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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Hrefn, post: 8131902, member: 115171&quot;]I think we agree more than we disagree.&nbsp; I would only say that governments have not been consistent good custodians of the treasures of the past, and this has been true for centuries.&nbsp; The Protestant revolution in England destroyed an immeasurable amount of Catholic art, sculpture, and illuminated manuscripts as a matter of government policy.&nbsp; The French Revolution resulted in the destruction and desecration of cathedrals and monasteries as a matter of government policy.&nbsp; The USSR sold off marketable treasures to men like Armand Hammer for ready cash, as well as blowing up historic churches and cathedrals.&nbsp; The US government melted almost every gold coin it could get its hands on during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency.&nbsp; &nbsp; China’s cultural revolution was not interested in preserving the past, but obliterating it.&nbsp; Saudi Arabia has reportedly&nbsp; bulldozed 90% of Mecca’s cultural heritage in the past 3 decades, and not relics of some forgotten pre-Islamic history but its own Moslem heritage.&nbsp; Other Islamic regimes have only recently destroyed the Arch at Palmyra and the Bamiyan Buddhas, again as a matter of deliberate policy.</p><p>The reverence for the past one could expect from a contemporary educated archeologist (or numismatist) from Tokyo or Stockholm is not a universal attitude among people, even people who exercise governmental power.&nbsp; Destruction of the past has been a frequent objective of government throughout the world.&nbsp; Those coins and treasures which have escaped destruction have sometimes done so because they avoided government attention, rather than benefitted from it.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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