Athens Kopis

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Any object removed from the ground without the appropriate documentation of the process and the tecnique loses its archaeological value. Not the artistic value, or the value of something being very old (how old anyway?), but the archaeological value. It can add nothing to our knowlege about its history or that of the oibjects found next to it. And i really can't understand how an auctioned piece can have a good provenance? The only people who can give a good provenance are archaeologists, and archaeologists never sell their finds in the market. A market which starts as illegal in Greece anyway, and ends being somehow legal in some auction houses in some other countries...
So said find which seems identical to the kopides found in Northern Greece is a little earlier, or perhaps a little later than the ones excavated? Or somehow it comes from the exact decade like other three or four, which could even indicate a manufacture by the same workshop? We will never know, because any pottery fragments or coins found next to it have either been thrown away as unvaluable (there are just so many of them in Greece) or been sold separately.

Khairete
Giannis