Deconstructing some false claims by US Coin dealers and others….
We were struck by an article penned by David Welsh, a prominent US coin dealer who we understand buys and sells (inter alia) artefacts plucked fresh from the soil of Britain. He is the proprietor of Classical Coins, an online store selling ancient coins and describes himself as “well known as a collectors’ rights activist”….
Yes, US dealers and collectors assert they have rights, just like their British metal detectorist suppliers and, since their whole raison d’être is to acquire artefacts from all over the world provided they are “licit” according their own less-than-rigorous checking criteria, this assertion of rights inescapably includes an assumed right to affect the fate of the British archaeological resource. And that of everywhere else in the world of course. Even in those countries where both digging up and exporting antiquities is entirely forbidden. After all, if a seller says an article that might be from Baghdad is from Bognor or an article that might be looted is not looted what is a dealer to do? Simple! Not buy it unless he’s sure it is licit says the Portable Antiquities Scheme in its advice to buyers (else, they clearly imply, the buyer would be aiding and encouraging the process of looting and destroying the past). “No”, announced Mr Welsh recently to British archaeologists on the main Britarch archaeology discussion list. Such advice is “naive and unrealistic.” US law and the US dealers’ own self-written code of ethics (known in some quarters as the Loophole Lore) are ALL he feels obliged to follow. And on this basis alone he offers his items for sale on his website- “Ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Persian coins for collectors. Authenticity and Satisfaction Guaranteed.” !
After all (Mr Welsh is clearly saying), you have to be realistic about these things, a man must make a crust, doesn’t the Portable Antiquities realise that? Telling him he ought to be sure he doesn’t sell illicit items would mean…. ummmm… he could sell far fewer items! And that’s NOT going to happen, Mr Welsh has announced it publicly to British archaeologists!
Thus, the great antiquities conveyor belt leading from soil to salon (of which Mr Welsh could hardly deny he is an efficient and pivotal part) rolls on, lubricated at every stage by money, subject to enthusiastic checking systems regarding monetary value throughout its length yet totally devoid of a commensurately enthusiastic or comprehensive checking system regarding whether objects are licit or whether they are part of a process of damage to the past. The world’s looters loot and say nothing. British metal detectorists detect, mostly don’t report what they find and declare “It’s legal innit?” and US dealers deal and tell their collector clients and British archaeologists that “if it’s allowed under US law plus if I alone say its fine then it’s fine, you can be sure, and my conscious is clear”. And everyone makes money. Which of these groups, one might ask, are the greatest moral philosophers? And is not the size and speed of the conveyor belt testament to the fact there’s actually no room for moral philosophy, when there’s money to be made?
There is room for words though, since we are dealing with humans. For who would make money out of what they do without attempting to deny it was profoundly wrong? Thus in his article Mr Welsh asks, with all apparent seriousness: “Who has authorised archaeologists to own the past?” giving the impression he actually believes such a thing has happened and that we should too and, by implication, suggesting that therefore he himself is entitled to own the past and trade it to the highest bidder.
To us, the answer to his silly question is so glaringly obvious we can’t resist supplying it: no-one has, for they don’t! The past is the past of us all, communally created and therefore indisputably communally owned. It follows, beyond reasonable denial, that no single group, whether collectors, looters, metal detectorists or archaeologists can lay claim to what everyone owns.
Of course, individual objects can have owners, people can buy or inherit coins and artefacts – or find them in the ground and persuade the landowner to cede ownership – or steal them and thus acquire illicit ownership. But none of these objects, however acquired, is “the past”. Our past is embodied not in objects but in the knowledge of the past that comes from them or their surroundings. The past can neither be touched nor traded nor held in a hand nor placed in a display case, either private or public. The past is purely cerebral and cannot therefore be “owned” by an individual through acquiring an artefact. Let us not hold our breath for the money-making moral philosophers to deny that!
Nor for them to deny the sad corollary – that even though no-one can own the past they can and do destroy it – by acquiring an object and failing to ensure that all of its associated knowledge is delivered to the public. Hand on heart Mr Welsh, by following only your self-written code of buying ethics and refusing to agree with the Portable Antiquities Scheme’s advice to buy only if you are sure you and your colleagues must have unwittingly been party to destroying quite a lot of the past.
Mustn’t you?
So Mr Welsh, you’ll now understand why we’re not at all surprised when you say “I have never really identified the ultimate source upon which archaeologists base that moral authority which they believe that they possess over ancient artifacts” because, quite apart from the fact no archaeologist ever claims such a thing, no such moral authority could ever be available for them to claim. The public could not, would not and has not renounced it’s ownership of its past to anyone. For archaeologists to claim that they had they would need to misunderstand or deny the fundamental nature of the past and the public’s absolute ownership of it. In other words, they would need to be actually (or cynically pretend to be) obtuse as well as profoundly self-serving and selfish.
They are not that, Mr Welsh. Archaeology is all about obtaining maximum knowledge from physical remains. You must have noticed that’s the central obsession of Archaeology and all archaeologists. They are primarily and overwhelmingly after the knowledge of the past, not just the physical remains, however much they glint, and they are perfectly well aware that unlike the physical objects that you buy and sell for money that knowledge cannot be individually owned by them or anyone else.
Some people believe or claim otherwise. Thousands of British metal detectorists revel in the “thrill” of holding a piece of the past in their hand, wretchedly ignorant of the fact that they certainly don’t and that the past is abstract and will inevitably have been diminished if the knowledge surrounding the object is not fully shared. Some thrill! To commit witting or unwitting historycide! Selling this invalid thrill is also the main activity of the antiquities dealer. “I can sell you a piece of Britain’s past that you can hold in your hand” is naive at best and always an untruth. How ironic that the Portable Antiquities Scheme’s advice to not buy unless you are sure an object is licit should be described as naive when the very basis of antiquities dealing is the sale of a fictitious concept and an utterly naive view which confuses physical rights of ownership with the public’s right to know about it’s past!
Some scrabble for the former at the expense of the latter. Some dig up objects and don’t share the knowledge. Some buy objects and don’t put in one tenth of the effort that they should into ensuring that the knowledge has been shared. And some seek to cover their behaviour by saying “archaeologists are as bad as us.”
Sorry Mr Welsh. They aren’t. And saying they are reflects not on them but on those who say it.
This has been a message to you not from archaeologists who you constantly demonise but from some ordinary British people who object to the careless attitude that you and any of your fellows in the States that are like-minded take towards our communal archaeological resource.
The Heritage Journal 
8 comments
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09/02/2009 at 02:13
Jorg Lueke
I’d like to comment on one key point in your post “Thousands of British metal detectorists revel in the “thrill” of holding a piece of the past in their hand, wretchedly ignorant of the fact that they certainly don’t and that the past is abstract and will inevitably have been diminished if the knowledge surrounding the object is not fully shared.”
The view that ever piece of information for every artifact should be preserved in perpetuity strikes me as a little odd. Statistics exist so we don’t have to keep track of data when the results are quite clear. Is the 10th or 100th or 1000th occurrence of a common coin really useful information? Is it more useful that the interest in history, art, archaeology, and sicence such an object can bring to adults and children alike? There is a sliding scale of the usefulness of each data point and that should be weighed against the other positive influences such objects can have. Or do you assume everyone who likes to hold old coins is simply wretchedly ignorant?
09/02/2009 at 08:10
Heritage Action
Jorg,
We did not suggest holding a coin is ignorant. We do maintain that the belief commonly expressed by detectorists that doing so is “holding a piece of the past” is mistaken. A coin is just a coin whereas the past is abstract, fragile and extends far beyond the coin. We certainly think detectorists that dig up ancient artefacts and fail to share every element of the circumstances with the rest of society are responsible for diminishing the past and are unquestionably ignorant.
You also say “The view that ever piece of information for every artifact should be preserved in perpetuity strikes me as a little odd.” No doubt, but the decision should not lie with the individual detectorist who has no right to pick and choose which parts of the public’s resource he shares with the public. The Portable Antiquities Scheme is very clear on the point – they wish to see all finds. The decision on which are then recorded can then quite rightly rest with them. It may be judged valuable, for instance, to record precise distribution data for quite common artefact since much may be learned about the past from that.
Hence, we believe that just as detectorists who don’t report finds are diminishing the past and exhibiting ignorance, so those who only report some of their finds are diminishing the past and exhibiting ignorance. And in both cases, selfishness.
09/02/2009 at 15:37
Jorg Lueke
I would tend to agree with you. Sharing the knowledge, if fairly painless, and having someone review the data and decide whether it is worth recording can be beneficial. I am concerned with some of the rhetoric out there that the information should not only be reported and potentially stored, but that the information remains foreever physically associated with that object. For common coins with uninteresting finds spots it doesn’t make a lot sense to keep physical paperwork tied to the coin indefinitely as it is sold and resold. The key there is collecting the information at the outset.
09/02/2009 at 16:16
heritageaction
“I would tend to agree with you. Sharing the knowledge, if fairly painless, and having someone review the data and decide whether it is worth recording can be beneficial. ”
But despite being both painless and beneficial, according to PAS data this does not happen in the majority of cases.
Hence, on the balance of probabilities, purchasing a British metal detected object is likely to be harmful and to involve a diminution of the record. As an absolute minimum, ensuring it has a PAS number would seem a reasonable first ethical yardstick to apply. As you say, perfectly painless and beneficial and hardly an onorous matter. That number could stay with the coin forever. It would not signify it was obtained legally or responsibly but at least that it was reported responsibly. It is surprising, to say the least, that even that simple precaution is not universally adopted by all US importers or written into their code of ethics. Can you thow light on the matter?
09/02/2009 at 18:05
Jorg Lueke
I suspect the reason importers don’t ask for a PAS number and pass it along is practical in nature. The PAS is voluntary, just because a coin isn’t registered doesn’t mean it is illicit. There are many coins unearthed and traded before PAS that will never have a number, again a large number of licit coins have nothing to do with being recorded in the PAS. Competition being what it is, it may be a losing business proposition to require proof far beyond any legal threshhold. Personally I would prefer to know the orgigin of a coin, but should I turn down a licit coin simply because it MAY have been unearthed recently and not reported. Do I necessarily assume that the dealer is guilty of anything unless he can prove innocence? Then you also have to weight the value of every point of data, much of it mundane, against the value of an open market. Do you regulate the market at some cost? Do you ban the market? Coins have value without the associated provenence, and not just financial value. Sometimes the provencene may be the most valuable piece other times it may be littlre more than noise, the 1000th verification of a fact we already knew. I don’t think you can come in with a one size fits all rule and have it work. I think it may be helpful to differentiate between coins and other artifacts.
I think there is a collaborative solution out there. I am not convinced that it would involve the buyers, I would hope the law could be enforced at the source.
Is there some concrete data on the amount of historical information lost each year? Is there any way to understand it’s relative worth?
10/02/2009 at 05:59
heritageaction
“Is there some concrete data on the amount of historical information lost each year? Is there any way to understand its relative worth?”
Well we can ask metal detectorists, and they will tell us that hardly any of them do anything illegal, irresponsible or unethical, much like their customers, the US dealers! The main pointer is the percentage of detectorists that PAS say report finds to them and how many finds they report – and then applying this data proportionately to the remaining detectorists. Plus, there have been other surveys, including by detectorists. Using all sources Heritage Action has constructed a model which seeks to answer your question http://www.heritageaction.org/?page=heritagealerts_metaldetectingartifacterosioncounter
Naturally detectorists say it is too high and even PAS (which has a corporate vested interest in claiming its own success) says it is only guesswork but neither of them has offered an alternative. Whether our estimate is right or wrong it does suggest the answer to how much data is being lost is – “an awful lot”.
As for your secondary question, what is the relative worth of this lost information, that is impossible to assess. But again, it can’t be all dismissed as mundane and repetitive, removing millions of items from the ground and not telling anyone must surely involve a hefty loss of cultural information relating to the objects, their distribution patterns and the archaeological contexts and sites they might have revealed.
We hope you will appreciate our sense of frustration in being told there are practical reasons why US dealers don’t adopt at least one very simple expedient – asking for a PAS number – since that would indisputably deprive British non-recorders of much of their market at a stroke and thus prevent much damage. Our frustration is heightened by the knowledge that there are no practical reasons for this omission and by your confirmation (rarely voiced elsewhere) that the real reason is commercial. British damage is being aided and abetted for American commercial gain because anything else is “a losing business proposition” as you put it.
And of course, the people that are choosing their own commercial gain over British damage reduction are the very ones that are banging on about what ethical dealers they are! If they can’t even act ethically towards Britain, the heritage protection regime of which they consider an exemplar, or fall in with the clear advice to purchasers by PAS, which they say is the best thing since sliced bread, what hope elsewhere? “Other countries should act like Britain” is their claim, but what’s the point when they are already providing a market for the artefacts dug up by irresponsible non-reporting detectorists here?
It’s the way of the world we fear. Money talks and money-makers talk of ethics!
10/02/2009 at 17:42
Jorg Lueke
I understand your frustration. There is knowledge being lost. There will always be some knowledge lost since there are always people who break the law. My view is that when you have an open situation more information is reported than in say Bulgaria. The PAS is voluntary but the Treasure Act does provide a legal means to punish people who do not report significant finds. If there is a lot of illegal detecting and violations of the law prosecutions should be sought and one would hope can be attained. The combination of enforcement and an open environment creates the best combination given all the interests involved. Yes, it’s not ideal but ethical ideals change from person to person. There are people who strongly believe in the market and the ethics of profit. The system you have may not be perfect, will never be perfect, but it is better than the system in Bulgaria. In countries with closed laws what do the people there get of cultural heritage? I would say a lot less than people of England and Wales. The Treasure act and PAS have found more sites and have collected information. The Bulgarian law has led to smuggling, probably melting and destruction of artifacts, and little to no knowledge.
11/02/2009 at 06:27
heritageaction
The laws of source countries are not what frustrates us most for in truth the supply side is not the true heart of the problem, it is the Demand, since the latter drives the former and could, given a willingness to act ethically, greatly disincentivise looters and irresponsible suppliers and reduce information loss – far more effectively than an army of policemen watching European fields.
Please be in no doubt however that in the British context the information loss which the US dealers’ reluctance to be “sure” is creating is not mainly related to looting or to Treasure items. It is the great bulk of items that are dug up legally but not reported that is the overwhelming body of the information loss.
You tell us our system is better than that in Bulgaria. On the above basis we find it hard to see why. But even more frustrating to us is the fact that both sets of information loss, in Bulgaria and Britain, are largely incentivised by the US Market and its anti-PAS insistence on “not being sure”. Whether it is a looter in Bulgaria or a non-reporting detectorist in Britain all that is required is a purchaser that doesn’t insist on being sure. You have many. And you have confirmed they are like that for personal financial reasons.
So please don’t kid us that the problem of looting and irresponsible detecting is not down to them or that those problems would not instantly shrink if they chose to conduct themselves in an ethical fashion. The mantra “collectors are the real looters” is indeed inaccurate, as many on your side of the argument contend. For us in Britain, to be truly accurate it should say “collectors are the true looters and (even more damagingly) the true irresponsible detectorists”.