Organizations Overwhelmingly Against Renewal of Italian MOU or Import Restrictions on Coins

CPO previously reported that 94% of the public comments on the regulations.gov website either oppose the MOU's extension or import restrictions on coins.  It also appears that comments of  organizations representing the interests of their members also follow that trend.

Trade Associations

The International Association of Professional Numismatists, the Professional Numismatists Guild, and the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art all opposed the MOU or import restrictions on the lawful trade in ancient coins.  

Educational Organizations

Both the American Numismatic Association and Ancient Coins for Education expressed concerns about import restrictions on coins. 

Professional Organizations

The Association of Art Museum Directors took a nuanced approach to the MOU.  While supporting the renewal, AAMD requested changes to encourage Italy to live up to its part of the bargain.

Advocacy Groups

Two groups that advocate for the interests of dealers and collectors, the Association of Dealers and Collectors in Ancient and Ethnographic Art and the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild, also argued against renewing the MOU or extending restrictions on historical coins.

In contrast, only one advocacy group associated with the archaeological lobby, the Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, supports the extension unequivocally.  

All in all, 7 organizations oppose the renewal or import restrictions on coins, 1 organization supports the renewal, but with significant qualifications and only 1 organization supports the renewal unequivocally. 

Archaeological Lobby Goes for the Gold?

It may or may not be a coincidence, but just as the archaeological lobby has geared up to press for legislation that would give the State Department unlimited authority to fund archaeological groups, a number of consultancies and/or research entities have apparently sprung up that have principals associated with that lobby.

These include: Red Arch with principals with current and/or past associations with the AIA, Lawyer's Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation and Saving Antiquities for Everyone; Heritas with principals with current and/or past associations with the AIA, Lawyer's Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation and Antiquities Coalition; and the Past for Sale Project with a researcher associated with Saving Antiquities for Everyone.

The bill in question (HR 5703) died at the end of the last legislative session, but presumably will be reintroduced in some form.  Of course, there is nothing wrong with lobbying for this or other cultural heritage legislation.  And there is also nothing wrong with making money from one's passion through "consulting" or "research." However, there needs to be far more transparency about the intersection between lobbying and consulting or researching here, particularly given the archaeological lobby's full throttled attacks on any "lobbying" by "commercial interests" concerned about the State Department's imposition of import restrictions on cultural goods.  After all, some big money-- like the $600,000 contract the State Department awarded to ASOR to assess Syrian cultural sites--is already out there for the taking by the State Department's allies against antiquities collecting.

US Government Gives Up on Trying to Repatriate Ka Nefer Nefer Mummy Mask

The New York Times is reporting that the US Government is giving up on its effort to repatriate the Ka Nefer Nefer Mummy Mask to Egypt.  It remains to be seen whether ardent repatriations over at the Lawyer's Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation will now take up Egypt's cause.  However, given the turmoil and military dictatorship there, one might think leaving the Mask in St. Louis may be all for the best anyway, whatever ingenious legal arguments such advocates might come up with at this late date. 

"Blood Antiquities" or Stale Claim Against Legally Obtained Cultural Goods?

I am struck by the contrast between Sotheby's well-reasoned legal analysis of why the government's forfeiture action against its consigner's Cambodian statue should be dismissed and this well-written CNN opinion piece prepared by advocates for Cambodia.

Unfortunately, Sotheby's brief is not available on-line unless one has a "Pacer" account with the U.S. Court System.   However, "Cultural Heritage Lawyer" and former SAFE VP Rick St.  Hilaire has provided us with his own analysis.  Though St. Hilaire is also associated with the archaeological community, his summary does appear to convey most of Sotheby's arguments accurately.

It will be interesting to read the Government's response. But why has the U.S. Government taken sides at all?   Cambodia has plenty of friends in the archaeological community, including more than a few lawyers.   They should be pursuing any claims Cambodia may have rather than making the U.S. taxpayer foot the bill for such a stale claim that dates back at least to the 1970's (if you believe the Government) or perhaps far earlier (if you believe Sotheby's).

Division in Archaeological Community Over Immunity Bill

Rick St. Hilaire, former SAFE VP and current Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation Board Member, has departed from his fellows to support S. 2212, a bill meant to immunize art coming into the United States for museum exhibitions.   See http://culturalheritagelawyer.blogspot.com/2012/04/foreign-cultural-exchange.html.  I have critiqued the position of SAFE and the Lawyers’  Committee here.  See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2012/04/lobbying-effort-against-immunity-bill.html

Lobbying Effort Against Immunity Bill Raises Questions About Funding and Consistency with Prior Stances

The Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation and Saving Antiquities for Everyone have joined in the effort to scuttle S.2212, legislation aimed to immunize art brought into the United States for museum exhibitions. See http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/S2212 and http://www.savingantiquities.org/say-no-to-senate-bill-2212/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=say-no-to-senate-bill-2212

This lobbying campaign raises questions about the funding of both organizations.

It appears law firms that have made considerable money from repatriating art and artifacts are funders of both organizations.

If both groups are going to lobby against S.2212, they should be more transparent about their funding sources.

Meanwhile, other voices that have been generally supportive of repatriation efforts have raised serious questions about the consistency of these groups' opposition to S.2212 compared to their prior stances before CPAC. See http://illicit-cultural-property.blogspot.com/2012/04/immunity-from-seizure-act-and-proposed.html

To that, I would add that these groups were also previously opposed to an effort to seize Iranian artifacts at the Oriental Institute to satisfy a judgment awarded to victims of terrorists with ties to to the Iranian government. See http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/21/MNSH160AQH.DTL&ao=all

Both groups should explain their positions better in light of their prior stances and provide more information about their funding sources.

At least Give Them a Decent Burial

The Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation is apparently advocating reburial for repatriated objects. See http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/events?eventId=462717&EventViewMode=EventDetails ("[I]n other circumstances only an outright return and reburial of artifacts will satisfy the wronged side.")

However, CPO must claim first credit for that proposal in a post dated, April 1, 2009:
http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2009/04/advocacy-group-hopes-to-recontextualize.html

But at the time, CPO suggested it as an April Fools' Joke!

Hopefully, the Lawyers' Committee's [serious?] thinking about such a proposal will be revealed on its website, but without more, doesn't this all suggest that as far as the self-identified "preservation community" is concerned, "context" is indeed far more important than preserving artifacts themselves?

But, if so, is it really all about preservation or control?

LCCHP Posts Interesting Letter About Shipwrecks

To their credit, the Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation has posted this letter on their website critical of the usual academic approach to shipwrecks and their preservation:

http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/blog?mode=PostView&bmi=711550

Slim Public Support for Italian Import Restrictions Raises Questions About State Department Special Interest Program for Archaeologists

Politcos within the Obama State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and Diplomats from the Italian Embassy take note: a recent FOIA request reveals that CPAC only received thirteen (13) public comments in support of controversial import restrictions on "coins of Italian type."

Not that there really was any groundswell of public support for renewing the Italian MOU in the first place. Indeed, CPAC received only about one hundred (100) comments in favor of renewing the MOU at all.

Who supported the renewal of the MOU? The American public? Well, maybe only one or two individuals identified themselves as such. No, as one might expect, virtually all the support came from archaeologists who excavate in Italy, their students or their "trade associations."

And who supported restrictions on coins? Well, the AIA, Lawyer's Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, a few professors and students from NYU (Home of Pro-Restriction CPAC member Joan Connelly) and foreign archaeo-bloggers like David Gill and Paul Barford.

Contrast this with the one thousand nine hundred (1,900) plus public comments opposed to the extension of import restrictions on ancient coins.

Given this disparity, one can only ask: What gives? Why has the State Department disadvantaged the interests of American collectors and the small businesses of the numismatic trade by imposing hard to meet documentation requirements when the support for such restrictions is so limited?

And more to the point, has State Department Cultural Heritage Center staff told the political appointees at State and the diplomats at the Italian Embassy how thin the support actually is for restrictions?

Elkins' "Treasure Hunting 101 in America's Classrooms:" Propaganda or Scholarship?

With some difficulty, I've finally been able to procure a copy of Nathan Elkins' "Treasure Hunting 101 in America's Classrooms," published in the rather obscure (to at least some well-known libraries) "Journal of Field Archaeology." While an archaeologist of the David Gill school may view Elkins' work as scholarship, I consider it little more than distasteful propaganda, designed to demean Ancient Coins for Education ("ACE") and its program to pair collectors with schools to teach children about ancient history through coins.

According to Elkins, "[t]he program's practices directly sponsor criminal activities in source countries, such as Bulgaria, and the destruction of archaeological and cultural heritage." (Elkins at 487.) Never mind ancient coins of the type ACE uses in its program are widely available for sale in Bulgaria itself, and, indeed, the Bulgarian Constitutional Court recently struck down aspects of Bulgaria's recent antiquities law and instead concluded that an invoice will be sufficient to establish ownership. See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2009/10/bulgarian-constitutional-court-strikes.html, a fact Morag Kersel and Christina Luke rather crankily admit in their "editorial introduction." (Id. at 481.)

Darkly, Elkins also claims ACE effectively exploits children, cynically using them as pawns to support the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild's (ACCG's) agenda. He states, "ACE's activities ought to be of concern for another reason: the program is clearly being used to manipulate school children in order to promote their own private and commercial interests, especially since it became an affiliate member and ally of the ACCG in 2004." (Id. at 485.)

In this regard, Elkins first takes ACE to task because its founder appeared at a meeting of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee in 2005 to testify in favor of continuing an exemption for coins from import restrictions [because such would likely impact the ability of ACE to perform its core mission to use Roman coins to teach children about ancient history]. (Id.) But really, what's wrong with that? Elkins himself has testified at a subsequent CPAC hearing on Italy in favor of restrictions on coins, and pro-archaeological groups like the Archaeological Institute of America ("AIA"), Lawyer's Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, Saving Antiquities for Everyone, and the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute ("CAARI") have become fixtures at such meetings. Does Elkins agree with CAARI VP Ellen Herscher's patently ridiculous claim that archaeologists don't lobby? http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2010/02/response-to-caari-vp-ellen-herscher.html Or, is "lobbying" only okay if you take Elkins' "archaeology over all perspective?"

Elkins specifically dislikes ACCG's work with ACE to promote ancient coin collecting, suggesting that it is corrupting our youth. According to Elkins, "the remarks made by [ACCG ED] Wayne Sayles and [ACE Director] Scott Uhrick indicate an awareness that the ACE program is an excellent way to recruit future hobbyists and collectors and to indoctrinate them to the dealer lobby's point of view regarding the ethics of collecting and the attitudes they wish to impart." (Elkins at 486.) His antidote? Well, what I might characterizes as a good "brainwashing" by archaeologists, of course! (Id. at 487.) But really, is what ACE actually teaches children about ancient coins and history substantially different from similar programs undertaken over the years? No, but then, ACE actually gives ancient coins to both teachers and students. And that is what likely actually irks Elkins the most.

For more about ACE and its programs, see http://ancientcoinsforeducation.org/

Interim Review of Italian MOU

I attended the Cultural Property Advisory Committee's interim review of the Italian MOU. The hearing was called to allow the public to comment on Italy's obligations under Art. II, but at times the hearing strayed well beyond the subject of whether Italy has held up its end of the bargain. What is abundently clear is that now that the AIA has forced the museums and the antiquities dealers to adopt clear provenance standards, its attention has now focused entirely on coin dealers and collectors. The particular issue of whether CPAC should reconsider its prior two decisons against extending import restrictions to Greek and Roman coins from Italy should be discussed in more detail at a promised forthcoming CPAC hearing related to Art. I.

Three speakers (Pearlstein, Tompa and Wetterstrom) spoke on behalf of dealers and collectors. Four speakers (Anderson, Vikan, Conforti and Feldman) spoke on behalf of the AAMD. Four speakers (Gerstenblith, Heath, Elkins and Leventhal) spoke on behalf of the archaeological community. One speaker (De Caro) spoke on behalf of the Italian cultural ministry.

Bill Pearlstein spoke on behalf of certain antiquities dealers. He argued that the Carabinieri's successes against looters made the extension of the MOU unnecessary. He also noted that the MOU is discriminatory to Americans because Italy has no internal provenance requirements for sales of ancient artifacts.

Peter Tompa spoke on behalf of IAPN and PNG, two trade associations for the small businesses of the numismatic trade. First, he highlighted the failure of Italy to care for its own cultural patrimony, including coins. Second, he discussed Italy’s relative success in staunching looting, and its implications against the extension of import restrictions. Third, he advocated that CPAC again suggest that Italian authorities adopt a Treasure Trove law and Portable Antiquities Scheme. Lastly, he noted that Italy has not as promised made its own export controls more efficient.

Kerry Wetterstom (Celator Magazine) spoke on behalf of the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild. He also noted that Italy has not as promised made its own export controls more efficient.

Maxwell Anderson (Indianapolis Museum of Art) suggested the MOU should be modified to require Italy to advertise artifacts for long term loans on the Internet.

Gary Vikan (Walters Art Gallery-Baltimore) said Italy should not sequester artifacts, but should make better provision for long term loans as well as licit markets.

Michael Conforti (The Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute) spoke about legal markets and their role in facilitating international cultural exchange.

Kaywin Feldman (The Minneapolis Institute of Arts) also spoke about the need for licit markets and better long term loans. She indicated her institution is the poorer because it had to return a long term loan of "orphan artifacts" under the AAMD's new provenance rules and due to current restrictions, that void remains at her institution.

Patty Gerstenblith (Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation) stated that import restrictions under Art. I cannot be tied to Italy's undertakings under Art. II. She also indicated licit markets do not help staunch looting, but in fact may help hide it.

Sebastian Heath (AIA) said Italy does not need a PAS scheme because it uploads finds on the web. He also indicated that the AIA supports the expansion of current import restrictions to include coins.

Nathan Elkins (archaeologist) indicated that there is an illicit trade in common artifacts like coins and that properly excavated ones can tell us much about ancient history.

Richard Leventhal (University of Pennsylvania) indicated that coins should be restricted because they are important parts of the archaeological record. He also indicated it would be wrong to sell redundant artifacts because such artifacts must be retained for study.

Stefano De Caro (Italian Ministry of Culture) indicated that people have come to understand that artifacts should are more than collectibles, but are important for science. He acknowledged that Italy has not always done all it could do to preserve its cultural patrimony, but suggested foreigners could help by funding projects in Italy. He indicated that a book quoting wiretaps indicated that looters treat coins no differently than other artifacts. Italy wants what Cyprus got as far as import restrictions on coins. De Caro acknowledged numismatics needs to be integrated more fully with other disciplines. Italy is launching a website of the important coin collection of the King of Italy as a token of its interest in coins. De Caro belittled the U.K. Treasure program and suggested Italy's efforts to seek import restrictions on coins was done not only on Italy's behalf, but also to defend "Pax Britannia," "Pax Africa," etc.

Culture and Conflict: The United States and the 1954 Hague Convention

The Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation and the United States Committee for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield have announced a conference on Oct. 22-23, 2009, about the domestic and international implementation of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. See http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/events/lcchp-events/culture-conflict-conference

Both these organizations were instrumental in getting the United States Senate to ratify the 1954 Hague Convention, see http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/search/label/1954%20Hague%20Convention and the topic is an important one.

I also understand that there will be an earlier, invitation only "closed forum" on domestic implementation of the 1954 Hague Convention with government decision makers as well.

This begs the question why such secrecy is necessary and again suggests that archaeological organizations often seem to get "behind the scenes" access not readily available to others. Surely, despite protestations to the contrary by some elements within the archaeological community, see http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2008/08/caari-vp-ellen-herscher-response-to.html , archaeologists do lobby, and quite effectively at that.

The Hill Newspaper Highlights Pending Chinese Import Restrictions Request and FOIA lawsuit

Kevin Bogardus interviewed me and others about the pending Chinese import restrictions and FOIA litigation against the State Department: http://thehill.com/business--lobby/coin-collectors-art-dealers-fear-restrictions-on-chinese-imports-2008-05-27.html

Overall, I think Mr. Bogardus did well. Trying to simplify fairly complex issues is no easy task. My one real quibble is that the story implied that only archaeological groups are interested in cultural heritage preservation. Plainly, however, collectors and dealers are also interested in cultural heritage preservation as well. After all, they spend a great deal of time and money collecting, preserving and displaying cultural artifacts. In many such cases, their efforts literally save artifacts from oblivion. The dispute with the archaeological community really is over how best to reconcile collectors' and dealers' efforts to preserve, study and display objects with the archaeological community's efforts to preserve archaeological context.

I would also note that the motivations of the archaeological community are not always as "pure" as is portrayed. It's not that I doubt the sincerity of their views. Rather, I have come to believe that the fear of losing an excavation permit acts as a powerful disincentive when it comes to criticizing host governments' approaches to cultural property matters or advocating "common sense" proposals like a Treasure Trove law to address the need to record as many artifacts as possible.

China offers a good example. During the 2005 CPAC hearing on the Chinese request, there was considerable testimony that it was Chinese government policy to repress Tibet's culture by destroying its cultural artifacts. Yet, members of the archaeological community either ignored the issue altogether or tried to discount its importance. As far as I know, the archaeological groups that support the import restrictions, including AIA, SAFE and Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, have much critical to say about collectors, dealers and Western museums, but nothing at all critical to say about Chinese treatment of Tibetan artifacts. In this regard, the views of archaeological advocacy groups would seem to run counter to those of the Dalai Lama. He has specifically recognized the importance of Western collectors' effort to preserve Tibetan cultural artifacts, particularly in the dark days after China's invasion of Tibet, when many of its monasteries were destroyed.

One final point. While there may be considerable disagreement about the merits of the Chinese request, it is refreshing to read that such figures as Patty Gerstenblith (quoted in the article) and Derek Fincham (in his blog: http://illicit-cultural-property.blogspot.com/2008/05/china-and-cpia.html) have expressed at least some qualms about State Department treatment of these issues as "State secrets." Perhaps, this will help prompt State to rethink its opposition to providing basic information to the public about its decision making processes. One would hope that the State Department would want to provide countries like China with shining of examples of American transparency of process.