What's There to Hide?

Archaeo-blogger and anti-coin trade advocate Nathan Elkins has accused CPO of misrepresenting his views about the circulation of ancient coins.   Yet, Elkins has been cagey about not making his work easily accessible to anyone but like-minded academics.  Indeed, Elkins has even gone so far as to avoid making his comments to CPAC public by refusing to post  them on the regulations.gov website. (CPO is puzzled by his statement that CPO refused to post his comments on this blog.  Only one fellow archaeo-blogger is banned based on the tenor of his comments.)  If Elkins is really concerned about his views about coin circulation being misrepresented, he can easily remedy that concern by making his papers and CPAC comments public.  Really, what's there to hide?

Anti-Collector Advocacy Poses as Academics Once More

Dr. Nathan Elkins has continued his anti-collector crusade by posting an abstract of an article from the Journal of Field Archaeology that is critical of the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild and its test case on Academia.edu. Elkins' latest article itself is not posted on Academia.edu, though Academia.edu invites readers to ask Elkins to make it available on the website.

This rather obscure journal (in the world beyond field archaeology at least)  is apparently Elkins' publisher of choice.  Indeed, its like-minded academics also published his 2010 diatribe directed against Ancient Coins for Education,  a not-for-profit that uses ancient coins as a teaching tool on Ancient Rome for kids.  That article is already posted in its entirety on Academia.edu. 

Elkins evidently has already made advance copies of this latest article about ACCG and its test case available to Messrs. Gill and Barford, whom he regards as colleagues.  CPO and Wayne Sayles, ACCG's Executive Director, have already asked Elkins for an advance copy of the article too as a matter of fairness, but he has denied that request point blank.

The article has now also been posted on-line on the publisher's website, but the cost is high--$39 for the rights to review the article on-line for a 24 hour period.  So, its no surprise that CPO has also asked and hopes Elkins will get whatever permissions he needs to make his article available free on-line on Academia.edu so that interested members of the public can judge the quality of his work for themselves short of subsidizing anti-collector academics by purchasing his article from JFA on-line or searching high and low for some library which might actually carry it. Despite Elkins' protests, it's unclear why he can't ask JFA to be allowed to post his article on Academia.edu.  Certainly, Elkins has already posted his last JFA article attacking Ancient Coins for Education in its entirety on that platform.

Leaving this lack of "open access" aside, it's questionable that Elkins' claims that the State Department acted properly are justified.  His apparent thesis-- that coins on the designated lists "primarily circulated" where they were made may or may not be true, but there is also a real question whether more is required under the plain meaning of the governing statute's "first discovery" requirement embedded in 19 USC Sections 2601, 2604 and 2610.

And even assuming Elkins is onto something, a cursory review of the designated lists for Cyprus and China should raise serious questions as to whether the Government did anything other than pick an arbitrary date and simply restrict all artifacts made in those countries beforehand.

Elkins may be entitled to his own opinions, but in the end the issue is one of law, an area in which he most certainly lacks expertise.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the Government has been ordered to respond to the ACCG's written discovery requests on these points on or before June 20, 2015.  We will hopefully know more then whether the Government made a good faith effort to comply with the CPIA's "first discovery" requirement or not.

(Text updated 5/12/15)

Another Lost Opportunity

Archaeo-blogger Nathan Elkins has missed another opportunity to engage in real dialogue. In his latest article on the subject, he again lectures others about his views about the "morality" of collecting unprovenanced coins.  As a staunch supporter of the AIA campaign in favor of import restrictions, this should not be surprising.  As far as the AIA is concerned, ethics appears to be largely for the other guy.  But the AIA needs to rethink its own views in order to find a way forward.  And Elkins should also consider what archaeologists can themselves do to protect context.  At a minimum, why not hire site guards or at least monitor sites remotely during the long periods they are not being worked?  Or more importantly, why not promote programs akin to the Treasure Act and Portable Antiquities Scheme?  This program-- which Elkins has in the past seemed to support-- encourages the public to report what they find.  It also gives state museums a right of first refusal as long as the finder receives fair market value for their coins.  As CPO has said before, it should be about conservation not control.

Challenge To Doctor Elkins

Nathan Elkins purports to be a serious academic numismatist, but  CPO has had its doubts ever since the release of his academic diatribe directed against a non-profit that uses ancient Roman coins to teach kids about history.   CPO now has more such doubts based on Elkins' latest claim that "Clearly existing import restrictions are at pains to restrict only regional and locally circulating types, such as the provincial coins, while more broadly circulating types such as republican and imperial denarii are not included in restrictions." 

And so would any serious academic numismatist who reviews the State Department and Customs designated lists that (with the exception of the Greek list that leaves off gold and some silver coins) restrict all coins made in Cyprus, China, Italy, Greece, and Bulgaria over periods of hundreds and hundreds of years.  

For example, does Elkins really believe each  and every coin type placed on the Bulgarian designated list (including those of gold and silver) only circulated "locally and regionally" within the confines of the modern Bulgarian nation state?  Let's hope not.   CPO therefore challenges Dr. Elkins to either explain his statement with respect to such coins or to retract it.  

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/