Archaeologists Unrelentingly Attack Collecting at Atlanta Conference

All please read the following article about how archaeologists are
campaigning for the abolition of collecting antiquities.

Ancient and medieval coins are considered antiquities for their purposes. In
fact, most collectible things of whatever kind that are over 100 years old
are now considered to be "cultural property." If you collect 19th century
world coins, or even old postage stamps or books, your collection could be
drastically impacted if the Unidroit Convention or similar legislation is
adopted. For more information on this, you are invited to join the
Unidroit-L discussion list:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Unidroit-L/

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This savage assault on collecting has become overtly political in its

character. It is no longer science, it has instead distorted what they are

calling science to the point that it is hardly recognizable. It is really

becoming a kind of crusade in the name of what is perceived as political

correctness.


No one who is receiving public funding to support their work should ever be

allowed to behave in this manner. This objection actually has nothing to do

with the exact nature of their cause, but is rather a matter of principle.

No one has the right to promote any political cause using public funding,

except as specifically authorized by Congress (such as federal matching

funds for Presidential campaigns). What the anticollecting zealots are doing

in these conferences is really a political activity and a conflict of

interest, and as such it is just as reprehensible in its way as government

employees engaging in any other political activities during working hours.

They are using public funding and resources that belong to the public to

support their own particular political agenda, which is to pass laws that

outlaw collecting of antiquities - very likely including ancient coins.


By openly conducting these political activities at so many academic and

professional conferences, and in internal institutional proceedings and

academic activities, they are also forcing everyone else in the

archaeological and institutional art field (with a few brave exceptions) to

publicly conform to these views or face professional oblivion. That is not

exactly free speech at work.


If these anticollecting zealots want to pay their own way to travel to such

conferences, stay in hotels at their own expense, take vacation time for the

period that they are absent from their normal responsibilities, and publish

anticollecting papers that they write on their own time after they have done

their normal work, then I say that they have every right to do so, provided

that they also identify themselves as private individuals rather than

presenting their opinions as though they were speaking for their

institution.. But I do not think that any individual who engages in such

activities at the taxpayer's expense should be allowed to continue to do so.

Nor do I think that any institution which continues to allow its employees

to engage in such activities should receive any further public funding.


Collectors, why are you just sitting there doing nothing while these zealots

are working so hard to ban collecting, working to destroy your treasured

avocation and probably make your collections valueless in the process, and

all the while they are actually being supported by YOUR OWN TAX DOLLARS?


Dave Welsh



Unidroit-L Listowner

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-----Original Message-----

From: ]

Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 8:57 PM

To: ; ;



Subject: [Unidroit-L] Tale of Two Meetings: Issue of Antiquities Splits
Scholars in Atlanta



Dear Friends,

Hershel Shanks is the editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review. He is

more sympathetic to the study of artifacts and is more tolerant of

collectors. This article penned by the Editor in the March-April issue gives

you a flavor of how we who are collectors are despised by the professional

archaeologists, even though we buy their books, support their institutions

and fund their excavations.

You will see a great deal of Political Correctness by some of the

participants, an unwillingness to discuss the merits of an argument that

disputes what has become dogma. I do hope that more rational minds enter

into our discussions.

I am typing out only the first half of the article that deals directly

with antiquities, the last half of the article deals with the James Ossuary

and the Jehoash inscription.

This article fleshes out a bit the email I sent earlier commenting and

expanding on Chuck Jones' response to one of my earlier emails. I was

surprised in reading the article that no mention was made in the discussion

of the UNIDROIT Convention and any action program to get it ratified.

Chuck, if you are reading this, I do hope you can provide some more

rational minds that are willing to collaborate with collectors rather than

regard us as enemy thieves eager to support the looters of mankind's

heritage by despoiling archaeological sites that must be responded to by

restricting all artifacts to their countries of origin, strangling the

collectors and their infrastructure of dealers within a blizzard of

paperwork and encouraging governments to make claims on private collections.

I hope this posting provides some clear indication to all of us what

the character of those who would like to destroy our collections and

independent studies is.

Best regards, John Piscopo



A Tale of Two Meetings

ISSUE OF ANTIQUITIES SPLITS SCHOLARS IN ATLANTA

HERSHEL SHANKS

The decision was unanimous: Antiquities collectors are criminals,

responsible for the worldwide scourge of looting.

That was the theme of the annual meeting of the American Schools of

Oriental Research (ASOR), held in Atlanta late last November. ASOR, the

leading professional organization of Near Eastern archaeologists, was only

one of several scholarly associations separately encamped in Georgia for

their "annual meetings." Others included the Society of Biblical Literature

(SBL), the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and the Near Eastern

Archaeological Society (NEAS). In all, more than 9,000 scholars gave well

over a thousand papers both obscure and general--from the "Bioarchaeological

Study of Plastered Skulls" to "Erotic Conversion as a Response to the Priest

Pedophila Crisis" to "Shifting Ethnic Identities in Iron I Northern Moab" to

"The Rhetorical Artistry of Aramaic Daniel."

Elaborating on the broad-based attack on antiquities collectors, Amir

Ganor, head of the Robbery Prevention Unit of the Israel Antiquities

Authority (IAA), was explicit: The high-end collectors of museum-quality

objects are nothing but "prominent criminals."

Alex Joffe, formerly of Boston University and now an independent

scholar, described the "ratline" that begins with looters, then passes

through the antiquities dealers and ends up with collectors. When scholars

publish articles describing and analyzing unprovenanced finds that come from

the antiquities market (that is, objects whose findspots are unknown, and

which therefore may have been looted), the scholars are doing something "not

only pathetic but pernicious," Joffe said. Such scholars are guilty of

making "a moral compromise." Elizabeth Stone, of the State University of New

York at Stony Brook, agreed. Addressing her fellow scholars, she said that

when they publish unprovenanced finds (like the James ossuary inscription

that mentions Jesus), "we are all culpable."

Neil Silberman, a prominent archaeology writer now based in Brussels,

compared antiquities collecting today to the search for relics as far back

as the Byzantine period--the hunt for bones and clothes and objects of

Biblical figures, most of which were of course fictitious. The search for a

similar emotional charge is what leads many people, students as well as

their parents to volunteer for archaeological excavations in the Holy Land.

Today's collectors, Silberman said, represent "the modern cult of relics."

Silberman would simply ban the collecting of and trading in antiquities.

"We must have the courage to end this nonsense," he said. This would bring a

certain "moral clarity" into society's position: "Some things," he said,

"are not for sale."

Gideon Avni, of the Israel Antiquities Authority, picked up on this

theme. Recalling the hundred thousand people who saw the James ossuary in

late 2002 at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto (an exhibit arranged by the

Biblical Archaeology Society), Avni likened the throngs to "medieval

pilgrims," using that description as a form of denigration.

In a major address Lord Colin Renfrew, of Cambridge University in

England, carried the attack one step further-- to museums. He said he feared

using the word "conspiracy" because he might be sued. He then considered

"collusion," but decided that that too was legally dangerous. So he settled

on "pernicious symbiosis" to describe the relationship between antiquities

collectors and museums. He condemned the museums for displaying

unprovenanced objects that belonged to antiquities collectors.

Lord Renfrew did not hesitate to name names-- collectors such as George

Ortiz, Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman, and especially Shelby White and her

husband, Leon Levy; museums like the Metropolitan Museum in New York,

Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, the Denver Art Museum, the Getty Museum (which

he said may have reformed itself), the Fine Arts Museum of Basel,

Switzerland, and the Miho Museum in Japan: museum scholars and curators like

Cornelius Vermuele and Martin Bodner; museum directors like Thomas Hoving

and Philippe de Montebello. All were roundly condemned.

Lord Renfrew suggested a "major public campaign," of which ASOR

scholars would be a part, to ensure that museums do not acquire or display

unprovenanced artifacts.

Not all museums participate in this "pernicious symbiosis", however. One

notable exception is the British Museum, of which Lord Renfrew is a Trustee.

By contrast, he noted that prominent collector Shelby White was a trustee of

the Metropolitan, which had a special exhibit of the objects from the

collection of Shelby White and Leon Levy.

During the question period I asked Lord Renfrew if he knew that Mr. Levy

(who died recently) had been an honorary trustee of ASOR. He replied that he

did not, but that there was an "evolving morality" that would now, one

supposes, lead ASOR to withhold such status from collectors, regardless of

their generosity. Renfrew had himself once written a scholarly essay on the

Greek Cycladic figurines for the museum exhibition catalog featuring

unprovenanced artifacts from a private collection. But not now. He now has

the zeal of a convert. He would not participate in the pernicious symbiosis

today.

Professor Lawrence Stager of Harvard University then rose in Levy's

defense, saying that we must also consider the good things that collectors

do. Levy, he noted, had poured millions of dollars into supporting his own

excavation of Ashkelon in Israel without suggesting that he be rewarded with

so much as a pottery sherd. Levy had also supported the excavation of

Meggido and other sites. He and Shelby White had established a program for

financing the publication of excavation reports, which has distributed

additional millions of dollars to scholars. Among the recipients of this

largesse are a number of ASOR scholars. (Jane Waldbaum, who is also

president of the Archaeological Institute of America, which takes the same

position as ASOR with respect to unprovenanced artifacts, is among them. Her

research continues to be supported by this apparently tainted money. Thus

far, she has not renounced it.) And among those who have served on the board


of directors of the Shelby White-Leon Levy Program for Archaeological

Publications, Steger noted, is Professor Martha Joukowski, of Brown

University, now the vice-president of ASOR. Professor Joukowski, who was in

the audience, leapt to her feet and cried,

"I resigned."

In response to Professor Stager's comments, Lord Renfrew referred to

society's increasingly higher standards of morality, suggesting that it

might not be proper to accept money from collectors in light of these

"evolving" moral standards. Professor Renfrew said that he had heard of a

proposal to change ASOR's strict policy against ASOR scholars' publishing

scholarly articles about unprovenanced artifacts and that he was opposed to

such a change.

Since I had made the proposal to change ASOR's policy, I thought I

should explain it and the reasons underlying it. I raised my hand, and Lord

Renfrew recognized me. We, too, despise looters, I said, and, indeed, the

Biblical Archaeology Society agrees with Lord Renfrew's aim, which is to

reduce, if not eliminate, looting. But we feel that it cannot be reduced

simply by excoriating collectors and museums. Indeed, this strategy has

proved wholly unsuccessful; looting is worse than ever. We support police

stations, protective electronic fences and market based strategies to reduce

looting. The antiquities market, we contend, can never be eliminated.

Moreover, looted objects sometimes have significant scholarship value--

inscriptions, coins, items of high artistic merit. These need to be rescued

when looted. They are worth less because they do not have and archaeological

context, but they still have scholarly value, which cannot be ignored. We

distinguish between good collectors and bad collectors. Good collectors

ransom items of importance and make them available to scholars to study and

publish, and then allow them to be displayed to the public. Bad collectors

are those who keep these objects hidden and private; we, the public, never

know about them or see them. I argued that the blanket vilification of

collectors is counterproductive. It does nothing to reduce looting and only

sends the market underground, with the result that collectors who are

willing to make their important artifacts available for study would not do

so for fear of the kind of vilification that Lord Renfrew was heaping on

them.

At his point, Professor Joukowski, who continues to display in her home

her museum-quality antiquities collection, jumped to her feet and tried to

shout me down. I resisted. "I let you finish," I said. "Now let me finish."

From the other side of the room, Nan Frederick, an ASOR trustee from

Annapolis, Maryland, shouted, "You've talked long enough." At that point, I

thought it best to sit down, so I did.

Lord Renfrew then addressed Professor Joukowski: "Is there something you

would like to say?"

"Thank you very much (for your remarks)." she replied, emphasizing each

word, and then sat down.

It was a memorable session.

(The rest of the article follows, changing topic to the James ossuary.)