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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 3273095, member: 93416&quot;]Traditionally there has been a great deal of co-operation between museums and collectors, all to the good of our general understanding of the past.&nbsp; But to a large extent, that was because numismatic museum staff were themselves recruited from private collectors.&nbsp; Increasingly they are recruited from academically trained archaeologists.&nbsp; This is leading to a bunch of problems, to do with over-specialisation/lack of a general overview, also a tenancy to dismissive, condescending and even hostile attitudes to collectors.</p><p><br /></p><p>By chance I can illustrate some aspects of this from your own photo Curtisimo.&nbsp; Take a look at items 10 and 11 in your photo (below). To the casual observer I suppose from the context they would be taken to be early Roman republican weights? But if the captions are correct – they are massively overweight, with an ounce up at about 29g. Now we have texts from just after 600 AD suggesting that in late Roman times there were two pounds – the well known one of 72 solidi (96 denarii), and a heavy one of 75 solidi (100 denarii). But even that is not high enough.</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyhow – when I visited that museum myself I spotted the problem and found the young lady who had the job of explaining exhibits to visitors – and asked her for guidance (Are the captions correct?, Where did the weights come from? etc.) She was very pleasant – but we immediately hit a catch-22 problem. It seemed to me she was saying the only person who could be allowed to comment on such an important problem was the museum director himself. But at the same time, the museum director was far too important to be disturbed………………..</p><p><br /></p><p>These are complex matters. There are questions to be addressed about the workload and indeed pay scales these days at big museums. Also maybe about a sort of celebrity culture creeping into rather politicised selection procedures for the panels of trustees. All very complicated. But it all seems to add up to the knowledgeable amateur being edged out, and that seems to me, a bad thing.</p><p><br /></p><p>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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