Dear Friends,

     I have several books by Colin Lord Renfrew in my library, he is a world renowned scholar who deserves acclaim for his professional work. His work to preserve antiquities from being clandestinely being excavated and looted are commendable objectives but the real area for him to work in is in law enforcement at the local level where archaeological sites need to be protected.

     The word provenance as legally defined could be helpful to the collector if museums and knowledgeable university scholars would willingly provide authentication and provenance services to collectors. Unfortunately, they do not provide such services to the public, nor will any national government's bureaucracy provide such a service even if they have a department responsible for antiquities.

     To argue that only unprovenanced antiquities would be covered by either the UNESCO or Unidroit conventions is to argue that all antiquities should be confiscated.

     If Lord Renfrew would organize the professional scholars into a legally authorized group that could organize and provenance antiquities and antiques for proper certification and documentation, I could support what he is trying to do.  Such a program could be used to photograph and document as well as authenticate ALL such items in private hands. To avoid abuse, I would recommend that such certification and provenance not include any evaluation of market valuation unless the items are being donated to an institution, not for purposes of resale.

     For such a convention to work, a baseline of ownership must be established with present ownership grandfathered in as legal. If the aim is to stop the looting of national treasures that which is already in the commercial market must be amnestied with a grace period of ten years for collectors to visit Lord Renfrew's colleagues.  There must be a valuation cut off as well. Anybody know of a bureaucracy capable of accepting questions and making decisions on EVERY ancient coin ever minted in order to provide a certificate of some kind that would provide provenance to the owner and certify its authenticity? How about every arrowhead made by every culture from the Paleolithic through the 19th Century?

     A case in point: Egypt is an antiquities disaster waiting to happen. Because they claim ownership of every artifact that is excavated in Egypt they now have huge warehouses filled with millions of antiquities unworthy of display within the Cairo Museum but still of historical value to those who love Egyptian history and the artifacts produced there over the past 10,000 years. Remember that EVERY piece of pottery, ushabti, arrowhead, spearblade, amulet, stonecarving etc is still in existence somewhere. These warehouses are subject to all kinds of hazards over historical periods of time: Power failures, fires, earthquakes, floods (even in the desert there can be the once in a millennium storm, look at all the wadis!), theft, conquest (will the Sudanese invade Egypt in the year 2510? Does anyone remember the Mongol sack of Baghdad?), revolution (anybody remember the Byzantine Iconoclasts or the Florentine Savanarola?)

     We must remember that we who collect antiquities are only their temporary custodians, any laws enacted that discourages collecting will result in falling prices and growing museum collections over a long period of time. Those in the Universities and Museums may smile, this being their objective, but there will be a downside to this, there will be fewer informed novices willing to support their institutions, there will be less support for institutionally supported excavations, there will be a genera turning away from interest in supporting independent research and libraries.

    Worst of all, the Museums would have no market to raise cash for operations from the artifacts they sell in the commercial market. Does anybody really believe that auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's do not sell surplus items from their inventories that have been donated to them by their benefactor collectors?

    Now, for another serious problem. Universities, museums and governments do not have the facilities or personnel to properly care for billions of new artifacts that would be confiscated for their collections.  Egypt right now could spend $10 Billion to build buildings and hire personnel to just conserve and properly store the artifacts they have in those warehouses right now. Metal and pottery may last forever but the wood carvings, painted surfaces, papyrus scrolls, mummies, seed hordes and everything organic once removed from the ground will slowly start rotting away.

     Now, how will the Universities, Museums and Governments
treat the new treasures that come into their possession? Very few artifacts in their present collections are being conserved, photographed or published. Just try to get access to their basement storerooms and warehouses, it would be easier to get elected to Congress.  Museums do not publish their collections. When they do publish they cherry pick and publish only the best that they have, not 4000 spearheads 8,000 swords, 500,000 arrowheads, etc.  What will Italy do if the convention passes and they start getting Roman coins by the boatload from collections all over the earth? What security could they provide for 150 tons of gold solidi and aureii? how about 500 tons of denarii? 5000 tons of bronze and coppers? Can anyone visualize their publication? Who would support the armies of guards and cities of warehouses? In perpetuity? What Near Eastern country could survive the repatriation of ALL of their national heritage, whether looted, excavated by foreign museums or sold by their own countries in eras past?

     Right now I spend more on the conservation and storage of the artifacts in my collection than any museum could afford to spend on the equivalent amount of goods. The only museum that would be willing to display more than a few of my artifacts would be one that I would found and endow myself.

     The biggest disaster to befall the world's heritage would be if these do-gooders got their way and people actually obeyed the law. A serious program to forcibly confiscate collections would be a law enforcement catastrophe, many of us  have most of our net worth tied up in our collections. We might not all willingly tender them to the Antiquities Police willingly without compensation.  Has anyone offered to pay for anything so tendered if the artifact is found to be unprovenanced? Note that the seizing agent is not obligated to prove a crime was committed, only that the collector is in possession and therefore assumed to be guilty. The burden of proof has been transferred from the State to the Citizen.

     Can anybody who reads this email PROVE that he or she is not a witch. Could you do so if your burning was scheduled for next Thursday? A letter from God proving your purity would be accepted.

Best regards, John Piscopo