Sayers said she did not want to get into a "horrible war of words" over the state of communications between eBay and the British Museum, except to say, "We'd love to hear from them."
She said eBay is willing to conclude an agreement with the treasure section of the British Museum, whereby the museum's experts would identify any potentially illicit antiquity on eBay in a formal complaint to the arts and antiquities unit of the Metropolitan Police in London. The police would then investigate and notify eBay of an illegal item, and eBay would agree to take it down and notify the seller.
The negotiations continue, and Bland's public appeal to eBay at the news conference this week appeared timed to bring greater pressure on the Internet company to respond more forcefully to British concerns that some of its treasures were literally flying out of the country.
The impetus for action to interdict the illicit antiquities trade came from 100 members of the House of Commons and House of Lords known collectively as the All-Party Parliamentary Archaeological Group.
They supported a bill submitted by an archaeologist member of Parliament, Richard Allan, whose legislative initiative had been languishing since 2002. Then, after the fall of Baghdad, the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair embraced it.
On Friday, Allan was in Athens inspecting the New Acropolis Museum being erected in support of Greece's longstanding diplomatic drive to repatriate the Elgin marbles, the priceless friezes that Pericles ordered for the Parthenon 2,400 years ago. They were brought to England in 1803 by Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and later sold to the British Museum.
Allan, who holds a degree in archaeology from Cambridge University, said that with images showing treasures of Babylon riding on looters' donkey carts, the bill got high-level attention.
"I am an opposition member, but suddenly a government minister stood up and said that she strongly supported my bill," he said. Allan said he is mostly satisfied with eBay's offer of cooperation, but he expressed some misgivings about whether police investigations could move swiftly enough to block auctions and apprehend violators before transactions were completed.
"I'm hoping we can get some kind of agreement," he said. "What is hanging over eBay is that if they are notified and refuse to act, then they themselves are complicit in an illegal offense when the material is traded. They have got to look at their potential liability."
The new law, of course, does not cover the Elgin marbles, which Britain has held on to despite Homeric efforts by successive Greek governments to repatriate them. The New Acropolis Museum, earthquake resistant and climate controlled, is designed to meet every objection the British Museum has raised over the decades against returning the friezes.
"Once the museum is built, the case will be much stronger," Allan said, for Britain to part with one of the greatest archaeological treasures in the British Museum collection.
RSS