Dear Committee Members,

I am writing to express my support for the inclusion of coins as protected archaeological materials in the US-Cyprus bilateral agreement and all kinds of such treaties with all nations to restrict imports of all kinds of unrecorded antiquities.

Here I would like to mention a letter which was presented to the Secretary of State in 1914 by Henry Fairfield Osborn, the president of the American Museum of Natural History. In this letter he showed his worrying about the ruthless destruction and plunder of antiquities in china since 1900. He requested the Department of State to discourage all American citizens from vandalizing in china, from trafficking in broken and stolen sculptures and other archaeological and art works of historical value belonging to the people china. He asked the Department of State take measures to keep the good name of the United States, its citizens, agents and institution free from connection with the destruction of Chinese monuments and antiquities and the traffic in immorally or criminally obtained Chinese objects of antiquity. He requested the Department of State to support and encourage the Chinese officials and people in taking effective means to conserve their antiquities for china’s benefit and benefit of other nations.

But what a pity, nearly one century past since the presentation of this letter, that there still exists such illegal traffic of antiquities!

I graduated from the department of archaeology in Peking University, and I did know the harm of such plunder of antiquity to the hearts of the archaeologist and historian and to all of the people who love art and love mankind. I would like to mention an example to you here. In 2000 in Shanxi province of China, a marquis’ tomb of the spring-autumn period (about three thousand years ago) was plundered. The robber exploded the tomb and at once most of the delicate bronze vessels in the tomb, full of historical ant art value to the present and future generations of the world, turned to pieces and irreparably lost! And it is just one of numerous which have the same fate! And such things still occurs, both in China and many other countries.

To conserve the treasures of all mankind, measures must be taken immediately! I request you to support the treaties with all nations to restrict imports of all kinds of unrecorded antiquities.

Yours, Sincerely

Sun Feipeng

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