Does Collecting Cause Looting? The Renfrew Hypothesis
- From: "Dave Welsh" <dwelsh46@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 14:54:43 -0800
Your position is one often taken by archaeologists and others who have not
made a real study of the looting problem. It is what I have described as the
"Renfrew Hypothesis"
[
http://classicalcoins.blogspot.com/2008/09/renfrews-hypothesis-are-collectors-real.html ]
..
The huge (and key) omission in Renfrew's mistaken hypothesis is that it
fails to recognize that collectors are not the only ones who will buy looted
objects. There are many other uses to which looted coins, for example, have
been put over the centuries. Souks and bazaars of the Middle East and
Central and Southern Asia are full of coins of all sorts, ancient, antique
and modern, which are sold for a wide variety of purposes including being
sewn into bridal dowry displays. This has been going on since time
immemorial, long before anyone ever thought of collecting coins or other
artifacts. Not all of those ancient coins are looted. No one knows their
origin, and some of them have passed from hand to hand (and from treasure
box to treasure box) ever since they were struck.
Robbing tombs, monuments and stealing just about anything else that is
unguarded has been a tradition among nomads for longer than anyone can
remember. In Arab nations the Bedouin carry on this tradition and in Europe,
Gypsies are often blamed by the local population for stealing anything that
is left unwatched for a moment.
Give a moment's thought to tomb robbing. That was happening in Egypt in the
earliest days of recorded history, when no one collected antiquities and
when the penalty for being caught was a speedy and unpleasant death - under
circumstances which Egyptians believed would result in terrible penalties in
the afterlife, their equivalent of going to hell in the beliefs of our
present day religions. Tomb robbing and theft of anything movable from
unguarded monuments has always been a major problem.
In the US there is no market for old coins found laying about on or near the
surface of the ground, because only collectors would be willing to pay for
them. But that is not true in most antiquities source states. There are many
areas in which ancient coins are so common in the soil that farmers turn up
significant numbers of them in tilling their fields - periodically taking
them to their local market to sell to a junk dealer or metalsmith.
Throughout the Middle East it seems that every local marketplace has its
metalsmith, who buys metal objects for use in making various things ranging
from jewelry to more useful household articles. In England such metalsmiths
were called "tinkers" in the days of Robin Hood, and "whitesmiths" later
when they specialized in making and repairing pots and pans. We aren't used
to that craft today, because this traditional local industry no longer
exists in most developed nations - although a few blacksmiths can still be
found. In undeveloped nations per capita income is so low that the metal
value of a few pounds of bronze coins can be more than a week's income for a
typical villager.
Finally, few archaeologists realize that serious collectors are only
interested in coins that are rare (and unlikely to be found laying around)
or in excellent condition. Serious collectors are not likely to desire the
wretched "uncleaned coins" you can find listed on eBay. Take a look at some
of those listings, e.g. http://tinyurl.com/c3kfb7 . Does that image depict
coins an experienced collector would be interested in? Does the language in
the listing suggest that it was written to impress experienced collectors?
Very few "ground finds" dug up by farmers tilling their fields or
archaeologists excavating an inhabited site are found in collectible
condition. Collectible coins are nearly always found within intact
containers or in the interior of "concretion masses" that formed when a
large group of coins was exposed to the soil - as normally happens when a
bag rotted away leaving the coins still tightly grouped together. An
example: http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/coin/index.html . Groups
of coins in containers (surviving or not) were not lost or discarded, they
were intentionally buried or concealed. That was very rarely done in the
vicinity of other human activities. The vast majority of such treasure
troves (coin hoards) are discovered in out of the way places - such as
farmers' fields. Such hoards are rarely buried at a depth of more than a
meter, and in tilled ground they are quite likely to be disturbed by
plowing. They are easily and quickly excavated, once discovered.
Statistics from the British PAS demonstrate that only a miniscule fraction
(less than 5%) of reported coin discoveries are made in the course of
archaeological excavations. Those who go out with metal detectors looking
for coins do not expect to make significant excavations, and do not
intentionally look in areas where people formerly lived. They seek out
tilled ground where "coin scatters" can be found near the surface, that have
been carried away from a hoard locus by plowing (in much the same manner as
gold nuggets are washed down by erosion from a mother lode). As miners trace
the mother lode from its nuggets, detectorists sweep fields to home in on
hoards from their coin scatters.
Dave Welsh
dwelsh46@xxxxxxx
"Bruce Remick" <remick@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:_fhil.3377$ml6.343@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
thus
"Dave Welsh" <dwelsh46@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:jEcil.89$Ls4.64@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Those coins we collect are often excellent diagnostic artifacts and
everyonesometimes have a value that is different from the one applied by the
marketplace. Of course, once they've been studied, unless there is an
especially strong reason to keep them back they can very well go to the
market.
Of course all this is just, like, MY opinion, maaan.
If everyone thought that way, there wouldn't be any conflict. But
collecting,does not think that way.
For some insights into the radical archaeologists' position on
http://classicalcoins.blogspot.com/2008/09/renfrews-hypothesis-are-collectors-real.htmlsee:
http://www.savingantiquities.org/
http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/
http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/
until
The position taken by Renfrew and his disciples seems rational only
one digs below the surface - then it becomes apparent that there is no
scientific basis for the assertion that the collecting market causes
looting
of archaeological sites. There is, however, verifiable evidence that
collecting does not cause looting.
Never? I could certainly see how an association could be made. It wouldbe
akin to saying that there is verifiable evidence that the US drug marketotherwise.
does not cause the rise of Mexican drug cartels. Some may argue
Maybe it's semantics. Anyway, it appears to me that if there were nomuseum
or private collector market there would be little incentive for anyone to
loot archaelogical sites.
.
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