Alleged Bubon Smuggling Network Widens

A bronze bust removed from the collection of the Worcester Art Museum
A bronze bust removed from the collection of the Worcester Art Museum

An ancient Roman bronze bust has been seized from the Worcester Art Museum. The seizure is the latest recovery by the Manhattan district attorney’s office Antiquities Trafficking Unit, which also includes material from the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Met, Fordham University and Christie’s. Details on the seizure from Worcester are difficult to ascertain, as we are left mainly with a press release from the Museum, and a “no comment” from the Manhattan DA. The Museum will “transfer ownership” to the New York County District Attorney’s Office” so that it can then be returned to its country of origin. Ownership is the wrong term here, possession would be more appropriate.

The transfer of possession was prompted with the benefit of “new information about the object’s history of ownership”. It had been acquired in 1966, reportedly from the late antiquities dealer Robert Hecht. And may belong to the collection of ancient Roman bronzes from the Bubon area of Turkey.

The initial question is why did the museum voluntarily return the object? Perhaps it considered mounting a legal challenge, yet the Museum’s statement would seemingly have us think that it would return all other similarly improperly imported and acquired objects. It asks forgiveness on the basis that it has not been able to prioritize provenance research of its existing collection due to limited resources. The likely speculation goes then that had it had such an initiative in place, it would have sent the object back. That adds an interesting wrinkle to the difficult task of Museum publicists when forced to account for the presence of illicit material for so many decades.

The Antiquities Trafficking Unit has made a considerable dent in the number of illicit objects in various museum and private collections. The objects are returning to where they were illicitly removed from, but the prosecution of the individuals responsible remains elusive.

Tom Mashberg, Manhattan Prosecutors Seize a Bronze Bust Valued at $5 Million, The New York Times (Sep. 3, 2023), https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/03/arts/design/manhattan-prosecutors-seize-3rd-century-bust.html.

Malcolm Gay Globe Staff et al., How Could Smuggled Roman Art Have Ended up at the Worcester Art Museum? – The Boston Globe, BostonGlobe.com, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/09/05/arts/how-could-smuggled-roman-art-have-ended-up-worcester-art-museum/ (last visited Sep. 7, 2023).

Worcester Art Museum Transfers Ownership of Bronze Bust, https://www.worcesterart.org/news/press-room/press-releases/PR/worcester-art-museum-portrait-of-a-lady-press-release.pdf, archived at https://perma.cc/7QX4-GT2D (Sep. 2023).

Roman Bust Seized from US Museum in Investigation into Stolen Pieces, the Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/06/stolen-art-massachusetts-worcester-museum (last visited Sep. 7, 2023).

Ancient Roman Bust Seized from U.S. Museum in Trafficking Probe, Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/art/2023/09/06/worcester-art-museum-roman-bust/.

Marlowe on the Real Issue with the Glyptotek Head

This is a guest post by Elizabeth Marlowe, Associate Professor of Art; Chair, Department of Art & Art History; Director, Museum Studies Program.

Some Key Facts on the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Portrait of Septimius Severus and the Corpus of Bubon Bronzes

The over-life-sized bronze head of Septimius Severus at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen has been much in the news lately. Turkish officials are calling for its return because for the last 50 years (up to and including the museum’s own website), the museum has asserted that the head originally belonged to an over-lifesized bronze body [2] that, until recently, had been on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The body was seized by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in March, and has now been returned to Türkiye

photo by Steven Zucker

I have been researching these artworks for several years and am in the process of preparing a large publication (on an open-access, updateable, bilingual website) of all that I have learned. I offer here a brief summary of the main evidence concerning the Glyptotek head with the goal of ensuring that all parties involved in the discussions, including journalists, have the relevant facts at their disposal (something that has not been the case in all of the recent reporting). My main concern is that the discussions seem to be focusing on the wrong issue. The question of whether the museum’s bronze head can be proven to go with that particular body is a secondary matter. The key issue is whether it comes from a particular Roman site in Türkiye whose looting in the 1960s is a matter of well-established fact. I’m grateful to Derek Fincham for sharing his Illicit Cultural Property platform with me for the purpose of presenting the evidence on this question. 

In May, 1967, Turkish authorities, acting on a tip about a large-scale act of archaeological looting, arrived at the village of Ibecik, where they discovered a large, ancient bronze statue hidden in a local house. Eventually, the police persuaded the homeowner, together with a number of other villagers, to reveal where the statue came from. In the following days, archaeologists from the nearby museum at Burdur conducted an emergency excavation at the site, known in antiquity as Bubon, and found a large three-sided platform and several free-standing statue bases [3].

The pedestals of the looted bronze imperial statues at Bubon, after Jale Inan, 1993.

These were inscribed with the names of fourteen Roman emperors and empresses, suggesting that this room had once been filled with statues, and that it may have been a shrine for the worship of the emperor and his family, a practice we call the “imperial cult.” But the statues had all disappeared, with the exception of the one the authorities had recovered (this statue is today in the Burdur museum) [4].

The one Bubon statue that remained in Turkey, at the Burdur Archaeological Museum. Photo by Izabela Miszczak

The Turkish archaeologist Jale Inan investigated, and was told by  the villagers that they’d been selling the statues as they found them to a dealer, netting as much as 90,000 Turkish lira for the largest and best-preserved figures. Their accounts are vague and contradictory, but they admitted to selling at least nine or ten statues as well as many additional fragments, including heads, arms and legs. Most were nude male figures, they reported, but one was clothed, and at least one was female. One of the male nudes, the largest of the group, was nearly 9 feet tall, and was the only figure in the group that was completely intact. 

Meanwhile, starting in the mid-1960s, a number of bronze figures, portrait heads, and body parts began showing up on the art market. We now know that at least two of these were trafficked by the same person: both a bronze female head at the Worcester Art Museum (whose bust may not belong to the original work) and the head at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek were first sold by the notorious Robert Hecht. (The latter piece of information had been a tightly-kept secret in Copenhagen, and only became public knowledge earlier this month thanks to reporting by Camilla Strockmann.) It is very possible that Hecht – who had been barred from Türkiye in 1962 for trafficking in looted antiquities – was behind the entire group.

There are today approximately ten bronze heads and a dozen bronze bodies currently residing in public and private collections around the world (mostly in the U.S.) that almost certainly came from Bubon. I say “almost certainly” because of course the networks that move illegally plundered antiquities from the ground, smuggle them across borders, and deliver them to the high-end galleries of Europe and the U.S. are designed to cover their tracks. These are laundering operations – the original stain is supposed to be invisible by the end. But fortunately in the case of Bubon, enough facts are known about the looting and the pieces themselves that we can identify some clear criteria for determining whether a particular bronze was almost certainly looted from the site: 

  • Does it depict a Roman emperor or family member, or could it have been part of a statue that did? (There may have been non-imperial statuary that was also looted from the site, but for now I’m focusing on pieces that can be associated with the imperial shrine.)
  • Did it surface on the market at some point between 1964 and the early 1970s?
  • Does it feature small square bronze patches on its surface? These patches, typically a couple of centimeters long, are the hallmarks of the local bronze workshop that produced these works. The ancient metalsmiths laid the patches in  sawtooth patterns along the seams when they soldered together the individually-cast components of these large bronze statues, and they also used them singly to strengthen weak spots in the bronze surface [5].
Example of the distinctive patchwork, from the statue recently seized at the Met

As far as the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek’s portrait of the emperor Septimius Severus is concerned, there is no doubt that it meets these criteria. The museum purchased it from Hecht in 1970. The line of square patches around the neck where the head was originally attached to the body in antiquity is very visible [6].

Sawtooth patches on the Ny Carlsberg Copenhagen head

We can also add to the evidence the fact that one of the statue bases at Bubon is inscribed with the name Septimius Severus, so we know there was a portrait of that particular emperor at the site. These are the key facts that should be determining whether the museum is going to return the head to Türkiye. Whether or not we have correctly identified which of the headless Bubon bodies the head went with is a separate question. We know it almost certainly went with one of the bodies from the site. 

There is also the fundamental fact that the head has to have come from somewhere – from some over-life-sized bronze statue of Septimius Severus that was produced in the ancient workshop that used the unusual patchwork technique. What is the likelihood that there was another such discovery by looters, right during the very same period that the looters at Bubon turned up their bonanza of imperial bronzes? It’s worth remembering how extremely rare statues like these are in the modern world; for every bronze portrait or statue that has survived from the ancient Mediterranean, there are dozens, maybe hundreds of surviving marble works. That is because bronze is precious and can be melted down. Over the centuries the vast majority of ancient bronzes were recycled and turned into things like coins, weapons, nails and the like. 

And even if this is all just an extraordinary coincidence, and the Ny Carlsberg head comes from some other looted site, the patchwork itself still strongly ties the piece to Türkiye. This means that unless the head came to the museum with an export license from the Turkish government, it has to have been smuggled out of the country in violation of Turkish cultural heritage laws. Public and private collectors in Europe and North America sometimes suggest that countries of origin didn’t care about their ancient artifacts and did little to protect their cultural property during this period, and that by collecting ancient art, they are “saving” it. But in fact, Türkiye’s deep concern around these issues is evident in its efforts to keep Hecht out of the country, by the police intervention at Bubon in 1967, and by Jale Inan’s tireless efforts over the course of her career to draw attention to the tragic history of this site, whose market-fuelled plundering destroyed what would have been one of the most extraordinary archaeological discoveries of the century. 

In sum, we know the Septimius Severus head was looted from Türkiye and trafficked by one of the art market’s shadiest characters. Why is the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek defending its right to own stolen property? What are the museum’s ethical principles?

* * *

Even though it is a secondary matter as far as the choice facing the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is concerned, while we’re here, here is the evidence that connects the Copenhagen head with the body that was recently seized at the Metropolitan Museum and returned to Türkiye:

  • According, again, to Jale Inan, the feet of the Met statue fit the indentations on the statue base with Septimius Severus’ name. So the head that was attached to this body has to have been a bronze portrait of Septimius Severus. No other viable candidate has turned up in the 56 years since the body surfaced on the international market.
  • In recent statements to the press, the director of collections at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Rune Frederiksen, has suggested that the association between the head and the body was just an idea that his predecessor, Fleming Johansen, had come up with out of nowhere at some point in the mid-1970s after the museum had acquired the portrait. In fact, the link between the two pieces had long been known among experts. The Met body was referred to as Septimius Severus as early as 1967, the same year it was acquired (along with several other Bubon pieces) by the Boston dealer Charles Lipson. Cornelius Vermeule, the curator of Greek and Roman art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, discussed Lipson’s statue as a portrait of Septimius Severus in a presentation that year at the annual meetings of the Archaeological Institute of America. He mentions it again as Septimius Severus in an addendum to his 1968 book, Roman Imperial Art in Greece and Asia Minor (Belknap Press, p. 546). There is, of course, no valid reason to identify this headless body as Septimius Severus without the connection to a portrait head of that ruler. It is highly unlikely that Vermeule would have done so in front of his colleagues at the archaeologists’ conference if he didn’t know that the evidence behind it was solid. 
  • Of the eleven heads that have been associated with Bubon, only the Copenhagen head is broken off from its body well below the ancient seam that joined the head and body at mid-neck. If the head indeed comes from this site (see evidence above), it must go with one of the few Bubon bodies that is missing the entirety of its neck. There are only two candidates that meet this criterion. One is the statue recently seized at the Met. The photo that was produced when the head and the body were briefly brought together in Copenhagen in 1979 certainly looks awkward [7].
The NCG head and Met body, as tested in Copenhagen in 1979
  • But the awkwardness may be due to the incorrect positioning of the head (Inan hypothesized that it may have been turned to the right, toward the raised arm; at any rate it certainly would have been lower) and to the deformations of the metal caused by the violent process that ripped the head from the body so far below the ancient seam. The other potential candidate for a match with the Copenhagen head is a bronze body in an identical pose as the Met statue, and likewise bearing the tell-tale bronze patches, that was recently resold by Royal-Athena Gallery (it is listed in the 2006 catalog, along with a female body, as originating at Bubon). I have seen this privately-owned body in person. My impression is that it is too small for the Copenhagen head. Of course, a sustained scientific examination is needed to know for sure. 

Frederiksen is right to emphasize that more research must be done to determine which statue the head belongs with; as he told the Turkish paper the Daily Sabah, “we have to compare the breaks of the torso and the head.” It is noteworthy, however, that Frederiksen has not tried to deny that the Septimius Severus head came from Bubon. That, and not its association with the Met head, is what should determine where it belongs today. Indeed, the only way we will ever be able to compare the breaks as Frederiksen advocates is to reunite the pieces. 

Key Bibliography:

İnan, J. 1979. “Der Bronzetorso im Burdur-Museum aus Bubon und der Bronzekopf im J.-Paul-Getty-Museum,” Istanbuler Mitteilungen 27/28 (1977/78) [1979], pp. 266-287.

İnan, J. 1994. “Neue Forschungen zum Sebasteion von Bubon und seinen Statuen,” in Akten des II. Internationalen Lykien-Symposions Vienna, 6.-12. Mai 1990, ed. J. Borcchardt, J. and G. Dobesch, Vienna 1993, pp. 213-239.

İnan, J. 1994 . Boubon Sebasteionu ve Heykelleri Üzerine Son Arastirmalar, Istanbul.

Kozloff, A. P. 1987. “The Cleveland Bronze: The Emperor as Philosopher,” Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 74, 82-113.

Lubos, M., 2016, “Bubon Bronzes – New Perspectives,” Proceedings of the XVIIth International Congress on Ancient Bronzes, Izmir.  Monographies Instrumentum 51, 2016, 265-73 (to be used with caution).

Vermeule, C. 1980. “The Late Antonine and Severan Bronze Portraits from Southwest Asia Minor,” in Eikones. Studien zum griechischen und römischen Bildnis. Hans Jucker zum sechzigsten Geburtstag gewidmet (Bern, 1980), 185-90.

27 Objects Seized From the Met

Spencer Woodman and Malia Politzer first reported that 27 objects have been seized from the Met. 21 objects in July, and an additional six this week. The objects include Greek or Roman pottery, a marble head of Athena, and Hindu material. The seizures are largely the result of investigations by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Art Trafficking Unit and the Department of Homeland Security-Homeland Security Investigations. Given such a large amount of material, you might wonder what the Met’s response will be. Based on the comments of Met spokesperson Kenneth Weine, more of the same:

“The museum is a leader in the field in comprehensively reviewing individual matters, and it has returned many pieces based upon thorough review – oftentimes in partnership with law enforcement and outside experts,” Weine said. “The norms of collecting have changed significantly, and The Met’s policies and procedures in this regard have been under constant review over the past 20 years.”

 “Mother Goddess (Matrika)” (mid-6th century), India (Rajasthan, Tanesara), gray schist, 24 1/2 inches x 9 inches (via Metropolitan Museum of Art)

By now the Met must understand the illicit nature of so much of its collection. While a wonderful institution in many ways, its original sin remains its base instinct to compete with the grandest museums in the world. It has bought objects that simply cannot legally be bought, sold, and transported. The urge to be grand has meant that it has acquired so much that is stolen. There really is no other way to put it. They can point to dates and inconsistent laws and norms, but by now any reasonably informed observer knows the Met has dodgy material in its collection. No matter how much spin they want to put on their reputation as being a leader in reviewing their collection, the fact remains that so often it has been prosecutors forcing them into good behavior.

Flurry of Seizures Intensify Pressure on the Met over Artifacts Linked to Accused Traffickers – ICIJ (Aug. 31, 2022), https://www.icij.org/investigations/hidden-treasures/flurry-of-seizures-intensify-pressure-on-the-met-over-artifacts-linked-to-accused-traffickers/.

Lauren del Valle CNN Liam Reilly and Alaa Elassar, Dozens of Artifacts Seized from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, CNN, https://www.cnn.com/style/article/met-museum-artifacts-seized-new-york-looting/index.html (last visited Sep. 3, 2022).

Tom Mashberg & Graham Bowley, Investigators, Citing Looting, Have Seized 27 Antiquities From the Met, The New York Times (Sep. 2, 2022), https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/arts/design/met-museum-looting.html.

Elaine Velie & Elaine Velie, Manhattan DA to Seize Looted Hindu Artifact From Met Museum, Hyperallergic, http://hyperallergic.com/757491/manhattan-da-to-seize-looted-hindu-artifact-from-met-museum/ (last visited Sep. 3, 2022).

Italian Senate renews call for return of the ‘Bronze Statue of a Victorious Youth’

L’Atleta di Fano/Bronze Statue of a Victorious youth, at the Getty Villa

The Italian Senate’s Culture Commission has unanimously approved a resolution to renew the call for the return of the ‘Bronze Statue of a Victorious Youth‘ currently in the possession of the Getty Foundation at its Villa in Malibu. The call has also been taken up by the mayor of Fano, Massimo Seri. Seri has been a dogged champion for the return of the Bronze, noting that Italian forfeiture decisions give Italy a right of recovery, and even trying unsuccessfully to make the Bronze a discussion at the Italian meeting of the G20 later this year.

The resolution by the Italian Senate Committee was according the the Art Neewspaper crafted by Senator Margherita Corrado. The resolution will involve streamlining the efforts to seek the return of contested objects of cultural heritage:

[T]o assign a smaller pool of district magistrates to restitution cases “to allow for greater specialisation”, favour the training of magistrates in cultural heritage law, and encourage universities to teach legal archaeology in relevant courses. Furthermore, the government will collaborate with the Rai public broadcasting service to raise general awareness among citizens about restitution through programming, the resolution states.

It is not clear how that streamlining will link up with the current framework created by the 1970 UNESCO Convention, the companion 1995 UNIDROIT Convention, or the various bilateral agreements currently in place. Specialized training and courses at University are a welcome step, but Italy already has world class legal experts at its Universities, so I look forward to learning more about what this new initiative will actually look like. And I’m most interested in the impact of an Italian Senate Committee resolution, and if it will unlock funding and substantial change. If so, it could be a most welcome development for the obligations Italy and other Nations have under International Cultural Heritage Law.

The Art Newspaper also reported on what may be a more impactful mechanism, which would be to shut the Getty out of future efforts. In 2020 an internal culture ministry communication absolutely foreclosed the facilitation of the stunning Torlonia marbles collection: “After the refusal of the Getty Museum to recognise the sentence of the Court of Cassation [. . .] the Ministry has limited relations with the American museum to projects that have already been initiated.”

The ancient greek Bronze, likely made between 300-100 BCE was most likely hauled up by Italian fishermen in the 1960s, on a vessel based in the fishing town of Fano on the Adriatic Coast. A full account of the likely journey of the Bronze can be found in the terrific investigative book on lots of the acquisitions by the Getty Foundation, Chasing Aphrodite by Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino. Italy has persistently asked for its return, and the Forfeiture ruling in Italy’s Court of Cassation gives Italy a domestic right to the return of the marbles.

The only hurdle then would be to have a compatible decision which would be enforced by American Courts. As I wrote in a 2013 Piece for Cardozo’s Arts and Entertainment Law Journal, United States Federal Law has such a mechanism, Italy simply needs to request its application.

James Imam, Italy Strengthens Case for Return of “Victorious Youth” Bronze from Getty Museum in Heritage Feud that Has Lasted Decades, The Art Newspaper, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/victorious-youth-getty-italian-senate [https://perma.cc/296Y-D5X7?type=image] (last visited Jul. 21, 2021).

Lisippo: sindaco Fano, risoluzione Senato aiuta ritorno Italia – Marche, Agenzia ANSA, https://www.ansa.it/marche/notizie/2021/07/19/lisippo-sindaco-fano-risoluzione-senato-aiuta-ritorno-italia_4f3315c4-d193-433f-80a4-ad2545c33632.html [https://perma.cc/5R87-RPVH] (last visited Jul. 21, 2021).

Facebook will remove posts selling cultural objects

Facebook announced today that it will remove any content that is an attempt to buy, sell, or trade in “historical artifacts”. That decision is a welcome change, and the product of a terrific advocacy campaign by the Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research (ATHAR) Project. in a press release, Greg Mandel, public policy manager at Facebook stated “To keep these artifacts and our users safe, we’ve been working to expand our rules, and starting today we now prohibit the exchange, sale or purchase of all historical artifacts on Facebook and Instagram”.

Some of the posts were truly shocking. Katie Paul, co-director of ATHAR was quoted in the NYT: “They literally will post pictures from auction catalogs and say, ‘See, this is how much this stuff can sell for, so go for it guys.’” And that kind of buyer-directed looting was reported by the BBC in 2019:

This welcome reform will help to prevent Facebook’s algorithms and micro-advertising campaigns from being used to sell illicit cultural objects, but likely will not end it entirely. As Prof. Amr al-Azm, from Shawnee State University in Ohio, adequate enforcement efforts will also be needed because simply “[r]elying on user reports and Artificial Intelligence is simply not enough”. Though more work may need to be done, this is a welcome development, and big congratulations should be directed at everyone at the ATHAR project and who called for this reform.

Tom Mashberg, Facebook, Citing Looting Concerns, Bans Historical Artifact Sales, The New York Times, Jun. 23, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/arts/design/facebook-looting-artifacts-ban.html.

Carlie Porterfield, Facebook Bans Artifacts Trade After Uptick In Posts Of Looted Objects, Forbes (Jun. 23, 2020), https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/06/23/facebook-bans-artifacts-trade-after-uptick-in-posts-of-looted-objects/.

Steve Swann, Facebook Bans “loot-to-Order” Antiquities Trade, Jun. 23, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53140615.

Tracking the history looted from a warzone, BBC News (May 2, 2019), https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-47671566/syrian-looting-tracking-the-history-taken-from-a-warzone.

EDNY Files Forfeiture for Gilgamesh Dream Tablet

Gilgamesh Dream Tablet
A cuneiform tablet which may reveal a portion of the epic poem of Gilgamesh.

Today the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York announced the filing of a civil forfeiture action against a cuneiform tablet which was most recently purchased by the Museum of the Bible. The Government’s allegations show a familiar pattern: fake the history of an object, have the object published in a scientific publication, earn the endorsement of a prominent expert, and conduct the sale in secret. The complaint is docketed at Civ. No. 20-2222. Here are some of the best allegations from the government’s complaint, available here.

First off, the Government rightly points out the scourge of looting in Iraq, and the discovery of the epic of Gilgamesh in 1853:

This tablet was seized from the Museum of the Bible in September, and is storing the tablet at at U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Queens, which may help explain why the EDNY U.S. Attorney’s office has filed this action and not another office. It may also be because this office is one which has good track record of successful civil forfeiture actions.

HSI Special Agent-in-Charge Peter Fitzhugh stated in the press release:

“We are proud of our investigation that led to this reclaiming of a piece of Iraq’s cultural history.  This rare tablet was pillaged from Iraq and years later sold at a major auction house, with a questionable and unsupported provenance, HSI New York’s Cultural Property, Arts and Antiquity Investigations program will continue to work with prosecutors to combat the looting of antiquities and ensure those who would attempt to profit from this crime are held accountable.”

The laws at issue here are parts of the Customs laws and the National Stolen Property Act:

One interesting aspect here, and I’m not sure what the appetite for the Museum of the Bible will be to defend this action in court given the absolute devastating series of seizures, investigations and scandals, but they may have some legal defenses due to the difficulty in tracing an illicit antiquity to its point of origin. Federal law still hinges in many ways on pinning a specific time and place for a criminal act involving a piece of cultural heritage, whether that act is looting from context, theft, smuggling, etc. The government will have to show I think that this tablet did originate in Iraq after an applicable Iraqi heritage or patrimony law. Of course if the Museum of the Bible wants to do the right thing and just let this object be returned, those legal arguments are moot. But the complaint does I think leave open the specific origin for the fragment, and when. A very typical problem with illicit objects like this one.

The best argument the government laid out in the complaint is that the Museum of the Bible and the Auction House engaged in some really clumsy post-sale due diligence which only made the problems worse, and acknowledge Iraq as the origin:

The forfeiture here alleges some serious fraud and wrongdoing by a prominent new museum, the Museum of the Bible; but also dealers, antiquities experts, and prominent auctioneers.



United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Richard P. Donoghue also stated in the release:

“Whenever looted cultural property is found in this country, the United States government will do all it can to preserve heritage by returning such artifacts where they belong, In this case, a major auction house failed to meet its obligations by minimizing its concerns that the provenance of an important Iraqi artifact was fabricated, and withheld from the buyer information that undermined the provenance’s reliability.



The forfeiture action is a very powerful and useful remedy to police specific objects, but it really may not do all that much long-term to disincentivize actors from doing this kind of thing in the future. A forfeiture every now and then is just the cost of doing business.

United States Files Civil Action to Forfeit Rare Cuneiform Tablet Bearing Portion of the Epic of Gilgamesh (May 18, 2020), https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/united-states-files-civil-action-forfeit-rare-cuneiform-tablet-bearing-portion-epic.

Lord Elgin and the Parthenon featured on Stuff You Missed in History Class

Parthenon Frieze at the Acropolis Museum in Athens
The Parthenon frieze depicting the Great Panathenaia at the Acropolis Museum in Athens

The excellent podcast, Stuff You Missed in History Class, (hosted by Tracy V. Wilson and Holly Frey) has a useful overview of the chronology of the taking of the Parthenon Sculptures by Lord Elgin and his agents. It’s a useful overview, and will likely be of particular use for students or newcomers to the long-running dispute. Useful details include Elgin’s bitter divorce, and the reminder that it was never a good thing to draw the ire of Lord Byron.

Manhattan DA has Charged Kapoor and 7 Others

The Manhattan DA alleged that many illicit objects are still missing, including this grey schist Garuda Seizing a Nagini (via).

The office of the Manhattan District Attorney has charged Subhash Kapoor and seven individuals in a antiquities massive smuggling network. The arrest warrants filed yesterday allege Kapoor travelled to India to discuss the looting of objects, he then shipped these objects to London to be cleaned and restored, and finally these objects were given fraudulent histories before being sold through his galleries.

These arrests show the potential use of state and federal cooperation, unfortunately a massive investigation this large takes time. As Chasing Aprhorite pointed out, these arrest warrants come 7 years after federal agents raided Kapoor’s gallery in 2012:

The individuals arrested include two British citizens. Neil Parry Smith, an antiquities restorer was alleged to have prepared looted objects. Also, Richard Salmon is alleged to have helped restored recently looted material in New York. The five other individuals were a part of the alleged looting network in India and are Sanjeeve Asokan, Dean Dayal, Ranjeet Kanwar (aka Shantoo), Aditya Prakash and Vallabh Prakash.

Kapoor is currently jailed in India where he has been awaiting trial under the Indian criminal code for nearly 8 years. But his alleged looting network is vast, including an alleged 2,600 antiquities from Afghanistan, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Thailand. Helen Stoilas at the Art Newspaper compiled many of the images of still-missing objects provided by the Manhattan DA. Those objects are now presumed illicit, dealing a big blow to their future market.

For a terrific account of this looting network, you should seek out the work of S. Vijay Kumar:

Italian Court Upholds Seizure Order for Fano Athlete

Bronze Statue of a Victorious youth, at the Getty Villa

Will the Getty’s prize bronze return to Italy? On Monday Italy’s Court of Cassation upheld the seizure of the Bronze Statue of a Victorious Youth, currently on display at the Getty Villa. Though the legal dispute has taken years, that’s not out of the norm for the amount of time prominent repatriation conflicts take to resolve. The written opinion has not yet been published, but it certainly appears to be a favorable development for Italian officials.

Gaia Pianigiani reported for the New York Times:

After a decade-long legal battle, Italy’s Court of Cassation ruled Monday that the statue should be confiscated and brought back to Italy, rejecting the Getty’s appeal. The decision had not been published Tuesday but a message from a court official describing it was provided to The New York Times.

“It was a very, very long process, but we now hope that we will be able to have it in Italy as soon as possible,” said Lorenzo D’Ascia, a lawyer representing the Italian government.

In a report on ANSA, comments by Italian heritage advocates, ministers and lawyers seemed optimistic:

The top court rejected an appeal by the US museum against a Pesaro judge’s order to confiscate the fourth-century BC bronze statue.
“The Lysippos (as it is known in Italy) must return to Italy, it’s the last word from Italian justice,” Pesaro prosecutor Silvia Cecchi told ANSA after the long legal battle.
Culture Minister Alberto Bonisoli told ANSA “now we hope the US authorities will act as soon as possible to favour the restitution of the Lysippos to Italy”.
He said he was happy that “this judicial process has finally ended and the right to recover an extremely important testimony of our heritage has been recognised.
“Let’s hope the statue can soon return to be admired in our museums”.
In June the Pesaro prosecutors announced that the order issued to seize the statue for years disputed by Italy and the Getty Museum in Malibu was “immediately executive”.
“The Lysippos statue must return to Italy,” prosecutors told ANSA, accompanied by Tristano Tonnini, the lawyer for the association “Cento Citta'”, which has been fighting the legal battle for 11 years.
“We expect politicians to play their part,” they said.

For Italy, the path to a successful repatriation of the Bronze could come via an agreement with the Getty. And such an agreement may be more likely to occur with this favorable ruling. The forfeiture can be successfully enforced by a U.S. Federal Court via transnational forfeiture and a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between Italy and the United States. I detailed how such a transnational forfeiture could work in a 2014 article, available here.

  1. Lysippos statue is Italy’s says court, ANSA.it (2018), http://www.ansa.it/english/news/lifestyle/arts/2018/12/04/lysippos-statue-is-italys-says-court_8405f7ad-e1d1-4aef-aa4d-998c98c1a7ec.html (last visited Dec 4, 2018).
  2. Gaia Pianigiani, Italian Court Rules Getty Museum Must Return a Prized Bronze, The New York Times, December 4, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/arts/design/getty-bronze-italy-ruling.html (last visited Dec 4, 2018).
  3. Derek Fincham, Transnational Forfeiture of the Getty Bronze, 32 Cardozo Arts & Ent. L.J. 471–500 (2014), available at https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/caelj32&i=485.
  4. Luis Li & Amelia L.B. Sargent, The Getty Bronze and the Limits of Restitution Symposium: The Cultural Identity and Legal Protection of Art, 20 Chap. L. Rev. 25–50 (2017) (for a discussion of the case from the perspective of the Getty’s attorneys).

Taxpayers paid triple for the forgeries at the Museum of the Bible

The Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C.

The Museum of the Bible, a private museum located in Washington D.C., has announced that some of its most heralded objects are likely forgeries. Five fragments, purported to be a part of the Dead Sea Scrolls, are actually fakes. In a statement the Museum of the Bible announced that the fragments “show characteristics inconsistent with ancient origin and therefore will no longer be displayed at the museum.”

The Museum of the Bible has generated controversy since it opened. In 2017 for example the Museum paid $3 million and returned thousands of objects illegally removed from Iraq. The Museum is the passion project of Steve Green, a billionaire and founder of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores.

Michael Press in a post for Hyperallergic  does an excellent job pointing out the real cost of these forgeries. He references the work of Candida Moss and Joel Baden for a 2017 book Bible Nation, which reports the Green family uses a 3:1 tax deduction to purchase price ration. Meaning that for every dollar used to buy these objects, the tax write-off is triple the amount. We the american taxpayer are paying for the Green family to acquire this material, much of it either looted or fake.

As Press argues:

Some may celebrate the latest news as a vindication of their criticisms of MOTB or Hobby Lobby. But, as with the prior series of scandals with which they’ve been involved — the forfeiture of thousands of cuneiform tablets and other artifacts smuggled into the countrythe issuing of fake receipts for purchases along with tax evasion and money laundering; or the funding of an archaeological excavation in the West Bank in violation of international law — this is not really a loss for MOTB.

Considering how the story has been told to date, it is a PR coup. More than that: based on the Greens’ 3:1 model for purchase and donation, and exorbitant purchase prices for the post-2002 Dead Sea Scroll fragments (tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars each), they have likely made millions of dollars in profit just from their “altruistic”donation of these 16 fragments. Given that this profit consists of public funds (in the form of tax breaks), the real losers, in this case, are us.

Sadly, that’s exactly right. We are paying for looting and forgery. Other museums certainly have acquired forged material in the past, but the Museum of the Bible in acquiring so much material so aggressively is bound to acquire looted and forged material.

Daniel Burke, Bible Museum say five of its Dead Sea Scrolls are fake, CNN (Oct. 23, 2018), https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/22/us/bible-museum-fake-scrolls/index.html.

Emily Sullivan, Museum Of The Bible Says 5 Of Its Most Famed Artifacts Are Fake, NPR.org (Oct. 23, 2018), https://www.npr.org/2018/10/23/659741484/museum-of-the-bible-says-5-of-its-most-famed-artifacts-are-fake.

Dead Sea Scrolls at the Museum of the Bible Revealed as Forgeries, Hyperallergic (Oct. 0, 2018), https://hyperallergic.com/467318/dead-sea-scrolls-at-the-museum-of-the-bible-revealed-as-forgeries/.

Museum of the Bible Releases Research Findings on Fragments in Its Dead Sea Scrolls Collection (Oct. 22, 2018), http://www.museumofthebible.org/press/press-releases/museum-of-the-bible-releases-research-findings-on-fragments-in-its-dead-sea-scrolls-collection.