BLOOD OIL: how ISIS really funds its operation

The result of investigations by the ADCAEA on "how ISIS really funds its operation!" have just been published on their Facebook page. It is no surprise to find that it is not what our opponents maliciously label "blood antiquities", it is "BLOOD OIL" (Erika Solomon, Guy Chazan and Sam Jones, 'Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorist' Financial Times October 14, 2015).

On Monday, as a result of these new facts, on Monday 

United States warplanes for the first time attacked hundreds of trucks on Monday that the extremist group has been using to smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria, American officials said. According to an initial assessment, 116 trucks were destroyed in the attack, which took place near Deir al-Zour, an area in eastern Syria that is controlled by the Islamic State. The airstrikes were carried out by four A-10 attack planes and two AC-130 gunships based in Turkey.

The Pentagon said it dropped leaflets to drivers and civilians before the attack to warn them the parked trucks would be targeted.

Until now, the U.S. military has bombed small oil production sites in Syria but has held back from attacking major oil and gas refineries and other large facilities to try to preserve the battered country's economic infrastructure. Commanders also passed up bombing gas trucks to avoid potential civilian casualties.  

An oil truck destroyed in historic US mission

 Let that be an end to the unjust accusations from unscrupulous archeologists that collectors and our dealer colleagues are funding the raghead terrorist state.

March of the New Europeans

As numerous state governors resist allowing them in, this is how the British newspapers see the dilemma they are facing with the flood of Muslims into their country:

Egypt Detects 'Impressive' Anomaly in Giza Pyramids

This image is from a Fench web-site

This makes you wonder what those archeologists have been doing all this time:

Two weeks of new thermal scanning in Egypt's Giza pyramids have identified anomalies in the 4,500 year-old burial structures, including a major one in the largest pyramid, the Antiquities Ministry announced Monday. [...]  The scanning showed "a particularly impressive one (anomaly) located on the Eastern side of the Khufu pyramid at ground level," the ministry said in a statement. [...] While inspecting the area, el-Damaty said they found "that there is something like a small passage in the ground that you can see, leading up to the pyramids ground, reaching an area with a different temperature. What will be behind it?" Other heat anomalies were detected in the upper half of the pyramid that the experts said need to be investigated further.

Maram Mazen, 'Egypt Detects 'Impressive' Anomaly in Giza Pyramids Pyramids' Associated press Nov 9, 2015

Cultural Vandalism in Chinese Tomb Discovery?

Countless coins unearthed from the ancient tomb. (Photo/Xinhua)

Yao Xinyu, 'Ten tons of copper coins unearthed in 2,000 years old ancient tomb' People's Daily Online November 05, 2015.

In Xinjian, China's Jiangxi Province, recently a 2,000 years old tomb from Western Han Dynasty (206BC - 9AD) was discovered. Over 10,000 objects were unearthed, including 10 tons of cooper coins (2 millions pieces, which had equal value of 50 kilograms of gold today), chime [bells?], bamboo slips, tomb figurines etc., which reveal the lives of the nobility in the Western Han Dynasty.

Peter Tompa remarks as he always does when groups of these objects are found in closed contexts like tombs that "for import restrictions under the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act to apply, an item of archaeological interest must also be of cultural significance", and "With numbers like that, one wonders why there are any import restrictions on Chinese cash coins at all. China allows its own citizens to collect such cash coins freely. So why can't Americans freely import them from abroad as well?". It seems to me that the cultural significance of this find does not consist of the numbers, but the manner in which careful excavation reveals how they lay in the tomb, still in the strings in which they were brought to the site. Surely the Chinese are not going to split this group up and sell them off loose to collectors, either at home or abroad? That would be cultural vandalism.

The Green Collection and Federal Overreach

Political opponents want to stop this museum opening

Questions have been raised by opponents of collecting about the provenance of some articles in the collection of the Green family of Oklahoma City. The Daily Beast ran a story about two or three hundred cuneiform tablets purchased form an Israeli antiquities dealer and confiscated by U.S. Customs when they were being shipped to the Green collection storage facility in Oklahoma City in 2011.  These tablets, like the other 40,000 or so ancient artifacts owned by the Green family, were destined for the Museum of the Bible, the giant new museum funded by the Greens, slated to open in Washington, D.C., in 2017. Cary Summers, the president of the Museum of the Bible confirmed the seizure of the cuneiform tablets and the subsequent federal investigation reported by the "Daily Beast" (an internet publication edited by Tina Brown, who is not known to be a fan of the Greens or their evangelical and conservative background). Summers indicates however that the ongoing federal investigation was simply the result of a logistical problem. “There was a shipment and it had improper paperwork—incomplete paperwork that was attached to it.” Summers suggests that the tablets were merely “held up in customs,” and "sometimes this stuff just sits, and nobody does anything with it.”  Peter Tompa raises the point that it is far too early to jump to conclusions based on information that was initially leaked to the journalist from the Daily Beast. "How do we know the information that was leaked is accurate? [...]  So, let's see how this develops before we convict the Greens of anything". On the contrary it is the Federal government which has to aswer for why this man's property has been held up in Customs so long. Questions should be asked, this looks like a political issue.

Looking After the Heritage: The Acropolis

Jarett A. Lobell, 'The Acropolis of Athens: The decades-long project to restore the site to its iconic past' Archeology Magazine October 07, 2015

In 1975, the Greek government began a large-scale, multidisciplinary project to address the declining condition of these structures, as well as of a lesser-known building called the Arrephorion, the defensive walls encircling the Acropolis, and the so-called “scattered members,” the thousands of complete, nearly complete, and fragmentary pieces of stone and marble that lie all over the surface of the Acropolis.

The text discusses the methods used to do this and the ideas behind them. I must admit I am a bit puzzled by the criticism of the Canadian writer and mentor John Hooker who writes scathingly:

I am reminded of the amount of history demolished on the Acropolis at Athens in order to provide a better view of the Parthenon. This included a Byzantine church! (Yannis Hamilakis, _The Nation and its Ruins_).

The site was more recently however a mosque, I wonder whether Mr Hooker would prefer a place of worship of the enemies of our civilization to stand on the ruins of the core of the very democracy which forms the basis of our own cvilization. Mr Hooker, look at this. In order to impose their sharia law and customs on the Greeks, the Moslems built mosques in the middle of the Acropolis, the Athenian Capitol: 

The Moslems kept explosives in their mosques (nothing changes it seems)
and this barbarism nearly destroyed the heritage of Greek civilization in 1687

A heathen mosque standing in the shattered ruins of Ancient Greece

Now Moslem refugees are flooding into Greece. They must not be allowed to take over and do this again. The Greeks are right to protect this site from later alterations, in the name of democraqcy, n the name of us all who value freedom!

Archaeologists Destroy Evidence in England

English metal detecting expert John Howland courageously writes of the evil practices of certain anti-collecting archeologists:

There's another angle to all of this; one of my friends in the upper echelons of archaeology (yes, I do have them) told me many years ago that one 'roman' archaeologist, (citing an example) has no truck with any period later than 4th Century AD and gladly tears through the upper layers just to get to his precious 'roman' era. Everything from 4th Century AD, along with the topsoil goes to God knows where. Many know this vandalism goes on and I know the name of at least one of these vandals. Others in archaeology are as appalled as I am, yet fearing for future sponsorship, wisely stay silent. Some excavation Directors have egos the size of British Columbia and are not to be crossed... except perhaps by collectors and others who don't give a toss for archaeological reputations. Maybe the wind of change is blowing?

Let us hope so and the Dictatorship of these evil evidence-destroying Directors can be brought to an end in England. Collectors should do all they can to expose such malpractices. We might ask where the antiquities from the layers they tear through go. EBay? Perhaps we should ask ourselves where any artefacts we consider buying are coming from, and reflect on whether in buying them, we are responsible for putting money into the pockets of corrupt academics like this.