No Evidence? Step up the Search!

Peter Tompa "Eurocrats Find Little Evidence Terrorist Artifacts Entering Market, But that Does Not Stop Calls for Draconian Legislation" September 27 2017,

Ivan Maquisten writes that EU bureaucrats believe the absence of evidence that ISIS looted material is entering the market is reason for more draconian controls, not fewer. The bureaucratic thinking is that vast amounts of looted material must be entering the market unnoticed under current customs regimes. Of course, those who seek to justify draconian regulation will not consider the distinct possibility the extent of ISIS looting has been greatly overstated by Russian and Syrian propagandists and archaeological advocacy groups for their own purposes.

Collectors and dealers Need Recognition as Stakeholders!

The EU cultural bureaucracy- like its US counterpart- only considers archaeologists and foreign governments legitimate stakeholders in the issue. No wonder the cultural bureaucracy is so distrusted by collectors and the small businesses of the antiquities and numismatic trade.

Peter Tompa "Eurocrats Find Little Evidence Terrorist Artifacts Entering Market, But that Does Not Stop Calls for Draconian Legislation" September 27 2017.

Taking Archeological Preservation Too Far

Egyptian parliamentarian Ghada Agami will submit a draft law to intensify the punishment for illicit trafficking of antiquities and illegal excavation to the death penalty. Agami told Egypt Today that her philosophy behind increasing the penalty is that the one who "sells his history will sell his honor."

Agami said that the intensification the punishment for illicit trafficking of antiquities and illegal excavation will stop the “continuous bleeding of Egypt's history”. First of all, this history belongs to the world, not one country ruled by a military dictatorship. Secondly, the anti-collecting lobby should not get ideas above their station.

A Question of Values

The Obama Administration deal to repatriate the Iraqi Jewish Archive needs re-examination. As Peter Tompa points out quite rightly, such a repatriation would seem to be against everything America stands for.

 Some of the materials were originally confiscated from Iraqi Jews who were forced to leave their country under Saddam Hussein. Others appear to be taken from schools and synagogues after they left. All the material was stored in the basement of Iraqi secret police headquarters, and became waterlogged after the building was bombed during the liberation of Iraq. The US Government spent considerable time and money restoring and digitizing them. This is yet another situation where UNESCO's repatriationist dogma has been allowed to take precedence over not only the facts, but what is right. The archive should not be returned to sectarian Iraq. Or, at a minimum, the entire contents of the archive should be publicized so that individual Iraqi Jews can make claims on what is rightly the property of their own families.

Archeologists and Their Inventions

Perhaps the greatest museum description of archaeological practice ever written

Lion Rhyton

This large Parthian gilt silver rhyton terminates in a lion's head and torso,with inlaid garnet eyes. 1st century BC.

Mosaic with Classical Mythology Images Found in England

A rare mosaic has been found on an amateur excavation in England. It is fourth century. We tend to think of the fourth century as a period where the Roman Empire was in crisis, a prelude to the collapse of the Western Empire in the fifth century. However, in Britain it was something of a golden age for mosaic production. This has been described as the most important mosaic find in Britain from the last 50 years.

Less than half the mosaic, a six-metre strip richly patterned with mythical characters, was uncovered in the last two weeks. It has now been buried again to protect it. The central panels depict the Greek hero Bellerophon riding the winged horse Pegasus. They are shown attacking the fire-breathing monster Chimera, then being offered the king’s daughter as a reward, a legend that would later be Christianised as St George and the dragon. Other scenes on the mosaic include imagery not known from any other British site, according to the experts. The find was made at a Roman site near Boxford where residents and amateur archaeologists and historians, supervised by Cotswold Archaeology, have been excavating since 2011.

Mosaic with Classical Mythology Images Found in EnglandIt is nice to see amateur explorers of the past getting some praise from the media.

Zoser's Faience Tiles

Deep under the Step Pyramid of King Djoser, in the maze of rooms surrounding the burial chamber, thousands of faience tiles covered the walls

Priceless artiacts kept in dismal condition at Jaipur police station

Artifacts kept in dismal conditions 

An honest article about the fate of antiquities often times claimed by such source countries from US collectors… Some beautifully carved pieces of art works, similar to the ones displayed across museums across the world, chronicling different periods of India's rich history are kept in dismal condition at Jaipur police station (Deep Mukherjee 'Priceless artefacts kept in dismal condition at Jaipur police station Hindustan Times   Aug 24, 2017):

For the last decade, around 900 pieces of art works which are valued at an estimated amount of Rs.1,800 crore are kept locked in a godown of a police station in Jaipur, without any expert supervision and at a risk of getting damaged. The artefacts are predominantly from 2nd-12th century and are from various archaeological sites of the state such as Jhalawar, Kota and Udaipur, a senior police officer said. These artefacts are at the police station due to a long-running court case that hasn't decided their final fate yet. The antiquities are a part of the art works seized from the alleged antique thief, Vaman Ghiya, after he was arrested in 2003. "[...]  Ghiya was acquitted by the Rajasthan High Court in 2014 and since then the case is pending at the Supreme Court, resulting in a deadlock over the fate of the antiquities. The sight of the ancient statues of gods and goddesses scattered in the open at the Vidhyadhar Nagar police station in Jaipur is quite an unlikely one. Some of them are kept in the open with no roof over them, at the risk of getting damaged or weathered by constant exposure to rain and heat. There are no efforts by the authorities to get an expert opinion about their current condition or to preserve them. Ironically, the police at present don't even have the key to the godown where the rest of the artifacts are kept. 

UNESCO Boss Linked to Money Laundering?

An investigation by the Guardian reveals that Azerbaijan’s ruling elite operated a secret $2.9bn (£2.2bn) scheme to pay prominent Europeans, buy luxury goods and launder money through a network of opaque British companies. Leaked data shows that the Azerbaijani leadership, accused of serial human rights abuses, systemic corruption and rigging elections, made more than 16,000 covert payments from 2012 to 2014.

The data also shows money being paid via the British companies to Kalin Mitrev, a Bulgarian appointed last year to the board of the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Mitrev received at least €425,000 for private consulting work from a local Azeri company, Avuar Co. [...]
The revelation that her husband consulted for an Azeri company might prove awkward for Mitrev’s wife, Irina Bokova, who is the director general of Unesco. Bokova has bestowed one of Unesco’s highest honours, the Mozart Medal on Azerbaijan’s first lady and vice-president, Mehriban Aliyeva. She also hosted a photo exhibition at Unesco’s headquarters in Paris, entitled Azerbaijan – A Land of Tolerance. The Heydar Aliyev foundation organised the event

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Fake news from India

The Times of India has published an article "Indian antiquities under threat: Are we aware of the implications?"

The United Nations was quick to realise that in addition to the funds generated through the gas fields of Mosul, bank robberies, human trafficking and ransom, trafficking of art and antiquities was also being used by the Islamic State (IS) to finance terror activities. The IS had made a grand show for its followers by demolishing monuments after wresting control of the areas nestling cradles of ancient civilisations-Palmyra, Aleppo, Mosul and Raqqa in Syria and Iraq. Therefore, whilst IS publicly destroyed Saint Elijah's Monastery in Mosul and Roman era monuments in Palmyra, ostensibly as an obligation to religious tenets, they had no qualms in surreptitiously pilfering the heritage and art items into the international antiquity market to fund itself.

There is no proof to substantiate this speculation. This is fiction. It must be ghost written. Shame! India Times journalists DO NOT write like this. Bad!

Truth: Anti-trade Ideologists Caught Out

Wayne Sayles (Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire...) writes:

The Committee for Cultural Policy has pointed out on several past occasions that exaggerated media reports, of Islamic State (ISIS) income from the sale of looted antiquities to art and coin collecting communities, are and have from the start been unfounded. The persistence of outright lies has cast a cloud over the credibility of several major media outlets and their academic "experts" who fed the flame for what is obviously an ideological anti-trade agenda. In their August 2017 newsletter, the CCP presents a report on the findings of a Dutch National Police investigation that flatly debunks this supposed collusion. In all fairness, similar findings have been reported by respectable archeologists who value truth over public brainwashing—for what some believe to be the "greater good". Sadly, these laudable professionals have rarely been quoted and certainly are not heralded by their more radical peers. Who could ever have imagined that Cultural Property Nationalists would lead Archeology down such a destructive path?

This is a great contrast to the tenets of transparent honesty held by cultural property internationalists. We should do everything to promote these approaches by taking every opportunity to disseminate the truthful writings of representatives of this approach like Mr Sayles.