ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 24, 1996 TAG: 9604240049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
DIANE AND GREGORY HOBSON of Bedford say items taken in a raid by U.S. Customs officials are legitimate. But Israel's government says otherwise.
The home of a Bedford couple who proudly displayed mementos of their archaeological trips to Israel was raided last week by U.S. Customs agents who seized five boxes of pottery fragments, ancient coins, glass and documents.
It is a violation of Israeli law to remove antiquities and artifacts from that country without permission. The Israeli government told U.S. Customs it wanted the items returned after Customs contacted officials there, said Special Agent Harold Gay. But Diane and Gregory Hobson say the raid is the result of a misunderstanding about the artifacts they have.
They said most of them were plucked out of "dig dumps" left at archaeological sites - piles of discarded pottery fragments that have been sifted through and are of no value to researchers. The rest, they said, were bought from licensed antiquities dealers.
"These things have no value to anybody but us," Diane Hobson said. "These things are just junk that was on the beach. The country of Israel doesn't care. It has no worth to them."
Greg Hobson is a volunteer recruiter and trench supervisor for the Caesarea Combined Expeditions, which is excavating an ancient city. The expeditions are sponsored by the University of Maryland and Haifa University in Israel and rely on students and volunteers who participate in digs on their vacations.
The dig director on the expedition, University of Maryland Professor Ken Holum, said Tuesday that volunteers are told that it's illegal to export even the smallest pottery fragment without a license and that they run a risk by doing so.
U.S. Customs was alerted to the couple's collection after reading a Roanoke Times feature last September about their most recent trip abroad.
Greg Hobson is an avid amateur archaeologist who said he lives for his annual trips to Israel to pursue his hobby. He has been going to Israel since the early 1970s. It would be unthinkable, he said, to remove items that have historical significance from a site.
A search warrant affidavit filed by a Customs agent in Roanoke federal court includes Hobson's Customs declaration form, filled out at JFK Airport upon the couple's return from Israel last year. On the form, he states that he is returning with goods valued at $250, but doesn't list any specific items.
"There was nothing of value to declare," Hobson said. "My entire collection [acquired since the 1970s] is worth a maximum of $300."
While the Hobsons have not been charged with anything, the affidavit indicates that they are under investigation for possibly violating smuggling and Customs reporting laws. Greg Hobson has been subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury in May. He said he hopes that once he tells his side of the story, he won't be indicted.
Listed as items to be seized on the search warrant are any customer lists, accounts receivables and other records that would indicate the couple was trafficking in antiquities. But the Hobsons said they have never sold artifacts and did not realize they had to declare at Customs even worthless items brought back into the United States.
If they were smugglers, they said, they certainly would not have talked to the newspaper about it. The newspaper story misidentified several items that the Hobsons bought as having been found by them, they said.
Customs agents spent nearly four hours packing up the Hobsons' collection, seizing a gold ring, coins, dozens of pottery fragments, two oil lamps, beads and a computer disk. The Hobsons had a little plastic bag of sand from Caesarea Maritima the dig director gave volunteers last year as remembrances of their trip. Customs agents took that, too.
Pottery shards that the couple displayed in their living room are found along the beach where they attend digs in Caesarea, about 30 miles north of Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean Sea.
"It's a common procedure for anyone working there" to sift through the dig dumps and piles of fragments left on the beach to be washed out to sea, Greg Hobson said. Some of the dumps are just piles pushed there by bulldozers and others are remains from careful excavation that have been sorted, recorded and then discarded because pottery fragments are so numerous, he said.
"It's a common practice - every dig I know of does it," Hobson said.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., was unable this week to provide information about laws governing the removal of artifacts from that country. U.S. Attorney Bob Crouch said his office has no comment on the raid.
Diane Hobson last spring uncovered the foundation of a seaside temple built by Herod the Great, who was king of Judea shortly before the birth of Jesus. It was an important archaeological find and happened on her second trip.
Built between 22 and 10 B.C. to honor the emperor Caesar Augustus, Caesarea became a major seaport and the site of the Apostle Paul's imprisonment. In the past 40 years, excavation has uncovered the ancient city's streets, private dwellings, aqueducts, baths, circus, stadium, theater and other public buildings and religious shrines.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: File. Gregory and Diane Hobson display some of the itemsby CNBthey brought back from Israel last year. U.S. Customs agents packed
up the items as evidence in their investigation.