The museum's code of ethics is, above all,
intended to help museum professionals to resolve operational and management problems that they face day in, day out.
I'm quoting from their introduction, which is to say that it is essentially a practical rather than a rigorously, philosophically based code.
As an example of what seems to me somewhat loose drafting, I might cite, for example, paragraphs 711, which I have passed.
There is a copy in the audience somewhere, so sort of possum around when you've had a had a brief look at it.
Paragraph 711, for example, calls on museums to uphold and comply with conditions set by benefactors and accepted by the museum.
Unless changed, circumstances mean that conditions need to be reconsidered in the light of what is generally held to be in the public interest.
It seems to me that that leaves quite a lot of leeway and it also leaves a great deal of matter for potential discussion,
particularly about the nature of the public interest.
And so it seems that we're although it's called a code of ethics, we are actually looking at a code of practice.
And as I will go on to argue, it seems to me that this is not the only time when the when the use of words is.
A little bit loose. The code actually says at one point quite explicitly the spirit of the code is as important as the letter.
And again, I imagine that lawyers, philosophers can have a lot of fun with that.
This is not to say that the that the code is it is without considerable use for museum professionals.
One particularly important tip, which I would invoke now, is that we are encouraged to museum staff,
are encouraged to avoid being seen as representing the museum if speaking personally.
And that is advice which I take very much to heart and put into practice.
Now it's important to distinguish my personal opinions from those of the Ashmolean or indeed from those at the University of Oxford.
So what I am saying comes with no, no authority, whatever.
These are merely the random. The random thoughts of an ageing museum curator.
Now, while I point out some of the problems, which it seems to me relate to this Museums Association code,
it's important for me to emphasise that the Ashmolean, like all United Kingdom museums, obeys this code with the utmost care.
For reasons which will become. Which will become apparent.
And mostly I agree wholeheartedly with the code,
though I have to say that others may disagree with elements which are not necessarily the elements that I am inclined to take issue with.
For example,
there is an injunction in the code which calls on us to develop and promote the museum to appeal to an ever broader and more varied audience.
Now, this is something I agree with completely. It's very much one of the drivers of the recent redevelopment of the of the ASHMOLEAN.
But I have to say, in the course of the redevelopment of the ASHMOLEAN and subsequently,
it has been made painfully obvious to us that there are various people within the University who are deeply distressed
that the ASHMOLEAN should open its doors and arrange its displays with a view to attracting a wider audience.
They would much rather that we concentrated our displays and all our efforts on serving the needs of the university's teachers and students.
And there's a clear conflict here.
I believe that it's a conflict which the museum has been able to resolve because we take the view that in the galleries,
in the main areas of display, we are very definitely attempting to broaden our appeal and reach an ever wider and more varied audience.
However, in the study rooms, which are in the new building arranged next door to the to the stores.
These are available for the university's staff, teachers and students and indeed to members of the general public on application.
So you have only the university staff have only to mention to us that they would like to bring a class in to look at a particular series of objects.
And not only do they get to. Examined them much more closely.
They can handle alone. They can pick them up, they can pass them around,
they can talk about them and they can ask for specifically what they want rather than having to rely on what happens to be on display.
So my own feeling is that this is a very successful way of squaring this particular
circle of dealing with this this potential conflict between the requirements of the.
The University and the possible wishes of a much larger audience.
And so far, I'm happy to say that we do seem to be attracting a much larger audience than we've ever had before.
Partly, of course, I'm sure this is about publicity. It's been in the news and so people are aware of it.
But I'm also confident that more people are coming back on repeat visits because they enjoyed their previous visits.
That used to be the case.
As I say, this particular policy is very much in line with the museum's code of ethics as the one that I have circulated to you,
and I think I probably haven't explained which I should have done that this code of ethics is produced by the Museums Association,
which is the professional body which the government now I never used to,
but the government does use to govern and to govern the profession as a whole.
So it comes with a fair degree of authority. And in this particular case, I'm very happy with what it says.
I'm not entirely sure that every professor in the university is. However.
The code also requires me to promote this code of ethics for museums.
Apparently, even when I disagree with it, I'm obliged by the code, on the other hand, to promote diversity of views and interpretation of objects.
But it would seem I am not obliged to promote diversity of views in interpreting the code.
There is clearly a degree of inconsistency here, which I don't think is likely to trouble Miele or anybody else.
But it's worth noting in passing.
And certainly anybody, I think working in a in a museum would hesitate in a university,
and a university would hesitate to accept an obligation to promote views that they disagree with.
Nonetheless, it seems that's what we are required to do by the Museums Association Code and by extension by the British Government and indeed any.
A number of central and central government funds which the museum receives are dependent on our signing up to the Museums Association Code of Ethics.
Which includes the requirement to promote that code.
I like to think.
You'll have to tell me if I can get away with this, that I am indeed promoting the code by inviting a more detailed examination and discussion of it.
Can I get away with it? Well, we'll see.
In short, I have very little doubt that a lawyer or indeed a philosopher would rip the code of ethics from museums to shreds in pretty short order.
But it does try to be a practical guide to museum staff and to governing bodies through various potential minefields.
And these are these are many. And there is a real need for guidance and advice of a general sort,
which which addresses some of the more recurrent problems that have sale museums today.
There's a huge amount in the code, which I think is good, practical and sensible, and my museum and all others in Britain have to follow it anyway.
Many funding streams depend on it and and we accept it as such.
It's probably fair to say that there are three.
Big issues which which which come up fairly often. One of them concerns the disposal of collections.
This is a this is a painting by Alfred Munnings called After the Race, which I believe is still part of the collection in the Southampton Art Gallery.
But Southampton have expressed an interest in selling this painting and one or two
others in order to fund a £5 million shortfall for the planned Titanic centre.
Well, I think it's called the Museum of the Sea, or I forget the exact details.
I also am ashamed to say I forget to.
I haven't been able to ascertain exactly what the position is about this proposal.
I do know that under the museum's code,
it's necessary for any museum intending to dispose of its collections in this way to seek the approval of the Museums Association Ethics Committee,
who will look at this and test it against any proposals of this sort?
Against a number of criteria. For example, the code.
Encourages people. What? It enjoins people to refuse to undertake disposal, principally for financial reasons,
except for what they describe as the long term public benefit which may be derived from the remaining collections.
And there are other various categories of. Which which the that which the Ethics Committee has called upon to look at in this in this context.
I have to say, when this was being discussed in at the Museums Association annual conference,
the Oxford University Museums opposed the change to the rules that would allow the disposal of collections in this way.
We took the view that.
Looking at past experience, it's almost always.
Better not to dispose of items.
There are worrying examples in the past when indeed Oxford museums and many others have disposed of
items but looked in retrospect at the matter and regretted that they did part with various things.
Sometimes they got the understanding of the objects wrong and didn't really know what they were, what they were surrendering.
There's also a particular concern that if you released your bill,
if you sell your collections, let's beat around the bush here to sell your collections.
This is highly likely to undermine the confidence of donors past, present and future, not unnaturally.
If I was thinking about giving something to a museum and I knew that that museum had.
In the past. Sold items from its collection, which it had lost interest in, in order to fund some new development.
I might be inclined to think again, and that was certainly the line that the Oxford Museums took in opposing this change to the rules.
On the whole, it's probably fair to say that we didn't oppose it with any very great energy,
not least because there's no requirement to sell your collections.
You don't have to do it. And so the change in the rules was was notional in some sense.
And it was a perfectly simple matter for those museums who didn't approve of it.
Not to not to do it. But I do think that there's a very real concern that opening the door to the disposal of collections in
this way leaves collections at the mercy of penurious local authorities or even hard pressed universities.
It's not very many years ago since Royal Holloway sold some paintings.
Now, in that case, of course, they were held not by a museum, but by the college itself.
And it was perhaps arguable on their part that the ownership of these paintings was not part of their core vision.
However, that is an argument which disturbs.
Museum staff within universities,
because the same could be said of the whole of all our museums that they are not part of the core mission of the university,
which is which is teaching research. Even though all the universities, museums are energetic in the teaching and the research which they conduct.
So the argument that it's not part of the core mission is one that that I am not hugely comfortable with.
There is another element in this particular topic.
Which is summed up in the end in their expression, Too Much stuff, which was chosen as the title of a review carried out and,
and and led actually by the director of the Vienna shortly to become master of St Cross College here in Oxford in the autumn.
That's the same Mark James. He produced a report which recognised the very real difficulties which storage and care of collections present.
And many museums are in a situation effectively of being unable to acquire new material
because they've got nowhere to put it because they have so much existing material.
And this report actually did encourage.
It's called deaccessioning. But generally, I think not in terms of encouraging the sale of collections,
but more more deliberately with a view to sharing collections from museums that had too much stuff,
making their their stores available to other museums, which might be in a position to exhibit some of that material.
Absolutely no doubt that many museums, including the Ashmolean, but of course, particularly the big national museums,
have a huge amount of material which they do not exhibit, which might be welcome as exhibition items in other museums across the country.
It's a very nice idea. It's not easy and it's not cheap.
Lending items is is highly desirable.
Most museums do quite a lot of it, particularly for special exhibitions.
But nobody should imagine that this is that this is easy or straightforward or can be done without very significant expenditure,
because those are bit to do.
The thing properly requires all sorts of insurance and and top quality art removal companies and a whole load of additional paraphernalia.
So it's, it's, it's not that easy, but it's a good idea.
It's a good idea when it can be when it can be achieved. So much for the disposal of collections.
Another big topic, which again I shall deal with relatively briefly concerns the much vexed matter of human remains.
Now. I have, generally speaking, when the question of human remains is is is brought up.
My ethical response is to ask Michael O'Hanlon.
He's the university's nominated tsar, I suppose, in the matter of human events and on the whole,
in this as actually in almost anything, I do what Mike says now.
There are there are very, very serious and difficult issues here.
Some of the problems that arise actually have come as and looked for consequences of legislation which was brought in in the aftermath
of the discovery of the use of human remains in hospitals without permission of some of the families of the people concerned.
You may recall some years ago it was discovered the body parts were being kept for research in itself, a highly laudable idea.
But this was done in some cases without the permission of the of the families concerned.
And that caused a great deal of grave disquiet.
As a consequence of that, a regime of of a demanding regime of licensing was introduced.
And I think when this was introduced, it wasn't really recognised at first that these these laws would also bear on human remains kept in museums.
Often, of course, because the human remains are centres in the dead of millennia old, it's less difficult.
But the topic remains extremely sensitive and there are key questions concerning respect for
the dead and respect for surviving communities who wish to safeguard their ancestors remains.
And of course, you'll be aware that there are many communities one thinks of marriages and many,
many other communities who have real issues and seek repatriation for,
um, for human remains, which have been kept in museums in this way and indeed, in some cases, displays in museums in this way.
Um. So repatriation is is a serious topic which arises and which which grows out of this.
Now, as I say, I'm not I'm not in any sense an expert on the topic of human remains.
But I think it's important possibly just to flag this up as one of the particularly
sensitive issues which we have to which we have to deal with at the moment.
Like many people who aren't experts, I sort of Googled it this afternoon, actually.
And I have to say, I was I was appalled to discover that along the right hand side of the top of the computer screen came up the injunction,
human, human ashes on eBay for less.
It offered. I was I was so disconcerted I didn't actually click it.
I thought, hang on. You know, but it's it's an illustration of, uh,
of of of the world where we're concerned with repatriation, of course, is a huge topic in its own right.
And that brings us on more to the the main topic and where I'm going to spend most of the rest of my of my time.
Which concerns the handling and the treatment.
Indeed, often the acquisition of other nations cultural patrimony.
Now this is a huge topic. Said that if you Google if you Google illicit trade on the right hand side,
you can also discover marital affair dating as a as an invitation which again I have to say I didn't click off.
But you do have to be careful with careful with Google.
And this, of course, was no doubt triggered by the word illicit, which is an interesting word,
which I will come to in the course of in the course of this discussion.
There is there's a real problem about the rubbing of archaeological sites, fuelling a trade in antiquities,
which is deeply regretted and much criticised and indeed outlawed by the Museums Association Code.
And I will look at this in a bit more detail, and we would all, I think, have enormous sympathy with less developed,
less wealthy countries who see their assets being stripped of their cultural assets being stripped by wealthy nations or individuals.
And there are many high profile scandals. This is a this is a book which I have to say I have read.
But essentially, it's all about this particular topic relating to some material acquired as they argue improperly by the Getty Museum.
And it used to be the case that American museums were much more.
I'm concerned about these issues of of ethical acquisition.
In truth, of course, museums in Britain and in Europe at large use not to give this much thought, but certainly in Britain and Europe.
In the 1990s and more recently in America as well.
There is a strong tide of concern about the inappropriate acquisition of other country's cultural patrimony.
Now. In Cambridge, McDonald Institute, and particularly Colin Renfrew, have led a vigorous campaign.
With considerable success using rent, foods, political influence to put a stop to this to this trade in other people's cultural belongings.
There's a book I pass it around. This is part of the fun.
One argument setting out the problem the difficulties with numerous examples of improper acquisition of of of archaeological material.
Now the Museums Association Code tries to guide museum staff through this particular minefield.
And most of it, if you happen to be the one with the the person who's got the code in front of you now, most of it is to be found in Section five.
But I think there's another separate book, which is just about acquisitions, and then there's another book which is about something else as well.
But anyway, Section five is concerned with acquisitions.
And broadly speaking, it requires everybody to reject items of dubious provenance for it being here that if you have a clear provenance,
if you know where something's come from, it's very easy to ascertain whether it has been illegally excavated or indeed stolen from
its owners or whether it has been illegally exported from from its country of origin.
And museum staff are required to exercise due diligence whenever they contemplate acquiring an item.
And that applies whether they are acquiring an item by gift or as a bequest or as a loan or whether they're buying it.
The code requires you to operate the same the same principles, however it's comes.
So it's not just a matter of whether you if you're buying it, you have to operate the same concerns.
If somebody wants to give you something. It's.
The specific mention of items wrongfully taken during a time of conflict and of course, in the recent wars and in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These are, of course, particularly particularly relevant concerns.
There's naturally a requirement to reject items which are believed to be stolen, we're told, reject any item,
if there's any suspicion that has been stolen, unless this is to bring it into the public domain in consultation with the rightful owner.
And we're required to reject items which have been illicitly traded.
We must reject any items about which there is any suspicion that it may have been stolen,
illegally excavated or removed from a monument site or wreck contrary to local
law or otherwise acquired in or expected exported from its country of origin,
including the UK or any intermediate country in violation of that country's laws or any national and international treaties.
We are required to reject any item that lacks a secure ownership history.
Unless it was exported from the country of origin before 1970.
And that date comes from the date of the UNESCO's convention of that of that year.
And the idea is that before 1970, it's too much has already happened.
But in 1970 UNESCO's. Began to draw attention to this issue, and that is the date which is chosen as the cut-off point, if you like, and.
So the the rules are quite, quite stringent.
We're also required to decline to offer any expertise or otherwise assist the current possessor of any item that may have been illicitly obtained,
unless it's to assist law enforcement or to support other organisations in countering illicit activities.
And there are examples of the outstanding success of this, this just general approach.
A wonderful Gandhian Buddha has recently achieved cross-cutting.
Or. This this Gandhian Buddha was was recently.
A quiet. From Japan by a British dealer.
Knowing it. Believing it to be. Stolen from Gandara.
That's the area of support. Essentially, it's Afghanistan. He acquired it from a dealer in Japan and he must have bought it considerable expense,
personal expense to himself by arrangement with the British Museum that it would be displayed in the British Museum,
which, again, the British Museum would not normally have been permitted to to display a stolen item.
But this was all made legitimate by the enormous generosity of the dealer, because the item itself is intended to be returned to to Afghanistan.
Now there are, of course, some problems about.
About Buddhist items in Afghanistan. And I'll come on to those.
Come on to those later. But I wouldn't wish to to diminish.
My admiration for this particular arrangement.
And I would point out the important role played by the British Museum in this and by the dealer who I believe is not mentioned by name.
He must be keeping it anonymous, which again redounds to his credit.
So there are some good stories. There are some good stories of people.
Doing righteous, righteous acts. However, I do have some problems with some aspects of this rather simplistic ban on acquisitions of uncertain origin.
Now, I did actually speak about this at a conference here in Oxford in 2004, and I had forgotten about it.
So I have little doubt that you either were there in 2004 or you've forgotten about it, too.
But it's in this, this, this, this volume together with, um, with a number of other papers.
The conference included people with views as diverse as Neil Brody of the McDonald Institute in Cambridge,
which is very deeply, energetically opposed to the acquisition of what they call illicit objects on the one hand.
There's also a paper there from Jorge Ortiz, who's a distinguished and many people would say notorious collector of antiquities.
And there were a number of other people who who who spoke at this at this at this meeting and published it in the publication, which came out in 2006.
The volume was edited by Al Robson and two of our fellows, Luke Treadwell and Chris.
Now migrated to cable as a result of taking the chair.
But he was a fellow here at the time. Now I apologise in some sense for revisiting such old ground,
but I do so in the belief that some of the and looked for consequences of the campaign against unproven acquisitions.
No more understood now than they were in 2004. So I think I think these concerns deserve another hearing.
There's also a paper which I summarise in this volume by Sir John Boardman, the former.
Lincoln, professor of classical art and archaeology here in Oxford, who is extremely outspoken in his criticism.
Of the Museum Association's current code?
Well, actually, no, to be more precise, actually, he's very critical of Colin Renfrew position identity addresses, the Museums Association code.
But it's, it's it's not Renfrew that she really takes issue with.
I know one of my concerns about what.
For the sake of brevity, I'll call the Renfrew approach. Is that not a bit about the bush?
It does seem to be under led by a hostility towards dealers and collectors and indeed towards anybody, including museums which collect.
And in passing, I might make the slightly catty remark that the Museums Association is dominated by museums which don't actually collect,
especially don't collect items from abroad. There are far more museums that look after purely local and British things in
Britain than museums which which continue to collect from other societies,
from cultures outside Britain. It's also quite interesting that the Museums Association code goes a significant distance beyond.
Where British law. Stops.
There is a UK criminal law of 2003 which deals with what they call tainted cultural property.
It doesn't attempt to cover illegal export from other countries, which the museum's code does include.
And the UK criminal law lays the burden of proof on the prosecution, as you would expect in any legal and legal situation.
But the museums code goes much further. It assumes that any object without a provenance is what they call illicit.
And again, you have the suspicion that some of the archaeologists who most actively endorse the Renfrew position.
I tend to think that an item without a provenance, without a context is useless anyway.
So and in fact there are people who have said that quite clearly.
So they would argue that you're not actually missing much because it hasn't got a provenance is no good to you anyway.
Indeed, there are archaeological bodies that control archaeological journals of considerable importance that reject what is she's got earlier.
So right there of that that reject for publication material without a provenance even though it seems to many of us that actually
putting this material on record would be enormously useful both in order to identify its original source and to combat illegal trade.
I'm quite interested in the word.
And you used the word illicit, which is a regular feature, the Music Isms Association Code and indeed of Lord Renfrew approach.
For me, illicit means illegal. But they don't use this in that sense.
They use it to mean, uh, practices that that they disapprove of sometimes are very good grounds.
But nonetheless, they take, they go beyond material which can be demonstrated to have been to have been acquired or traded illegally.
Because, as I said, the whole museum's code of ethics and approach goes significantly beyond the legal.
Um, and it seems to me that this the use of the word illicit is, is a piece of sleight of hand which needs careful examination.
The code bans the acquisition of objects without provenance on the assumption that they have been stolen.
The law, in contrast, requires proof of there being no presumption of guilt to start with.
So as far as the code is concerned, absence of evidence that it's legal.
Argues that it's illegal. Although actually, to be fair, they don't say that.
They say argues that it's illicit. I think the two words are interchangeable, but there we go.
Whereas, of course, the law does not start with that, with start with that presumption.
And the code also bans objects which may have been illegally exported from other countries which the law, the UK law does not concern itself with.
It's also interesting that the code describes objects as being illicit, and it seems to me that this can only be a practice.
It's only the practice relating to the objects which can be illicit rather than the objects themselves.
But perhaps I'm wrong. To me, this seems a rather loose use of language which George Orwell taught us long ago that we should be quite worried about.
I have gone on time, but hurry up. That's else.
Another of my concerns is that the code drives a wedge between collectors and museums.
Museums frequently have to reject gifts from collectors if.
Even if the collectors items are legally acquired, the museums have to reject them if they are without provenance.
And that, as I say, forces a distinction between museums and collectors.
And if you look at the history of museums,
museums over the centuries have actually benefited enormously from good relations with with collectors who have selflessly,
in many cases, given their collections to museums.
And so museums have to reject not just illegally acquired material, but anything which cannot be proved to be legally acquired.
And in practice, of course, this calls for levels of documentation which in many cases simply didn't exist even 20 years ago.
So there are real problems. There's also a tendency to shun dealers despite the good offices of the the guy who saved this,
who say this this Buddha and Lord Renfrew is, I think he would admit, fundamentally hostile to all trade and all collecting.
Any good collector, he says, is an ex collector and.
And that gives me a bit of a problem because collecting is vital for museums,
as is recognised by the British Government and indeed by the Museums Association.
All museums professionals recognise the danger of the fossilisation of a collection if it doesn't continue to grow,
if new material is not brought in to build, to build our knowledge.
The code also places an enormous reliance on the laws of foreign governments,
and not all of these have shown themselves to be the best guardians of their own cultural heritage of time.
Afghanistan, of course, is the classic case in point. The Museums Association and UNESCO's used to outlaw material coming out of Afghanistan.
You weren't allowed to collect it, though.
Quite a lot used to come out through Pakistan, but who were discouraged from collecting it until the Taliban,
of course, destroyed these these these famous Buddhas out of them.
Yeah. Now. UNESCO's then had a change of heart and began to encourage museums to save Afghan material.
And particularly they wanted to challenge, channel it to a centre which they approved of in in Switzerland.
But as I say,
the British Museum has acted with its own considerable authority and on the generosity of this dealer to do a kind and generous act of this will,
we are told, go back to Afghanistan. I have to say.
Hearing on the radio this morning about plans for the withdrawal of British and American forces and actually whether they should have been in.
There is another matter. But with the prospect of the withdrawal of British and American forces and perhaps a change of regime in Afghanistan,
one wonders if sending them back to Afghanistan is necessarily the best thing for
that particular border and that particular part of Afghanistan's cultural heritage.
These are thorny, thorny matters. Tibet is another example.
The invasion of Tibet was repeatedly condemned by the United Nations.
But UNESCO's and the Museums Station Museum Association Code of Conduct still prohibits
the acquisition of Tibetan material simply because its export is contrary to Chinese law.
China, of course, the current authority in Tibet.
So even though the Tibetan material is liable to to destruction in China,
which is keen to suppress Tibetan nationalism under the law as it stands and under the under the the code of practice as it stands,
museums are discouraged from actually acquiring it, despite the entreaties of the Dalai Lama,
who is desperately keen that museums should collect Tibetan material to save it and preserve it.
Difficult issues. The Renfrew approach bans research on and prevalence material and indeed effectively
stopped the work of Oxford's own research laboratory for art and archaeology,
which used to provide analysis which in many cases distinguish between forgeries and real, real items.
The the the MacDonald Institute was unhappy about this because it seemed in some sense to be supporting the market in genuine items.
It seems I have to say to me that this is an interesting and difficult issue because of course,
it's also a restraint on what I would regard as a perfectly respectable academic and scholarly inquiry.
Is this thing genuine or isn't it? Let's, as I say, it fell foul of of.
Of all Renfrewshire approach, you effectively prevented the Oxford Research Lab from continuing to do this.
So I ought to I ought to press on the move to conclusion.
The one thing I would say my counter through some of these pictures oh that's a nice picture
of the was a Hindu Kush in the valley where they think that the Bamiyan Buddhas were.
Coins are an interesting case as well because these are very good examples of items which have so much information on them and
indeed were originally made and intended for exchange within and beyond the frontiers of the countries of their origin that.
The requirement to secure a provenance for every coin which you acquire creates creates a good
deal of difficulty and does unquestionably involve the loss of a huge amount of information.
Which is actually written on the coin. You know, so much of the of the information about so much of the context of a coin is written on it,
that in many cases that the fact that you don't have a problem,
it doesn't in any sense mean that that it's not an interesting scholarly, scholarly item,
but it is nonetheless one which it's very difficult for people to acquire in museums.
Now, it's not completely impossible because there is a little bit of leeway in the museums code about what they call minor antiquities.
And individual coins are generally spoken of as minor antiquities on the grounds that it's not unreasonable
to think they might have been acquired legitimately and just nobody ever bothered to keep the provenance.
And one of the most notorious cases, of course, concerns this this this treasure, which has been claimed,
interestingly, by Lebanon and Croatia, as well as Hungary, where it probably comes from.
Interesting example of what might be regarded as unethical practice by countries who actually
could not have had any convincing evidence that the treasure came from their territory.
This material has been effectively frozen since the 1980s.
It was perhaps rather unwisely bought by the Marquess of Northampton, I think.
But he's stuck with it now. Nobody can buy it or sell it to museums.
British Museum can't handle it. They can't exhibit it. But it is extraordinarily important.
Like Roman, the late Roman treasure. Now, I will perhaps cut short to give you a chance to make your contribution here.
And I don't want to go on too long, but what I haven't done is actually give you a flavour of the really vigorous opposition to Lord Renfrew position,
which is in the in the volume that I pass around made by Sir John Boardman.
He, interestingly enough, points out I mean, he he says that despite being an archaeologist and being involved in archaeology for 50 years,
he has scant regard for for archaeologists as a profession.
He he says that archaeologists through unpublished excavation have done far more damage to the to our cultural patrimony than to rovers,
as indeed has ordinary agriculture and private and public roadworks and engineering.
So he is he is highly critical of the archaeological establishment.
And and I and I recommend and I recommend it to you.
An unpublished site, he says, is even more of a destroyed site than the Bamiyan Buddhas, since no public record whatsoever is left.
Risk Carpenter famously commented that archaeologists do not always realise that they are burning the pages of history as they read them.
I would just say that over the last 50 years,
far less than 25% of the material and results of professional archaeological excavations have been properly published.
It's some it's it's vigorous stuff. But I think it's worth mentioning again, because that's as far as I'm aware,
it had no effect, whatever, on the museum association code or on government practice.
So I've tried to outline the formal position of the Museums Association.
Some of my worries about it. And finally some of Sir John Foreman's outspoken criticisms.
And I've rather I've cut that short, but it makes things, as I say, interesting.
Reading the code is much more of a code of practice rather than a code of ethics.
And I suspect that real progress might be made if we were able to tighten up the language and the thinking of the code.
But that is a job for specialists in ethics rather than museums or archaeologists.
So over to you. Well, thank you very much indeed.