Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="Valentinian, post: 8162499, member: 44316"]Dr. Alan Walker of Nomos in Switzerland regularly sends out notifications of upcoming sales and results of recent sales. Sometimes he includes some thoughts about coin collecting. Here is what he wrote about "cultural heritage" in an email subscribers got today. All the rest of this post is a direct quote of his words, used with permission: "But seriously now, if you really want to feel low, you could start doing what I have been doing: that is, reading some of the many articles - books even - on the subject of heritage crime, which all almost invariably, in a hyperbolic way, pin all the blame for all losses of all archaeological and cultural 'treasures' in countries all over the world solely on Western European and Anglo-American art historians, collectors, dealers,  museums and tourists. It really is quite depressing. "Frankly, when the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property came into force in 1970 most thinking people thought it was quite a rational treaty. It provided a framework for preventing the loss of items, which were great masterpieces of artistic, cultural,  historic and literary importance for a nation's identity; or if already lost, for their return. While the primary reason for the convention was the anger of so many Third World nations at the losses they suffered while under colonial rule, many First World nations simply thought it was the right thing to do.  Especially since there were many prematurely woke scholars who had enjoyable frissons of righteous guilt (could they have flagellated themselves in private?) at the thought of the depredations their countries perpetrated  during the near past. But they weren't all wrong. "The theft of the Parthenon Marbles, ripped from a partially still standing building in the still inhabited city of Athens by the greedy Scottish Lord Elgin is probably the most egregious example. Though one should not forget that it was the Venetians who blew up the Parthenon in 1687 and then destroyed some of the marbles in an inept attempt to remove them.  Earlier still, it was again the Venetians who, because of their commercial greed, were directly responsible for the fall of Constantinople in 1204 and for both the subsequent destruction of incalculable amounts of cultural heritage, some going back to the 5th century BC, which had been preserved in Constantinople for centuries,  as well as for so drastically weakening the Byzantine State that it was completely unable to hold back the Ottoman advances into Europe. While Venice may well be the most beautiful city in the world, if it does sink below the waves, due either to governmental corruption or the pounding of hundreds of millions of tourist feet, the Greeks won't be that sorry. "But there were other great losses, like that of the then still standing Las Incantadas (Ladino for the "The Enchanted Ones" - Roman pillaster statues of the 2nd-3rd century) of Thessaloniki, ripped down by a Frenchman despite considerable local opposition in 1864 (they are now in various parts of the Louvre); or the barbaric looting and destruction of the Old Summer Palace in Peking in 1860 by a British (!) army under the command of the 8th Lord Elgin (!! - the subsequent Lord Elgins, the 9th-11th, went against the then family tradition and actively refrained from looting anything); or the destruction and looting of Benin City by a British (!) expedition in 1895. This resulted in the plunder of a vast number of bronzes, dating from the 14th through the earlier 19th centuries, that are among the most remarkable of all surviving sub-Saharan works of art (somewhat ironically the cost of their manufacture was met by the King of Benin's profits from the slave trade); they are now dispersed all over the world though the Nigerian government is trying to get them all back. Interesting enough, the commander of the British expedition to Benin - Sir Harry Rawson - was also the commander of the British forces who won the shortest war in history, the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 27 August 1896: it lasted precisely 38 minutes. "Basically, all those things stolen - yes, stolen -  including the Parthenon marbles, should go back. That is not because what happened was immoral or any other of the many reasons adduced today, but primarily because they were truly looted from inhabited buildings that were still in use; by people who really should have known better, and had a complete, even racist, contempt for the people they took them from. AND, EVEN MORE SO, ALL OF THESE ITEMS ARE OF MAJOR IMPORTANCE FOR THE COUNTRY FROM WHICH THEY COME. The Parthenon was the symbol of Athens since the year it was built, and Athens, because of its political, literary and educational importance, was the symbol of Greece. Las Incantadas had stood openly visible for some 1600 years, becoming one of the symbols of both the Greek city of Thessalonika, but also of the Hispano-Jewish majority city of Salonika, which had existed for over 300 years and whose majority Sephardic neighbourhoods surrounded those statues. The Old Summer Palace complex had been one of the chief centers of the Imperial Chinese government for over two centuries, and was arguably the most beautiful group of buildings in the whole country. That the British should have both pillaged it from top to bottom and then burnt it down should remind us of the actions of the Vandals, the Goths and the British who burnt down the first White House in Washington on 24 August 1814. Finally, the Benin bronzes had been on display since they were made, some several hundred years earlier, all the way up to 1895 when they were looted, and were truly a symbol of the power and continuity of that African kingdom; thus, they can rightly be seen as an inalienable symbol of present-day Nigeria. None of these items, the Parthenon Marbles, Las Incantadas, the Old Summer Palace art, and the Benin bronzes had ever been underground or otherwise lost to view, and they are, and were, enduring symbols of the cities and countries from which they came. Thus, they should go back. "They were not taken from abandoned sites in the middle of nowhere (like the Bassai frieze or the Nereid Monument), or from no longer visible sites (like the Pergamon Altar or the Assyrian/Babylonia winged bull men), nor were they found reused in some different way, which could have lost them forever (like the Rosetta Stone). How can any of those objects be rationally considered the symbol of a modern nation if they had been underground or lost for thousands of years? How can any rational person argue that the Euphronios/Sarpedon Krater is a vital part of Italy's heritage, or even more wildly, that it helps modern Italians know who they are, if it was made in Athens by Greek artists, sent in trade to ancient Etruria/Campania, and had not been seen by anyone, and, thus, was unable to influence anyone, for nearly 2400 years? This is all true for the vast, vast majority of all the items of cultural heritage in private and public collections all over the world; additionally, at the time the vast majority of them were taken, virtually none of the local people where they were found had any interest in them whatsoever. "Another major point is this, can anyone, anyone, provide a rational reason for insisting that ancient, medieval or early modern coins belong solely to the modern country where they were made (in the past) or found (in the present)? Do all the silver tetradrachms struck in the mint of Athens from the later 6th through the 1st centuries BC belong in Greece, no matter where they were found? Are they part of the heritage of a modern country like Egypt, which in ancient times used them either as bullion or for foreign trade (in the same way they used British sovereigns in the 19th and 20th centuries)? Of course, coins found in archaeological excavations, whether long term or emergency, belong where they were found, regardless of where they were minted, since they were there, and often in use, in ancient times; but if the coins, for whatever reason, have lost their archaeological context, and often even their exact findspot, all they are are coins. Such coins can be of historical or art historical interest, they  can be intriguing, they can be attractive (or not), and they can be collectable (or not), but their archaeological importance can, at most, only be peripheral; in fact, in many cases that importance is basically nonexistent. "Finally, the favourite reason given by the heritage advocates for insisting that all manner of objects (in some cases virtually everything made by human beings dating from as early as 100 years ago all the way back to the Palaeolithic and beyond, plus fossils as well as, in several Turkish cases, ordinary rocks and beach sand), have to remain in the county where they were made/found is that they help the modern people "know who they are." Think about that. Logically that seems to mean that Athenian tetradrachms of the 5th century BC help modern Greeks know who they are (have you ever known a Greek who doesn't know who he or she is?); or that modern French people need silver drachms of Massalia, gold staters of the Parisi or gold tremisses of Dagobert I to know who they are; such eminently French people as Nicolas Sarkozy, Christiane Taubira, Teddy Riner, Omar Sy, MC Solaar or Surya Bonaly need them to know who they are? Or that any modern Turkish people need any of the Greek, Roman, Byzantine or Armenian coins minted in Anatolia to know who they are?"[/QUOTE]

Create my FREE Account!

Log in or Sign up

Reply to Thread

Useful Searches