[meteorite-list] Gebel Kamil

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 05:13:45 +0100
Message-ID: <019c01cbe135$0bc27240$234756c0$_at_de>

Yes Anne,

India is the great exception - that was an attempt to stop the Brits and the
British Museum to plunder their collections.
(And btw. that law was the reason for Indian meteorites being the most
expensive ones in 19th century).

All other meteorite laws are fairly new (although we have to confess, that
they have a totalitarian character as there never would have been a French
Revolution) and recent phenomena,
and unfortunately incited by persons, who aren't directly experts in that
field
and unfortunately by people, with a lack of education in the history of
their science branch.
So that nobody has to wonder about the catastrophic aftermaths following
such laws.
They are a very dangerous bungling.

And an enormous burden and handicap for the work of the current and the
following generations of meteorite researchers not only in the countries
afflicted.
Because once introduced, it seems difficult to get rid of them again.
...else, seen the almost tragic fallback of Australian meteorite research or
that, what we observe in Oman, China, India
the meteoricists in charge and in authority would the longest time ago have
done everything to get these laws out of force.

Or to say it more obvious, if you in USA would have had such laws, like
introduced in Oman, in Australia, Argentina,
you wouldn't have had a Ward, a Foote, a Nininger, a Monnig, a Huss, a
King...

There would be no ASU, there would be no UCLA, there would be no Seattle, no
St.Louis, there would be no Smithsonian, no TCU, no Chicago, no Carnegie, no
N.Y. and consequently, there would be neither any ANSMET.
And this list wouldn't exist.
For sure.

And how it would look like in the big European collections, if there would
have been such laws in place,
or in such incredible meteorites-rich countries like the Vatican, England or
Austria - you can imagine.

Take Australia, a country with a well established meteorite science and
institutional collections,
- it survived the introduction of the laws less than 2 decades - and is now
on a level, which is approx. that one, before the above mentioned
U.S.-institutions were founded.

Other countries had no established meteorite research, but had the most
excellent natural conditions in history, had a few promising single years,
where meteorite finding started,
but like you have seen in Algeria, Libya or Oman - almost from the beginning
on they bereaved themselves of the possibility to build up national
collections and to start meteorite science,
in having introduced these destructive laws.

I hope the disastrous experiences with these laws will be an item of agenda
at the North African meteorite meeting in autumn, and also at the next
MetSoc meeting, to avoid at least in the still free countries the same
bitter mistakes other countries have already to suffer from.

(And I ask myself always, why such countries copy the laws of South Africa
or Australia, instead to look there, where the largest meteorite collections
are housed and where the best meteorite research is done?
Why do you think Japan, USA, Germany, England and so on, never had a
meteorite law and never will introduce such?)

Simple axiom - so simple it sounds, strangely enough it seems meanwhile to
be no matter of course anymore...:

No meteoritics without stones.

As soon that is recognized and agreed upon in a country, then meteoritics is
saved there.




Well and else, it's just the right way Jason is doing it.
It doesn't help to rely on hear-say or bad sources of information, one has
to check the laws themselves.

E.g. one has to avoid to echo the Schmitt/McEwen/Barrister paper in Maps
(2001) like several scientists like to do or like it is commonly done in
media.

It's highly tendentious and doesn't fulfill in my opinion the standards of a
scientific piece of work.
(MAPS isn't peer reviewed).

So short the paper is, I found the third or fourth grave mistake for the
topic there.
Was today by accident - New Zealand. Other than given there, meteorites are
in New Zealand under the act of 1975 NOT classified as antiquities.
And meteorites exported from there don't need in general a permit or
registration,
but only if they are related to New Zealand. (id est if they are New Zealand
finds and falls.)
So those, who have purchased NWAs from there, you don't have to worry.

At least to me it becomes more and more evident, that the authors of the
paper never had read in person the laws, whereof the titles they give there.

(Probably they thought not to have it to make it too diligent, because at
these times (2001) most of the full texts of these laws weren't published
online yet and not so well accessible for everyone.
But times have changed.)

Best,
Martin



PS:
>the real question we need to ask pertains
>to the definition of what can be termed "cultural."

I fear rather, first we need to answer the question, if the individuals in
such an authority, that they are decisive for the meteoritic future of their
countries are "cultured"... ;-)


O.k. to answer you question - look up the etymology and the meaning of the
word "culture" and any discussion is needless.

Or another idea. Any item, for which a country does nothing, spends no
money, do not collect it, do not research it, does not know, where it is and
what it is - can't be a cultural heritage.

Simple example - in that New Zealand Antiquities act, there is for example
given, that tractors fall under that act and that for exporting a tractor,
you need a permit.
So. I don't know almost nothing about New Zealand's culture and history,
but obviously tractors must have played a such important role for the
development of that civilization there,
that they are regarded as objects of cultural relevance.

Here in Germany we always had a lot of tractors.
But we make no big deal around tractors. For us tractors are ....well,
tractors! And no cultural heritage.

That most do not understand. Although even the UNESCO convention tries to
point in that direction.
In bindingly and mandatory dictating to the signing nations, that each
nation has to set up a catalogue where it has to specify, what for
categories of items it regards as culturally relevant. Else it's no moveable
heritage.
(Also that btw. Schmitt/McEwen/Barrister haven't read).

"Cultural" is not an absolute property. "Cultural" isn't inherent in an
object.
Cultural is a property, a society, a civilization, a culture bestows on an
object.

Here in Germany e.g. we have and always had much to few Aborigines, that
Aboriginal Art would be a "cultural" heritage, but in Australia it is.

The same you have with Egypt meteorites.
Never any meteoritics was done in Egypt, there exist no facilities to do
research, nor places for scientists at universities, nor any institutional
collections and for a large Sahara country it has almost no known
meteorites.
Therefore a meteorite can't per definitionem culturae be there a cultural
object.

Also the unfound meteorite not, because nobody knows its existence and no
Egypt or human hand ever touched it.

There one has to operate with other terms than "cultural".

But please not so silly ones, like in Oman was suggested - the proof, that
they still haven't any clues there, what a meteorite is at all,
where seriously, Jason, try not to fall from your chair, I laughed sooo
much,
where seriously it was suggested, that meteorites should be preserved there,
in desert, in situ, as....
....iiiiiihihihihiiiiii....as......as natural MONUMENTS !!!!

How cool is that?
The small brown pebble in the nowhere - where the most trained eyes of the
planet have to drive around for weeks, happy to spot one or two per day!!
(And which after a time, the soil will swallow again).

They would really make up extremely impressive monuments, wouldn't they?

Other suggestion was, to store them in local museums.
Well, scientifically seen, you will agree, the shelf in a village museum on
the edge of a desert isn't directly the right place for the second
ALH84001...

...and anyway, see the axiom above, they forget the most essential, the
shelves in the village museums will stay empty, if they don't allow the
people to collect them.

Mystics they are, aren't they?

Or humorists.

Mathias and Alex know, who Valentin was, he had a lot of similar ideas....
 



-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von
Impactika at aol.com
Gesendet: Samstag, 12. M?rz 2011 23:04
An: meteoritekid at gmail.com; meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Gebel Kamil

Thank you Jason for your well-thought out and researched response.
However, that only applies to Egypt and the US.
We should not forget that some countries have banned the exportation of
meteorites entirely (India since 1885! and more recently Argentina) and
others
do require export permits, we know about Australia and Canada, but there
might be others.
 
You really need to be careful out there!
 
Anne M. Black
_http://www.impactika.com/_ (http://www.impactika.com/)
_IMPACTIKA at aol.com_ (mailto:IMPACTIKA at aol.com)
President, I.M.C.A. Inc.
_http://www.imca.cc/_ (http://www.imca.cc/)
 
 
In a message dated 3/12/2011 2:35:13 PM Mountain Standard Time,
meteoritekid at gmail.com writes:
Hello Richard, Greg, All,

To date an estimated 2-3 tonnes of shrapnel fragments have been
recovered, ranging in weight from a few grams to 35 kilograms. One
regmaglypted individual was found, weighing 83kg. It was discovered
and retained by the scientific expedition that first explored the
crater, so all that will be available for the likes of us are pieces
of shrapnel produced by the violent destruction of the main mass when
it produced the crater.

some have asserted that it is illegal to export meteorites from Egypt
without approval from the state. I looked into the issue, and, as
best I can tell, this is entirely untrue. It seems as though the
academics involved in the discovery and exploration of the crater
decided to attempt to apply the Egyptian antiquities law that refers
specifically to man-made/cultural artifacts - to meteorites. In light
of that fact, I believe that all of the specimens exported legal, at
least until Egypt passes a law that acutally prohibits the export of
minerals specimens and/or meteorites.

See here: http://www.cprinst.org/cultural-heritage-legislation-in-egypt

Since there are no clear laws pertaining to meteorites, the real
question is whether or not a meteorite can be said to have "cultural
value."
If we break this idea down, the real question we need to ask pertains
to the definition of what can be termed "cultural."

To my kowledge, at least in Egypt, 'law 117' has never been applied to
objects that were not human artifacts. (Never.)
The scientists working on the meteorite claimed that export permits
were required for meteorites because, "Everything which is found in
the Egyptian soil is property of the government." (Tarek Hussein,
former president of Egypt's Academy of Scientific Research and
Technology)

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/213262-Deep-impact-market-the-race-to-acqu
ire-meteorites

While this claim may be correct in the sense that objects on the
public land of any country belong to the federal or state government
with jurisdiction over the given land, if there are no export laws
pertaining to a given resource, it is not illegal to export it.

For a perfect example, note that all meteorites found on public and
BLM land in the US technically belong to the US government. Since
there are no US laws pertaining to the export of US meteorites, and
the government does not enforce their ownership of any of these
meteorites (with one historic exception), it is generally viewed as
legal to export meteorites from the US -- even those found on public
land.

Regards,
Jason

On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 6:17 AM, Greg Catterton
<star_wars_collector at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Prices are interesting with the meteorite. I do know that most of the
material on the market is "stolen" and should not be sold. Egypt does not
allow
the export of meteorites and last I read, only about 2kg was approved for
export.
> Its a nice meteorite, but should be considered illegal just like Berduc
and others that come from countries with harsh export laws.
>
> Greg Catterton
> www.wanderingstarmeteorites.com
> IMCA member 4682
> On Ebay: http://stores.shop.ebay.com/wanderingstarmeteorites
> On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WanderingStarMeteorites
>
>
> --- On Fri, 3/11/11, Richard Montgomery <rickmont at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> From: Richard Montgomery <rickmont at earthlink.net>
>> Subject: [meteorite-list] Gebel Kamil
>> To: "'Meteorite-list List'" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
>> Date: Friday, March 11, 2011, 9:13 PM
>> Hello List. Taking a breath for
>> a minute following the disaster in Japan, for welcome
>> relief (yet God bless them please).... I'll ask about
>> this since I've been wondering for a while since the crater
>> was announced:
>>
>> Do we yet have an estimated TKW of Gebel Kamil? Also,
>> those first images of the couple (I've only seen two) of
>> complete regmaglypted individuals are somewhere unknown to
>> me, but wow!! Which reflects on my next query...what
>> other 'individual-shrapnel' occurance events to we know of?
>>
>> I'm fortunate to own a few nice sand-blasted pieces, as
>> many of us are. The auction prices seem low to me.
>>
>> Just curious, and wondering.
>>
>> -Richard Montgomery
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Received on Sat 12 Mar 2011 11:13:45 PM PST