[MSN] U.S. Imposes Restrictions on Importing Cypriot Coins

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  U.S. Imposes Restrictions on Importing Cypriot Coins


By JEREMY KAHN

WASHINGTON, July 17 — In a move that some coin collectors fear could 
eventually make it difficult to pursue their passion, the United States 
government has imposed import restrictions on ancient coins from Cyprus. 
It is the first time the United States has limited trade in a broad 
category of coins as part of an effort to guard the cultural heritage of 
another country.

The new rules, which were adopted last week and went into effect on 
Monday, would essentially bar the importation of any ancient coin from 
Cyprus unless authorized by the Cypriot government. The limits are part 
of a broader agreement between the United States and the Republic of 
Cyprus to extend for five years existing restrictions on the import of 
pre-classical, classical and Byzantine art and artifacts from the island.

The new rule is only the latest development in a debate involving 
archaeologists, collectors and art dealers over how best to preserve 
antiquities and encourage appreciation of the past.

Cyprus has said the restrictions are necessary to combat the looting of 
cultural and archaeological sites, particularly in the northern part of 
the island, which has been divided from the south since Turkey invaded 
in 1974.

Archaeologists frequently use coins to help them date ancient sites; 
they say that treasure hunters using metal detectors to look for coins 
often wreck potentially important archaeological discoveries.

“We are very pleased coins have been added to this,” said Cyprus’s 
ambassador to Washington, Andreas Kakouris. “Coins constitute an 
inseparable part of our own cultural heritage, and the pillage they are 
subjected to is the same as other archaeological material.”

Numismatic associations had argued before a State Department advisory 
committee that import restrictions on ancient coins could not fairly be 
enforced. Coins minted in Cyprus were found throughout the ancient 
world, the collectors asserted. They said it would be impossible for 
customs officials to determine whether a coin came from Cyprus or 
elsewhere and whether it had been legitimately excavated.

Coins do not customarily carry the kinds of provenance documents that 
accompany other art and antiquities.

The collectors also expressed concern that the agreement would encourage 
other countries, including Italy, home to troves of Roman-era coins, to 
ask for similar restrictions. If such limits “were applied to Italy, for 
example, that could be quite devastating to numismatists, particularly 
ancient-coin collectors,” said Jay Beeton, a spokesman for the American 
Numismatic Association.

The Archaeological Institute of America, which wrote to the State 
Department in support of Cyprus’s request for new import restrictions, 
disputes that there was widespread dissemination in centuries past of 
Cypriot currency.

“Coins minted on Cyprus were very rarely taken from the island in 
antiquity,” the association’s president, C. Brian Rose, wrote in a 
February letter to the State Department’s Cultural Property Advisory 
Committee. “If one examines the discoveries at officially sanctioned 
excavations in the countries that surround Cyprus, such as Turkey, 
Syria, Lebanon and even Israel, one can see how infrequently Cypriot 
coins figure among the finds.”

But the coin collectors said they saw little reason for the State 
Department, which had exempted coins from previous import bans on 
antiquities, to suddenly reverse course.

“This decision shows that the Department of State is putting the narrow 
interests of the cultural bureaucracies of foreign states and the 
archaeological community over those of ordinary Americans who believe 
that collecting increases appreciation of the past and helps preserve 
artifacts,” said Peter K. Tompa, a lawyer who has represented numismatic 
groups before the Cultural Property Advisory Committee.

A State Department spokeswoman, who under the department’s rules could 
not be identified by name, defended the government’s decision to include 
coins, saying they were a key component of the “pre-classical and 
classical archaeological heritage of Cyprus that is subject to pillage 
from context and to illicit trafficking.”

http://www.nytimes.com/