The technology can penetrate dense forest canopies to detect buildings as well as the remains of roads, aqueducts, caves and manmade borders between different areas.  “I think that these airborne laser discoveries mark the greatest advance in the past 50 or even 100 years of our knowledge of Angkorian civilisation,” American archaeologist Michael Coe told The Guardian. “I saw Angkor for the first time in 1954, when I wondered at the magnificent temples, but there was nothing to tell us who had lived in the city, where they had lived, and how such an amazing culture was supported,” he said. The findings from this study combined with Dr Evans’s first lidar survey in the region in 2012 could challenge theories on the development and decline of the Khmer empire, which ruled over most of mainland south east Asia from around 802 AD.

The question remains of why archeologists were not able to find these ruins sooner. Here are some fine Khmer antiquities for sale.

Massive New Monument Found in Petra

An overhead image of the monument photographed from a drone, and a
detail overlay of the surface features (photograph by I. LaBianca (Left)
  and Photograph by I. LaBianca; graphics by J. Blanzy (Right)

Archeologists have failed to discover an important site near Petra in Jordan (Kristin Romey, 'Massive New Monument Found in Petra' National Geographic June 8, 2016; BBC  Petra, Jordan: Huge monument found 'hiding in plain sight' 10 June 2016 ).

An enormous monument has been hiding in plain sight at the World Heritage site of Petra, according to a study recently published in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Archaeologists Sarah Parcak, a National Geographic fellow, and Christopher Tuttle, executive director of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, used high-resolution satellite imagery followed by aerial drone photography and ground surveys to locate and document the structure. They report that the monument is roughly as long as an Olympic-size swimming pool and twice as wide. It sits only about half a mile (800 meters) south of the center of the ancient city. The enormous platform has no known parallels to any other structure in Petra.

Position of new discovery

The caravan city of Petra, in what is today southern Jordan, served as the capital of the Arab tribe known as the Nabataeans from its likely founding in the mid-second century B.C. The site was essentially abandoned at the end of the Byzantine period in the seventh century A.D. Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit its iconic buildings, hewn from the local red sandstone, each year. More recently, the city provided the backdrop for the 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Most of the monuments that can be seen in Petra today, such as its iconic Treasury and the Monastery, were built during its second heyday, from the end of the first century B.C. to the second century A.D.

The newly revealed structure consists of a 184-by-161-foot (about 56-by-49-meter) platform that encloses a slightly smaller platform originally paved with flagstones. The east side of the interior platform had been lined with a row of columns that once crowned a monumental staircase. A small 28-by-28-foot (8.5-by-8.5-meter) building was centered north-south atop the interior platform and opened to the east, facing the staircase. This enormous open platform, topped with a relatively small building and approached by a monumental facade, has no known parallels to any other structure in Petra. It most likely had a public, ceremonial function [...] While the monument has not been excavated, the presence of surface pottery dating from the mid-second century B.C. suggests that construction of the structure began during the Nabataeans' initial public building program.

The ancient city of Petra in Jordan where the new monument has been discovered Getty

Antiquities Coalition Own Study Debunks Claims

Still on the important topic of the misrepresentations of the amount of money the legitimate trade in antiquities is worth, and the place of illegal artefacts from Syria in it, the Cultural Property Research Institute have issued a report: "Antiquities Coalition Own Study Debunks Claims" CPRI June 1, 2016.

University of Chicago study has demolished the claims of anti-collecting activists and raises serious questions about the factual basis of their attempts to influence Congress and the public. Fiona Rose-Greenland is principal investigator for the MANTIS project (Modeling the Antiquities Trade in Iraq and Syria) and a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Chicago. Her conclusion is that ISIS is likely to have earned several million dollars in profit since launching its looting program… That’s a far cry from $7 billion”. In her May 30, 2016 article“Inside ISIS’ looted antiquities trade,” published in The Conversation, Dr. Rose-Greenland says:

“And yet, patchy data and methodological challenges do not fully explain why $7 billion fell to $4 million in public discussions about the ISIS antiquities trade.  What’s really going on here, I think, can be explained in two ways. First, there is an overactive collective imagination about how much art is actually worth… This, in turn, motivates governments and other groups opposed to the Islamic State to describe their actions in attention-grabbing terms. It’s a lot easier to call for action against a $7 billion crime than a $4 million one. While market mystique and over-the-top plot lines are fine for Hollywood films and adventure novels, it’s no way to understand terrorist finance, and without that understanding we are unlikely to arrive at genuine and lasting solutions.”

For over a year, the trade lobbyists have been telling Congress – and anyone else who would listen – that the numbers provided by anti-collecting activists were absurdly high, there was no multi-billion dollar illegal trade in ancient artifacts, and there was no evidence of any looted Syrian artifacts reaching the US. The study is ongoing and a published report is not yet available. Visit the MANTIS project website for further information.   

How much money is ISIS actually making from looted art?

Fiona Rose-Greenland, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Chicago, has worked to outline the framework of ISIS’ antiquities trade, and discusses how an "overactive collective imagination" has inflated looting estimates to around 7 billion when it is probably closer to "several million"  ("How much money is ISIS actually making from looted art?" the Conversation 31 May 2016)

The "seven billion" figure comes from here, hardly a 'collective imagination", I would have thought. Neither am I too sure that "only several million" is something the ADCAEA (who seemm to have an unseemly fixation about Syria) should be crowing about.

Isil rampage: a threat to cultural heritage that belongs to all

James Cuno, the president of the Getty Trust, says the world must find ways to intervene and protect antiquities when nation-states cannot do so

Deteriorating security in Syria and Iraq, and the tenacity and complexity of Isil, requires a multilateral response from the international community, and a rethinking of how it can overcome the inherent limitations and obstacles of the nation-state–based regime for the protection of cultural heritage. If the heritage destroyed and under threat by Isil “belongs to all Syrians and all humanity,” as the Unesco director-general Irina Bokova has claimed it, the international community must find a way to overcome the limitations imposed on cultural heritage by the UN.

Assad takes Palmyra, Assad loots Palmyra

" Syrian regime troops looting Palmyra: German expert"

Archeologist Hermann Parzinger, head of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, [...] said that Syrian troops, when they are off-duty, "are conducting illegal excavations" and "have looted" at the UNESCO World Heritage site.

And archeologists want to repatriate material to this corrupt raghead regime of looters and murderers.

Archeology and the public

"Archaeology frequently makes the claim that the past belongs to everyone and then works very hard to restrict everyone from having any personal connection with it"....

Dick Stout1 June 2016 at 10:31

I often think about what might be behind those warehouse doors and what good they are doing the general public.

Archeology not a science

Coin dealer, polymath and scientist Dave Welsh calls archeologists out:

it is unclear what path could be followed to initiate a genuinely scientific investigation and study of "looting" and illicit trafficking in "looted" artifacts. I do not see any likelihood that such an investigation and study could be pursued until there is realization in government that archaeology really is NOT a science, because it does not require rigorous testing and conclusive proof of hypotheses (such as "collecting = looting") before accepting them as dogma. If the arguments advanced by archaeologists in favor of the "collecting = looting" hypothesis are closely examined, they contain elementary logical fallacies such as "post hoc, ergo propter hoc," or "it is obvious, therefore it must be true," and furthermore they do not conform to rules of evidence that prevail in judicial proceedings. Having pursued "hard sciences" such as physics and mathematics during my university studies, where I also minored in philosophy, and having practiced these sciences during my Engineering career, I am appalled by the lack of anything resembling genuine scientific rigor and logical consistency in the pseudo-science of archaeology. Only when it is realized that responsible public policy making cannot originate in this sort of loose, largely erroneous thinking, will it become possible to accurately and responsibly determine the actual causes of looting.

here here. There's more:

it would be both logical and responsible to establish some sort of oversight regarding activities of archaeologists that are supported by tax dollars. I have in mind specifically the anti-collecting activities of the archaeology lobby, and the excessive degree of "scholarly" attention being given to "studies" and "research" on the subjects of "illicit antiquities trafficking" and the "damage" allegedly being done to the archaeological record by antiquities collecting. Almost none of this so-called scholarship, in my opinion, would be regarded by physicists, mathematicians or logicians as conforming to the scientific method, scientific requirements for testing and proving hypotheses, and the rules of logic. Nor do I believe that what is being advanced as evidence in these "studies" and "research" would be accepted as conforming to the rules of evidence that prevail in legal proceedings. It would be wonderful to have genuine, closely scrutinizing oversight of such activities, which would expose the difference between what passes for "science" among archaeologists, and REAL science.