Wednesday 11 March 2015

Ancient Assets Investments "Revamped"


Words and words, but motive clear,
somebody else's heritage sold off
to put money in US dealers' pockets
I discussed "Ancient Assets Investments" here earlier ('Todd Hillard Up Front', 'Commercialising the "Assets" of the Past in America' and 'Manuscript Sales Site Down 'for Maintenance') in part referring to an earlier discussion by Roberta Mazza. The website was taken down for "maintenance" and was put back up again at the end of February. So what was done to it?

Well, parts of it are still 'down'. The section on the origin of the objects has been rephrased
"Our artifacts come directly from foreign sources with no “middle-men”. AAI has an exclusive business relationship with Scott Carroll Manuscripts and Rare Books. Dr. Carroll is a leading expert with unparalleled access to undocumented and unidentified artifacts in the overseas markets.
So, the export licences will be coming direct to AAI, no middlemen to "lose them". So can the clients see them before purchase? The section on research which as I pointed out raises ethical issues has not been changed.

I do not think that these minor tweaks to the existing text in any way address the doubts that were raised about what this group is doing. So I take back my earlier enthusiastic comments about evangelical Christian Todd Hillard, who it would seem from what actually was done, was just stalling. 

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