December 2008 – Page 2 – Illicit Cultural Property

"Architecture as Propaganda"

So notes Peter Aspden in a long discussion of the New Acropolis Museum in the Financial Times:

Next spring, visitors will set foot inside Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi’s glass-and-concrete edifice, all sharp edges and skewed angles, and address for themselves one of the the most intractable cultural disputes of modern times. When they travel to the museum’s top floor, they will see marble panels from the famous frieze that used to encircle the Parthenon, the symbol of Athenian democracy that stands like a staid, elderly relative, looking wearily across at the upstart building from its incomparable vantage point on top of the Acropolis a few hundred metres away.

Only about half of the original panels will be on view, of course. The remainder famously, or infamously, line the walls of the Duveen gallery in London’s British Museum, to which they were transported in the early 19th century by the Scottish aristocrat Thomas Bruce, seventh earl of Elgin.

The Greeks have long wanted their Marbles back, but the building of the new Acropolis Museum finally gives them the physical authority to buttress an argument that has too often relied on shrill sentimentalism and unsubtle jingoism. The museum is a provocation, an enticement, a tease. Tschumi has done everything other than daub slogans on the exterior walls to say to the world at large: “The Parthenon Marbles belong here, next to the building from which they were taken.”

The glass rectangle on top of the building is designed in the same proportions and at the same angle to the Acropolis as the Parthenon itself. It is flooded with natural light, and supported by concrete columns that, again, echo the architectural features of the ancient monument. The frieze looks proudly outward, as it did for centuries on its parent building, rather than brooding inwardly as it does in Bloomsbury. This, be sure of it, is architecture as propaganda.

It’s no accident I think that the entrance and exit of the museum feature archaeological excavations. Setting aside questions of ownership and historical taking, which space seems more appropriate for the display of the objects? Which space would be more enjoyable or enlightening for the visitor? Will it only be a matter of time before the Greeks build the necessary consensus for the return of the sculptures?

Greece held a ceremony on Tuesday to mark the voluntary return of a fragment from the Parthenon taken by a German soldier in 1943. Greek Culture Minister Michalis Liapis noted “The request for the return of the Parthenon Marbles has exceeded the borders of our country. It has become the request and the vision of the global cultural community”.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Germany a Haven for Cypriot Antiquities?

According to German professor Klaus Gallas at a gathering in Dortmund as reported by the Financial Mirror of Cyprus:

Organised international art smugglers, in cooperation or with the tolerance of the Turkish occupation army, have virtually flooded international black markets with stolen icons and other religious and architectural artifacts stolen from the occupied areas of Cyprus, said German professor Klaus Gallas.

Speaking at a gathering at Dortmund, Germany on the destruction of the cultural heritage in the occupied north, Gallas made an extensive reference to the case of Turkish art dealer Aydin Dikmen in Munich and criticized the German authorities for not giving the go ahead for the return of artifacts which have proved to be of Cypriot origin…

The event was organized by the Cypriot embassy in cooperation with the Greek Academics of North Rhine-Westphalia and was held at the Municipal Art Museum. It included a presentation of a documentary prepared by the Press and Information Office of the Republic of Cyprus on the destruction of the cultural heritage in the occupied areas…

According to the church of Cyprus, some 500 churches have been either destroyed or pillaged since the 1974 Turkish invasion. Some religious relics have been bought back, others were returned to the church after lengthy legal proceedings and others are still at large.

The PIO states that thousands of antiquities illegally excavated in the occupied part of Cyprus have found their way to foreign markets. The channels through which the works of art are sent to the West remain basically the same. Frankfurt has become the main destination for ‘hot merchandise’, from there it reaches antiquities lovers with purchasing power in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Spain, Switzerland, Great Britain, the United States and Canada.

Germany has a large Turkish population, and the problems with Cypriot antiquities can be traced to the armed conflict on the island between Turkish and Greek Cypriots and the armed conflict which escalated in 1974. Both sides have accused the other of destruction of heritage on the island.

The limited reporting here is an anecdotal account, and I’d be interested to learn more about the specific objects at issue. I have very little knowledge of German law, though I do know the relevant EU regulations enforce export restrictions of other member states. Perhaps the difficulty is that these objects may be ‘orphaned’ objects, where German authorities are unsure of their nation of origin? Or perhaps because of the different governments on the island — the Turkish occupied North or the Republic of Cyprus to the South? Or perhaps its bureaucratic red tape delaying the repatriation? Or perhaps Turkey is pressuring Germany in some way? Are the disputes over these antiquities a proxy-fight between Turks and Greeks?

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

A Response to my PAS Article

Alun Salt recently had a very long reaction to my article on England and Wales’ Portable Antiquity Scheme:

By and large my archaeological training has been on community projects. My first dig was on a community project excavating a Gallo-Roman villa, organised by a society based in the local village in Nospelt. In the UK I was in the local village archaeology group and did a bit of excavation and geophysics and a lot of fieldwalking. All the projects I’ve worked on have been poorly funded, even by archaeological standards, or more often not funded at all. My experience then with archaeology outside of academia is of knowledgable, enthusiastic people with relatively little access to expertise, equipment and information.

The great attraction of the PAS from my point of view is the outreach aspect. All sorts of little bits of information are being gathered by amateurs and rather than being centrally hoarded they’re being made available to anyone with an internet connection. It’s not that there’s been a lack of will in any of the museum services I’ve seen when it comes to public engagement, but there hasn’t really been the institutional framework to help it happen. The PAS is built around engaging with the public and it’s in the bones of the system. For example below is some data uploaded to Swivel. To be honest I cannot see myself using that particular dataset, but that’s not the point. I’m used to being told there are strict limitations on what I can do with photos from museums. Here someone is actively encouraging the public to take away data and do something interesting with it.

It’s a thoughtful response, and one of the reasons I included some of Salt’s blog posts in the article itself.

As an aside, I’m continued to be surprised and excited by how these new means of writing via blogs can inform and shape traditional avenues of scholarship like peer-reviewed articles. When done well, I think both can shape and inform each other.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Alderman on the Black Swan Litigation

Kimberley Alderman, over at the Cultural Property & Archaeology Law Blog updates the ongoing dispute between Odyssey Marine Exploration and Spain, with a helpful copy of Odyssey’s response, without exhibits:

Spain asks to dismiss based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction in that they are a sovereign entity. They argue that the coins were theirs, so the coins are sovereign immune under the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act. This is usually used when a shipwreck is a military ship, because until a State has disclaimed their property, they still own it. So Spain asserts that Odyssey got the coins from the shipwreck is of Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, that its a sovereign ship, and that the U.S. District Court court doesn’t have jurisdiction over them or their coins (e.g., Odyssey needs to get their mitts off of the treasure.)

Enter Odyssey, stage right, who has some pretty good attorneys by the way. They argue, (1) that there is no ship, and no proof that the Mercedes is where the coins originated. There were just a bunch of coins scattered about on the ocean floor. (In another part of the motion, Odyssey points out the coins were salvaged in an archaeologically-sound manner). Therefore, sovereign immunity doesn’t apply.

They back it up with (2) even if the coins came from the Mercedes, they aren’t sovereign immune for a couple reasons. First, the Mercedes is not sovereign immune because it was not exclusively noncommercial at the time of its sinking (was carrying commercial cargo and passengers). Second, the specific journey the Mercedes was on at the time of its sinking was primarily commercial. Finally, most of the Mercedes cargo was commercially owned and therefore wouldn’t be sovereign immune.

The parties are still at the Summary Judgment stage, in which Spain is essentially arguing the dispute cannot continue because Odyssey cannot win, even if the judge were to adopt Odyssey’s view of the evidence. The dispute may hinge on Spain’s ownership of a long-sunk vessel, and what activities it was engaged in hundreds of years ago when she went under. One policy to note, Odyssey has a vested interest in not undertaking a serious archaeological exploration of the vessel, as the more information they have destroyed, the harder it will be for Spain to establish its claim. Regardless of who wins the dispute, that is not a helpful policy.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Bob Mondello on "The Memory of Mankind"

NPR’s Bob Mondello has a highly recommended segment on museums as big businesses grappling with their conflicting roles in research and entertainment. He notes that combined attendance at all major league sports events was about 140 million, while American museums will attract 850 million visitors.

Peale’s collection and others were bought up in the 1840s by Phineas T. Barnum, who added some showmanship to the enterprise. In the pre-photography era, when a painting of the Grand Canyon could draw block-long lines. P.T. Barnum took the static curiosities in the collections he’d acquired and added “live” curiosities — industrious fleas, a hippo that he told audiences was “The Great Behemoth of the Scriptures” and assorted bearded ladies.

“The earliest museums really were, for lack of a better term, they were kind of freak shows,” historian Stephen Asma, author of Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads, told NPR in 2002. “The bizarre was collected together with sober specimens with no real order or organization.”

Though Asma says curators didn’t have the “scientific agenda” that they do today, that agenda wasn’t being neglected. Around the time Barnum was turning his museums into carnivals, a somewhat startled U.S. Congress was dealing with an unexpected bequest from an Englishman named James Smithson. His will asked for the establishment of a Smithsonian Institution for the “increase and diffusion of knowledge.”

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

From Saddam’s Palace to Museum

Interesting plans to convert a palace built by Saddam Hussein into a museum near Basra:

John Curtis, head of the British Museum’s Department of the Ancient Near East – the first foreign museum expert in the world to visit Iraq – said: “The building … has the advantage of a rather wonderful setting, where you could one day have a beautiful garden with fountains.”

He added: “This is terribly important in the regeneration of Basra and the wider region. While all kinds of infrastructural projects like electricity, water, hospitals and schools are being tackled, cultural resources are almost entirely lacking … not just a museum but even a public library.”

The original museum recording the region’s 5,000-year-old history, which includes some of the richest archaeological sites in the world, was ransacked by looters during the Gulf war in 1991. The city was also the legendary home of Sinbad the sailor, an association that fuelled a flourishing tourist trade which has been destroyed by the wars.

What remained of the museum’s collection, which included beautiful vases, terracotta and stone figures, bronze weapons, jewellery, thousands of cuneiform inscribed clay tablets and carved seals, was transferred for safekeeping to the national museum in Baghdad, just before the start of the allied attack in 2003. Ironically, the Baghdad museum’s own collection was one of the worst casualties of the war, with hundreds of pieces still missing, but the Basra collection, with those of other provincial museums, remained safe in a sealed store which was not discovered by the looters.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Waxman in NYT Op-Ed Urges the Met to Come Clean about Acquisitions

Both the recent purchases and the acquisitions from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In so doing she continues to conflate historical taking founded on imperialism with modern concepts like looting and smuggling. Both imperial taking and the illicit purchase of these objects can be criticized, but for very different reasons. She does have a point though, institutions will likely face continued pressure to admit how and why objects came to these institutions:

The Met’s galleries and Web site are mysteriously devoid of recent facts about the provenance of many artifacts. Most visitors have no idea how the treasures on display in the Greek and Roman rooms, the Egyptian antiquities department, or the Byzantine, African, Asian and Oceanic collections came to be housed in the museum.

Who among them knows that Louis Palma di Cesnola, the Italian-born collector and Civil War veteran who was the first director of the museum, appropriated a huge number of antiquities for more than a decade? As the American consul in Cyprus in the 1860s, Cesnola kept 100 diggers busy in Larnaca; his house became a kind of museum. Cesnola smuggled out no fewer than 35,573 artifacts — passing them off as the property of the Russian consul — for which the Met paid $60,000.

The Met doesn’t tell this story. Even many people who work at the Met don’t seem to know it. Plunder is also the provenance of one of the museum’s most imposing artifacts in the Greek and Roman collection — an Ionic capital from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis. Massive and graceful, it sits prominently in a gallery on the first floor of the Met.

How did it get here? In 1922, as the Greeks and Turks warred over the port of Izmir, the column was spirited away by American archaeologists along with hundreds of other pieces and sent to the Met. When the hostilities ended, the Turks protested and the theft (or rescue, depending on one’s perspective) became an international incident, recorded in State Department archives. After much negotiation, the Turks ceded ownership of the column in exchange for the return of 53 cases of antiquities, also stolen from Sardis.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Commemorating Nazi Restitution

Yonat Shimron has the story of this work, Madonna and Child in a Landscape in the News and Observer:

Apart from its origin as an object of religious devotion and a prized piece of German Renaissance art, the “Madonna and Child in a Landscape” is now famous because it was seized by the Nazis as loot. That’s why curators at the Austrian Museum of Applied and Contemporary Art, known as MAK, asked to borrow the painting to round out the exhibit “Recollecting: Looted Art and Restitution,” which opens Wednesday and runs though Feb. 15.

“It’s a great poetic conclusion to the story,” said John Coffey, deputy director of art at the N.C. Museum of Art. “It furthers the conversation of cultural property, who owns it and how it should be managed.” In 1984, the painting came to the N.C. Museum of Art as a bequest by a California couple. It was mounted in the European art gallery as part of the museum’s permanent collection.

But in 1999, the Commission for Art Recovery of the World Jewish Congress notified the museum that it had a piece of looted Nazi art. Two elderly Austrian sisters — Marianne and Cornelia Hainisch of Vienna — claimed the painting belonged to their great-uncle, Philipp von Gomperz, a wealthy Viennese Jew.

As various documents attested, Gomperz was forced to turn over his art collection to Nazi police at the outbreak of World War II. His Madonna and Child landed in the palace of Vienna’s Nazi governor. After a months-long investigation, the museum concluded that the sisters were right — and relinquished its claim to the painting. But then, under the terms of a unique agreement, the sisters sold the painting back to the museum for $600,000, half its estimated value.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Archaeology on Trial in Israel

And it is losing. So notes Nina Burleigh in an Op-Ed in the LA Times:

Prosecutors have been hamstrung. A craftsman based in Cairo’s Khan al Khalili souk told police he made some objects for the collector, but he wasn’t inclined to testify and they cannot compel him to come to Israel. So prosecutors instead called a long list of archaeologists and epigraphers, experts in the minutia of ancient Christian and Jewish artifacts. These men and women, accustomed to working on dusty digs or answering questions from somnambulant students, were no match for nimble, expensive attorneys, among the best in Israel, working for the defense.

One by one, they either contradicted themselves on various scientific technicalities or had their conclusions ripped apart by the defense’s expert witnesses. One veteran Israeli archaeologist, Meyer Ben Dov, was so disheartened by what was happening that he told me “archaeology is on trial” — and it did not appear to be winning.

The case isn’t over, but after the judge’s comments last month, the American publisher Shanks issued a news release calling the James ossuary “vindicated,” a claim religious bloggers have since disseminated worldwide.

Pictured here is the James Ossuary, the most notable object at issue in the trial. Is it real or a modern forgery? The Israeli Antiquities Authority thinks it is a fake.

The difficulty in providing sufficient evidence is a foundational problem with heritage law. The antiquities trade as it is currently structured is too focused on hiding the history of objects. Even Lord Colin Renfrew, a passionate campaigner for a reformed antiquities trade noted recently:

I’m much in favour of collecting, so long as it doesn’t involve objects recently taken from the ground. In my opinion all too many collections are scandalous for this very reason. I don’t mind so much people buying antiquities looted a century ago, but not if the items in question entered the market post-1970 when the convention on the illegal trade in antiquities was signed.

Buying and selling established objects may still have violation national patrimony laws though. Even collecting antiquities which surfaced pre-1970 produces powerful incentives for dealers and buyers to either fabricate a pre-1970 surface date, or even lead to very superficial investigation of an object’s history. The current legal framework does not guarantee an object’s history is authentic or clean of looting, whether it occurred in 1970 or 1870.

Burleigh is the author of the recent work “Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed and Forgery in The Holy Land.”

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com