Sunday, July 14, 2013

Time to Monetize Sicily's Cultural Heritage

While I disagree with Sicily's last minute demands for more money to save Cleveland's exhibition,  Sicilian cultural officials should be commended for their candor-- it really is about the money. And that finally opens the door for Sicilian officials to think creatively about how to monetize Sicily's cultural heritage for the benefit of its own people.  Loan fees, of course.  But what about user fees for archaeologists?  And why not adopt the old AAMD idea of selective deacquisition of duplicates in museum collections?  Finally, I'd also suggest that Sicily consider adopting it's own version of the U.K. Treasure Act and Portable Antiquities Scheme with a twist.  Coins that were returned to the finder for sale would be required to be put up for public auction in Sicily along with museum duplicates.  Just think, if Sicilian authorities moved on this proposal quickly, an auction could even be scheduled to coincide with the upcoming International Numismatic Congress in  beautiful Taormina.
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3 comments:

  1. Paul BarfordJuly 14, 2013 at 8:54 AM

    I am puzzled Sir, here you advocate deregulating artefact hunting and instituting a laissez faire system modelled on that of England and Wales, yet not so long ago you were proposing regulation of artefact hunting with metal detectors in Bulgaria.
    http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2011/10/safe-say-yes-to-corrupt-bulgarian.html

    Why?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cultural Property ObserverJuly 16, 2013 at 4:27 PM

    But I don't believe PAS and the Treasure Act are laissez faire systems. The Treasure Act requires reporting and surrender of certain objects to the state pending investigation. The PAS encourages recording of everything else.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJuly 17, 2013 at 8:24 AM

    In case you didn't notice Mr. Barford hates the PAS. You see it's wrong for anyone other than an archaeologist to come up with significant finds.

    He's a broken record that just keeps playing and playing...

    ReplyDelete

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