Name from the Past

Stamped brick

New Times Ahead, Trade Controls a "Misguided Initiative"

Perhaps we are seeing a change and the fake news ideologues are losing ground (Wayne Sayles, "A sign of the times?" Ancient Coin Collecting, Sunday, August 20, 2017)?

"Over the past decade, collectors of ancient coins have been faced with constant pressure from left wing radicals of academia—particularly the archaeological community leadership and their sycophants. Among the ardent supporters of anti-collector groups are a small but well entrenched cadre of bureaucrats in Washington. The level of governmental infiltration by these cultural property nationalists—bent on eliminating or controlling international trade in cultural property—is in itself cause for some concern" [...] In recent years there has been a barrage of baseless claims in the liberal press stating boldly that the terrorist movements of the Middle East are being funded by huge revenues from the sale (mainly within the U.S.) of ancient artifacts looted in conflict areas either from theft or support of illegal excavation and exportation. Even avowed supporters of academic archaeology have debunked these wild claims, but they continue to proliferate in the media without justification or any basis in fact. It's the "Big Lie" in what some see as its finest hour. One element of that campaign was an Executive Branch program created during the Obama Administration ostensibly to interdict illegal trade and monetary transfers that aided terrorists. The project was called Operation Choke Point and one of its goals was to throttle trade that the administration considered suspect. In reality, the project became a tool for ideologues to exert pressure on legitimate business that they disagreed with philosophically. Ancient coin dealers were among that group targeted. Under pressure from governmental agencies, several banks cancelled longstanding business accounts with dealers in ancient coins—not due to any transgression nor illegal activity, but simply because they dealt in ancient coins.

Sayles continues: "Happily, we can now speak of Operation Chokepoint in the past tense. As of August 16, 2017 the Trump Administration has terminated that program and described it as a "misguided initiative". And comments:

|"Hopefully, this is a sign of the times and the present administration will also recognize the negative consequences of bureaucratic overreach at the State Department and U.S. Customs. They might start with implementation of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act and guide the bureaucracy back to a position consistent with the law and not driven, as it has been, by misguided ideology".

Facts About the Art Trade, Terrorism and the Size of the Illicit Marke

Tim van Lit, report author

"Important Study Commissioned by Dutch National Police Contradicts Media Hoax" Committee for Cultural Property August 24, 2017.

 Phony claims about involvement of the legitimate art trade with ISIS, and about art dealers supporting terrorism continue to be fed to the media, despite reputable, solid analysis that contradicts these false allegations. The most comprehensive resource is a 78 page report commissioned by commissioned by the Dutch National Police, Central Investigation Unit, War Crimes Unit: Cultural Property, War Crimes and Islamic State – Destruction, plunder and trafficking of cultural property and heritage by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq – a war crimes perspective (2016).

The Dutch National Police report states: “Although it seems, based on main stream media, as if all art and antique dealers are black market dealers, [...]  no evidence that this happens on a large scale is found. The legal trade could not be linked to financing IS based on this research.”

Swedish Museum Accelerates Their Cultural Collapse By Turning Viking Artifacts Into Scrap Metal

This cant be right, Viking artifacts melted down by the very people supposed to protect them

Following the revelations of one of its angry archaeologists, it emerges that the curators of Stockholms Länsmuseum have been ordering the systematic destruction of newly found artifacts from the Iron Age and the Viking period under the guise that it would be too burdensome to process. Coins, arrow heads, ritual amulets, weapons, jewellery and weights that were kept in the past are now directly dumped into metal recycling bins upon discovery instead of being treasured and displayed.  Following a recent surge in excavations aimed at construction that are occurring all over Sweden, the museum excavators are instructed to recycle unearthed iron elements into scrap metal following the pretext that “it would take too much resources to process, identify and store them.” The findings are usually quickly disposed of in order to make way for construction machines and building workers. This was kept secret until this week’s declarations by Johan Runer, archaeologist at the said museum. [...]   Runer explains that the archaeologists cannot themselves auction the findings to the private sector as it would encourage crooks and robbers to then resell the treasure. [...]   The money argument for a national museum implanted in one of the most prosperous countries on Earth (for now, before the “New Swedes” do what they do best) does not make sense. There is no shortage of funds in Sweden to host more refugees and promote multiculturalism in every media, but the money seems to vanish when it’s time to preserve European common heritage. 

(Jean-Batave Poqueliche, 'Swedish Museum Accelerates Their Cultural Collapse By Turning Viking Artifacts Into Scrap Metal' August 16, 2017). This is really shocking news. It is supported at the highest levels. Sweden has a black 'Minister of Culture':

Alice Bah Kuhnke [...] approves those decisions and define what should compose Swedish History and choose what will be Sweden’s future.[...] This story is just one more proof of the Left’s effort to shape the future of the their ugly world using the technique of the scorched earth.[...] There is not much difference between those Liberal iconoclasts and the soldiers of the Islamic state’s goons smashing millennia-old statues and monuments with sledgehammers. In both cases, those who destroy claim that the targets are false idols. The first against a multiculturalist future and the latter against Allah.A prime example of how Cultural Marxism aims at erasing the past to get rid of the last roots that our children can call theirs. [...] Sweden’s self-loathing decision makers try to erase the few traces that show Sweden as something else than a multiculturalism-infected petri dish. Destroy a people’s history so they cannot find a common heritage to fight for and you can start anew and create the society you seek. This shall not be.

Ritual vessel

This Egyptian vase was used in temple ceremonies and in rituals of purification. Its form imitates the hieroglyph "hes" which means "to praise."

Islamic extremist liable for €2.7m in damages for destroying Timbuktu shrine

A ruling by the International Criminal Court sets an important precedent ("Islamic extremist liable for €2.7m in damages for destroying Timbuktu shrine", The Art Newspaper 18 August 2017). Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi an Islamic extremist caused €2.7m in damages when he destroyed shrines in Timbuktu, Mali, in 2012. He has been declared liable to pay that sum.

Islamic extremists used pickaxes and bulldozers to destroy nine mausoleums and the centuries-old door of the Sidi Yahya mosque, built during a golden age of Islam, after a jihadist takeover in northern Mali in 2012, according to Agence France Presse. Calling the attack a “war crime”, the ICC sentenced Al-Mahdi to nine years in jail last September after he pleaded guilty to “intentionally directing” attacks on the Unesco world heritage site. 

This ruling is important because it acknowledges the cultural damage that war can cause. The landmark ruling signals that the destruction of historic sites at Palmyra in Syria and Mosul in Iraq by Isil could also be considered as war crimes by the ICC. There is however a snag, it is possible that this kind of settlement could actually incentivise cultural destruction because poor people could see this as ensuring a payout.

E Pluribus Unum

Our monuments to the past: Victims of political correctness

On the topic of recent attempts to remove or even destroy Confederate war memorials as products of an "inherently racist culture.", Peter Tompa ("Preservationists Seek to Remove or Even Destroy Confederate Monuments", CPO August 18th 2017) says:

  there are distinct parallels between ISIS destroying "idolatrous" statues and monuments and efforts here to topple "racist" ones, not the least the motivation to deprive certain groups of artifacts deemed important to their culture (there Shia, Assyrian Christians and Yazhdis and here poor White people (who must be racist!)). At least here, we have processes in place to allow localities and States to make the decision what to do with our Confederate monuments. What must be avoided at all costs is another Durham, N.C., where a mob was allowed to take matters into its own hands.

American cultural values and american history are at stake, and as the President says there are good and bad on both sides of the dispute It is sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments, we cannot change history, but we sure could learn from it. The majestic beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks in the name of political correctness will be greatly missed and we will never able to be comparably replace it.

“Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,” Trump said. “This week, it is Robert E. Lee. And I notice that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next? And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”