How to Spot Fake Roman Lamps

Figure 1

Inspired by a recent article on 'How to Spot Fake Cuneiform Tablets', I've decided to do the same for fake ancient lamps. Well no, that's actually a bit of a porky. The article on cuneiform tablets is quite long and I have no intention of trying to cram even a general introduction to spotting fake ancient lamps (history, motivation, case studies, manufacture, regional variation, analysis, repercussions and so on) into a mere blog post. I'll leave that for a chapter in the proverbial 'future book'. My post will be more in the nature of making a couple of very quick observations.

The finest fake lamps can be quite difficult to detect and to cover that end of the topic in the depth necessary would require a thesis rather than a blog post so I'll lower the tone and, without going into detail for fear of alerting fakers to amend their future products, simply confine most of my post to a few brief comments on some of the commonest duds (though, despite my title, not only those purporting to be 'Roman').

Although detecting fake Roman lamps is not always as easy as knowing the difference between a Roman gladiator and Robin Hood (Fig.1, top left), recognising a great deal of the rubbish churned out to flog to gullible tourists or eBay punters needs little more than common sense.

Army uniform

Figure 2

Lamps were produced in huge numbers in ancient times but, despite what some sellers would like you to believe, lamps that were made in different workshops in different areas at different periods were not all made from identical clay with identical colour and did not acquire identical patination. That observation applies to this sample of well-known fakes from the 'Syrian Series', offered, among a plethora of other spurious nonsense, by a notorious dealer in New York City (Fig.2, above).

Figure 3

The same applies to this selection of blatant fakes from the 'Bulgarian Volute Series', offered for prices ranging from $396 to $1,596 by an American dealer on both eBay and VCoins (Fig.3, above). Noting the huge variety of real Roman volute lamps (plus the plastic and factory types included here) is only a mouse-click away.

Sensing the dubious nature of a single presentation of lamps that all have almost identical fabric despite purporting to have different origins is of course child's play. The task becomes more difficult when, instead of being shown together, those same lamps enter circulation and are unwittingly mingled with authentic ones by inexperienced collectors or uninformed dealers. At least three of the lamps in this publicity shot for the sales catalogue of an upmarket business in Chicago (Fig.4, below) are also likely to be modern fakes from the 'Bulgarian Volute Series' but picking them out from the other items requires a sharper eye. While most products of that series should be clear enough, a few of them can be quite deceptive when isolated from their siblings and their detection may involve an analysis that is outside the cursory scope of my blog post.

Figure 4

Variations on a theme

Figure 5

The uniformity of the modern items mentioned in the previous section is probably due to their production in only one or two workshops in very recent times. The situation changes when a style of fake lamp has been made over a long period. Workshops alter their methods over time and, inspired by their success, other workshops copy the style, perhaps adding a few idiosyncrasies of their own to the basic design. The clay and finish then also begin to vary quite dramatically over the years, as can be seen in such hackneyed classics as the infamous 'Hathor Type' (Fig.5, above), a fantasy produced in vast quantities to dupe credulous tourists in Egypt since Victorian days.

Figure 6

Much like the Egyptian makers of the 'Hathor Type' with its enigmatic face, a few enterprising citizens of Tunisia have also long ago recognised the irrepressible urge of tourists to buy the improbable but exotic and have been busily fulfilling that demand with items from the 'La Marsa Group' since the 1950s. This group, likewise with a variety of clay, finish and detail, includes a lamp in the form of a head with no less than three nozzles, backed up by one depicting an archer and another displaying a disproportionately huge Christian symbol (Fig.6, above).

Far from putting tourists off, their childlike crudity, artificially time-worn condition and frequently dark and dirty surface are calculated to win over a species of clientele who very often fail to appreciate that real ancient lamps were largely intended for discerning adults and typically spent most of their existence sealed from the wear and grease of human handling by being buried underground.

Swimming with the tide

Figure 7

Never one to neglect an orphan merely because its origin is obscure, I feel another quirky lamp is due for consideration. The 'Dolphin Type' (Fig.7, above) appears to be based on genuine Hellenistic lamps found in Asia Minor but the feature of an offset handle is strikingly exaggerated into an obvious fishtail shape and its body often bloats out on the opposite side so that the whole thing resembles a classical dolphin. Differences in clay and finish suggest the type was made by different makers over a long period yet, contrary to the other variations normally found in such cases, the same crude pattern of slapdash ridges adorns the upper surface of every example encountered, almost as if the manufacturers were terrified of updating, modifying or refining the moulds for fear of making the product look too sophisticated and alienating a clientele who expected it to look primitive.

Although examples of this boldly unconventional type are very common on the commercial market, where their zoomorphic design appeals to buyers, I am not aware of any example from a documented archaeological excavation, their curiously arrested development beyond an endlessly repeated basic concept gives pause for thought, and I have long been doubtful of their authenticity. They share some aspects with the 'La Marsa Group' and I suspect they may be related. Like members of that family, lamps of the 'Dolphin Type' are a crudely executed exotic form circulating for many decades and show the consequent variations in clay, finish and detail that prolonged manufacture tends to entail but the fabric of some examples is remarkably similar to that of examples belonging to the Tunisian series (Fig.8, below).

Figure 8

Tunisia was a French colony for over seventy years, the French language is still widely spoken there and, with the exception of those from neighbouring countries, people from France form by far the largest number of foreign tourists today. Small wonder then that fakes from the 'La Marsa Group' crop up on the French market far more often than elsewhere in Europe. The fact that the same applies to lamps of the 'Dolphin Type' seems unlikely to be mere coincidence.

A touch of class

I'm nearing the limit for a blog post but in case any readers are complacent in the thought that spotting fake ancient lamps is simply a matter of avoiding those that come in identical batches and those in improbable styles, I'll end with an example of the better class I mentioned earlier. The lamp shown here (Fig.9, below) is an accurate style with a very convincing clay, finish and patination, a type that can easily fool many curators and dealers into accepting it as an ancient artefact from Imperial Rome.

Figure 9

The lamp is indeed Italian and it is indeed old - but not nearly as old as you might think. Closer examination reveals that it is a 19th-century fake belonging to the 'Naples Group', a series named after the city where they were made from about 1870 up to the First World War. Some of the most convincing fakes are those made many decades ago and the older they are, very often the more plausible they become. Time and time again I find undoubtedly old but nevertheless fake lamps proudly displayed in provincial museums or advertised in the catalogues of reputable dealers and auction houses. Thus, they can even acquire an impressive provenance over the years.

As to the gladiatorial scene shown on the discus: although an accurate copy of a genuine motif, it is always wise to be extra cautious with any lamp depicting gladiators or bawdy sex scenes. Lamps with those themes were produced in large numbers in ancient times since Romans apparently loved them but fakers are well aware that modern people love them too and pay high prices for them.

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A pictorial summary of over 30 fake ancient lamps is included on my website. An example of one of the items shown in Figure 4 is listed as FB5.

A useful series of observations and case studies is also included on the website of a prominent ADA member.

ACCG own goal: With 'friends' like these ...

Original research - ACCG style

An American coin dealer recently called my attention to an old paper that he helped to compose on behalf of the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG) and challenged me to examine it on my blog, apparently under the impression that the paper was pretty much unassailable. He confidently assured me that it "was received with respect and interest by the Council for British Archaeology". I have now had time to read through it and my first comment is that the Brits can be disarmingly polite.

I note that this American "Newcastle Paper" was presented by the ACCG at a UK conference hosted by the Council for British Archaeology in March 2010 and has been reviewed previously. Even before slogging through its excessively exhaustive (and exhausting!) text, my first impression was not good. Its very title ("Coin Collectors and Cultural Property Nationalism") was ominous. The subsequent text deviously conflates two largely separate issues: a worthy struggle to seek a sensible and balanced solution in the sharing of international culture on the one hand, and a campaign to prolong a cavalier attitude to the destructive exploitation of foreign archaeological resources for commercial gain on the other. Disingenuously using the former to excuse the latter is not a great start.

Is the paper actually on behalf of "coin collectors" or is that term basically a euphemism for something else? Certainly, despite laboured assertions that the ACCG "is a collector organization, not a trade lobby" (p.44), its aims seem far more geared towards the mass acquisition of stock than the concerns of ethical individuals buying one or two coins. This is the organisation that declares its members "will not knowingly purchase coins illegally removed from scheduled archaeological sites" (p.45) while failing to admit the irony of simultaneously fighting against any measures (even self-regulatory ones) that would help ensure the stock of the dealers who supply them was not.

An early unwitting admission by contributor John Hooker that he hasn't got the vaguest clue what the full extent of "cultural heritage" actually is (p.5)¹ sets the tone for much of the paper. It includes some valid and significant points but any overall case it tries to make to a naively miscalculated demographic is so compromised by a litany of schoolboy flaws - ranging from verbosity, waffle, repetition and tedious irrelevancies to shallow blame-shifting, inadequate denial (p.15), arrogant presumption (p.32), cringeworthy unawareness and stunning miscomprehension resulting from object-centric myopia, no conception of moral responsibility beyond the bare legal minimum, a long unsourced² section plagiarised verbatim (!) from Wikipedia (pp.49-50), manipulated conflation, selective sycophancy and a plethora of glaring logical fallacies - that it tends to greatly diminish rather than enhance any perception of the trade as a worthwhile contributor in serious academic discussion.

A statement that "The collectors [read: US coin dealers] rights movement does not seek a confrontation, it seeks a solution" on the final page (p.61) begs a question: the "rights" to do what? To henceforth acquire stock responsibly by ensuring it does not conflict with archaeological concerns or to continue to acquire stock in the same cavalier way dealers did in the past and carry on encouraging looting until every last archaeological resource on the planet has been obliterated? The paper gives every indication that "rights" means the latter.

The paper includes not the slightest hint of compromise, not the vaguest trace of a realistic proposal to meet anyone halfway. Characteristically, it attempts to shift responsibility. An eager but wildly autoschediastic suggestion that a PAS-like scheme is a "viable model" (p.49) in countries that are incredibly rich in ancient sites reveals a simplistic object-centric approach oblivious to any potential for an archaeological catastrophe. Crucially, the paper includes not even, despite lip service (perhaps also cribbed from Wikipedia?), a real sign that the root problem is properly understood. Quite the contrary ...

The American coin dealer who brought the paper to my attention pointed out that "it was a statement of the pro-collecting point of view of the collectors' rights advocacy movement, rather than a completely impartial academic survey paper".

Fair enough, but it's one thing to display a certain amount of partiality. It's quite another to come out with daft nonsense such as holding an archaeologist up to ridicule for comparing ancient coins to "an endangered species" and then wordily pointing out how common they are (p.16) when it was blatantly obvious even from the quotation that he was talking only about coins that remained undisturbed in their context. Such silliness has a tendency to backfire - especially to an audience containing informed academics - and, instead of having the intended effect, implies that the person giving the presentation is either too thick to understand simple English or too ignorant to grasp even the most basic principle of archaeology. That impression is hardly helpful in promoting "the pro-collecting point of view".

And that's just one example of countless other faux pas in a long-winded but essentially slapdash paper that utterly drowns any valid points in a garrulous sea of uninformed blunders, contrived deceptions, plagiarised waffle and entrenched ignorance. Predictably, the end result paints an overwhelmingly negative picture of those engaged in the US coin trade.

I could very easily dismantle the "Newcastle Paper" through detailed analysis in another post but I post very seldom on my blog these days and I've already dealt with the ACCG earlier. Calling further attention to their inept propaganda merely highlights the worst aspects of a hobby I wholeheartedly support if carried out responsibly. In the interest of a balanced 'middle ground', if I post anything at all nowadays it is more likely to focus on some of the views expressed by those who oppose it. In the meantime, here's a gentle plea to the ACCG: either get your act together next time or do the collecting world a favour and give it a miss.

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¹  In this alarming paradigm of tunnel vision, "cultural heritage" applies to objects that can be "distributed" but not to the once intact archaeological sites they are "distributed" from.
²  Wayback Machine reveals that the footnote given is just a deceptive red herring and not the real source. Perhaps the authors hoped no one would ever bother to check. Should we place a similar trust in any provenance they may give for a coin?

Understanding the 1970 UNESCO Convention

There appear to be common misconceptions about a Convention adopted at the 16th General Conference of UNESCO on 14 November 1970 in Paris. Its full - and somewhat unwieldy - title is 'Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property'. (I'm hoping to propose a 'Convention on the Benefits of Not Trying to Cram an Entire Synopsis into a Title' at the next General Conference.) Its purpose was to combat the illicit trafficking of cultural property (including of course ancient artefacts).

The Convention came into force on 24 April 1972 but it is important to bear in mind that it was just an agreement and was not in itself a law. It was left up to individual nations to implement the Convention in their own laws upon ratifying or accepting it. Since laws are not usually retroactive, compliance with them typically dates from the year each of those laws was passed, not that of the Convention. A chronological list of the years that nations ratified or accepted the Convention is published on the UNESCO website.

Although many museums and other institutions have adopted the year 1970 as a cut-off point in the acquisition of antiquities, that year is purely voluntary - based on ethical rather than legal considerations. The Convention itself (Article 7a) advises that they should be prevented from acquiring cultural property which has been illegally exported after the date that both the country of origin and the country of the institution ratified or accepted the Convention. In the case of the UK acquiring an object from Turkey, for instance, that date would be 1 August 2002 (although Turkey ratified the Convention in 1981, it was not accepted by the UK until 21 years later). It is of course up to the institution to determine if an object is likely to contravene that rule and, as said, most set a much earlier date for ethical reasons.

A similar responsibility (and ethical awareness) is placed on dealers and collectors to ensure they do not acquire illicit cultural property (Article 5e). Although nations are exhorted to keep an up-to-date inventory of their national heritage (Article 5b), that cannot of course include individual objects as yet unknown in archaeological sites (Article 1c) and it is therefore incumbent on dealers and collectors to establish that an archaeological object was legally exported.

If a nation declares that its archaeological material is under threat of pillage, other signatories undertake to control international trade in the relevant material (Article 9). In the US, such measures are normally effected by means of a bilateral memorandum of understanding (MoU) under its implementation of the Convention (Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act 1983). A summary of that Act is published by the US government.

The Convention also seeks to prohibit the import of cultural property stolen from a museum or similar institution or from a public monument (Article 7b), and return the property to its country of origin providing that it was documented and that compensation is paid where appropriate (the latter provision subject to certain conditions in the US). The UK stipulated that, in its own case, return was subject to its rules on limitation to claims (typically six years under the Limitation Act 1980). 

Misconceptions

As said, there appear to be common misconceptions about what the 1970 UNESCO Convention is and what it is not. This was recently highlighted by the comment submitted by an archaeologist to an online article regarding the questionable collecting habits of an elderly Australian digging up artefacts in the Middle East:

“The short answer is, yes, it was illegal [...] International law sets the deadline at 1970 — the date of the 1970 UNESCO Convention — for the removal of artifacts from the ground for collection. So if she began in 1967 and continued for 11 years (as the article states), then she was breaking the law.”

The archaeologist was right to be outraged but, in fact, he was wrong about the 1970 UNESCO Convention. It is not "international law". Nor is there any "deadline at 1970". Australia did not accept it until 1989. Neither of course does the Convention have anything to do directly with "the removal of artifacts from the ground for collection". As its full title suggests, it concerns import, export and transactions.

The laws that the elderly Australian was probably breaking were those of the countries she was digging in. Her blatant disregard of those laws is reprehensible but it is important to employ the correct framework to condemn its illegality. In the case of Australia, the pertinent legislation is the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986, which sets no time limit for "unlawful imports".

Is protecting the archaeological record simply "political correctness"?

Dave Welsh, an American dealer in ancient coins, has expressed his hope that the recent US election will lead to a relaxing of measures designed to protect cultural heritage. By regulating the international transport of ancient artefacts, those measures help to protect the archaeological record by making items looted from it more difficult to smuggle abroad, including those potentially traded by coin dealers who turn a blind eye to where their stock comes from. He sees those measures as "political correctness" ("Political Correctness Loses", 9 November 2016).

His blog post is rather long but the last sentence sums up the thrust: "... their primary loyalty is not to the interests of the American people, but to the interests of archaeology".

Let's have a look at the "American people" ...

Welsh clearly loves ancient coins and I can easily understand that - ancient coins are fascinating - but let's get real, the vast majority of American people have zero interest in either dealing in ancient coins or collecting them (about 50,000 ancient coin collectors is a rather minute fraction of over 324,000,000 Americans).

Conversely, a large proportion of American people do have at least a passing interest in history and archaeology. That is reflected in the media. There are countless TV programmes devoted to that interest. But I'm scratching my head trying to remember the last TV programme I ever saw devoted to ancient coins.

Since archaeology and its contribution to our knowledge of history are clearly of interest to so many people, it seems to me that protecting it from destruction (such as that potentially encouraged by tiny minorities fixated by coins) is not a matter of "political correctness"; it is simply common sense. It is respect not only for "the interests of the American people" but for people all over the world.

--- UPDATE ---

Dave Welsh has responded to my blog post by saying:

"The 1983 CCPIA does not refer to or in any way seek to address the "archaeological record" or its protection. It instead describes the detailed steps required to process requests from foreign governments for import restrictions upon specific types and classes of artifacts."

The 1970 UNESCO Convention (and the 1983 CCPIA which implements it in the US) was designed to protect "cultural property" and the archaeological record of a nation is undeniably its cultural property. Protecting that archaeological record by seeking to prevent bits and pieces of it being smuggled out of that nation is well within its remit.*

But I think Welsh is missing the point I was making in both the title and the content of my blog post. My post was about his use of the phrase "the interests of the American people".

Far more American people are interested in archaeology and its contribution to our knowledge of history than they are about dealing in ancient coins. Regardless of Welsh's own opinion that more weight is given to academic pressure than that of the coin trade in implementing the law, the interests of the huge majority of American people are being given primary importance.

That is NOT "political correctness". That is fairness.The law takes the interests of both the majority and the minority into account. It does not seek to ban the collecting of ancient coins; it merely seeks to stem the enormous flow of recently looted or otherwise illicit coins being illegally smuggled into the US by encouraging dealers to check and document the source of their stock.

(* Which is why I pointed out the futility of trying to define which specific 'bits and pieces' of an archaeological record meet the criterion of "cultural property" in a previous discussion. They are all part of it.)

Dispatches and the Missing Evidence

Having been approached by a member of the production team for a Channel 4 Dispatches programme for my input last year, I watched the final outcome with interest on Monday night ("ISIS and the Missing Treasures", Radio Times, 18 April 2016). For those who missed the first showing there are repeats and a streaming video. And Channel 4 has issued a summary.

The amount of preparation for a TV documentary is impressive and the team must find it painful that the project ultimately has to be ruthlessly edited to cram it into only 30 minutes. Although such programmes may draw on scholarly research, it is of course inevitable that their paramount objective is to attract as large an audience as possible within that short span. Thus, they tend to focus on 'popular', 'topical' and 'compelling' - sometimes even favouring the pull of being 'sensational' at the risk of overlooking a mainstay of true scholarship: impartial objectivity.

The catchy title - ISIS and the Missing Treasures - had an Indiana Jones ring to it. The programme did indeed promise to be sensational. However, I am not entirely convinced that the two main "treasures" featured had much, if any, connection to ISIS (also known as ISIL, IS or whatever other acronym is used to denote an organisation currently calling itself the Islamic State).

A carved stone lintel being offered by a minor dealer in Grays Market, a London antiques arcade, was discovered to have been documented as having formed part of a ruined Jewish building at Nawa in Syria in 1988. The lintel had no provenance and it is almost certain that it was stolen and smuggled - but the question is when and by whom.

The programme's title - plus strategic footage of Islamist forces - inferred the culprits were ISIS. But Nawa was captured by al-Nusra Front and other rebel factions, most recently in November 2014, and al-Nusra Front had already split from ISIS by the end of 2013. So, were the real culprits al-Nusra Front?

It is certainly true that civil strife fosters conditions that encourage and often facilitate looting but pinning the blame on any specific group can be difficult. In the absence of more information, all we can safely say is that the lintel was removed from Syria sometime after 1988 and it is quite possible that those responsible were simply part of one of the looting and smuggling networks that have existed in that part of the world for many decades.

The second "treasure" was a Quran advertised on eBay by a seller using the username 'london_oriental'. A team met up with the seller to examine the book in Copenhagen. A fragment torn from the top of an endpaper suggested that a previous owner's seal or inscription had been removed to hide the fact that the book had been stolen. Although the book was advertised as "Persian", an expert identified it as 19th/20th century and "suspect[ed] it was originally taken from a Syrian library". The freshness of the tear on the endpaper caused another expert to speculate that it had been "probably removed quite recently" (though in fact paper tears can remain fresh-looking for decades).

The book may well have been stolen from a Syrian library - but again the question is when and by whom. Objects stolen from various places have been filtering onto the black market for centuries.

The programme's caption on the Channel 4 website - "A battle to stop the Isis cashing in on looted antiquities is being waged in the UK" - expresses a noble aim but, even leaving aside the notion that a modern Quran is an "antiquity" in the first place, the documentary failed to track down a single object in the UK that had definitely been looted from Syria or Iraq since civil unrest began in 2011, let alone one that had definitely helped to fund ISIS.

The Channel 4 Dispatches programme was quite right to emphasise that buyers must insist on a provenance when considering the purchase of any object they even vaguely suspect may have been stolen, and it made attempts to give a balanced view of the situation. However, we are still left wondering why the media is fixated only on ISIS (it is far from being the sole reason for Syria's appalling loss of its heritage both before and during the crisis) and, despite wild claims, just how much money that organisation is really making from the sale of antiquities. And how many of those antiquities are really reaching the UK.

Even only one object is one object too many and we must be utterly vigilant but this programme did nothing to dispel the suspicion that the involvement of the UK market in ISIS loot may be greatly exaggerated. If it is not exaggerated, that omission is counterproductive. If it is, we are largely left tilting at windmills for the sake of sensationalism.

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Images are screenshots from a named TV programme used for the purpose of review.

The problem with binary terminology

Dr Donna Yates has called attention on her blog (Anonymous Swiss Collector, 18 February 2016) to an event to be held on 1 March in New York: "Rethinking Antiquities: Restitution and Collecting in the Time of ISIS". She comments: "This should be an interesting event, clearly promoting an alternate view to the one that you’d usually see on this list: some pro-collecting, anti-regulation, anti-repatriation ideas."

I'm sure Dr Yates used those three terms (collecting, regulation, repatriation) merely as shorthand and is well aware of their shortcomings but, for the sake of argument and with apologies to Dr Yates, I'll examine them at face value.

Personally, I am not unreservedly pro-collecting, anti-regulation and anti-repatriation. On the other hand, neither am I unreservedly anti-collecting, pro-regulation and pro-repatriation.

Confused? The problem lies in a temptation to dumb-down a complex issue into a series of only two diametrically opposed attitudes, an attempt to reduce reality into binary thought. The process is akin to saying something is either 'hot' or 'cold' while ignoring the countless gradations of 'warm', 'cool', 'tepid' and so on in between.

Applying binary thought may work nicely at football matches or other fantasy conflicts. I hope Dr Yates would readily agree that it doesn't always work quite so well when applied to real life; it typically forces a false dichotomy. Simply put: in reality all three terms (collecting, regulation, repatriation) are far too broad to either support or oppose unconditionally.

My own reaction to those terms all depends on factors and parameters such as how those terms are defined, how they are qualified, how they are implemented and, very often, the circumstances of different cases and situations. Much of the danger in debates between those fighting for heritage conservation and those fighting to preserve a trade in artefacts lies in polarisation, a tendency to misunderstand, stereotype and sometimes demonise those holding a divergent viewpoint. At its most extreme, a debate can become a myopic impasse of binary thought - with no allowance for nuances and moderation.

I thoroughly agree with Dr Yates that this event should prove to be interesting. And I see it as an opportunity to openly consider and accommodate views from various perspectives - without any baggage of preconceptions and stereotyping. I wish I could attend.

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Assemblage 23: Binary

The world isn't rendered in black and white
Other shades lie between
Don't view the world with binary eyes
We are human, not machine

"There is no evidence" that these antiquities are fakes

Let's be clear: the antiquities trade is notoriously plagued with fakes and some of them can be difficult to spot. Dealers in antiquities may handle hundreds or thousands of items over a long career and it is almost inevitable that even the most expert and honest dealer among them may inadvertently offer an occasional fake now and then. Even major museums can be fooled sometimes. But if common low-grade fakes or replicas that should not fool a myopic tourist persistently occur with tedious regularity among a dealer's stock, a line has been crossed. If that dealer has been in business for a very long time and we can reasonably expect them to have acquired a great deal of experience, we have to question not only the dealer's expertise but the honesty of their intentions. Such a scenario would undermine the credibility of the antiquities trade as a whole.

Back in April this year, after an earlier post querying some bronze lamps, I questioned several items that had appeared in the stock offered by Artemission, an antiquities business based in London and owned by Antoine Karawani, a committee member of the Association of International Antiquities Dealers (AIAD). In my April blog post I candidly but unwisely stated my opinion on the authenticity of those items. Artemission objected and asked Google, the blog host, to remove both the blog post itself and any links to it in its search results on the grounds that my post was "causing serious financial and reputation damage" and that it contained "defamatory and unsubstantiated remarks which are presented as ‘facts’ when there is no evidence to support the claims". Google complied.

Fair enough, I have no wish to damage an honest business. I will NOT state my opinion on the authenticity of those items. I will NOT make any "defamatory and unsubstantiated remarks". And, to avoid any unfair loading in search results, I will NOT even include the name of the company in the post title or URL.

Instead, I will merely present the same selection of seven items I queried in my original post (items sold as fakes or openly as replicas on eBay or other venues by other sellers are on the left, very similar items offered by Artemission are on the right) and just politely ask Mr Karawani himself to explain why he feels that his items (those on the right) are authentic. Perhaps my concern is misplaced. In the meantime, I will remain silent and make no comment one way or the other.

(Images can be enlarged by clicking on them.)

I'm hoping the owner of Artemission will be able to clarify the reasons for the worrying similarity and, while we're at it, perhaps he can also explain why the inscription on his example of an "incantation bowl" apparently lies OVER the burial deposits. I am familiar with these artefacts and I confess to being a little baffled. The inscription does not appear to be Aramaic as described and I would have thought that if it were contemporary with the bowl, the inscription would lie UNDER the deposits formed during burial. Just curious ...

I am also curious about quite a few other items that have appeared in the stock of Artemission but Mr Karawani seems a little touchy about having his stock questioned so I'll just swallow my curiosity about those.

Impartial

The legal complaint requesting removal of my original blog post asserted that "The individual(s) behind this link are intent on damaging our company". Not so. I should clarify that in fact I have absolutely no personal grudge against Mr Karawani (I have never met him) nor do I have the slightest personal interest in damaging his particular company (I am neither a rival dealer nor a disgruntled customer). I am utterly impartial. My blog is not intended as some kind of witch-hunt; any mention of individuals, companies or organisations in the posts is simply incidental to an overall theme.

My interest is in the image of the antiquities trade as a whole and, as I have previously done with other dealers (e.g. here and here), I reserve my right to question or criticise ANY member of that trade who in my opinion may not be helping that image. Mr Karawani is not only a member of the AIAD - an association prominently displaying the slogans "Purchase with Confidence, Trustworthy & Transparent Trading, Dependable Dealership, Reliability & Good Faith" - he is on the Executive Committee. The reputation of a member reflects not only on the credibility of the association to which he or she belongs but on that of the entire trade.

As I said, the antiquities trade is notoriously plagued with fakes. In common with merchandise such as fine art, autographs and other antiques, a key component in the financial value of an antiquity lies in its authenticity. A painting by Van Gogh or Picasso will not be accepted as authentic unless the dealer can prove beyond doubt that it is. The same must apply to an antiquity. It should not be a matter of having to provide evidence that an antiquity is fake; the onus must lie with the person selling the item to prove that it is genuine.

Nowadays, when scholars such as Elizabeth Marlowe and Oscar White Muscarella are questioning even museum objects unless they have a cast-iron provenance back to a documented excavation, the days of simply taking a dealer's word at face value are over. And when a dealer's response to questions is not to answer them but to simply stifle them by threatening legal action, the slogans of trade associations like the AIAD begin to look somewhat hollow and unconvincing. Is that the image the antiquities trade wishes to project?

Do such actions promote the aura of trade openness and transparency that conservationists have been campaigning for over the last few decades?

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While I warmly welcome constructive comments from the owner of the business mentioned in this post, I would be grateful if other people refrain from passing any definitive judgement on his items in the meantime.

Note: Although made merely as a reproduction or tourist souvenir, an item becomes "fake" when deceptively offered as the real thing.

Blogwarts: the fantasy world of blogging in California

You thought 19th-century pomposity was long dead after a hundred years? Think again. It lives on in a certain blog (and it just cracks me up sometimes!). The blog is run by Dave Welsh, an engineer who lives in California and deals in coins - the same ACCG member who in all seriousness refuses to accept that the looting of antiquities is primarily driven by those who pay for them. He, backed by a coin-collecting lawyer and a metal detectorist, insists that anyone who presumes to oppose his views about ancient artefacts must be able to prove they are nothing less than a qualified archaeologist with a plethora of diplomas before they are even allowed to speak.

Indeed, those who engage with his fantasy world may be excused for hallucinating that they are not that far from a snooty version of Hogwarts under Dolores Umbridge. To appreciate the full majesty of his blog, we have to understand that Welsh regards his blog not as a mere digital platform for his opinions but as some kind of august institution where he reigns as provost and a select few who fall in line with the institution's way of thinking are admitted as fellows or adulating students (presumably suitably attired in its regalia while sitting at their laptops).

After a personal attack on the credentials of Paul Barford (déjà vu?), he graciously granted him permission to enter the institution briefly and reply as a "guest". Welsh posted a special notice - grandly entitled "Comments Policy Exception" - in what to mere mortals like you or me would be just a blog comment. Under the title, in characteristically sententious and laboured prose reminiscent of a 19th-century schoolmarm, he solemnly announced the official edict to the gathered assembly:

"I have decided to permit Mr. Barford's comments to be published here even though I consider them to contravene the policy of this blog that comments must shed more light, not more heat, upon the subject of the discussion. This is an important subject, and Mr. Barford must be given every opportunity to defend his position, even if his remarks transgress blog policy.

"This is a one-time exception and it is not likely that I will extend it to other subjects Mr. Barford may be interested in commenting upon. He must realize that commenters are guests, and have an obligation to "follow the rules" of the venue. Mr. Barford does not determine the rules here, nor does anyone else who comments to my blog."

I gather that even if the "subject of the discussion" in this august institution is nothing less than a personal attack ("heat" itself surely?), the person discussed should think it a deep privilege to be allowed to enter its hallowed portals and be granted permission to speak. Ah, and there was innocent 21st-century me, naively thinking a blog was just a blog. I feel truly humbled.

Priceless!

But on a serious note: I am avidly in favour of an intelligent and thoughtful approach to collecting antiquities and thus protect its future. Do these people really think that posing as some pompous institution and fatuously inviting ridicule is the best way to promote its image?

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Barford has also replied here and here on his own blog - though be warned: readers may find its more relaxed "policy" and down-to-earth format a shocking return to reality.

Ancient coins looted? As if on cue ...

Okay, I'll admit that there was a slight element of sarcasm in my previous post about ancient coins looted in Israel. Since, as has been noted, irony is not always recognised for what it is, I'll come clean: ancient coins ARE antiquities, they ARE looted (in huge numbers), and they ARE found in perfectly saleable condition at archaeological sites (even those not found in pristine condition are flogged off in huge bulk lots as "uncleaned").

Coincidentally, while in the midst of discussing my blog post on a discussion list, an Israeli dealer, apparently oblivious to that thread, posted his ad on the same list - almost as if on cue.

The dealer, Z.Z. Antiquities based in Jerusalem, advertised 50 kg of "bulk, uncleaned, unattributed ancient coins from the HolyLand". The coins are a mix of "Roman, Byzantine, Greek, Seleucid, Ptolemy, Judean, Islamic, Nabatean, Phoenician, Persian" and we are told that "there are approximately 350-400 coins per kg on average" - so 50 kg would be about 17,500-20,000 ancient coins.

Brandon Leon, the owner, seems a little edgy when his activities are highlighted - and I think we have to sympathise with anyone whose delinquent computer mouse is disconcertingly prone to bouts of Tourette's - but his ads do cause concern. This is not the first time that a connection between the rampant looting of ancient coins at archaeological sites in Israel and the enormous bulk lots of them offered by dealers such as Z.Z. Antiquities has been suggested. Although we are assured that "all of our antiquities come with Export Approval legal documentation from the Israel Antiquities Authority", one nevertheless has to question where 50 kg (that's over 110 lbs for those not used to metric) of ancient coins originated.

Israel passed an Antiquities Law in 1978 and dealers claim that the items they sell all come from inventories which predate that law. But it is hard to believe that the 100,000 artefacts that leave Israel each year all come from that source (Blum 2003). Rather, it is credible that the lax situation in Israel, where antiquities are openly sold, enables dealers there to source their stock not only from modern illegal excavations within Israel itself but also from those in neighbouring countries and territories.

An ACCG coin dealer on the discussion list refused to accept that looting is "driven by the existence of a collecting market in Europe and North America". Admittedly, the US dollar is an international currency and its use, together with the English language, in the ad by Z.Z. Antiquities cannot prove it was aimed largely at the American market. But "N. America" and "Europe" are listed first as regional targets for sales by the Israeli dealer and, despite protestations from the ACCG, I think it safe to say that those markets play a primary role in encouraging the looting of archaeological sites for ancient coins.

A few years ago, Nathan Elkins, Baylor University professor and Huqoq numismatist, wrote about coins being smuggled out of Bulgaria. Among other things, he mentioned that one individual ALONE had shipped approximately one metric ton of ancient artefacts from Bulgaria to the United States within only a few months. That individual is a known supplier and dealer of ancient coins in the United States. To put those shipments into perspective, one metric ton would be about 350,000 ancient coins.

Where do we suppose that one metric ton of material came from? Legal excavations? The evidence is overwhelming that the three tongue-in-cheek statements bulleted in my previous post were actually total b@#*$%?&!!!

Oops, sorry about that last word; my computer mouse seems to be playing up again ...

Seizures of antiquities: a glance at the law behind them

Seizures of antiquities by government agents are a recurring theme in the United States - and sometimes the seizures seem to be carried out on only the flimsiest of evidence that the items may be contravening the law. Outraged dealers and collectors typically cry that the frequently successful outcomes of such actions where evidence is relatively weak are a flagrant breach of a legal principle enshrined in national law: surely, they protest, something must be "innocent until proven guilty".

Well actually, that principle still holds true in such cases - the seized items are indeed "innocent until proven guilty" (much like a person being arrested) - but the clue is in the word "proven". "Proof" is not a universal paradigm in law; what may be demanded as proof in one type of legal action may not necessarily be required as proof in another.

A Canadian coin dealer recently suggested that the prevalence of seizures in the United States as opposed to Canada or Britain was the result of a difference in legal systems: whereas Canada and Britain are governed by "common law", the US has no such protection. In fact, he was quite wrong. The legal systems of Britain, Canada and the United States are all largely based on "common law" (a system originating in England and grounded on judicial precedent as opposed to "civil law" grounded on statutes, etc.). The legal systems vary between those nations in the way in which they are implemented and by other factors but their systems are all founded on common law.

The differences in what counts as proof arise from differences in the type of legal action - between "criminal cases" and "civil cases" - and that distinction exists in both Britain and the United States. Most of the American cases of antiquities confiscation come under the heading of "civil forfeiture" (more commonly known as "civil recovery" in Britain), more specifically "in rem". Whereas in a criminal action, the burden of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt"; in a civil action in rem, the government sues the property itself (in rem) and all it needs is a "preponderance of the evidence" ("balance of probabilities" in Britain), a far lower burden of proof.

That may explain why American seizures of antiquities are seldom accompanied by a conviction of the people involved. A civil action in rem is far easier than a criminal action (or indeed a civil action in personam) and far more likely to be successful. Even if the artefacts are licit, the cost of legal defence is often not financially viable, especially in the absence of documentation. Cynically, it might be said that the US government gains the political kudos of repatriating antiquities to their countries of origin and the favourable publicity of proactively being seen to do the "right thing" with the minimum of effort. Whether the seizure was truly justified or not seems almost irrelevant from that perspective.

However, political motivations aside, such seizures do serve as a warning that dealers and collectors of antiquities would do well to heed. Insisting on documentation of items considered for acquisition is not only a responsible means of stemming the flow of recently looted artefacts, keeping and preserving records is a vital precaution in increasing the chances of holding on to those licit items they already own.

Cases of civil forfeiture seem to have become almost an epidemic in the United States and far commoner than in Britain. Their prevalence has been deeply controversial and an absolute nightmare for some. "America - Land of the Free"? Perhaps more like "America - Land of Litigation" (and a carnival for lawyers). But also a timely reminder for those buying and owning antiquities to take their responsibility seriously.

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Many thanks to Derek Fincham for glancing through my draft before posting. Any errors are my own.

Artwork is my own - with a little help from James Montgomery Flagg.

Now that's what I call a mark-up!

Authentic lamp (Christie's)

Ancient lamps made from "bronze" (or to be more technically accurate, copper alloy) can fetch a good price on the antiquities market but real examples that allow the trade a reasonable profit margin can be hard to come by. However, one "leading" antiquities dealer in London - Artemission, owned by Antoine Karawani, a committee member of the Association of International Antiquities Dealers (AIAD) - seems to have chanced on a remarkable supply. It must be a pretty large and pretty old supply because they have been selling a substantial quantity of their distinctive bronze lamps with a curiously uniform 'patina' for some years. Unfortunately for their customers, there is a slight hitch  ...

The Bulgarians have been making fake Roman bronze lamps for years. At first, they tried selling them as the real thing on eBay and other outlets - but most of them are blindingly obvious rubbish, buyers eventually got wise to them, and many are nowadays openly sold as "replicas" (though of course for much lower prices than real ones).

They are very recognisable. Here's one of them, sold for $24.99 in 2011 ...

An amazingly similar lamp turns up in Artemission's magic supply. All they have to do is plunk it on their posh website selling "Antiquities and Ancient Art", describe it as "Roman Bronze Oil Lamp ... c.1st Century A.D." and ask their customers for $1,800 ...

Not bad - but Artemission can do better than that. Here's another Bulgarian bronze lamp on eBay - sold openly as "modern" ...

And here's another one (though this one was mistakenly offered as genuine and crazily priced) ...

The eBay example failed to attract any bids at $99. But not to worry, Artemission come across a more refined version (the Bulgarian repertoire offers slight variations) in their legendary supply. Okay, it's still got big unarticulated eyes, tiny pointed ears, and that silly meaningless* lug on its forehead - so still pretty obvious it's rubbish - but it's got a nicer base. Add a little elbow grease and the fake patina is much prettier too. Just plunk it on the posh website, describe it as "Roman Oil Lamp ... c.1st Century A.D." and for this one, ask your customers for $2,500 ...

Hey, that's not bad at all. Assuming Artemission bought them at the going rate - or maybe a bit cheaper with trade discount - so far that's a profit margin of about 97% or over $4,100 profit on just two lamps alone.

Sadly, life is not always so good and sometimes the dealer has to be less ambitious. Well, let's be honest, this Bulgarian monstrosity (below) is even less convincing than the first two and even a punter with one glass eye and a patch over the good eye ain't going to be fooled by it. Even the Bulgarian sellers ask only around $25 for this sort of grade. But Artemission innocently grab one from the uglier part of their supply, plunk it on eBay instead of their website, describe it as "Byzantine Bronze Oil Lamp ... c.6th-8th Century A.D." and ask a mere $500 ...

I'm not vindictive but I do get tired of seeing this rubbish from them year after year. We have to be charitable and assume either that, despite his "over 40 years" in the business, Karawani is astonishingly naive or that his eyesight is no longer what it used to be. Of course, there is a possibility that if his customers ever find out he sold them fakes at high prices and suspect he actually knew very well what he was doing, they may take a somewhat dimmer view.

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* The lugs on real lamps are meant for hanging chains from; thus they tend to be flat and of course pierced. (The central protrusion on the hair of the genuine lamp shown at top left is in fact a lidded filling-hole, so not a lug at all in this case.)

Note: Apart from the first lamp shown at top left, ALL the lamps illustrating this post are demonstrably modern. 

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UPDATE: Five years later ...

Outrage in Missouri

Humour - a vanishing resource?

Archaeologist Dr Donna Yates recently expressed her worry that her scholarly research on the origins of two Mesoamerican artefacts sold by the St Louis AIA may have enhanced the price fetched at Bonham's auction on 12 November. Scholars tend to avoid discussing unprovenanced antiquities on the principle that enhancing the commercial value of such artefacts may encourage looting. These items were not in fact in that category (they were well provenanced) but I still understand Dr Yates's position.

I posted this somehat light-hearted comment on Paul Barford's coverage of the event:

"Well, if it's any consolation to Donna Yates, the other lot she mentioned (Lot 149: Zapotec Figural Urn) sold for only $3,750, well within the original $3,000–5,000 estimate. I suspect that the doubling of the price for Lot 156 (Maya Effigy Vase) was motivated more by the fact that it is 'prettier' (the art market being shallow as always) rather than a consideration of the increased depth of its academic credentials. I think Dr Yates need not lose any sleep."

I thought nothing more of it but on revisiting Paul's post a few days later, I was surprised to find that my brief comment had provoked an outraged response from Wayne Sayles, Executive Director of the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (a deceptively-named lobby group for American coin dealers). He was apparently horrified by my gentle dig at the art market and couched his diatribe in what was presumably intended to be biting sarcasm ...

"Annointed scholar David Knell expressed an erudite opinion [...] How enlightening!  The art market ought perhaps to consider the views of archaeologists when it comes to valuation of works.  If the views of archaeologists and similar highly educated "experts" are to be taken seriously, every artifact more than 100 years old, menial as it might be, is of inestimable value and is essentially "priceless"."

Well, in a figurative sense, every artefact that adds to our knowledge of the human past is "priceless" - but that wasn't the point of my comment.

It's a pity that someone living in a state that produced one of the greatest humourists of all time appears to have no grasp of the concept himself. My comment about the art market was slightly tongue-in-cheek but the humour clearly flew stratospherically over the head of this present-day resident of Missouri.

His disgruntled response, however, betrays that there might be a strong element of truth underlying my comment. Certainly, Sayles himself seems to be scandalised by the notion that anything more intellectually taxing than gushing over how pretty an object is should have any effect whatsoever on its worth.

What value could an artefact possibly have other than how well it complements Aunt Mary's drapes in the living room or how nicely it fills a gap in an upmarket equivalent of a sticker album? And it's all legal, innit?

God forbid that some fool might actually see value in knowing the individual history of an historical object. Such a radical and unseemly exercising of brain cells could end up challenging the time-honoured mindset that artefacts are mere baubles that should be pigeonholed and graded by comparing them to pictures in a book. And, even more apocalyptically, it could thus threaten the very mindset on which much of the antiquities trade (notably that in ancient coins) is largely dependent.

Perhaps most dealers of Sayles's acquaintance share his indignant dismissal of the value of knowledge. But someone once said that "whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect". In the meantime, I do wish this affronted advocate of dealers' 'rights' would try to lighten up a bit. My quip was hardly in the same league as those by Mark Twain - and literary perception may have dulled a little in the internet age - but it would be a sad indictment of the ACCG that any remark today must be accompanied by at least a dozen smilies before their dour members could even guess that it might have been intended as dry humour.

Visit to the Flat Earth Society

I made a statement in the comments on a recent article in the Biblical Archaeology Review: "That collecting provides most of the motivation for looting is blatantly obvious to the rest of the world". It was in reply to an ACCG lobbyist for coin dealers who is intent on downplaying the part played by collecting in encouraging looting and blaming everyone else for it instead.

Whereas the purpose of an archaeological excavation is to gather information, the sole purpose of looting is purely to dig out objects that provide material or monetary gain. While a few looters, like those in ancient times, may dig in the faint hope of finding gold or other items of intrinsic worth, it is indeed "blatantly obvious" that most looters today are motivated by the far more realistic hope of finding things that are given high monetary value by the black market of the antiquities trade. In the basic logic of economics, as long as indiscriminate collectors continue to provide a 'demand', looters will be encouraged to provide a 'supply'.

In my innocence, I had thought my statement was so patently self-evident that I wasn't really expecting it to be contested. It was pretty much like saying water is wet or fire is hot. Sadly, I had not counted on the amazing logic-defying acrobatics of the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (a deceptively-named lobby group for American coin dealers). To be fair, I do remember another member of the ACCG refusing to accept that looters are motivated by the monetary value of antiquities years ago - but I thought that even the ACCG had long since given up that quixotic attempt at denial. But nope, they are still at it.

In a move apparently calculated to push the ACCG into the same league of denial as the Flat Earth Society, Wayne Sayles, its Executive Director, challenged my statement with the riposte that "I think that is an inaccurate characterization". On his blog ("A Shot in the Foot", 6 July 2014), he went on to say ...

"I'm not sure in this case who "the rest of the world" is, but Knell's statement did not seem all that obvious to me, and does not comport with scholarly opinions that cite poverty as the primary cause of cultural property looting."

Aha! Poverty. So presumably, poor people take up looting as a pastime simply to relieve their boredom, toil away in the baking hot sun just to get a fashionable tan or go digging deep into the soil because of some irresistible mole-like instinct inherited from primordial ancestors. That must be it. Who am I to argue with "scholarly opinions"?

Oh wait ... seeing as they're so poor, the motivation for looting couldn't be because they might make money from it, could it? You know ... the money paid by middlemen and dealers and ultimately the collectors they supply? Nah, that would be just another convoluted way of saying that collecting provides most of the motivation for looting. Which sort of brings us back to my statement - the one that "did not seem all that obvious".

I'm not entirely convinced that looters, typically in organised gangs often armed with bulldozers, metal detectors and other sophisticated machinery, represent everyone's idea of "poverty". Helping to relieve genuine poverty is indeed a worthy cause but if Sayles really is concerned about poor people, I would have thought a more constructive approach would be to urge his clients to plough their money into supporting foreign charities, schools and hospitals rather than subsidising the destruction of archaeological sites. Encouraging destitute people to destroy their own cultural heritage just so you can drool over the goodies is known as 'taking advantage' of them, not as a humanitarian gesture. But in an attempt to justify his priorities, Sayles adds ...

"Eliminating the private collecting of ancient coins clearly would not eliminate looting. Some scholars have said as much publicly and at least one did so in the recent Cultural Property Advisory Committee hearing in Washington DC."

Ah! The trusty old 'straw man' argument again. It's not a question of eliminating the private collecting of ancient coins; it's a question of eliminating (or at least greatly reducing) the indiscriminate private collecting of ancient coins. Collectors need to be able to distinguish between coins that have been around for years and those that have been freshly looted. As I've said countless times, it ain't rocket science.

No, of course careful collecting would not eliminate looting - but it would be a giant step in the right direction. Sayles then tries to justify his 'straw man' argument ...

"One reason is that the trade is truly worldwide and repressing one market would simply divert the flow to another. Should American collectors be disenfranchised simply to make a meaningless point? Universal market repression is simply not going to happen."

Ah! The old "if elephant ivory is quite openly sold in China and the whaling industry is legal in Japan, why shouldn't we do that too" argument. Why do I keep seeing the same old tired excuses trotted out over and over again? There are tens of thousands of coin collectors in the US (a huge "flow"- so hardly "meaningless") but the economic dictum that demand stimulates supply apparently falls on selective hearing in this case. And I'd prefer to think that American collectors were ethically enlightened rather than "disenfranchised". Does a man prevented from snatching purses from little old ladies feel "disenfranchised" too - just because other people get away with it?

Sayles goes on to invent another justification ...

"The other reason is that those who loot ancient sites will inevitably find precious metal objects that can be melted down for bullion if not sold intact. Many who are familiar with Middle Eastern bazaars know very well that this is precisely what happens to many coin finds irrespective of national or international laws."

Yup, I've already heard this old chestnut too. For those of my readers who haven't drifted off by now, I'll just remind them of my statement: "That collecting provides most of the motivation for looting is blatantly obvious to the rest of the world". Precious metal items are quite rare in ancient sites and the effort put into gathering ordinary coins for scrap value is hardly likely to be worthwhile on a large scale. Few looters are going to expend enormous amounts of time and energy in the extremely vague hope that they just might chance upon something of intrinsic worth or a couple of kilos of old copper; the majority do it in the reasonable expectation of finding things that will repay their effort - common things given an inflated value by demand from the black market of the antiquities trade.

Sayles ends with a dark warning ...

"So, what is the point of this blog post? Simply that this sort of nonsense is not doing Archaeology any good."

I'm not quite sure why he thinks those working in archaeology would do better to turn a blind eye to activities that threaten to destroy the evidence that sustains it. One would suppose that anyone advising members of a profession what they should or should not do would have at least a basic knowledge of the topic but his later sentence reveals that he hasn't got even a vague idea of what archaeology actually is ...

"Because of a misguided concern about common coins that are sold legally worldwide and that archaeologists have traditionally ignored?"

No, it is not a "misguided concern"; the protection of evidence is a fundamental principle. Archaeology is about information, not just objects for their own sake. Sayles is confusing it with looting. It makes absolutely no difference how common the coins are; the looting of common coins causes every bit as much damage to sites as the looting of rare ones. Archaeologists are concerned about the loss of information caused by their brutal removal, not just the coins themselves. Some in the profession may have tolerated such philistinism in the past but people are far more aware of conservation issues today and, as I keep trying to point out, times have changed.

As a former collector myself, I fully understand the pleasure of collecting and I firmly support its future. But it does need to be carried out thoughtfully. A denial of facts that are indeed blatantly obvious is akin to being a "flat-earther" and merely opens the hobby to scorn and ridicule. Perhaps worse still, it perpetuates a common perception of all collectors as rapacious introverts who will invent any shallow excuse to exploit the archaeological resource for their own selfish ends. Sadly, it seems the ACCG circle of coin dealers is hell-bent on doing precisely that.

In his BAR comment, Sayles compared looting in Egypt and Britain. Paul Barford, an archaeologist, aptly described the activity of digging up archaeological objects purely for personal entertainment and profit as "Collection Driven Exploitation" (CDE) no matter where it takes place. I think that all-encompassing phrase covers it very well. Barford also posted an excellent response ("A Shot in the foot? Or Somebody Else's Despicable Verbal Tricks?", 6 July 2014) to Sayles's other points. Well worth reading.

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Brief reply to the silly comment below the post on Sayles's blog:

"Knell is a collector of classic [sic - I think he means 'classical'] oil lamps of the type regularly uncovered from Roman and Greco-Roman habitation sites [sic - most are recovered from tombs]. Why he imagines that his collecting ethics motivate looters less, than say, other equally licit collectors, continues to be a source of humorous speculation."

No, Knell was a collector of ancient lamps. I stopped. I doubt that many looters are going to be motivated by someone who doesn't buy their loot.

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Image: an ACCG coin dealer's view of the world - remarkably like a coin?