ABSTRACT
The positions of Siggers and Pernicka epitomize the long-standing debate over the movement of objects: cultural nationalists vs. cultural internationalists. This particular incident also encapsulates other issues associated with the movement of material: ownership, national identities, museum acquisitions, scientific inquiry, documentation, the legal antiquities market, and the legacy of colonialism. Ernst Pernicka of the University of Tubingen analyzed the soil found lodged inside one of the "Troy Gold" gold pendants leading him to conclude that the particle's composition was consistent with the soil in the Trojan plain. he Williams Director of the Penn Museum Julian Siggers clarified the indefinite loan arrangement by stating that despite the new findings by Pernicka, there remained a lack of substantial evidence for the archaeological context of the collection – an argument could still be made for an original findspot in Greece or the Near East.
