We often read on anti-collector blogs a passionate plea or exasperated chest thumping concerning issues of regulation and/or the need to implement some new law or regulation.
What is often “overlooked” is that more often then not, many of the examples highlighted show how the effective enforcement of existing laws and reasonable and responsible stewardship by museums and governmental agencies has led in some cases to the recovery of stolen or looted material. In fact, recent events are proof that existing laws are not only adequate, but in some cases they have been abused to the detriment of of the rights of individuals involved.
Do we need more laws? Or should we demand that institutions take responsibility and ensure that something as basic as having all of their holdings photographed and catalogued so that in the event of a theft they could be readily identified?
The call to force ALL antiquities to need documentation is the equivalent of requiring that every skateboard, pair of skates and even your childs go-cart be registered. Allow me to explain:
Currently, most countries require that automobiles be registered. But what would you say if you were told that every OTHER form of transporation also had to be registered and titles of ownership established? This is exactly the case with portable antiquities. Most coins are worth LESS than a pair of of skates or a skateboard, some are worth considerably less, yet the anti-collecting zealots are quite vocal in proposing just such measures. How ubsurb is it to ask the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of owners of objects older than 100 years to properly document and “register” their holdings in the name of preventing their theft? (When in reality the purpose behind such laws is to devalue existing collections and make all existing antiquities in private hands “illicit”.)
The world illicit is also used quite liberally. In fact, the greater majority of unprovenanced antiquities and coins are NOT illicit. But they would become so if such laws were passed.
We read taunts that American’s do not understand, because it is not their cultural property (whatever that means, last time I checked my ancestry was Spaniard and I have many American friends that are quite proud of their European ancestry) or similar reasoning. The concept of innocent until proven guilty is ingrained in the American psyche. To force the innocent to go through greater expense or trouble because of the bad behavior of the few goes against the very principles that shaped the current understanding of freedom and equality of much of the “free world” and go against the principles which millions fought and died to establish and defend.
