A statue of Buddha is all that remains of the Xiayuan Temple, a cultural relic in Luoshui, Shifang, Sichuan province. Zhang Xiaoli (China Daily)
While our primary concern remains with the more than 62,000 who perished, the more than 250,000 who were injured and the five million people who have become homeless in the wake of the May 12th earthquake in China's Sichuan Province, we should not forget the hundreds of cultural heritage sites in the region that have been damaged or obliterated. One example, reported by The New York Times is the 1,500-year-old Taoist sanctuary known as the Two Kings Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, near Dujiangyan.
According to the China Daily newspaper, experts at a disaster relief conference held at Chengdu on May 20th reported that many ancient buildings in Sichuan have collapsed or are on the brink of collapse. A total of 841 museum relics, 148 of which were regarded as precious, have been ruined. On May 23rd, the Chinese State Administration of Cultural Heritage stated that sixty-five cultural monuments under state protection and 119 under provincial protection in Sichuan province have been severely damaged as a result of May 12 earthquake.
In addition to the Two Kings Temple, another UNESCO World Heritage site in Dujiangyan, Mount Qingcheng, known as the birthplace of Taoism, the Museum of the Sanxingdui Ruins in Guanghan county, about 40 kilometers north of Chengdu, a 16th century in Langzhong county, and the 15th century Bao'en Temple in Pingwu county were among the worst hit. According to Wang Qiong, the deputy chief of the Sichuan Bureau of Cultural Heritage, many of the Bao'en Temple walls have collapsed and their frescos have been ruined. Before the earthquake, the temple measured some 280 meters long, making it one of the largest Buddhist temples in all of Sichuan Province. The Ming pagoda at Nanchong literally broke into pieces, according to Deng Changwen, a spokesman for the Sichuan Provincial Seismological Bureau.
Sichuan's cultural bureau has begun an assessment of all registered cultural heritage sites and has asked museums across the province to temporarily store their exhibits to ensure their safety.
Monday, May 26, 2008
May 12th Earthquake Threatens Chinese Cultural Heritage
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Yale's Own Indiana Jones Story
Indiana Jones is back- bullwhip, fedora, and all... "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is at a theater near you and is bringing a nearly century-old Cultural Property dispute back into the spotlight.
In the fourth installment of the swashbuckling archaeologist's (using the term loosely) adventures, Hollywood takes us to the Yale University campus... as even today the university continues its real life role in the efforts to resolve a dispute with the Peruvian government regarding thousands of artifacts excavated at Machu Picchu. Yale's own adventurer-archaeologist Hiram Bingham III (who is thought to have inspired the Indiana Jones character) rediscovered a much-forgotten Machu Picchu in 1911, and brought thousands of artifacts home to Yale's collection. Just last year, in a landmark decision, Yale and Peru agreed on a plan for repatriation, including co-sponsorship of a traveling exhibition and a new museum in Cuzco, Peru.
Recently, inspired by the release of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," NPR's Tom Ashbrook hosted an "On Point" radio broadcast on the story. Featured interviewees are:
The broadcast is fascinating for Indy buffs and Cultural Property enthusiasts alike. The agreement reached last year between Yale and Peru was a landmark, and hopefully will be an example for future negotiations between source countries and institutions in the future. As you're watching Harrison Ford bullwhip his way through ancient sites in the theater, take a moment to appreciate the strides taken in this story to ensure that Cultural Heritage is available to all.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Stakeholders and Interests in Cultural Heritage Issues
Archaeologists, museums, dealers, and collectors are the most frequently referenced "stakeholders" in cultural property issues. Archaeologists and other scholars are concerned about the destruction of information resulting from looting. Museums are concerned about mainting the prestige and integrity of their collections and exhibiting to the public. Collectors have a passion for the ancient world that is expressed through personal acquisition and often enjoy the physical or tactile connection the past. Dealers acquire objects and sell them at a profit to those want to acquire them. The general public is often ignored as one of the stakeholders, but SAFECORNER recently commented on the public's interest.
One group of stakeholders, those who profit financially, have been heavily involved in the issues and are waging a sort of public relations battle, claiming to be "better scholars" than trained professionals, in order to distance themselves from their inherent commercial interest as tradesmen (see for example, Jerome Hall's "The Fig and the Spade" and my post on SAFECORNER "Archaeologists don't care about coins"). In light of some recent activity, I have discussed the divergent interests, and asked why some dealers often allege archaeologists and other scholars have ulterior motives for their stances on cultural heritage issues. Read the post at: "'Dilettanti and Shopmen': Divergent Interests in Looting and Cultural Heritage Issues."
Saturday, May 3, 2008
James Cuno's Illogic
James Cuno's new book, Who Owns Antiquities?, continues to push the case he has been arguing for several years now in print against current international conventions designed to protect cultural heritage from looting. Such conventions, he has suggested, are in bad faith. "If only current international agreements were intended to preserve archaeological knowledge," Cuno has written elsewhere. "If only they were meant to make sure that we know where the world's archaeological objects were found and that its archaeological sites are preserved. But they are not. They are intended instead to preserve the integrity of one nation's cultural property at the expense of the world's interest in international exchange."
Bad faith, of course, could equally well be charged against those with an interest in international exchange -- the museums and collectors who benefit from current international agreements allowing them to purchase artifacts without having to show that the provenance of these objects is legitimate (or even having to register their purchase at all). If only such agreements were intended to preserve archaeological knowledge. If only they were meant to make sure that we know where the world's archaeological objects were found and that its archaeological sites are preserved. But they are not. They are intended instead to promote the interest, not of the world but of individual collectors and museums, at the expense of the integrity of one nation's cultural property.
If Cuno does not choose to complain about agreements that favor collectors and museums, it is because he believes that harm done to archaeological knowledge is always and only caused by retentionism. The source of all evil, retentionism not only prevents "the world" from benefiting from the chance to own antiquities -- it actually puts archaeological objects at greater risk. This is supposedly illustrated most dramatically by what happened in Afghanistan, where a retentionist policy meant that excavated artifacts were hoarded in the Kabul Museum, making it easy for them to be destroyed by the Taliban.
It is not difficult to see a problem with Cuno's logic here. Suppose the Taliban had inherited a museum built on internationalist principles rather than retentionist ones. Does Cuno really believe that they would then not have still considered whatever artifacts the museum held idols to be destroyed? The Taliban policy of iconoclasm would have been pursued regardless of whether the previous policy had been internationalist or retentionist. The only difference would have been that rather than destroying only Afghan artifacts the Taliban might also have destroyed items loaned or exchanged by other museums under an internationalist system.
There is no logical link between retentionism and iconoclasm, pace Cuno. Nor is there a logical link between retentionism and the looting of the Iraq National Museum, Cuno's other incendiary claim. Antiquities in Iraq, in fact, were among the safest in the world under the retentionist regime of Saddam Hussein (at least until the sanctions regime and the no-fly zone sapped his power). What put the Iraq National Museum's collection of antiquities at risk was not retentionism, but the failure of American forces to secure the Museum grounds after smashing Saddam's government to smithereens.
The lesson here is not that retentionism is a better policy than internationalism. It is, rather, that the fate of cultural heritage depends less on a country's legal framework -- retentionist or internationalist -- than on its power to enforce whatever laws it has, and its will to protect (or, in rare instances like the Taliban, its will to destroy) its cultural property. A police state in which the leader cares about cultural heritage is one in which law and order will be maintained, and cultural property secured and conserved. Conversely, a free country with an internationalist cultural heritage policy but inadequate resources for maintaining law and order (whether in general or with regard to cultural property in particular) will be susceptible to the ravages of looting. And, of course, the greater the demand from collectors individual and institutional, the more at risk heritage will be, whatever the legal regime in place.
If Cuno really is concerned about knowing where objects are found and about conserving archaeological sites, it would make far better sense for him to stop obsessing about retentionism and focus instead on what the museum and collecting community could do to direct resources towards policing efforts. Individual contributions by wealthy contributors would be wonderful, but an even stronger measure would be for collectors to call for a tax to be levied on all purchases of antiquities, with the revenues generated by the tax dedicated to anti-trafficking efforts.
