Recently, I was fortunate enough to witness a special guest lecture by Dr. Christopher Chippindale that took place as part of the Centre for Archaeological Research's annual lecture series, in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University, Canberra, my current affiliation. Dr. Chippindale has long been affiliated with Cambridge University, specifically with the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research, and also serves as curator of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. In addition to his robust research on antiquities smuggling, he is also prominent in the field of northern Australian rock art archaeology. I will discuss the content of this guest lecture below, as his insights are profound, current, and worth wide dissemination.
The presentation centred around three pertinent, but general, questions: What is the current situation regarding worldwide acquisition of antiquities by museums, especially Classical antiquities? Why is the situation the way it is? What are museums doing to help or hinder their part in it? At its heart, he argues, the modern antiquities trade revolves around the boost to one's appearance of wealth, prestige, status, and power that the ownership and display of antiquities is deemed to convey, especially amongst the collecting and dealing 'elite.' Underpinning this stance is what Chippindale has dubbed the "Connoisseur's view," defined as the idea that things (objects) have intrinsic merit and can reflect 'cultural universals,' or 'eternal values,' as tangible to the ancient people who made the object as to any living person today. Holding this view would then lend the collection of antiquities much "sophistication." This can be directly contrasted to the "Archaeologist's View," which defines artifacts as sources of information in context first and foremost, "worthy of celebration and care."
Connoisseurs and collectors might view, for example, a rare piece of gold jewelry from the Bush Barrow site in Wiltshire, England (the first 'case study' example discussed...bought for 5,000 pounds), as "inspiring," with the "enjoyment" they feel from it being enhanced if specific details are known, but holding aesthetic appreciation as paramount. Those taking the archaeologist's view, on the other hand, can acknowledge that, while some meaningful information is inherent in the object itself, it is outweighed by contextual details, and is greatly diminished without them. Context, then, is what prevents one from viewing ancient (or historic) artifacts through the lens of "ordinary daily experience," i.e. as just another object, even if an artifact holds clear aesthetic appeal due to intricate details of its design. As a summation of this introductory portion of the talk, he states that "these attitudes are not opposed, but the loss of context leaves the connoisseur's view intact, but 'wrecks' the archaeologist's view." To Chippindale, this exposes the fundamental self-centredness of the connoisseurs view from its inception, but especially after, World War II, when looting and modern, global, collecting really began to flourish. As he then goes on to show, the misconceptions of connoisseurs and the demand they create continues to profoundly affect the Classical archaeological world.
The case of the "Lansdowne Herakles" serves as a good lead-in example. A Roman copy of the Greek original, it was first discovered in 1791, and came to London in 1792 (into the hands of a British aristocratic family who were later reduced to penury). In 1951, it was purchased by Getty as one of the future Getty Museum's first acquisitions. Today, Greece has export bans in place that would have prevented this, as do Turkey and Italy, two other prime source countries for Classical loot. "95% of artifacts on the market today just "surface," with no known provenience" Dr. Chippindale reported. Because it is much more difficult to openly sell stolen art (for example, of the 59 known paintings by the German Impressionist Albrecht Altdorfer, all but one are owned by museums and securely loaned under partage agreements), collectors have been turning to easily transportable small items; both recent and ancient, especially since the 1980s when looting increased world-wide.
Two archetypal examples from the Classical world were provided to illustrate this crisis; Cycladic figurines and south Italian ceramics. Cycladic figurines comprise a corpus of small, stone figurines primarily used as grave goods in pre-Roman cemeteries throughout the Cyclades Islands, although two major non-mortuary sources are known (chief amongst them is the site of Karos, which produced a collection of fragments known as the "Karos Horde"). Very few exist in early 20th century collections, but their stylistic influence on certain European sculptural traditions from 1950-present has resulted in very high demand, with only looting and increasingly fanciful forgeries in "reclining" positions (as opposed to authentic standing postures) left to fill the demand. It is unknown to what extent this looting has damaged the Cyclades overall archaeological record, but of the 1,369 artifacts assessed for provenance history in Gill and Chippindale (2000), only 39 were traceable...the rest just "surfaced" during the 1980s or 1990s! Two recent sales via Christie's Auction House as late as December, 2009, illustrated this alarming point. A Cycladic figurine sold for $122,500, while a Romano-British bronze 'fibula' sold for even more. Neither had provenance listings more specific than a "Japanese private collection," or "Anonymous sale." When dealing with or tracking what Chippindale termed "toxic" antiquities (with sources and markets all over the world these days), it is important to pay attention to the phrase "said to be." A common explanation offered by those found guilty of trading in loot, reading between the lines can prove crucial to subsequent investigations. Said "by whom, to whom, under what circumstances, and with what intentions?"
In the case of the recent looting and smuggling of the ornate red on black pottery of southern Italy, one specific instance was highlighted. What later became known as the "Medici affair" involved the illicit trading of one Giacomo Medici who, through his warehouse in Geneva, was able to legally ship thousands of artifacts, in direct collaboration with numerous museums, galleries, and dealers, until his arrest and trial in 2004. This case mirrors in many ways the more recent "Symes affair," in which the 17,000+ pieces of art and looted antiquities amassed by Robert Symes and Christo Michaelides while in business together are now being dispersed or sold off with minimal acknowledgment of provenance. It is by now well known that these pieces only appeared on the market en masse in the late 20th century, and that Swiss law's "good faith" statutes have made it an exceptionally easy country to smuggle from, even with changes that bring Switzerland into minimal compliance with the UNESCO 1970 convention. What surprised me in this portion of the talk was the display of an "organigram" that clearly indicated how wide the conspiratorial net stretched. With the artifacts, immense photographic archive, and organigram recovered from the warehouse, the smuggling ring was busted, but this case remains one of the best examples of the "power, deference, and rule of seniority" that underpin so much international antiquities crime (see also e.g. Bowman 2008).
The natures and global distributions of two other large collections discussed; namely the 'Barakat Gallery,' and 'Yves Saint Laurent & Pierre Berge' collections, would suggest similar histories. The Yves Saint Laurant contains fourteen artifacts, but only one has an acquisition history pre-1914, Most post-date 1970, two come directly from the now-defunct Symes collection, and none state archaeological context. The 7,000+ antiquities in the Barakat collection (mostly housed in the United Arab Emirates palace, Abu Dhabi, London and Dubai) span the globe in their source countries, but the majority of artifacts come from the Middle East, said to be (there's that phrase again) from locations whose place names can be tied to Biblical stories. What is the likelihood that stated provenance matches real provenance? Very slim, according to Dr. Chippindale, who is in the process of archiving and researching it. While this work continues, the gallery continues its worldwide sale of worldwide plunder.
Of course, fakes are something that archaeologists and unscrupulous dealers and curators both have to deal with. The most famous case mentioned during the lecture is that of the "Kouros" figure housed at the Getty (see image above left). Although it represents a 'surfaced' find, it came with supposedly authentic documents (until discovery of a listed postal code on a form placing the Kouros in Switzerland in 1951-long before postal codes existed in Switzerland, called the entire case history into question). Furthermore, it appears "neither Athenian or Corinthian" in its typology and design motifs. While authenticity remains "undecided," but highly suspect, it continues to stand in the Getti Villa, further testimony to the embarrassing curatorship of Marion True.
What really surprised me in this lecture, however, was the lengths of deception that some curators were willing to go to display new Classic (Attic) Greek "vases" to the public. Making clear the fact that "there remain no large stockpiles of authentic Classical antiquities available for the market and museums, outside of forgeries and newly looted pieces," he then provides case studies of museums, mostly in the US, receiving nearly untraceable "gifts" of ceramic sherds, freshly broken from several different vessels both old and new, then reassembled as cleanly as possible into a new, whole "vase!". Where does this demand come from? In regards to southern Italian ceramics, I learned that it can be partially explained by the thorough, if unfortunately short-sighted, work of Dr. A.D. Trendall (1909-1995), who, by conflating these ceramics with Classical Greek "vases," gave them the extra significance needed for them to replace gold and silver objects as worthy heirlooms. Although Trendall was known for respecting the intrinsic value of the ceramics in their archaeological context, and for providing order to their classification, his attaching of aesthetic and cash values to them in his published works certainly helped to create a market fed by looting.
I will conclude this post with a citing of what has become known (somewhat in jest) as "Chippindale's Law": "Whenever one takes an interest in anything to do with illicit antiquities, reality is always worse that what was expected" (pers. comm., February 2010). The loss of archaeological data when skeletons and their larger burial contexts are destroyed in the search for artifacts to sell, something that prehistorians in most areas of the world will encounter first hand eventually, is just one example of the compounding of this problem. For those of us working as practicing archaeologists or physical anthropologists, the loss of this information, above and beyond the damage to the landscape and those broken artifacts left behind, drives the looting problem home. From the lecture itself, and one-on-one discussion afterwards, I could walk away with the following take home messages. For archaeologists, we must urgently continue, and in fact 'step up,' our "watch dog" roles in this crisis; we who discover, analyse, and disseminate new archaeological knowledge about humanity's collective past through our training. Activists in general must continue to find ways to take the "hip" and "chic" (if you will) out of antiquities collecting. Easier said than done, but only further education will continue to make a dent. Finally, and most succinctly, the lecture closed thusly: "We must continue to learn from the past, not consume it." Sage advice indeed.
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