A Five-Minute Auction
The government canceled the auction of Cirebon treasures, even though this would be one way of minimizing the plunder of valuable relics found in our waters. Why did the auction fail?
May 26, 2010
BECAUSE there are no bidders, I declare this auction closed.” And Iraningsih, the auction official, pounded her gavel loudly, to conclude an event before it even started.
That was the anticlimax at the scheduled auction of 10th century treasures from the waters off Cirebon in the Java Sea. Held in the ballroom of the Office of the Maritime Affairs & Fisheries Department on May 5, the auction lasted only five minutes.
Not a single ceramics col
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