Abstract
Antiquities dealers have always occupied unique positions of authority and trust within the market, requiring them to portray themselves as professionals who can guarantee the authenticity, quality, and legality of antiquities offered for sale. In the twenty-first century, this compels the ongoing online performance of the professional self, which can be understood through the analytical concept of the persona. This chapter introduces the concept of “dealer persona”: the online persona that antiquities dealers use to operate in the internet market for antiquities. These personas are presented differently across various social media and internet platforms, requiring this analysis to examine the ways in which antiquities dealers construct and use online personas across various social media profiles, sales-hosting websites, and their own professional websites. Based on an examination of 26 internet antiquities dealers, four categories of dealer persona are identified: (1) the performance of trust and discretion through use of authenticity guarantees and collecting advice; (2) the performance of professional expertise in the form of credentials, professional biographies, and collaboration with academics or scientific laboratories; (3) the performance of legitimate relationships with the ancient world including autobiographical narratives, photos, and other media to convey their connection with the past; and (4) the performance of professional ethics demonstrated through the expression of awareness of the relevant legal context when dealing in antiquities, the development of professional ethics policies. Insights from this analysis demonstrate the intersection between the marketplace and scholarship, whilst highlighting ongoing ethical and legal issues with the internet antiquities market.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Antiques are objects which are at least 100 years old, however, the term is often used to describe any object which is “old”. Antiquities are objects originating in the ancient world. Both are valued for their rarity and because they are capable of representing the historical period in which they were created.
References
Al-Azm, A., & Paul, K. A. (2019). Facebook’s black market in antiquities. Report. Retrieved October 29, 2020, from http://atharproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/ATHAR-FB-Report-June-2019-final.pdf
Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. Charles R. Walgreen foundation lectures. University of Chicago Press.
Arnold, K. (2006). Cabinets for the curious: Looking back at early English museums. Ashgate.
Baudrillard, J. (1968). Le Système des objets. Gallimard.
Bieron, B., & Ahmed, U. (2012). Regulating E-commerce through international policy: Understanding international trade law issues of E-commerce. Journal of World Trade, 46, 545–570.
Borodkin, L. (1995). The economics of antiquities looting and a proposed legal alternative. Columbia Law Review, 95, 377–417. https://doi.org/10.2307/1123233
Brodie, N. (2011a). The market in Iraqi antiquities 1980-2009 and academic involvement in the marketing process. In S. Manacorda & D. Chappell (Eds.), Crime in the art and antiquities world: Illegal trafficking in cultural property (pp. 117–133). Springer.
Brodie, N. (2011b). Congenial bedfellows? The academy and the antiquities trade. Journal of Contemporary Justice, 27, 411–440. https://doi.org/10.1177/1043986211418885
Brodie, N. (2014). Provenance and price: Autoregulation of the antiquities market? European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research Policy, 20, 427–444. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-014-9235-9
Brodie, N. (2017). How to control the internet market in antiquities? The need for regulation and monitoring. Antiquities Coalition Policy Brief.
Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble tenth anniversary edition (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis.
Cannon-Brookes, P. (1994). Antiquities in the market place: Placing a price on documentation. Antiquity, 68, 349–350. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00046688
Dundler, L. (2019). “Still covered in sand.looked very old.”—Legal obligations in the internet market for antiquities. Heritage, 2, 2311–2326. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage2030142
Fay, E. (2011). Virtual artifacts: Ebay, antiquities, and authenticity. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 27, 449–464. https://doi.org/10.1177/1043986211418887
Gerstenblith, P. (2014). UNESCO (1970) and UNIDROIT (1995) Conventions. In C. Smith (Ed.), Encyclopedia of global archaeology (pp. 7428–7432). Springer.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor Books.
Hicks-Keeton, J., & Concannon, C. (2019). The Museum of the Bible: A critical edition. Rowman and Littlefield.
Lidington, H. (2002). The role of the internet in removing the ‘shackles of the saleroom’: Anytime, anyplace, anything, anywhere. Public Archaeology, 2, 67–84. https://doi.org/10.1179/pua.2002.2.2.67
Mackenzie, S., Brodie, N., Yates, D., & Tsirogiannis, C. (2020). Trafficking culture: New directions in researching the global market in illicit antiquities. Routledge.
Marshall, P. D. (2013). Personifying agency: The public-persona-place-issue continuum. Celebrity Studies, 4, 369–371. https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2013.831629
Marshall, P. D. (2016). The celebrity persona pandemic. University of Minnesota Press.
Marshall, P. D., Moore, C., & Barbour, K. (2020). Persona studies: An introduction. John Wiley & Sons.
Miles, M. M. (2008). Art as plunder: The ancient origins of debate about cultural property. Cambridge University Press.
Moore, C., Barbour, K., & Lee, K. (2017). Five dimensions of online persona. Persona Studies, 3, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.21153/ps2017vol3no1art658
Moss, C. R., & Baden, J. S. (2017). Bible nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby. Princeton University Press.
Muensterberger, W. (1994). Collecting: An unruly passion. Princeton Legacy Library.
Paul, K. A. (2020). Instagram just created reporting for endangered species—Almost one year after it was listed in their community guidelines. Blogpost. Medium. Retrieved November 29, 2020, from https://medium.com/alliance-to-counter-crime-online/instagram-just-created-reporting-for-endangered-species-almost-one-year-after-it-was-listed-as-3a1fa7a01278
Pearce, S. M. (1995). On collecting: An investigation into collecting in the European tradition. Routledge.
Prescott, C., & Munch Rasmussen, J. (2020). Exploring the “Cozy Cabal of Academics, Dealers and Collectors” through the Schøyen Collection. Heritage, 3, 68–97. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage3010005
Procter, A. (2020). The whole picture: The colonial story of art in our museums & why we need to talk about it. Cassell.
Sabar, A. (2020). Veritas: A Harvard Professor, A Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife. Double Day.
Suler, J. (2004). The online disinhibition effect. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 7, 321–326. https://doi.org/10.1089/1094931041291295
Suler, J. (2015). Psychology of the digital age: Humans become electric. Cambridge University Press.
Thompson, E. (2016). Possession: The curious history of private collectors from antiquity to the present. Yale University Press.
Yates, D. (2015). Value and doubt: The persuasive power of ‘authenticity’ in the antiquities market. Platform for Artistic Research Sweden, 2, 71–84.
Acknowledgments
This chapter was researched and written on the lands of the Cammeraygal and Ngunawal peoples. I pay my respects to their Elders, past, present and, emerging. I also acknowledge the contribution of Professor Malcolm Choat, who kindly reviewed this chapter.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dundler, L. (2021). #antiquitiesdealers. In: Oosterman, N., Yates, D. (eds) Crime and Art. Studies in Art, Heritage, Law and the Market, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84856-9_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84856-9_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-84855-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-84856-9
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)