Dear Dr. Walsh,
Thank you for the additional information. Both your note and the three links I opened drilling down a bit added to my information and helped explain your discomfort. I had wrongly taken you to mean that you were calling Dr. Obbink on the carpet publicly, without having attempted to satisfy your understandable caution and concerns through private correspondence. The maxim “Inclusio unius est exclusio alterius” doesn’t apply in this case, obviously. I should have asked you if you had attempted to contact Dr. Obbink directly, as I wondered why wouldn’t you have done so. Please accept my sincere apology for not crediting you with those good initial steps. I still don’t want to criticize Dr. Obbink, but I understand your exasperation. Given that you have distinguished yourself with your expertise in this area of cultural property and its proper custody, I would have thought Dr. Obbink would have welcomed your correspondence as an opportunity to address concerns early on. But I don’t want to draw any more (potentially wrong) conclusions ex silentio. What if Dr. Obbink is sick or incommunicado for some good reason?
Thank you for all you are doing to fight looting and other crimes against cultural property. Please excuse me if this is a bit off the topic of the New New Sappho specifically, but I would be interested in hearing your view on what went wrong in Iraq (2003). Where were the Monuments Officers? Where was UNESCO? Where is UNESCO now? State Departments and Foreign Offices of countries that are signatories to the Convention on Cultural Property? If you have a blog on this subject, please post the link. I’m sure many of us will be interested.
Thank you again and all the best in your work and your life!
Respectfully,
Jack Vaughan