Thursday, May 11, 2017
K-9 Looted Antiquities Detector Dog Funding Solicitation Relying on Misleading Data?
Red Arch Cultural Heritage Law and Policy Research is soliciting public funding for detector dogs to roam airports in search of looted antiquities. Leaving aside questions about practicality and the potentially self-serving nature of such an effort, CPO notes that Red Arch is soliciting funds based on dubious claims about the value of antiquity exports from the Middle East. However, as CPO has explained over and over again, this data relates to "country of origin," which typically means place of manufacture NOT PLACE OF EXPORT. So, it is not at all clear that the values cited actually support the supposition that is claimed. So, instead of antiquities detector dogs, perhaps, then a BS detector is what is really needed more than anything else.
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3 comments:
Hello Peter:
"..a BS detector is what is really needed more than anything else." Hmm, no doubt about that.
Judging from some familiar names on the Red Arch team (and 'Red' seems apt indeed) then the BS detector would have be of industrial strength and capacity.
Regards
John Howland
UK Collector
An eagle eyed CPO reader spotted this:
AIA Barking Mad Claim Archaeologists
A serious dispute broke out at the latest Heritage in Danger Symposium at the annual congress of the Archaeological Institute of America, held last week in Denver. Under the chairpersonship of Prof. M. Kouroupas, a report was given by Parthenon Prostyle Arete (“Jumper”) on the new Heritage Detection system at Kennedy Airport. PPA and his handler, Agent P. Baropel, after investigating 974 suitcases, 412 parcels and packages, and 582 arriving passengers, made an impressive number of seizures of improperly or un-declared items. Among the most exciting seizures was a crate containing no less than 108 kilos of rare and protected beach sand from Turkey. This sand, which was being imported by a group of sand painters from Dubuque, Iowa, lacked an export license from the Turkish Government. Coming from the resort area of Marmaris, this sand was found to be part of the heritage of the Turkish People by US expert, J. B. Connelly: “This sand tells the Turkish People who they are. Having it ripped from the bosom of the fatherland means that modern Turks would lose their identity! How would they know they aren’t Greeks??”
An even more important discovery was sniffed out by PPA. Hidden in a rare collection of used Versacci fashion underclothing, once the property of a prominent entertainer, PPA alerted Agent Baropel to the presence of a major piece of Athenian pottery. PPA, thanks to his training at the MacDonald Institute, subsequently identified the pot as being a Panathenaic Amphora by the Berlin Painter, worth $25,000,000; such pots are clearly all Italian state property. However, this identification was challenged by US Treasury Department Senior Canine Detector, Trump’s Golden Champion (“Ivanko”), with his handler T-Man Renfrew Elia. “Ivanko” vociferously suggested that instead of being a amphora by the Berlin Painter, it was actually an English oversize grotesque figure by the Martin Brothers. The argument became heated, during which Prof. Kouroupas was bitten in the melee and forced to get a rabies shot.
Postscript: a complete analysis of the object suggests that it is, in fact, a modern invention made in the Kim Jong-un Worker’s Paradise Export Star Factory N. 5.
You couldn't make it up!
Having rendered a rabies shot to the worthy Proff, would it be too much to enquire whether the canine was similarly inoculated having sunk its fangs into an archaeologist? Animals have 'rights' too y'know.
Wonderful stuff...very funny. I hope the dog recovers.
John Howland
UK Collector and dog lover.
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