CPAC Solicits Comments for China MOU

The US Cultural Property Advisory Committee is soliciting comments concerning the proposed renewal of import restrictions on cultural goods, including coins, down to the end of the Tang Dynasty.  

This renewal should be of particular interest to collectors who specialize in Chinese coins. 

Comments are to touch on the following four determinations: (1)    that the cultural patrimony of the requesting nation is in jeopardy from the pillage of archaeological materials; (2) that the requesting nation has taken measures to protect its cultural patrimony; (3) that U.S. import restrictions, either alone or in concert with actions taken by other market nations, would be of substantial benefit in deterring the serious situation of pillage, and (4) import restrictions would promote the interchange of cultural property among nations for scientific, cultural, and educational purposes.

For Chinese coins, the key points relates to determinations 2-4:  Why should the US Government place restrictions on American collectors given the huge internal market in ancient Chinese coins within China itself, particularly when China and other countries have not imposed similar restrictions on the ability of their own citizens to deal and trade in such coins?   Under the circumstances, continued restrictions will only diminish the ability of Americans to learn about and appreciate Chinese culture from "hands-on" experience with Chinese coins without any impact on the huge trade in Chinese coins abroad. Another issue is that Chinese cash coins circulated widely outside China, including E. Africa, Japan, Indonesia, etc.

To comment on the renewal, use the regulations.gov portal here:  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=DOS_FRDOC_0001-2354 and click on the “comment now” button.

The Department of State requests that any party soliciting or aggregating comments received from other persons for submission to the Department of State inform those persons that the Department of State will

not edit their comments to remove any identifying or contact information, and that they therefore should not include any information in their comments that they do not want publicly disclosed.

KINDLY NOTE COMMENTS ARE DUE ON OR BEFORE 11:59 PM on APRIL 23, 2013.  

Cash-Strapped Italian Government to Convert Embassy to Food Emporium?

CPO has heard from a reliable source that the cash-strapped Italian Government is in talks with Eataly, the popular Italian Food Emporium, to take over its beautiful, modernistic Palazzo style Embassy in Washington, D.C. As part of the plan, Embassy officials are said to be considering auctioning off the building's impressive display of antiquities through Sotheby’s or Christie’s in New York. Alternatively, they will remain in situ for the enjoyment of Eataly patrons.

Eataly’s fall-back plan is to negotiate with the GSA to lease one of the federal government’s neo-classical buildings for the same purpose. Buildings mentioned include Union Station and the Art Deco style FTC headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. Meanwhile, less certain are plans of local Greek entrepreneurs to create “pop up” restaurants in the nearby Greek and Cypriot Embassies. 

Court Denies Sotheby's Motion to Dismiss

This is a banner week for the State Department’s Cultural Heritage Center and its "Cultural Antiquities Task Force."  First the denial of the ACCG’s petition for cert.  Now this decision allowing the government to amend its complaint and denying Sotheby's motion to dismiss the government's claim that a Khmer statue up for auction must be considered "stolen" given Cambodian law.

The real concern is that this gives yet more license to the Cultural Heritage Center and its “Cultural Antiquities Task Force” to repatriate artifacts based on unclear and obscure laws of ancient vintage, even where they have only recently been “dug up” so to speak as long as there is some alleged tie-in to a known site.

The subsidiary concern is that the Sotheby’s Court, like the T-Rex Bataar Court, is treating the obligation of a foreign country to actually enforce its laws at home not as an element of the claim up front, but to be raised as a defense to forfeiture after a long slog to trial—something most forfeiture claimants simply can’t afford.

Here is the ruling courtesy of the Chasing Aphrodite blog. 

Will Sotheby's cave or fight on?  Stay tuned.

Proposed Renewal of Chinese MOU

The Cultural Heritage Center website carries news about a proposed renewal of import restrictions on Chinese cultural goods.  CPAC's public session will take place on May 14th.

The Federal Register notice formally announcing the renewal is to be released on April 1st.

Somehow that is fitting. I'm all for the Chinese populace collecting rather than destroying (remember the Cultural Revolution) artifacts like the bazillions of cash coins that are found all the time in China, but hope CPAC recognizes that current restrictions have done little but to provide Chinese auction houses and dealers with a leg up on their foreign (especially US) competition.

Is it about protecting the archaeological record or encouraging the continued movement of the trade in Chinese artifacts to China and other major market countries?

Archaeological Context: Is it About Preservation or Control?

Archaeo-Blogger Rick St. Hilaire somehow believes that I have discounted the importance of archaeological context, but all I have said is that coin collectors derive their own context from the iconography and fabric of the coins themselves and that the goal of preservation of archaeological context—however worthy-- should not be allowed to control all else.  Perhaps, then, he should not take such statements about context out of context!

St. Hilaire then seems to discount the value of numismatic context, though his fellow archaeo-blogger Nathan Elkins organized an entire conference on the subject.  Perhaps, coins do indeed tell us something without reference to where they are found.

Finally, though suggesting that a good lawyer looks at all the evidence, St. Hilaire somehow apparently missed the ANS article appended to the Chasing Aphrodite interview.  In it I explained that perhaps archaeological practice may be different than archaeological rhetoric when it comes to issues of context.  I state:

Frankly, I might feel a bit better about all this if I had evidence that the archaeological community as a whole makes every effort to not only record the coins they find but to publish them.   Both are critical to the preservation of numismatic knowledge.  Even if a coin is recorded in an excavation notebook, it does little good if it is never published, and, if the notebook or computer data file is not backed up in some way, the information about its provenance could easily be lost.  That, of course, would render the coin for all practical purposes, “an orphan” of the sort members of the archaeological community roundly condemn—at least when held in a collector’s trays.  

This is not a hypothetical concern.    Indeed, a recent study prepared at the behest of the numismatic trade for the use of the State Department’s Cultural Property Advisory Committee concluded,

• The publication record for coins found in Italian excavations is poor.
• What has been published is thanks to a few dedicated individuals, not to the encouragement of the archaeological community.
• Without publication it is almost impossible to know what has been found and what has become of the material.

Let me give just one concrete example.  Some 60,000 - 70,000 ancient coins from excavations at the City of Rome, which were recovered by archaeologists during the 19^th century, still await publication in Frankfurt.  One would have thought coins excavated in Roman contexts would be of utmost importance, but the fact that they are still awaiting publication after over a century speaks volumes.  

All this raises a larger question.  Is all the talk about protecting archaeological context for real or is it actually about justifying further controls?

Supreme Court Denies Cert.

Disappointingly, but perhaps not surprisingly given the some 150 petitions before the Court at its last conference, the Supreme Court has denied the ACCG's petition for certiorari.  (The Court granted certiorari in four cases, two of which were summarily sent back to the Second Circuit for consideration of a decision just issued this year.)

The Supreme Court's order has no precedential value, leaving the Fourth Circuit’s decision that the State Department's and U.S. Customs' decision-making is generally only subject to "political" rather than "judicial" review only applicable in that Circuit.  

ACCG now plans to contest the forfeiture action the Fourth Circuit anticipates the Government will file against the coins the ACCG imported for purposes of its test case. 

The test case is part of the ACCG's continuing effort to educate the public and government decision-makers about the damage overbroad restrictions have done to the ability of American collectors to legally import coins of the sort that remain widely available abroad, including in places like Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Italy and China.  

In that regard,  the latest post on the Chasing Aphrodite blog provides further discussion about the thinking behind the test case. 

No Joy in Cyprus

Whatever happens at the Supreme Court's conference on the ACCG test case this Friday, there will be no joy in Cyprus.   Cypriot bank depositors are paying for the bad lending practices of its big banks, including the Bank of Cyprus.  But serious questions have been raised about fairness.  The little guy and the foreigner (mostly rich Russians)  have been singled out while connected bondholders, sovereign debt holders and depositors in Greek operations in Cypriot banks have apparently gotten off the hook.  Doesn't such cronyism and shady dealings "all for a good cause" sound all too familiar?