Differing Perceptions of Italy's Premier Coin Display

During my own CPAC presentation on behalf of two numismatic trade associations, I questioned the Italian State's commitment to the study, preservation and display of the ancient coins in its care. See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2009/11/is-italian-cultural-bureaucracy-best.html

Now, as reported by archaeological blogger, David Gill, AIA Vice-President Sebastian Heath has taken issue with this view. See http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2009/12/cpac-review-of-mou-with-italy-aia.html

Specifically, Dr. Heath, states,

Another voice heard at the CPAC meeting was that of ancient coin collectors and dealers. Like many AIA members, one of the areas in which I’ve published scholarly articles is ancient numismatics so the protection of coins is of great interest to me. Archaeologists are members of the numismatic community, and it is important that our voice is heard. Speaking for coin dealers, Peter Tompa, who represented both the International Association of Professional Numismatists and the Professional Numismatists Guild and who has also released a summary of his written submission, suggested that Italian museums are not good stewards of their numismatic collections and that Italian archaeologists do a poor job publishing excavated coins. My experience suggests that neither is the case. The Palazzo Massimo in Rome has a superb numismatic display that features excavated material, including hoard finds, to trace the rise and use of coinage from the Republican period onwards. The website www.fastionline.org reports the discovery of coins and often places them in context by discussing the sites on which they were found. Unfortunately, the current MoU does not include coins as a protected category. If Italy does request that coins be included in a future agreement, it is likely that the AIA would support such a move.

Dr. Heath's view, in turn, has prompted some comment. In particular, a collector [who would prefer to remain anonymous], had this to say in response about Italy's premier coin display:

I disagree with the word "superb". Italians are awful stewards.... I too have seen the collection of coins in the Palazzo Massimo Alle Terme. It is dusty, fingerstained, with magnifying glasses on most Roman coins that are alinged poorly, and with at least one Domitian aureus that had fallen to the bottom of the display. It is an afterthought, at best. I asked a curator (at least someone in a suit with a badge) about the collection, and he, in perfect English told me that he didn't know anything about coins. When I asked who the numismatist was at the Massimo, he didn't have a clue. One of the Nero pieces was clearly Lugdunum (with the globe at the neck of the bust), and was listed as being "from Rome"...of course, possible, but not minted there. [My Wife] and I chatted with a curator about the excellent mosaics. She was very pleasant and knowledgeable. Two days later we chanced to meet her and her boyfriend at the Nero Domus Aureus; I told her I was surprised that the coins at the Massimo were not well presented...her response: "what coins?"

I also have viewed the display myself some years back. I thought it was excellent in concept (particularly in contrast to the few, scattered displays of worn and corroded coins one often sees in regional museums). At the same time, however, I was very disappointed to also observe the effects of neglect-- particularly the broken lighting and magnifying devices. I would also note the "Fasti online" Dr. Heath describes does include coins, but fails to describe them in much detail.

Overall, while I appreciate Dr. Heath's points, I simply don't think they take into account the "situation on the ground" in Italy as a whole. The Palazzo Massimo is Italy's premier coin display. Yet, even it shows the signs of neglect. "Fastionline" may mention coins, but it is no substitute for thorough publication.

Few coins are displayed at Italian museums. Many museum collections are not published at all or are published only in part. The same deplorable situation exists at archaeological sites. Italian sites have been under professional excavation for a century, but publications of site finds are few and for many sites, years of excavation work has failed to produce any publications at all.

One also wonders about the storage conditions for coins. Mario Resca, Italy's new "Museum Czar," has spoken forthrightly about the serious underfunding facing the Italian cultural institutions. Italy is a very wealthy "G8" country. Yet, it does not even fund its major cultural sites adequately. What then of its funding for the coins in State Collections?

Hawass Tut Price Tag too Dear for Aussies

Egypt's Tut Exhibit won't make it to Australia because the population of potential museum-goers "Downunder" can't support the $10 million price tag Zahi Hawass and the Egyptian Government are demanding. See http://www.smh.com.au/national/egypts-10m-tag-too-much-to-show-tuts-treasures-20091204-kb5s.html

Archaeologists have long claimed that market nations should restrict imports of cultural goods in favor of promoting long term loans of artifacts to museums, but Egypt has extacted top dollar for such displays.

Luckily, the Austrians have come to the Australian's rescue with their own exhibit of Egyptian art from the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. By contrast, this exhibit cost the Australian Museum about $1.5 million.

State Department "Town Hall Meeting" on Holocaust Era Art Issues

The Department of State's Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues is calling a Town Hall Meeting January 7, 2010 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Department to get the views of interested individuals and organizations on the establishment of a U.S. commission on cultural materials displaced during World War II. The meeting will also discuss the June 30, 2009 Terezin Declaration, the text of which is at http://http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leavingFR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/or/126162.htm.

For more, see http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-29226.htm

Knox Verdict Raises Further Questions About Italian Justice

The Amanda Knox verdict has raised serious questions about the quality of Italian justice. See http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/06/amanda-knox-she-devil-or-victim-of-anti-americanism/?icid=mainhtmlws-sb-ndl1link4http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politicsdaily.com%2F2009%2F12%2F06%2Famanda-knox-she-devil-or-victim-of-anti-americanism%2F

Yet, Marion True has been in the dock for far longer than Amanda Knox and True's alleged crimes are nowhere near as serious as those for which Ms. Knox has been found guilty.

With every passing month, suspicions that True's trial is all for "show" can only increase. Already, a prominent Italian-American publication has called for her to be freed. See
http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2009/11/italian-american-magazine-calls-for-end.html

Hopefully, soon the Italians themselves will realize their prosecution of Ms. True has turned into a persecution in the eyes of many.

Parallels Between Climatologists and Archaeologists?

The release of hacked e-mails between climatologists has raised some serious questions about how the powers that be in that discipline have approached the debate about climate change. See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01tier.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=climate%20change%20e-mail&st=cse

Having spent over 10 years interacting with members of the archaeological community over cultural property issues, I personally feel strong parallels exist between how leaders in both groups have approached the issues. In my opinion, archaeologists need to become far more cognizant of the "peril of trying to spin science" and, with it, supporting the suppression of information adverse to a preconceived position. Climatologists certainly have had to confront these issues because of this scandal-- even if at least some of their number appear to be more interested in tracking down the hackers than in reconsidering their methods.

South American Sisto Case?

The Sun Sentinel reports that the FBI has repatriated Pre-Columbian artifacts found in the home of a deceased Florida businessman to Peru and Ecuador. See http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/fl-fbi-precolumbian-artifacts-20091201,0,3969102.story

A retirement home manager found the collection in the man's home when she was preparing the property for resale. She called in the FBI "after searching the Internet" and determining that the objects "were illegal to possess."

The businessman apparently had no heirs (or perhaps no one looked very hard to find them) so there was no one with an interest in asking if the retirement home manager was "jumping to a conclusion."

The FBI and Florida International University apparently were not interested in anything other than identifying which cultures produced the objects so they could be repatriated to the governments of the modern nation states that occupy the land that produced them.

This incident reminds me of the recent Sisto case and some of the the issues that raised. For more, see http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/search?q=Sisto

I also am also highly dubious of the claim of the FBI agent in the video that suggests that these artifacts will be put on display in Peru and Ecuador. Both countries have large stashes of similar artifacts in storage. The public typically never sees such artifacts, and, indeed, they may be subject to deterioration or theft.

Treasures Reclaimed: The Economist Reports on Chinese Repatriaton Efforts

The Economist Magazine has reported on China's efforts to repatriate art from abroad. See http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14941165

As the Magazine notes, far more Chinese artifacts are now being repatriated from abroad than are leaving China:

Collecting Chinese fine art and ceramics was all the rage in the West in the second half of the 19th and the early 20th century. Heavy buying by treasure-hunters, as well as looting of imperial works by the Germans, Dutch, French and British, brought huge quantities of Chinese fine art into Western collections. But in the past decade the number of European and American buyers has dwindled.

...

From 1949, when the Communist Party defeated the Nationalists, and especially during the Cultural Revolution, from 1966, owning, inheriting or exchanging pre-communist works of art was banned in China. Thanks to shifts in policy that started under Deng Xiaoping and continued after him, the Chinese are now catching up in a big way, following on from the Japanese buyers who dominated the market in the 1970s and the Taiwanese and Hong Kong collectors who started buying seriously in the 1990s.

The mainland Chinese are beginning to dominate the salerooms. Prevented for so long from celebrating the achievements of their forebears, they have a thirst for their own history, and especially for anything that connects modern China with the glories of its imperial past. The newly wealthy-such as Xu Qiming, China's biggest exporter of eels from the port city of Ningbo; Lu Hanzhen, an industrialist from Zhejiang province who became rich by selling motorcycles and nylon fabric for car tyres; or indeed any businessman or civil servant who benefited from the recent flurry of privatisations-can afford to pay, and pay they will.

Nor are these buyers to be found only in the old political and commercial strongholds of Beijing and Shanghai. There are probably seven Chinese cities with populations of more than 5m, and demand for fine art is as strong in Guangdong, adjacent to Hong Kong, as it is in Sichuan in the west or in more far-flung areas. “It's what I call 'natural repatriation',” says Patti Wong, who as chairman of Sotheby's Asia has been watching the Chinese buying wave grow for a decade, "and it is happening everywhere."

Having made their money quickly, Chinese buyers are in a hurry to build their collections fast and are willing to pay a premium to achieve that. “Arriving at the buffet party a little too late,” says Mr Chow, "they are more aggressive than Europeans or Americans." Even though economic growth in China this year may be only 8%, after 9% last year, it is still far higher than in most of the rest of the world. China may be one of the few places where the number of dollar billionaires has actually increased in the past year, from 101 to 130, according to the recently published Hurun Rich List.

...

Dealers and auctioneers familiar with the Chinese market estimate that there are around 150 collectors in Hong Kong and Taiwan who spend at least $1m a year each on Chinese works of art, and that their number is relatively stable. The mainland has another 150 or so buyers in that category, and the numbers there are growing rapidly. More Chinese treasures are now sold at auction in Hong Kong than in New York, London and Paris. Whereas back in 2004 Sotheby's did $10m-worth of business with 70 clients from the mainland in its spring and autumn sales in Hong Kong, the figure for the same sales this year is seven times higher and its list of mainland Chinese buyers has grown to 195. Many more bid through established dealers in Hong Kong. “Mainland China has clearly become our main land,” says Kevin Ching, chief executive of Sotheby's Asia.

...

In 1886 Paul Durand-Ruel, a Paris dealer, packed his bags with 300 Impressionist paintings-including piles of Renoirs, Pissarros and Sisleys-to take to America. He was closely followed by a Briton, Joseph (later Lord) Duveen, who could see, like Durand-Ruel, that “Europe had the art and America had the money.”

Just as European Old Master and Impressionist paintings then began to move inexorably westwards across the Atlantic, now Chinese fine art and ceramics from America, Britain, France and the Netherlands are moving eastwards back to China. Not since the heyday of Duveen's and Durand-Ruel's exports to America has there been such vigorous redirecting of cultural artefacts from one part of the world to another as European and American collections are broken up and sold off to the newly wealthy Chinese. The traffic is almost all one way.

And that is not all. In addition to "repatriation by purchase," China is also aggressively pressing for ever more extensive legal restrictions on the trade of ancient Chinese artifacts abroad:

In addition, China has become increasingly vocal about restricting the trade in its treasures. After nearly five years of negotiation the Bush administration in its final days at last agreed to prohibit the import of a wide range of antiquities into America. The agreement was not as strong as China would have liked, and in recent weeks its government has said that it will tighten up on the movement of cultural relics out of the country. Its plan is to ban the export of anything made before 1911, the end of the Qing dynasty. No matter that China is now a member of the World Trade Organisation, it still seems to be uncomfortable with free trade-except when it suits it.

After all reading this, one wonders if the archaeologists that spoke so eloquently on behalf of China's request for import restrictions before CPAC should feel duped. Were the restrictions really about "protecting the archaeological record" as they claimed, or are they in fact designed to help ensure that ancient Chinese art stays out of the hands of "foreigners," and, in particular, American citizens? And further in this regard, given the prospect for even more extensive Chinese export controls, what of China's promise under the MOU that

The Government of the People’s Republic of China shall continue to license the sale and export of certain antiquities as provided by law and will explore ways to make more of these objects available licitly.

See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2009/01/dos-press-release-china-mou-new-york.html