Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 126)
THURSDAY 13 APRIL 2000
DR PETER
ADDYMAN, PROFESSOR
NORMAN PALMER
AND MR
DAI MORGAN
EVANS
120 But they never tell you what you are meant
to do when you find the find.
(Mr Morgan Evans) I suppose we should
then ask Mick Aston and others to be more explicit about that.
They are bringing in museum curators and others to talk and assess
that.
(Dr Addyman) The team is very sensitive to this sort
of comment and I am sure they will pick up what you have said
today.
(Mr Morgan Evans) I will ring Mick Aston at lunchtime
and let him know.
121 Could we have a little rider at the bottom,
a health warning?
(Dr Addyman) Can I add a little bit on
the metal detecting clubs. The Government's Portable Antiquities
Scheme, which involves recording of antiquities found by metal
detectorists, is having a tremendous effect in correcting that
part of your question. We now have finds liaison officers in a
number of counties who make it their business to go to metal detectorists,
metal detectorists' clubs and places where they meet, and offer
the facility of identification and recording of artefacts. The
second annual report which Alan Howarth published only a week
or two ago demonstrates the tremendous success of the scheme in
recovering information but also demonstrates the way in which
this particular approach is penetrating metal detectorists. Nine
hundred separate metal detectorists contributed to that report,
which means that the message is certainly getting through. This
process of creating a climate of opinion in which people know
what is the right thing to do is being achieved. Archaeologists
do not want to have the objects in this case, they just want to
have the information. It is the same really with the archaeological
sites that are being ravaged here and abroad. Archaeologists want
the information from it, they do not want the things. They want
the data so that it can become part of human knowledge.
122 Do you think if we can put it into the national
curriculum and we have some health warning on the Time Team
programme, we keep in touch with metal detector associations and
we extend the Portable Antiquities Scheme, it is going to have
any effect on driving down the illicit trade in the UK?
(Mr Morgan Evans) I think there will
always be the exceptions. A major problem is the professional
looter of sites. Like anything else it is going to be very, very
hard to crack down on the person who is really going to do things.
I would have thought that all of these things could change. I
would cite the birds eggs and butterfly collections. People still
collect birds eggs, there are very few of them, but it is unacceptable.
Not just because it is bad but because people have come to appreciate
the thing more. In other words, take the Time Team, I would
not like them to put a health warning, I would like them to go
into the museums and carry on and people can then see the rest
of the process. To be fair, not to give Time Team all the
exposure, but in Meet the Ancestors, Julian Richards, the
opening of the Spitalfields' lead coffin, the way that went through
into the museum and the fact you could see it took you through.
So it is not only the thrill of the unexpected discovery but it
is what you get out of it and then seeing it in context. In that
case it is one of those objects that can be widely available to
the public.
Mrs Golding
123 Lord Renfrew was very hard on the inaction
of the British Government but I have not heard anything about
the actions of archaeologists in getting together with perhaps
the legal departments of other countries and putting forward a
scheme that could be linked internationally to try to stop this
trade. Has it been done?
(Dr Addyman) Lord Renfrew perhaps should
have mentioned an initiative of his own institute in Cambridge
which was to convene a conference last year bringing together
the chief archaeologists concerned with the looting issue. There
may have been 40 countries there. The outcome of the conference
was steps to set up an international conference of the kind that
we represent between us here, the British version, trying to take
our model and use it to bring minds together from all around the
globe to see whether some kind of concerted action can be taken
that will improve the matter on an international scale. Yes, there
are moves there and moves in international fora on the legislative
front. UNESCO, for example, has been promoting this series of
conventions for long enough.
124 Are there reports on these conferences? It
might be useful to have them.
(Professor Palmer) There is certainly
material to which one can have access. The first thing I would
mention is the international and, indeed, national museum codes.
Not only archaeologists but museologists have got together and
devised principles which define those objects which they will
not acquire and the circumstances in which they will only acquire
other particular objects. This has been a step ahead. For example,
compliance with the Museums Association's code of practice is
a requirement of registration which is in turn a requirement of
funding. These have been effective. There are other international
schemes, such as the Mauritius Scheme for Commonwealth countries,
and there has been quite a lot of activity. UNESCO is always promoting
the international restitution of objects but it is worth emphasising
here that restitution in the archaeological field is a very poor
second to prevention. I think that is where there is a limit to
what archaeologists, all people other than governments, can do.
Something which has not really been mentioned so far is the need
for point of entry control if there is to be an effective control
over the honourable trade as well as dishonourable.[13]
This is a factor which I think is neglected which is specified
in Article 7(b)(i) (and see further Article 7 (a)) of the UNESCO
Convention. In other words, it is not enough simply to say "if
something comes here, we will give it back to you", what
you need to do is to suffocate the illicit trade by making sure
that there is nowhere where it can go. The theory is that you
do this by enacting provisions which say that this country will
not allow in something which has been illegally excavated. In
effect that is what the United States has done[14]
and that was shown recently in the Steinhardt case involving the
Sicilian gold platter which was seized by customs officers and
forfeited after it had been taken illegally out of Italy.[15]
The customs declaration stated its origin as Switzerland and it
was not true, so there was an importation contrary to law under
the customs legislation there. It was also held to have been stolen
from Italy and that is a further offence, to knowingly import
stolen objects. That is another way of doing it. Rather than saying
to other countries in the world "you give us our stuff back
and we will give you back yours", you just say "it cannot
come in here", it will be cast into outer darkness.
125 But you are never going to stop it completely.
(Professor Palmer) I do not suggest that
for a moment. What I suggest is that if you are going to do anything
remotely effective you should look critically at that sort of
provision and that would mean re-evaluating the UNESCO Convention.
126 Have you put forward ideas for altering the
laws in other countries?
(Professor Palmer) If you make the law
uniform, which I suppose is what the UNIDROIT Convention purports
to do, for all its faults, then it would not make any difference
where you took it and sold it because the same long arm would
apply wherever it was. If you make the laws uniform on not letting
things in then again it would not matter where you took it because
you could not take it anywhere.
Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much
indeed.
13 Note by Witness: One reason for policing
the legitimate trade is that it needs (and is entitled to) protection
against the innocent reception and dissemination of unlawfully-removed
cultural objects which may enter the legitimate market and lead
to the infliction of legal liability (under the tort of conversion
or under the Sale of Goods Act 1979 section 12) on the part of
those who transact in them. Back
14
Note by Witness: In a series of bilateral agreements with
prescribed States whose heritage is under threat, these agreements
being made pursuant to the United States' partial adoption of
the UNESCO Convention: for example, the Bilateral Agreement on
Archaeological and Ethnological Material from Canada, U.S. Federal
Register Notice, 22 April 1997, 62(77): 19488-19492; the Bilateral
Agreement on Pre-Hispanic Archaeological Materials from El Salvador,
U.S. Federal Register Notice, 10 March 1995, 60(47): 13352-13361;
the Bilateral Agreement on Archaeological Material from the Region
of the Niger River Valley and the Bandiagara Escarpment (Mali),
U.S. Federal Register Notice, 23 September 1997, 62(184): 49594-49597. Back
15
Note by Witness: United States v An Antique Platter
of Gold 991 F. Supp. 222 (U.S. Federal District Court for
the Southern District of New York); decision upheld and reasoning
substantially affirmed 184 F. 3d 131 (2nd Cir. 1999) (U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Second Circuit). Back
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