Son of Cuneiform Tablet on eBay - the Sequel

As a sequel to my earlier noting of eBay stupidity, Paul Barford has pointed out that just when you think it can't get any worse, it does. A lot of two fake bits of cuneiform from the same seller (and said to be from the same source) has sold for £431 - even more than the price of the previous rubbish.

The buyer may well be happy with their purchase forever and never accept the truth even if it is pointed out. I used to be on the receiving end of the incredulity (and occasional insults) of such owners when I worked as an auction house 'expert'. The typical reaction was to go into immediate denial, carefully wrap up their fake item again, and then leave shaking their head with a wry smile and a muttered "You don't know what you're talking about". I kept quiet of course but was frequently tempted to yell back "You can't handle the truth!" in my best Jack Nicholson impression.

Cuneiform Tablet on eBay - legal dilemma?

A nice big cuneiform tablet sold on eBay last month for £410 (approx. US $680) after a frenzied battle of bids from a starting price of 99p. The UK seller announced that the "tablet is part of a collection of tablets and clay figures purchased in 2013 from an antiquities dealer in Turkey". Before cracking open the bubbly however, the lucky buyer may want to consider two minor drawbacks to their purchase ...

1. Turkish laws of 1906, 1973 and currently, the Law on the Protection of Cultural and Natural Property of 1983, declare that all antiquities discovered in or on private or public lands in Turkey are the property of the state. Even antiquities not discovered in Turkey itself must be accompanied by a museum certificate before removal from the country. In practice, there is an almost total export ban on antiquities and an ancient cuneiform tablet is likely to have been smuggled out illegally.
   
   
2. Now comes the good(?) news! Neither the seller nor the buyer need lose any sleep over those Turkish laws since they don't apply in this case. The tablet (and almost certainly the other bits and bobs the seller bought in Turkey) is not an antiquity. It's a glaringly obvious modern fake aimed at the gullible tourist market.

Should the buyer eventually discover their purchase is just a piece of tourist tat and feel that £410 is a bit too much to pay for it, they have two options. They can just swallow their pride and live with it, or they can demand a refund through eBay on the grounds that the item was "not as described". Since the item was described as a "large near eastern old clay cuneiform tablet from mesopotamia", the latter option poses a problem. "Mesopotamia" is a bit vague; in its widest sense it can include part of Turkey. The word "old" is all relative; was the seller merely claiming the item was bought a few months ago? It could be argued that the tablet was exactly as described.

Or would the buyer insist on a refund on the grounds that they were under the impression that the tablet was truly ancient, a genuine antiquity smuggled out of Turkey in 2013? Well, of course that angle would be a tacit confession that the buyer was under the impression that they were happily and knowingly acting as a receiver of stolen property. That is a criminal offence in most countries, certainly in the UK.

But hey, perhaps eBay does not have the same conception of legality as the rest of us and would uphold a refund based on the premise that the description was misleading. It would be interesting to know the outcome if a dispute is raised. In the meantime, we can all relax in the knowledge that many eBay buyers are cluelessly gobbling up tourist tat rather than encouraging looting by buying the real thing.