Antiquities Trafficking Discussion at the SAA San Francisco, April 18

mummy

I’ll be presenting a short paper on the Ka-Nefer-Nefer forfeiture case at the Society for American Archaeology Annual meeting this Saturday morning. Our panel is scheduled from 8-10.15 A.M. in the Golden Gate 4 room of the Hilton San Francisco Union Square.

Here are the other scheduled papers:

Antiquities, drugs, guns, diamonds, wildlife: toward a theory of transnational criminal markets in illicit goods
Simon Mackenzie*

The Kapoor Case: International collaboration on antiquities provenance research
Jason Felch

Alternative Strategies in Confronting Looting and Trafficking in Defense of Peruvian Portable Heritage
Alvaro Higueras

The Ka Nefer Nefer and Federal Intervention in the Illicit Antiquities Trade
Derek Fincham

Geospatial strategies for mapping large scale archaeological site destruction: The case from Egypt
Sarah Parcak

Bones of Contention: Further Investigation into the Online Trade in Archaeological and Ethnographic Human Remains
Duncan Chappell & Damien Huffer

The ruin of the Maya heartland: successes, failures, and consequences of four decades of antiquities trafficking regulation
Donna Yates

Syria: Cultural Property Protection Policy Failure?
Neil Brodie

Morag Kersel will also be presenting a paper on her project Follow the Pots

Will US Attorneys Appeal after latest Ka Nefer Nefer setback?

A judge has dismissed the federal government’s request to reconsider an earlier ruling dismissing the government’s forfeiture request for the Ka Nefer Nefer mask currently on display at the St. Louis Art Museum. Rick St. Hilaire notes the U.S. Attorney must now make the decision whether to appeal the ruling on to the 8th Circuit. 


The problem with the government’s initial case—at least in the district court’s view—was the government failed to allege the particular circumstances under which a crime took place as the mask left Egypt. This problem can be examined by referencing recent case law broadening the principle that looted and smuggled objects are considered tainted when they leave their country of origin, even in the absence of direct evidence of wrongdoing. I’m thinking for example of the Barakat ruling in the English High Court which offered claimant nations a broader platform of potential laws with which a nation of origin can claim theft. 


But in this case the federal prosecutors had a difficult prospect as Egypt was unable to offer enough evidence establishing a crime had been committed. So despite the research the SLAM conducted when it acquired the mask in 1998, the government was unable to offer enough to convince a judge to forfeit the object and force SLAM to make its case. It is an open question whether the district court would have taken such rulings on board, likely not. But an appeals court is in a more favorable position to make broader inquiries in the law based on policy and foreign authority. 

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

US Government’s Claim to Ka Nefer Nefer Mask Dismissed

The Ka Nefer Nefer Mask will be staying in St. Louis for now

The Ka Nefer Nefer mask, subject of two lawsuits in federal court, seems likely to stay in St. Louis for the near future. On Monday the U.S. District Court dismissed the U.S. Government’s forfeiture claim for the mask, as Rick St. Hilaire reported. The St. Luis Art Museum also has a parallel declaratory judgment action seeking to prevent the government from pursuing a forfeiture in the future.

You can generally read the tea leaves in the first few lines of a court opinion, and when the court wrote “the Government boldly states that it seeks the forfeiture of all rights, title and interest in a 3,200 year old Egyptian Mask . . .” you have a pretty good idea that the U.S. attorney was not able to convince the court to forfeit the mask. It most certainly was involved in a crime, yet the government was unable to allege enough “circumstances” surrounding the mask’s journey from Saqqara in Egypt in 1952 to the antiquities market some time later.

The government undercooked its legal analysis of the illegal activities giving rise to a forfeiture in its first forfeiture attempt here. For now it may amend its complaint. If it does, it should perhaps note that Egypt has laws establishing ownership of its antiquities, and there is no set of circumstances under which this mask could have rightfully left Egypt. Perhaps noting that may lead to a different result this time around.

The Government cannot simply rest on its laurels and believe that it can initiate a civil forfeiture proceeding on the basis of one bold assertion that because something went missing from one party in 1973 and turned up with another party in 1998, it was therefore stolen and/or imported or exported illegally.

The court was concerned that the government failed to establish precisely how the mask became stolen property. There is plenty of precedent on point for this legal principle, but the lawyers for the government failed to include enough of it in the complaint. Now the U.S. attorneys will have to return to the drawing board and establish a firmer legal framework for the illegal removal of the mask from Egypt. Making the government’s task more difficult, is the lack of evidence provided to them by Egypt establishing how and when the mask was stolen. As a consequence, if I was working on the case, I’d essentially treat it like an antiquities looting case. The theft itself is lost to history. But you don’t need those facts, just enough to put the  burden back on the museum’s case to show how far back its chain of title can go.

The museum will likely respond that it had no reason to believe the Aboutaam brothers were antiquities dealers to avoid in 1998. Was it established that they routinely dealt in looted objects in 1998, even if that can be established now? The SLAM conducted a search, and while certainly not ideal, it posed questions to officials in Egypt. For lots of background on the mask, see here.

We can ask whether the Museum should do the right thing, but the government attorneys had an opportunity to force them to and failed to allege enough concrete circumstances in its complaint to trigger what would have been a very uncomfortable forfeiture proceeding for the museum—one that coupled with reasonable public pressure exerted by Egypt would have certainly made continued possession of the mask in St. Louis untenable.

Lee Rosenbaum has posted a .pdf of the opinion:
  Ka-Nefer-Nefer Opinion

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

U.S. Initiates Forfeiture

The Mask on Display in St. Louis

As expected the United States has initiated a civil forfeiture action over the Ka Nefer Nefer mask purchased by the St. Louis Art Museum in 1998. The government holds a number of important advantages in these forfeiture proceedings, which is why the Museum brought a suit last month to preclude a forfeiture, based on a lapsed five-year limitations period. As the government’s complaint explains, the mask was professionally excavated, so this is not a case of looting and destruction of context. Rather the mask was either stolen later or was given to one of the archaeologists working at the site.

The government’s filing outlines what it suspects happened next: that the mask was stolen sometime between 1966, when it was shipped off to Cairo for an exhibit, and 1973, when the Egyptian Museum in Cairo ran an inventory and discovered it missing. Box number 54, in which it had been packed, was empty. 

In 2006, Egyptian officials learned the St. Louis museum had bought the mask from Phoenix Ancient Art, in New York. 

The museum has said it thoroughly researched the mask’s ownership history before buying it, and was given no indication that there were questions about how it arrived in the U.S. 

The museum’s research showed the mask was part of the Kaloterna private collection during the 1960s, before it was purchased in Switzerland by a Croatian collector, Zuzi Jelinek, who then sold the mask to Phoenix Ancient Art in 1995. 

It also maintains in its lawsuit that the government’s statute of limitations for seizing the mask has expired.

  1. U.S. demands art museum hand over Egyptian artifact | Reuters, Reuters, March 16, 2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/17/us-museum-mask-idUSTRE72G06E20110317?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews (last visited Mar 17, 2011).
  2. Jennifer Mann, Government sues to seize St. Louis museum’s mummy mask, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 17, 2011, http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_98d72244-9976-5b8a-a73d-5c211c6a771b.html (last visited Mar 17, 2011).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

St. Louis Art Museum Sues the United States to Preclude a Forfeiture

The Ka Nefer Nefer Mask, acquired in 1998 by SLAM

The St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) has sued the federal government to preclude it from initiating a forfeiture claim against the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask. The museum was approached in January by several U.S. attorneys in January, who indicated an intention to bring a forfeiture action against the mask. Civil forfeiture was the legal mechanism under which the Portrait of Wally litigation and subsequent settlement emerged. It is a powerful tool for claimants, which uses the resources of the federal government, and a favorable burden of proof, to pursue claims for objects which may have been looted or stolen.

But in this case, rather than waiting for the forfeiture action, the museum has decided to try to preclude a suit by the U.S. attorneys, arguing that from December-January of 2005-06, the U.S. was a party to several communications regarding questions with respect to the history of the mask. They use as examples, posts and emails sent by Ton Cremers, of the Museum Security Network. He sent at least two emails to Bonnie Magness-Gardiner of the FBI, INTERPOL, as well as James McAndrew at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Museum’s complaint quotes emails from Cremers, which were published on the Museum Security Network:

  1. “So I should think that if the Egyptian Government lodged a complaint or request with the USA Government and the FBI Crime Team (to which I am copying this), then the Museum would be obliged to answer the questions.”  
  2. “The FBI is just waiting for Egypt to file a complaint.  A [sic] soon as Egypt files a complaint [sic] the FBI is expected to act.” 
  3. “Maarten Raven, a Dutch archaeologist, saw the mask in the Saqqara and is VERY positive that the mask in the SLAM [Museum] is the same as . . .the one stolen in Saqqara . . . .

The SLAM argues in the complaint that the relevant U.S. government officials had knowledge of the potential claim over five years ago, and the five-year statute of limitations period has expired under 19 U.S.C. § 1621. A court will decide whether these emails, and queries the Museum sent to INTERPOL in the 1990’s about the mask are sufficient to have given the U.S. government actual or constructive knowledge of the potential claim. The Museum seeks a declaratory judgment under the Tariff Act that the action is barred by the statute of limitations.

Even if successful, this suit would only preclude a suit by the U.S. government. It would not bless the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of the mask. The mask was acquired in 1998 by SLAM from Phoenix Ancient Art for a reported $500,000. The Museum has attempted to demonstrate its diligence in a number of ways when it acquired the mask.

  • It sent a letter to Mohammed Saleh, the retired director of the Cairo Museum asking about the mask or the existence of similar objects. 
  • The Museum contacted the Art Loss Register, INTERPOL, and the International Federation of Art Research.
  • In 1998″counsel for the Museum requested a Swiss attorney to conduct a background investigation of Phoenix, its owners, and Jelinek.  Museum counsel received responses from the Swiss attorney on February 18 and March 31, 1998, confirming a Suzana Jelinek resided at the address provided by Phoenix, and confirming Phoenix’s company existence, Dun & Bradstreet rating, and that there were no liens or encumbrances on business property belonging to Phoenix.”
  • The Museum also sent a letter to the Missouri Highway Patrol requesting a search of the Interpol database.
So these are efforts to look at the history of the object, but certainly are not the best efforts. The Museum did not contact the Supreme Council of Antiquities or the Culture Ministry. The SLAM has told the public and Egypt that they would return the mask to Egypt if they were presented evidence that the mask was looted or stolen, yet Egypt has not presented this evidence. We know that the mask was acquired by the Museum in 1998, and was excavated in 1952. Both Egypt and the Museum have very different versions of the subsequent history of the mask. We are not certain what happened in the intervening years. But given what we know about the antiquities trade we have strong suspicions. The Museum argues the U.S. government has waited too long to pursue its claims that the object was stolen. 
  1. Joe Harris, Museum Sues USA Over Mummy Mask, Courthouse News Service, February 16, 2011, http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/02/16/34223.htm (last visited Feb 16, 2011).
  2. Jennifer Mann, Art museum sues to keep Egyptian mummy mask, St. Louis Today, February 16, 2011, http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_6a5937bc-0ea6-50ca-94ab-aa45697af009.html (last visited Feb 16, 2011).
Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Hawass Elevates Rhetoric

Earlier this week Zahi Hawass made some really over-the-top statements with respect to this object, the Ka-nefer-nefer mask which was purchased from Phoenix Ancient Art in 1998.  Some have noted this is an attempt to “Marion True-ize” Benjamin.    I’ve discussed in-depth the history of this mask before.  Neither Egypt nor the St. Louis Art Museum have been able to give us a complete and definite story of the mask, but I certainly don’t think it is a case where repatriation is called for, even if we accept Egypt’s version of events.  Part of the reason for that, is the Egyptian government is either unable or unwilling to adequately document its existing stores of antiquities.  If we adopt Egypt’s version of events, the mask was stolen from a storehouse.  If so, a properly documented collection register could have been submitted to the Art Loss Register, and when the SLAM considered purchasing the object in 1998, the acquisition wouyld have been halted.  

Some commenters have even labelled the SLAM director, Brent Benjamin “controversial” because of the dispute.  I think those accusations are over the line, and very unhelpful.  Benjamin has done the right thing in this case, and it should be noted the mask was acquired before he took his post at SLAM.  Earlier  this week in an AP article Hawass called him a “stupid man” who “doesn’t understand the rules here”.  I’d like to suggest that Hawass — who perhaps does a lot of great things for Egyptian heritage — has a clouded view of the legal rules in this case.  An unhelpful mistake made worse by a proposed Egyptian law which may “give [Egypt] the power to take people to court in Egypt … (Benjamin) will be wanted in Egypt.”  Is this the way to conduct international negotiations?  What’s more, if the mask had been in an Egyptian storehouse, and it is so important as to warrant this level of rhetoric, why wasn’t it documented by Egypt? 

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

Brent Benjamin Appointed to CPAC


The White House announced back in September that President Bush will nominate Brent R. Benjamin to serve on the Cultural Property Advisory Committee for three years. David Gill commented on the appointment, as did Wayne Sayles. Earlier in July, Robert O’Brien, a Los Angeles attorney was nominated as well, though his appointment attracted little notice.

Ton Cremers, an administrator on the invaluable Museum Security Network argues this was an “outrageous” appointment. The reason for the concern is this antiquity, the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask which I discussed at length last year.

It was stolen from a storehouse in Saqqara sometime between its excavation in an archaeological dig in 1952, and its acquisition by the St. Louis Art Museum in 1998. It may be worth examining this acquisition in more detail. The best summary of the dispute I have found is this 2006 article in the Riverfront Times.

As always, the antiquities trade presents a number of questions. Was Benjamin at the museum in 1998 when it acquired this object? No, he came a year after the mask was acquired. Do his actions with respect to this mask disqualify him automatically from serving on the committee? I’m not sure they do. Does this ongoing dispute between Egypt and the St. Louis Art Museum automatically disqualify Benjamin from serving on the committee? Not according to President Bush, but did the Museum really have clean hands when they acquired the mask? The answer I think is not really.

They purchased it from Hichaam Aboutaam, who has been linked with looted antiquities. The work had been displayed at a Museum in Geneva when the SLAM was considering purchasing the work. However, the museum sent Mohammed Saleh, a retired director of the Cairo Museum a letter asking:

“[We have] been offered a mummy mask of the 19th dynasty and I was wondering if you know of any parallels to this object. I have never seen anything quite like it with a reddish copper-like face probably owing to the oxidation of the gold surface. It is currently on exhibition in the Egyptian exhibition at the Museum of Art and History in Geneva. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on any parallels you might know of this piece and hope that I might have the opportunity to speak with you in several weeks by telephone about this opportunity.”

Saleh of course was not perhaps the best person in Egypt to contact about the mask. Shouldn’t someone on the Supreme Council on Antiquities have been better positioned to handle this request? Unfortunately this is the shady kind of enquiry which can pass for thorough provenance research in the antiquities trade. I think its likely perhaps that the SLAM was not too eager to look to deeply into the history of this object, for fear they would be unable to acquire it. The museum was told by the seller that the mask was seen at an antiquities dealer in 1952, and it remained in the ubiquitous “Swiss Collection” for the next 40 years. An expert hired by the museum, Peter Lacovara, reasoned that the mask was probably awarded to the excavator after the 1952 excavation. This would account for its appearance at a market in Brussels soon after, though refuting that fact is nearly impossible at this point.

Egypt has a tenable claim perhaps, but this is a close case. I’m not aware of the specific steps Egypt has taken in response. They have seemingly argued that the mask was stolen at some point from an antiquities storehouse. Now, its their cultural heritage and they’re free to do with it what they please, but Egypt can be criticized on two accounts. First, is it really the best idea to have a unique piece like this mask just sitting in a warehouse for fifty years? Second, had Egypt documented its collection and its holdings more completely, they would have had a much stronger legal and ethical claim.

In any event, nobody looks really good in this dispute. Not the museum, the Phoenix gallery, nor Egypt. But I’m not sure Benjamin, by merely refusing to return the mask outright to Egypt has disqualified himself from serving on the CPAC, which it should be mentioned is comprised of individuals from all the disparate heritage interest groups, including archaeologists. Also, the CPAC has never refused a request made by a nation of origin.

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

The Lewis Chessmen

On December 19th, Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, stated “I find it utterly unacceptable that the Lewis Chessment are scattered around Britain in a bizarre parody of the Barnett formula. And you can be assured that I will continue campaigning for a united set of Lewis Chessmen in an independent Scotland.”

The Barnett formula is a means by which the United Kingdom allocates its expenditures. This statement is sure to gain support among those Scots who feel England has been harassing and plundering Scotland for centuries. However I find the claim for the removal of all the chessmen to Scotland half-hearted. If one were to be unkind it could be called intellectually laze, intended to strengthen the notion of an independent and historically separate Scotland. It’s the kind of irresponsible and base nationalistic claim that does a disservice to legitimate repatriation claims.

The Lewis chessmen are a medieval collection of 93 pieces forming four or five complete sets. They were most likely carved in Norway in the 12th century, and then were likely taken by a merchant on their way to nobles in Ireland perhaps. However the pieces were lost, and were rediscovered sometime shortly before 1831 on a sand bank near the Bay of Uig on the West coast of the Isle of Lewis. The island at the time was ruled by Norway. The precise details of the discovery are unknown, but they were exhibited by Roderick Ririe at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1831. Soon after 10 pieces were purchased by Kirkpatrick Sharpe and this collection eventually was donated to the Royal Museum in Edinburgh in 1888, now the National Museum of Scotland. The remaining pieces were purchased in 1831 for the British Museum in London.

The pieces are fantastic, and reproductions of the set are quite popular. They are carved from walrus ivory and whale teeth, and many of the human figures are quite expressive. In fact, the representations have a lot to teach about medieval weapons and dress.

Ian Jack in an excellent article in the Guardian examines the possible claims Scotland might have to all of the chessmen, and rightly comes to the conclusion that

It would be easy to accuse Salmond of nothing more than opportunism, adding to his reputation for that streak. In fact, he has been sporadically campaigning for the return of the Lewis Chessmen for 10 years. My explanation is that his demand comes out of a previous era of nationalism that was quite blind to Scotland’s history as England’s imperial partner – needed to be blind to it, because in terms of wealth it was Scotland’s golden age and inconvenient to anti-English grievance. I had thought that the grievance mode was passing. But not yet, not yet.

Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum contacted Scotland’s culture minister, to ask if the statement was serious: “Because if it is, we need to understand the principles that lie behind it.” No response has apparently been sent to this query. What kinds of events can trigger a return? In the case of the string of the recent repatriations from American institutions to Italy, they came in response to solid evidence, including photographs that the returned objects had been looted, in violation of Italian law. In other cases, if an object is an ethnographic object important to ongoing religious or community practices for example, an excellent case can be made for a return; such is the case with vigango from Africa. However Salmond is unable to provide this kind argument for a return. His motivating animus seems to be that a unified set would make a great deal of money for the National Museum of Scotland or the Isle of Lewis. In fact in 1995 a complete exhibition of the chessmen was held on the Isle, and it attracted record crowds.

Salmond has been making this claim since at least 1996. In a Sunday Times piece by Alastair Robertson from 1 Dec. 1996 Salmond argued “just as the Elgin marbles should be restored to Greece … so should ancient artefacts come home to Scotland. There is no justification for them to remain in England.” Now this policy has some troubling consequences for Scotland’s museums. Its collections are packed with objects taken home by Scots during the colonial era, and many of these objects were hardly taken in a properly bargained for exchange. These institutions would surely have to quickly dispose of much of their collection. In fact, the chessmen were legally acquired, and there is absolutely nothing to suggest they were wrongfully acquired. If we were to return these objects to their homeland where they were created, they would not return to the Outer Hebrides, but rather to Norway.

Given the fact that Great Britain has such an ancient and fascinating history, it is perhaps unsurprising that various communities have called for the return of various objects. Inhabitants of St. Ninian’s Isle have begun to call for the return of medieval treasure, currently housed at the National Museum of Scotland. Many of these arguments would appear surprising to visitors to others from larger and more disparate nations. Scotland is after all not much larger than South Carolina.

When objects are allocated to regional museums, it makes the risk of theft and other difficulties more pressing. A handful of regional institutions are more difficult to safeguard than larger centralized locations of course. More importantly though, these objects should have a substantial curatorial or cultural imperative which dictates a return. If Salmond is able to construct or to offer such a narrative, perhaps he will move beyond base political rhetoric. If he’s looking for an example, perhaps he should take a look at the St. Louis Museum of Art’s exhibition of George Caleb Bingham’s The Sunday Election, which Tyler Green praises today.

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

Due diligence, a licit trade, and the Ka-Nefer-Nefer


David Gill over at looting matters has had some interesting things to say about due diligence in recent days. I agree with him on a number of points, including the problems caused by the destruction of archaeological sites, some of the silly rhetoric the numismatist-lobby has used on the internet and the scope of the antiquities problem generally. He has also contributed some excellent scholarly work by moving beyond mere anecdotal evidence towards concrete data.

I disagree with him strongly on the ability of a licit antiquities market to remedy some of these problems however. I think he misses the point on due diligence procedures in acquiring antiquities. You can argue they are voluntary, are not followed, or are too weak. But rigorous due diligence procedures are absolutely essential to a better state of affairs and can have a quick and quantifiable impact on the black market.

On Friday, he rightfully took John Merryman to task for using the acquisition of antiquities by Marion True for the Getty as an example of due diligence procedures which were unfairly criticized by archaeologists in 1989. Gill points out that the archaeologist’s criticisms of the policy were vindicated with the decision by the Getty to return 40 objects. I think Merryman should admit he was wrong on that point. However, Merryman’s more important point, and the one Gill fails to account for is that there needs to be a licit trade in antiquities with clean provenance, and the current state of regulation in source nations makes that impossible. We should also keep in mind that the new acquisition procedures of the Getty museum are now quite rigorous, and the Getty should be recognized for righting its ship. The Indianapolis museum of Art has also adopted some very strict procedures.

I do not think anyone would argue that the present legal framework of regulating antiquities works. Sites are looted, and the black market continues to thrive. The important question becomes how can we prevent that? Establishing provenance is a difficult thing to do, especially when they are often fabricated. Auction catalogs say “from a Swiss collection”. Such information is not enough to create a clean chain of title. Relying on such information is not enough to satisfy a proper due diligence inquiry either.

Article 4(4) of the 1995 Unidroit Convention makes a set of recommendations for the exercise of due diligence:

In determining whether the possessor exercised due diligence, regard shall be had to all the circumstances of the acquisition, including the character of the parties, the price paid, whether the possessor consulted any reasonably accessible register of stolen cultural objects, and any other relevant information and documentation which it could reasonably have obtained, and whether the possessor consulted accessible agencies or took any step that a reasonable person would have taken in the circumstances.

The next day Gill turns his attention to the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask, pictured above. It was purchased by the St. Louis Museum of Art in 1998 from the Phoenix Gallery, run by the Aboutaam brothers who have had legal issues in both the United States and Egypt regarding antiquities transactions. An outstanding article by Malcolm Gay for the River Front Times revealed that the sculpture may have been stolen some time between its excavation in 1952 and its acquisition by the St. Louis Art Museum in 1998.

Gill points out that a number of the facts used to construct the provenance were highly questionable, including this exchange:

Hicham Aboutaam directed the Riverfront Times to a woman identifying herself as Suzana Jelinek, of Zagreb, Croatia. ‘I bought the mask many many years ago, and I sold it many many years ago,’ says Suzana Jelinek when reached at her Zagreb home. ‘I have so many things in my collection that my children don’t know what all I have.’

This raises a number of questions certainly. However, Gill fails to acknowledge the most important thing the museum did, it contacted the Cairo Museum in Egypt:

“I think for 1998, the year that this mask was acquired, the level of diligence that was done here is exemplary,” says Brent Benjamin. “We had an inquiry hand-delivered to the Cairo Museum’s director, Mohammed Saleh, saying that this was an object that had been offered to the museum for acquisition, and did he know any reason why the museum should not do that. We got a written response from Dr. Saleh that raised no concerns about the acquisition.”

The letter the museum sent Saleh contains sparse details. The letter, penned by Sidney Goldstein, the museum’s antiquities curator who initiated and oversaw the mask’s purchase, says the museum has “been offered a mummy mask of the 19th dynasty and I was wondering if you know of any parallels to this object. I have never seen anything quite like it with a reddish copper-like face probably owing to the oxidation of the gold surface. It is currently on exhibition in the Egyptian exhibition at the Museum of Art and History in Geneva. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on any parallels you might know of this piece and hope that I might have the opportunity to speak with you in several weeks by telephone about this opportunity.”

Goldstein sent a photograph and physical description of the mask along with his letter to Saleh, but he did not mention Goneim by name, nor did he refer to the Saqqara excavations.

“The excavation information was not on the description of the mask because the letters [to Saleh] were sent out before the entire provenance was even discussed,” says Jennifer Stoffel, director of marketing for the Saint Louis Art Museum. “This was early on, when we were only considering the object.”

That is a very important fact Gill misses. To be sure, the acquisition should have raised a number of red flags; and I think the Egyptians probably have an excellent ethical claim for repatriation. But there will not be a tenable legal claim under US law. It does not appear Egypt had adequately documented their collection. If they had, and the collection was stolen from a storeroom as the article indicates, Egypt would have had an absolute legal right to the object because it was stolen, and the museum would have had a claim for the purchase price against the Phoenix gallery. This would have rewarded a diligent purchaser, punished the Phoenix gallery for selling a dubious work, and the object would have returned to Egypt.

A very important and inexpensive step which source nations absolutely must do is to document their collections. Granted, such a step may have been more difficult 10 or 20 years ago, and the letter could have provided more details to Saleh, but Egypt needs to make it easier to check provenance, not harder. The museum made a questionable acquisition to be sure, but Egypt dropped the ball as well. This reinforces Merryman’s persuasive argument that source nations should consider excess cultural objects which are merely gathering dust in a storeroom. At the very least I think antiquities leasing or long-terms loans should be used. It adds to the cultural exchange, and most importantly creates revenue which can be used to protect sites and excavate them before looting takes place.

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