Chalkis Hoard

Elefinoras - Actually - I am part Native American - I have ancestry in two different tribal groups from New England. I inherited a piece of land that contained the tribal burial ground for one of those tribes. The land had been in my family (on the Indian side) since BEFORE the European settlers arrived in 1620. The European settlers bought it in 1660 and the purchaser's son (my 9th great grandfather) married the seller's (Indian) daughter(she was my 9th Great Grandmother). I lived on that same property my whole life until I sold the property and retired to North Carolina. I was the 12th generation on the "white" side and the last survivor of that lineage.

As a kid we plowed up numerous stone artifacts and sometimes BONE FRAGMENTS. My Uncle had a big collection of stone tools and arrow heads and I have quite a few in my present home. Whenever, we dug a hole to plant a tree or to put in a fence we had a decent chance of digging up an ancestor. We always put the bones back but kept the stone tools. That was how my grandfather wanted it done. One time the City dug up a skull and some long bones while digging a water line near our home. They thought they had a crime scene until my grandfather contacted the authorities and informed them of the graves. They did their studies dated the graves to pre-colonial and returned the bones.

In the early 1950 several acres of our farm was professionally excavated by the state. The uncovered a small village. The dug trenches across a 4 acre section and removed everything they found. My grandfather gave permission for that excavation.

When I was in High School, I discovered a large number of stone mounds on different unused part of the property near an old well site which we knew was colonial. My father had the site evaluated by another professional archaeologist because he owned the land by that time. The archaeologist said it was a large burial ground and dated the oldest parts of the grave site to about 400 BC. But he said that some of the artifacts clearly dated to late woodland 600 AD and some were as recent as colonial. He said the law at the time (1957) only provided for not intentionally disturbing and looting the graves themselves. Surface finds and those uncovered in the normal operation of the farm were OF NO INTEREST to the government. We could do whatever we wanted with them.

I inherited it from my father and raised my family there. When I sold the property, I sold it complete with whatever artifacts were still there. I do believe that I owned everything there when I owned the land and I believe the present owners have the same rights now.

So, to answer your last point regarding how I would feel if it was my own history. Exactly the same way that I do. As long as the stone tools are under the ground no one knows or cares they are there. So if the new owner digs one up IT IS HIS. I have no claim and my family has NO CLAIM. The law provides protection for the graves and that is OK. It made the land less valuable but that is just the way it was.

DVCollector You made a couple excellent points - context is everything for an artifact. The part of the family farm that was professionally excavated in the early 1950s - the village site - provided all the information it could. The graves remained in place.

I had not though of a hoard of coins as
but that is what they are. I guess that was my orignal point. A coin is money and has little inherent information to provide. Dating an excavation perhaps but little else tells a story about who carried it.

This is why this kind of thread gives birth to extreme neo-fascist nonsense.

There would have been tourists for a long time, travelling to Greece and buy a couple of coins for souvenirs. From the gist of this, it seems that a few hundred years later, my future grandchildren would be hated by people like you for taking a couple of souvenirs from the country simply because you feel like it. That's a really convenient way to claim things for free.

Thanks for letting me know - now I know that Greece is not a tourist friendly country and I should take my money somewhere else.

Here are two possibilities that you refuse to acknowledge or just couldn't possibly think because of your current outrage.

1) The idea of tourism is not new. Tourism exist for hundreds of years if not thousands and there would have been "artifacts" taken out of the country many hundreds of years ago. You are talking about coins - not something like a mummy or a historical scroll. Greece is one of the earliest civilization and I'm not suprised that there would have been a lot of trading back then. The purpose of coins is to circulate and merchants / tourists / pilgrims / anyone would have some kept from their travels. Thousands of years later, if I happen to own one such coin passed down from my ancestors / friends, I'm called a thief. Right.

2) Can you guarantee that every single Greek in history is a patriot and will not sell any of their Greek treasures abroad? Can you be absolutely sure that it was not a Greek that robbed Greek treasures and sold them because he needed the money or he was plain greedy? If you can demonstrate that no Greek, not even one has done this over the past thousands of years, I will drop this scenario.

Just a note - you drop by a forum and plainly blast your beliefs on everyone. Is that what respect is in the UK? I never knew.

2 separate issues here:

1. The hoard that was found in Greece and ended up mostly elsewhere. According to what has been stated by Sap about the law there, this incident was illegal and should have been stopped. That it was not, is what sounds like initially prompted the OP's questions. Sounds like a law may have been broken, and if so, it was wrong. Laws are Laws... their roof, their rule.

2. Greek coins being sold/traded/collected elsewhere.

As previously stated, coins are for commerce - their specific purpose is to circulate and go places. They know no borders. They travel(ed) with the people when they traveled/moved/went to war/bought things. They end up all over the world. All coins in history have done this and they will keep doing it until coins and currency give way to a World Credit Chip implanted in our thumb.

Specifically about Americans.. most immigrated from somewhere and brought their coins with them - whether they were from Great Britain, Poland, or Greece. It's our history, and our heritage, too.

And as numismatists, we are ALL custodians of history in our own way - we learn about the coins we have, find, or acquire, appreciate the history behind them that brought them into being, and protect them for future generations. From the knowledge we gain, we also grow to appreciate not only our ancestors but other countries as well - their history, their wars and times of peace, their way of life.




Hmm.. yes, respect is a well-understood concept around here. Usually. Either you enjoy making argumentative statements to retards, or that was just thrown in there because of your anger. I would prefer to think it was the latter.




Take a deep breath. That's not what was said.



On another note..
Swamperbob - wow! What a great place to grow up. I'd have loved to have been so attached to my heritage, and known that my ancestors waaaay back had lived right there, too.

LOL, now that the OPs ranting has been proven to be spurious since the coins is question are not Greek but instead Venetian, I wonder if he will be back and rescind some of the inflammatory comments made?

As far as the OP's original problem is concerned, the country of origin of the coins is irrelevant. The Greek law, which has been in place since 1950, is clear: anything older than 1820 is a protected artefact, whether "Greek in origin" or not. The fact remains that these coins were pre-1820 artefacts buried on Greek soil, and exporting them from Greece was a crime (in Greece).

But as far as tracking down the smugglers is concerned, I think any efforts today will be futile. The deed was done in the "late 1970's"; it's quite possible the perpetrators are dead by now, and if so, they'd have taken their secret to the grave. Unlike counterfeiters, smugglers aren't generally proud of their work and don't go around bragging about it to their heirs.

If the Greek government wants to waste it's resources trying to track down a 30 year old smuggling outfit, good luck to them. I personally think those resources could be better spent on tracking down current smugglers, but then, I'm not a Greek taxpayer, so my opinion is irrelevant.

So, should owners of "Chalkis hoard" coins feel guilty? I wouldn't think so - it's way too late to do anything about it. If Greece wants their coins back, they can pay full market price for them, when they come up for sale (FORVM currently has 19 of 'em for sale at prices ranging from $60 to $28 each); if they want "compensation" they should extract it from the smugglers, if they're ever found.

As you can see, this topic started as a conversation about the hoard. Later on the discussion went to the matter of other ancient artefacts. So, I am not saying that the hoard coins were ancient. However they minted in Venice, their purpose was to serve activities of the Greek market and be used by Greece. Also according the law those coins should stayed in Greece, is very simple actually.

I have no internet connection those days and so I cannot really answer to all the posts. See you again in few days.

Whether their law is right is not for me to judge; I'm not subject to their laws. I own about 50 "Greek" coins, 4 of which come from cities currently within Greek territory; I also own 2 mediaeval Greek coins. Like Swamperbob, I too have no idea of their provenance; it's reasonable to assume most if not all of them were illegally smuggled out of the country. If the Greek government wishes to reappropriate coins I currently own (like the one in my avatar, from Rhodes), they'll have to do it within the confines of Australian law - unless I were to be so foolish as to take some of my ancient coins with me on a visit to Greece.

I'm all in favour of "just compensation". The problem in Greece is, they're a poor country with a vast number of artefacts, and simply can't afford to pay everyone for "their" artefacts in the same way a richer country (like Britain) can. The Greeks have gotten around this problem by simply forbidding private ownership of anything pre-1820. If by law they were never yours to begin with, they don't have to compensate you for taking them away from you.

Greece is a democracy; if the majority of people didn't like the laws, they'd vote for people who would change them. I can only assume most of the people there do in fact like them, because these laws make doing everyday things like constructing roads and buildings far more complicated and tedious than they would otherwise be. Certainly none of the major parties in Greece at the moment have changing these laws as a party policy; the left-wing socialist parties would be opposed to expanding private ownership of things on principle, and the right-wing nationalist parties would say "Greece belongs to the Greeks".

And if you in America think it can't happen to you, check out this thread - successful lobbying from the Cypriot government (which is ethnically Greek and has a similar attitude to antiquities as Greece) recently saw laws in the US passed which ban the importation of coins from Cyprus, whether the person importing them has clear legal ownership of the coins or not. Until and unless this matter is resolved, don't try to import or export coins you own which originally came from ancient Cyprus to or from America.