Sir or Madam:

I write in regard to your recent consideration of the Government of
Cyprus’ request to renew the bilateral agreement restricting the import
of undocumented archaeological materials from Cyprus. As a professional
archaeologist and friend of Cyprus’ heritage, I encourage you to extend
the agreement as an effective means of fighting the looting of Cyprus’
artistic and archaeological heritage.

In particular, I would like to call your attention to the importance of
including coins as restricted category in the new agreement. Coins are
an important but often overlooked part of a nation’s cultural
patrimony. Beyond their aesthetic and material value, they contain
information that is extremely valuable for reconstructing Cyprus’
social, political, and economic history. In the ancient Greek and Roman
periods, in which I am a specialist, the production of coinage is a
reflection of the political status and economic importance of
individual cities. Numismatic iconography reflects both local identity
and the role of Cypriot cities in the Ptolemaic, Roman, and Byzantine
Empires. Moreover, the metallic composition of individual coins is
often our only information about economic phenomena such as inflation
and trade networks. As such, coins represent an important part of
Cyprus’ cultural patrimony.

Beyond their importance as individual artifacts, the archaeological
context of coins is crucial part of their archaeological value. When
they are ripped out of their archaeological context by looters,
important knowledge is lost forever. While many cities produced coins,
only their archaeological context can tell us how widely money was
circulated, how long individual issues remained in circulation, and
which areas of the island had a more prominent cash economy. In the
case of coin hoards, analyzing the entire hoard can tell us much about
social and economic conditions at the moment of deposit. When illegally
excavated and sold separately without provenance, this information is
lost forever.

The importance of showing legal provenance for coins also has
ramifications for other kinds of artifacts. Looters often search for
coins with metal detectors. However, because there are many types of
archaeological metals, false readings often lead them to dig through
metal-containing deposits in hopes that they contain coins. At several
Mediterranean sites, I have excavated ancient roofing nails, metal
slag, tools, and fragments of jewelry that are of no commercial value
but that nonetheless would represent a target for looters intent on
finding coins. As such, these valuable deposits are also at risk of
destruction unless the market for illegally-excavated coins can be
suppressed. In short, the looting of coins does not simply threaten the
loss of one category of antiquity, but poses a risk to all sites that
contain metals - which for the ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine
periods is every site. As such, the looting of coins presents a
generalized threat to the preservation of Cyprus’ cultural patrimony.

For all these reasons I encourage you to include coins among the items
excluded from import in the new bilateral agreement with the Republic
of Cyprus. Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully,

Daniel Shoup, MA, MUP
PhD Candidate
Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology
University of Michigan

dshoup@umich.edu