At the behest of the State Department, US Customs has imposed grossly overbroad emergency import restrictions on behalf of Ukraine. It has also issued revised import restrictions on behalf of "the Republic of Yemen" without a public hearing or full statutory Cultural Property Advisory Committee review. Both sets of import restrictions again demonstrate that the Biden-Harris State Department places a premium on expediency over legality and the interests of American collectors and the small and micro businesses of the trade in cultural goods.
The Ukrainian emergency import restrictions cover archaeological material from the Paleolithic period (c. 1.4 million years ago) through 1774 AD and ethnological material from 200 AD to 1917. The restrictions on widely collected coins and medallions are exceptionally broad:
1. Coins —In gold, silver, bronze, copper, and lead. Some coin types minted in or commonly found in archaeological contexts in Ukraine in various periods are listed below.
a. Ancient Greek cities in Ukraine, including Olbia, Panticapaeum, Chersonesus, and Tyras, minted coins of various weights and metals. Cast currency in dolphin, sturgeon, and arrowhead forms was also produced in this period. See Zograph, A. Ancient Coinage, Part II, Ancient Coins of the Northern Black Sea Littoral. (Oxford, 1977). Approximate date: 600-47 B.C.E.
b. In the Roman period, Panticapaeum continued to mint coins, and other Roman imperial coins were also used. See MacDonald, D. An Introduction to the History and Coinage of the Kingdom of the Bosporus, Classical Numismatic Studies 5. (Lancaster, 2005). Approximate date: 47 B.C.E.-500 C.E.
c. Coins minted in the Kyivan Rus period include gold and silver zlatnyks with a portrait of the ruler and the trident (tryzub) symbol. Hexagonal cast ingots (hryvnia) were also produced. Bohemian deniers and dirhams of Islamic states were also used in the Medieval period. Pierced coins and exfoliated (flaked) coins, including half-coins and forgeries, were common. Approximate date: 880-1240 C.E.
d. Coins in use during the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods include, but are not limited to, Mongolian dirhams, Lithuanian denars, Polish ducats, Crimean Khanate akces, Austro-Hungarian talers, Ottoman coins, and Russian rubles. Approximate date: 1240-1774 C.E.
2. Medallions —Usually featuring relief images, known since the Early Iron Age, with gold, silver, and bronze phaleras used during the Roman period. Approximate date: 1000 B.C.E.-1774 C.E.
Such import restrictions authorize the detention, seizure and repatriation of coin types made in what is today Ukraine or occupied Crimea that circulated in quantity elsewhere as well as issues made elsewhere that primarily circulated well outside of present day Ukraine. Early modern issues of the surrounding nation states of Austria, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia are included. As with ancient Roman Imperial coins, such coin types that are widely and legally sold in legitimate markets in Europe are now in danger of confiscation on entry into the US unless the importer can "prove" they were out of Ukraine as of the September 10, 2024 effective date of the regulations.
These concerns were raised in written and oral comments made on behalf of the American Numismatic Association, the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild, and the International Association of Professional Numismatists, but they were ignored. Additionally, by issuing "emergency import restrictions" rather than entering into a cultural property MOU, the State Department avoided having to consider "less drastic measures" raised in these comments. Such "less drastic measures" like the creation of a Portable Antiquities Scheme and a web based system for issuing export permits would have been particularly appropriate here since Ukraine allows a large internal market for the cultural goods that are now embargoed as well as the purchase and sale of metal detectors.
In one positive move that cynics will link to the election year, the new Yemeni restrictions on ethnological material explicitly exclude Jewish ceremonial and ritual objects and manuscripts. JIMENA, B'nai B'rith and Global Heritage Alliance have argued that such materials should exempted from cultural property MOUs with repressive Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) governments which have forced their Jewish populations into exile.
Addendum (9/16/24): What the administrative state "gives" with one hand, it "takes" with the other. A further review of the Ukrainian restrictions linked above demonstrates that they explicitly include Jewish and Christian ceremonial and ritual objects. Of course, Ukraine is no Yemen, but such restrictions could still lead to trouble for Christians or Jews of Ukrainian decent bringing such material into the US for religious purposes.
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