Earlier this week I reported on one cultural property commentator citing a five year old story as contemporary news. (I checked again today: it still gives the story issue date as 11 July 2008 and there is no hint that it is out of date; see further comments by Paul Barford.)Now another dated story is doing the rounds. I spotted it on Derek Fincham's usually reliable "Illicit Cultural Property". He says:
these repatriations and cooperation may be a very good thing, however the real test of these efforts remains how well sites are protected, and whether there remains a workable heritage management policy in these nations. Recent news out of Greece suggests they are not. It seems last month the Greek parliament has taken a step last month to allow divers to access the entirety of the Greek coastline. This would be very good for tourism, but how are the objects these divers find going to be managed or educated? How will sites be affected?The link to recent news takes you to a story on Divemaster News, "Greek Sea Looted by Divers" (9 July 2008). This new policy concerning Greek did not take place "last month" (i.e. June 2008); it was covered in a story, Helena Smith, "Greece's seas: the looters' next destination", The Guardian, December 6, 2005.
It looks as if a whole bunch of 2005 stories are surfacing in news readers: commentators beware!
Image
Spanish wreck off Zakynthos from The Guardian.
1 comment:
David-
For a second time, I would again request that you provide a direct link to my blog if you are going to comment on it:
http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2008/07/bbc-report-on-exaggerated-looting-of.html
I will also direct your attention to the very first sentence of that blog entry:
"This showed up on list serves yesterday, though Donnie George and Patty Gerstenblith have indicated on the IraqCrisis List that this is recycled news."
Enough said.
Sincerely,
Peter Tompa
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