Smash the System

To whose benefit is the cultural property regulation which affects our hobby today? Supported by Retentionists, Repatriators and Archeologists on one side but also by Nationalistic States who benefit from total state control and ownership of cultural property on the other, with collectors caught in the middle. The coalition and resulting influence on regulation favors institutional controls rather than the interests of the broader public. This hits closest to home for private collectors of ancient coins when the regulations unreasonably call for verifiable provenance on every coin sold before it can transit national borders. Large firms can bear the financial burden of onerous documentation and registration far more easily than small firms and expensive coins can more easily justify the expense than common inexpensive coins. What this leads to is an advantage for certain types of firms and certain types of customers—generally to the disadvantage of the average citizen or small "Mom and Pop" business. We must stop this madness now, support the ACCG, before it is too late. We will resist. We will prevail.

Archeologists Return to Ancient City of Lachish

Archeologists Return to Ancient City of Lachish

According to the Biblical account, the ancient fortified city of Lachish was for a time considered, after Jerusalem, the second-most important city in the Kingdom of Judah. Today, its ruins can be seen atop a prominent "tel" or mound located in the Shephelah lowland of Israel between Mount Hebron and the maritime Mediterranean coast. The remains are a visible reminder of a city that represented a strength and glory ravaged through the military designs of advancing Assyrian and Babylonian armies long before the ancient Romans ever set foot in this country. It is best known as the location of a great siege by Assyrian king Sennacherib in 701 B.C.E.

Today, this city may sit again in the cross-hairs of a different kind of battle -- one that revolves around the debate concerning the nature and historicity of the early Kingdom of Judah. Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, the Yigael Yadin Chair of archeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, stands at the center of the debate. [...], Garfinkel and colleagues are heading a new team that will begin re-exploring and excavating Lachish in 2014. [...]  "The results from Khirbet Qeiyafa, together with the results from Lachish," write Garfinkel and colleagues in a recent article published in Biblical Archeology Review, "will enable us to obtain a clearer and more complete picture of the early history of the kingdom of Judah in the tenth and ninth centuries B.C.E. We view these two excavations as one regional Project." [...] Garfinkel, along with co-directors  Michael G. Hasel and Martin G. Klingbeil of Southern Adventist University, hope to begin excavations with a team of other specialists, students and volunteers in June of 2014.  Read more.

SECRET Meeting to Discuss the Italian MOU

All collectors should read this, on Peter Tompa's blog, "Secret CPAC Meeting to Discuss the Italian MOU": 

The Federal Register has announced a closed CPAC meeting to discuss the MOU with Italy to take place on March 13-14, 2014.  CPAC should be discussing whether the MOU should be scrapped altogether because Italy is no longer living up to its end of the bargain.  But more likely, the closed session will be used to spoon feed CPAC members with information about seizure of ancient coins in Italy in support of a claim that restrictions should be continued and even expanded.   Of course, the fact that ancient coins are widely and legally available within Italy and the rest of the EU will not warrant mention.

The present Administration had promised to make transparency a priority, but apparently the State Department and its Cultural Heritage Center never got the word. Perhaps it is time for collectors to remind them.

Secret CPAC Meeting: Our Future Decided Behind Closed Doors

All collectors should read this, on Peter Tompa's blog, "Secret CPAC Meeting to Discuss the Italian MOU": 

The Federal Register has announced a closed CPAC meeting to discuss the MOU with Italy to take place on March 13-14, 2014.  CPAC should be discussing whether the MOU should be scrapped altogether   because Italy is no longer living up to its end of the bargain.  But more likely, the closed session will be used to spoon feed CPAC members with information about seizure of ancient coins in Italy in support of a claim that restrictions should be continued and even expanded.   Of course, the fact that ancient coins are widely and legally available within Italy and the rest of the EU will not warrant mention.

As the future of our hobby is decided by a committee that none of us voted for, perhaps it is time to protest against such heavy-handed tactics of exclusion and discrimination. As a modern nation we are consistently failing to meet the historical standards of our Founding Fathers - where will this all lead?

Artifact Theft by British Archeologists !!

Archeologists, don't
let them fool you.

In Britain, where artifact collecting is held in high regard by the public, the archeologists are no less vociferous than their US counterparts in calling for a ban on private antiquity collecting and the repatriation of all objects to their homeland. It seems from information brought to light by the investigations of metal detectorists that all this loud posturing is no more than a diversionary tactic, attempting to cover up the corruption and theft within the profession. Britain has a wonderful government scheme for logging all finds made, but what do we find? The figures are telling, in 2011 (the latest year for which figures are available, it seems - wonder why?) of the 97,510 objects logged by the PAS in Britain, only 1848 of them (2.19%) came from "Controlled archeological investigations". But the finds responsibly reported by metal detector users and relic hunters accounts for over 86% of finds recorded with the PAS. That is an appalling statistic. Where are the finds excavated by archeologists going? The answer is supplied by a metal detectorist able to speak freely on a Texas metal detecting blog in a discussion about whether we should introduce a similar scheme for supporting relic hunters here:

when you consider that FEW archaeological digs even bother to register their finds with the PAS…one has to ask the question WHY?  Are orthodox archaeologists complicit in a system of under-the-counter supply to the more shady market outlets? We have to be told. 

Why are British archeologists and academics silent about this? Why are the police not involved?  That is a very good question.

Researchers Investigate Archaic Greek City-State in Crete

An ancient site in eastern Crete may now be providing some answers to the questions of how and why the earliest Archaic city-states on this important Greek island of the Aegean developed and emerged more than 2,500 years ago. Led by Project Director and archaeologist Donald Haggis of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Field Director Margaret Mook of Iowa State University, a research and excavation team will return to the location of Azoria, an archeological site situated on a hill overlooking the Gulf of Mirabello in northeastern Crete. Initially explored by the American archeologist Harriet Boyd-Hawes in 1900, the site has since yielded evidence of human occupation from Final Neolithic times until shortly after 200 B.C.E.

Read more.

The Meaning of Liberty

I cannot wait to see the new film, "The Monuments Men" about how American foresight saved the cultural heritage of mankind from destruction in Europe by the Dark Forces that opposed Liberty. As Executive Director Sayles succinctly puts it:

The Monuments Men is a belated tribute to genuine preservationists who were tremendously successful and are certainly deserving of this day in the Sun. Sadly, it will enbolden a rash of modern day nationalist thieves eager to "steal" the past by clamoring for strict controls and "stewardship" over everything older than their shoe laces—all in the name of "saving" the past. What was conceived in 1970 through a laudable concern over genuine cultural monuments has devolved in recent years into a fanaticism over trivia and a lust for power. [...] Each year, the list of verboten objects grows—extending even to utilitarian objects like coins. This sequestering of cultural property, which includes virtually everything ever made by mankind, is promoted by self-appointed stewards as a necessary action to preserve the past. In some theaters, that act may gain applause but it is really a modern day parallel to the very concern that gave birth to the Monuments Men of WWII. Absolute control leads to absolute tyranny. It did then and it does now.