[MSN] Commentary: SAFE's praise for Cyprus Restrictions

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

America's Commitment to Safeguarding Heritage

http://msn-list.te.verweg.com/2007-August/007926.html

"...
 
Our nation first sought to protect its own cultural treasures when President
Theodore Roosevelt enacted the Antiquities Act of 1906.  President Reagan
built on this legacy by looking beyond America's borders, signing into law
the Cultural Property Implementation Act (CPIA), which authorizes the
president to enter into bilateral agreements that promote the preservation
objectives of the UNESCO Convention.  Since the CPIA took effect, the
Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) has successfully evaluated
requests by nations seeking American assistance 
 CPAC's work has permitted
the president to take action against the illegal trafficking of historical
artifacts while simultaneously forging constructive international
partnerships.  Since 1983, the White House has approved several bilateral
agreements that have assisted our friends and neighbors in Canada, Italy,
and elsewhere.

Continuing this tradition of American leadership is CPAC's recognition that
the looting of particularly identified types of ancient coins can place a
nation's archaeology in jeopardy.  When coins are bound to the
archaeological record in a significant and inseparable way, they become
infused with irreplaceable historical information. To strip such coins from
the ground without first evaluating and documenting their evidentiary value
steals history.  The forward-looking agreement between the United States and
Cyprus, given effect on July 16, 2007, acknowledges this conclusion.

...

Rick St. Hilaire
Vice President, SAFE/Saving Antiquities for Everyone"

**********
COMMENTARY
**********

This message highlights the conflict between the archaeology lobby and the
collecting community. Interests of coin collectors, championed by the
Ancient Coin Collectors Guild, have come into direct collision with the goal
of the archaeology lobby that ancient coins shall be treated as
archaeological artifacts of significance, whose export from nations of
origin must be prohibited, effectively ending the international trade in
ancient coins. Many leading numismatists believe that such a development
would mean the end of numismatics as a science.

Numismatics is a much older science than archaeology, which has made many
important contributions to the historical record and whose teachings (to
which archaeology has contributed very little) are used by archaeologists as
a stratigraphic dating tool. It is ironic that this venerable and beneficial
field of study is now threatened by a discipline that could hardly be said
to exist until the twentieth century, and really began to take shape only
after the end of WWII. There are very few (if any) archaeologists who have
any knowledge of numismatics, its accomplishments or its importance.

The above argument by Mr. St. Hilaire contends that "When coins are bound to
the archaeological record in a significant and inseparable way, they become
infused with irreplaceable historical information. To strip such coins from
the ground without first evaluating and documenting their evidentiary value
steals history. The forward-looking agreement between the United States and
Cyprus, given effect on July 16, 2007, acknowledges this conclusion."

Here is indeed the root of the matter. It is first essential to recognize
that the present dispute is not about how archaeologists believe such things
ought to be managed, but about points of law and evidence. One must begin by
reading the law in question: the Convention on Cultural Property
Implementation Act ( http://exchanges.state.gov/culprop/97-446.html ). The
authority vested in the President by this Act is delegated to the US State
Department, which oversees implementation of the CPIA. It is the manner in
which the State Department is exercising that oversight which is presently
at issue.

No one in the collecting community denies that archaeologists have a right
to contend that collecting ancient coins (or any other sort of artifact)
should be banned because it is viewed as harmful to archaeology. Collectors
disagree, and have significant arguments to advance against that viewpoint.
Much of the dispute seems to originate in archaeologists knowing little
about ancient coins and the places and circumstances in which they are
actually discovered. Archaeologists naturally tend to think of coins as
specimens they sometimes uncover in the course of excavations, however
statistics compiled by the Portable Antiquities Scheme in the UK indicate
that more than 98% of all coins were actually discovered by detectorists in
places not likely to be interesting to archaeology, such as ploughed fields
and other "disturbed ground." 

Despite what collectors consider to be serious misconceptions on the part of
the archaeology lobby and an unreasonable insistence upon "archaeologie über
alles," the collecting community would accept the verdict of the American
people, should the latter decide that archaeology must take precedence over
the time-honored right of US citizens to collect and study historical
artifacts such as coins. The way in which such a verdict is reached must
however be through the political process, culminating in enactment of
legislation, not by secretive administrative action on the part of a few
State Department officials.

The CPIA certainly did not render (or even consider) any such verdict. It
was clearly the intent of Congress that the CPIA would instead provide for
relieving certain serious instances of pillaging through conducting
impartial investigations and a proper balancing of interests, in which
interests of the private collecting community, museums and other
institutions maintaining collections would be given equal weight to
interests of the archaeological community and cultural preservationists. The
language of the CPIA clearly provides that for import restrictions to be
authorized, an artifact subjected to such restrictions must meet these
tests: 

1) [have been] first discovered within, and be subject to export control by,
the State Party [requesting restrictions];

2) 
 application of the import restrictions 
 would be of substantial
benefit in deterring a serious situation of pillage;

3) remedies less drastic than the application of the restrictions set forth
in such section are not available; 

4) application of the import restrictions 
 is consistent with the general
interest of the international community in the interchange of cultural
property among nations for scientific, cultural, and educational purposes. 

No one in the numismatic community believes that the above four legal
requirements were given appropriate and proper consideration during the
process of receiving, reviewing, and considering the request made by the
Cypriot Government to add coins to the Designated List of restricted
artifacts as part of the extension of the 2002 MOA between the USA and
Cyprus.

No one in the numismatic community believes that any credible evidence has
been presented to the effect that Cypriot coins are, or have ever been,
pillaged to any significant extent.

No one in the numismatic community believes that the process of receiving,
reviewing, and considering the request made by the Cypriot Government to add
coins to the Designated List of restricted artifacts was managed by the
State Department in a fair and impartial manner.

No one in the numismatic community believes that the CPAC, as it has evolved
under the management of Maria Kouroupas, remains impartial or that their
interests will receive fair consideration at its hands. Instead it is
perceived that the CPAC has become aligned with the interests of the
archaeology lobby. 

Now we have reached a point at which Mr. St. Hilaire's comments can be
intelligently addressed:

"Continuing this tradition of American leadership is CPAC's recognition that
the looting of particularly identified types of ancient coins can place a
nation's archaeology in jeopardy.  When coins are bound to the
archaeological record in a significant and inseparable way, they become
infused with irreplaceable historical information. To strip such coins from
the ground without first evaluating and documenting their evidentiary value
steals history."

This statement declares that "coins are bound to the archaeological record
in a significant and inseparable way." Where is the proof of that sweeping
assertion? Where is the evidence to back it up? Actual facts on record
instead document that:

- Relatively few coins uncovered during archaeological excavations are of
importance to the investigations, because they cannot be shown to have been
deposited under circumstances precluding migration between strata.

- More than 98% of all ancient coins are discovered by detectorists in
places that are not archaeological sites, nor likely to become
archaeological sites, such as ploughed fields.

- Of the tiny 2% fraction of discovered coins that actually have been found
in archaeological excavations, very few would be of any interest to
collectors. Nearly all such coins are isolated "ground finds" exposed to
many centuries of corrosion on all surfaces. The coins collectors prize are
those from hoards, in which groups of coins are preserved either in intact
containers or concretion masses. In the latter case (as noted when a
responsible detectorist reported discovery of hoard containing the
Domitianus II antoninianus) most coins in the mass are protected from
corrosion, remaining in relatively pristine condition.

To a numismatist, this campaign by the archaeology lobby to eliminate
ancient coin collecting seems a classic example of unreasonable, doctrinaire
ideologues making a mountain out of a molehill. The whole argument that
ancient coins are a "significant part of the archaeological record" and that
their private collecting must therefore be suppressed has been erected upon
a foundation of 
 exactly what? 

Facts? Evidence? Where are these to be found? Where can the public freely
examine and scrutinize anything that might conceivably provide a solid basis
for such significant and damaging repressive measures?  This observer has,
so far, been able to discern only doctrinaire ideology, uninformed opinion,
sweeping generalizations and prejudice against collecting.

Finally it is time to address Mr. St. Hilaire's concluding remark: "The
forward-looking agreement between the United States and Cyprus, given effect
on July 16, 2007, acknowledges this conclusion."

The "forward-looking agreement" between the United States and Cyprus instead
is "looking forward" to a legal basis for such action that does not exist
today. There is no question that Congress in enacting the CPIA, and in
setting up the CPAC, did not envision or intend anything of this nature. The
intent of the law has been violated. There is reason to think that the
letter of the law may also have been transgressed.

The archaeology lobby, in its zeal to abolish private collecting, should not
forget certain principles far more important than any significance coins
might have to archaeology - more important than archaeology itself:

Respect for the law. Integrity of the political process. Fair play. 


Dave Welsh
Unidroit-L Listowner
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Unidroit-L
dwelsh46 at cox.net