To own or not to own: Is that the question?

“Who Owns the Past?” “Who Owns Antiquity?” “Who Owns Culture?” “Who Owns Art?” “Who Owns Objects?” “Who Owns History?” A flurry of similar-sounding questions has been circulating in the media for some time now. Varying on the same theme, they are used as headlines in an array of formats: books, articles, lectures, panel discussions, etc.

While these questions raise some interesting points, we would like to ask some of our own:

1. “Who Owns __?” advocates imply: The right to ownership and possession of artifacts trumps all other considerations.

SAFECORNER asks: By focusing on ownership, are we neglecting the single most important point: the discovery of our yet-unknown past through protection, and the proper excavation of, ancient sites and tombs and burial grounds? What about the "past" / "antiquity" / "culture" / "art" / "objects" / "history" that remains underground? What part do these arguments have in stemming the plunder of cultural heritage caused by looting and the illicit antiquities trade?

2. “Who Owns __?” advocates contend: International conventions and national laws have failed because looting persists.

SAFECORNER asks: Instead of challenging the best legal mechanisms we have, should not more effort be made to observe and respect them? We don't throw away the criminal justice system because crimes are committed, do we?

3. “Who Owns __?” advocates insist: The importance of archaeological context is overstated, because virtually everything we need to know is inherent in the object.

SAFECORNER asks: If not found in graves, or in context, what could the Tilya Tepe hoard tell us about ancient Bactria if it had been discovered as loose pieces of beautiful gold jewelry? One doesn’t need to be an Afghan to appreciate the value inherent in discovering an untouched ancient site. Conversely, aside from speculations, what do we know about who was buried in the now-looted tombs of Cerveteri? What do we really know about the Vicús culture, which has been looted to near-extinction, or the civilization that created the artifacts looted from Batán Grande, now on display at the Met?

4. “Who Owns __?” advocates suggest: The stakeholders in these debates are archaeologists versus acquirers: museums, dealers, and private collectors.

SAFECORNER asks: What about the rest of us? Many people from all walks of life who are not archaeologists, collectors, museum curators, dealers, nationalists, or socialists also feel very strongly about these issues. Our opinions also matter. After all, it is public opinion that shapes politics and policies and the politicians who create them. UNESCO is an organization of member nations that choose to join. And sovereign nations are governed by politicians who exercise power on behalf of the public, for the most part.

5. “Who Owns __?” advocates argue: Nations that did not exist in ancient times have no inherent right to ancient artifacts found within their territories. For example, does Italy really have the right to claim objects taken from institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of New York, which was actually built before the Italian state was formed?

SAFECORNER asks: Is a nation ever too young to assert its sovereignty or jurisdiction? What about the United States? Barely over a couple hundred years old since our founding fathers created the nation, should we give up all claims to Native American artifacts? Revoke the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)?

Finally, we recommend that ALL stakeholders ask themselves this question: what are we going to do to stop the continued destruction of our "past" / "antiquity" / "culture" / "art" / "objects" / "history"?

Antiquities Under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection after the Iraq War

Review of “Antiquities Under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection after the Iraq War” April 9 2008, National Press Club, Washington D.C.

“A nation stays alive when its culture stays alive.” ~ as seen above the door of Kabul’s Museum in Afghanistan

On April 9, 2008 members of academia, press, SAFE and the public gathered together at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. to voice concern over the continuation of illegal looting in Iraq since April 2003. The panel of assembled experts included Lawrence Rothfield, Director of the University of Chicago’s Cultural Policy Center, Col. Matthew Bogdanos, USMC Reserves, Donny George Youkhanna, former Director-General of the Iraq Museum, Patty Gerstenblith, Professor of Law at DePaul College of Law, McGuire Gibson, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Chicago and Corine Wegener, President of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield.

Over the course of the next hour and a half, those in attendance were treated to an impassioned presentation about the looting which began at Iraq’s National Museum in April 2003 but which continues throughout Iraq today. Each presenter spoke on his or her area of expertise and built upon one another’s lectures so that the result was a heady conversation which began with the history of Iraq and ended with the dictates of international law with regards to cultural heritage during armed conflict.

Perhaps most provoking was the message with which the presenters left the audience – that the destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage was preventable and that we, the American people, could have made a difference if we had only been able to reach across political barriers and classrooms and share with one another the importance of cultural heritage.

This story about Iraq’s looting is a tragedy, but it does not have to be the ending to the story. By shaking off our apathy, we, the American people, can ensure that our policymakers and soldiers are well-aware of the value of cultural heritage…that they gain awareness that a few bricks can tell us more about ourselves than a lifetime of conversations….that if this rate of destruction in Iraq and elsewhere does not slow down and end, we are in danger of losing our very selves.

As Donny George put it, “The looting of the National Museum is so tragic because it was the one place in the world where someone could go to trace all of civilization under one roof.” If we remain silent while the looting continues, then we not only actively silence the voices of the past but we distance ourselves from those who paved the way for today’s civilization. When we no longer hear their voices, how will we understand our own?

Are Strings Attached?

Today's New York Times article When Strings Are Attached, Quirky Gifts Can Limit Universities rekindles concerns over the ethical and moral issues of big donations to educational institutions.

Two years after the announcement of the $300 million gift from private collector Shelby White to New York University to finance a new Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), the furor seems to have faded, if not completely disappeared. Ms. White, who has been criticized for allegedly collecting objects that are looted from their countries of origin, recently returned a number of disputed objects to Italy.

Robert K. Durkee, vice president and secretary of Princeton was quoted in the article that “Institutions do get shaped by the interests of donors”. We can only hope that the fears of Randall White, a professor of anthropology at NYU for 25 years, who resigned his honorary position with the university’s existing Center for Ancient Studies in protest over NYU's acceptance of the gift are unfounded.

According to its website, "ISAW is a center for advanced scholarly research and graduate education, intended to cultivate comparative and connective investigations of the ancient world." Perhaps the study and "analysis of artifacts", also mentioned on ISAW's website, will emphasize the importance of documentation and context, so that such investigations may be possible.

Where we forgot our history

The following article is published at the request of its author, Mehiyar Kathem, who has recently completed a MSc in Development Management at the London School of Economics (LSE) and is currently fundraising for the Cultural Heritage Awareness Initiative (CHAI) - a project of the Baghdad based education focused NGO, the Culture For All (CFA) - www.cultureforall.org

One of the greatest tragedies of history has been the systematic looting of most of the 10,000 registered archaeological sites and monuments in Iraq. Our knowledge of Iraq is largely punctuated by events of the past twenty five years - that of the first Gulf War, the sanctions, and now nearly five years into the West's disastrous escapade, the US led invasion of 2003. But what we do not get to see on the news is a tragedy much larger than the war. Armed and organised gangs, many of them contracted by wealthy Western clients, are systematically looting Iraq's cultural and archaeological heritage. In the past five years, we forgot that the war has ransacked the house of the first civilisations known to exist - Sumaria, Assyria and Babylon.

Billions of dollars have poured into making Iraq secure and democratic but only a small portion of funds has gone to preserving and protecting its archaeological heritage. Democracy is necessarily about rights - and the rights of civilisations past and present have to be respected, including our human right to understand the past. It is ironic that while human rights promotion has been high on the agenda of so many international NGOs focusing on Iraq so little focus has been on asserting Iraqi's right to their country's cultural heritage. Unfortunately for history much is at loss. While the past 100 years has uncovered only a small fraction of the country's archaeological riches, some of which looted at the Baghdad museum in the ensuing chaos of 2003, much remains to be discovered and understood of a history spanning 8,000 years. We may never know how many Gilgamesh like epics have been lost. As March 2008 marks the five-year anniversary of the war, we are forgetting that it also marks five years of one of the greatest catastrophes to befall humanity. In another five years, we will be marking the ten-year anniversary, and yet again our arrogance for understanding the meaning of life through past civilisations that gave us the wheel and the written word, will continue to blind us from the actions we need to take to protect the cultural heritage of what rightfully belongs to all civilisations and peoples of the world.

Protecting Iraq's archaeological heritage is essentially about civic engagement and public education rather than only the capacity building workshops in four-star hotels. For protection is not only equipping Iraqi academics with best practices, but about implementing public education programmes and engaging communities within the country. Any action necessarily requires over the next few years support to the credible, legitimate and sufficiently grounded community based organisations to spur people into building local protection schemes. Local strategic communication is essential in this process but so is creating the incentives so that tribal and community leaders understand that safeguarding the sites is a tool by which to rebuild Iraq and preserve its rich history. While this may need the help of a government Ministry, relying on the Iraqi Ministry of Culture to help may actually end up delaying what is urgently needed - Iraq would be left with just broken fragments of looted artefacts before any assistance or national protection programme is tabled. Since it is quite obvious that the Ministry's priorities lie elsewhere grass-root campaigning is the surest way to pressure the government into devising a national protection strategy, educating and raising awareness amongst the general public.

Iraq is said to be a dangerous country to work in. But one should not forget that it is still home to more than twenty six million Iraqis and to effective grass-root NGOs, academics and functioning universities. In a new initiative to be announced in May, the British Army in the South of the country in co-operation with the British Museum will focus on what Western experts can do to help reduce the systematic looting in the sector. All good, but again the same mistakes are being repeated. It is just another effort concentrated within academic circles between the West and Iraq. Unless efforts address the deficiency of civic engagement initiatives with the general public, we should not be surprised to see the continuation of the monumental looting taking place in the country.

A Different View of Art Theft

In light of the recent high profile theft from a museum in Switzerland there have been a variety of articles and opinion pieces about the theft and what is all means to the Art world in general.

Overall the consensus has been that art thieves aren’t a very bright lot. The thefts are sadly not terribly difficult (museum security naturally being woefully inadequate, given the value of the items) and therefore do not require intense strategic masterminding, nor are the paintings liable to be resold at anywhere near their market value, given the high profile nature of the works themselves.

There has also been quite a bit written about the unlikeness of the Dr. No theory that assumes that some evil genius has commissioned that specific theft for his private collection.

Putting aside the evil masterminds and incompetent crooks, there is a very interesting interview on a website called Foreign Policy that deals with the very practical, lucrative and relatively simple way of handling stolen art.

The interviewee is Art Hostage, an anonymous former stolen art dealer who writes a blog and provides a very different viewpoint for art thefts. His interview shows that there is indeed money to be made from art thefts and that the thefts are often part of a darker criminal underbelly. This is an aspect of art theft that is alluded to from time to time but rarely ever fleshed out.

He also talks about the difference between the high profile cases that make headlines and the numerous every day thefts that occur from private homes and smaller galleries that fuel the stolen art market. These rarely make the mainstream media but are nevertheless important to the black market.

Though these insights are generally applied to paintings it is not hard to make the comparison to the black market in stolen antiquities

Sotheby's Auctions Rare Antiquities

Last month, two major sales of antiquities took place at Sotheby’s, New York. The sales were remarkable not only in the prices fetched at auction, but also in the fact that both went to private collectors.

As reported in Time Magazine (12/12/07), a Mesopotamian miniature sculpture of the goddess Inanna as a lioness, the so-called Guennol Lioness, was sold to an anonymous English bidder on 12/5/07 for a staggering $57.2 million. According to one observer, “The transaction set a world record for any antiquity and sculpture sold by an auction house”). The sculpture, which dates to c. 3000-2800 BC, is considered to be an exceedingly rare representation of the goddess, known also as Ishtar, and at 3 ¼ inches high, is a marvel of miniature carving.

Sotheby’s also auctioned a rare copy of the Magna Carta to businessman David Rubinstein, for $21.3 million (BBC News, 12/19/07). The copy, one of only 17 extant, came from a private collection.

What neither of these news reports addresses, however, is the question of the ethics involved in auctioning pieces universally acknowledged as rarities to private owners. In fact, the Time article’s main thrust was towards prospective collectors of antiquities, or the “über-rich”, as the article dubs them. Antiquities, according to the article and to John Ambrose, an antiquities dealer and founder and director of Fragments of Time, Inc., are a good investment opportunity. The concluding line of the Time article should give us pause; “. . . no matter how ornate a stock certificate might be, an Egyptian amulet is always going to look better in your living room display case.”

Is this the message the public should be hearing with regard to antiquities – their price tag, and their potential investment value?

Although Mr. Ambrose did not mention the issue of provenance in his Time interview, in a 12/15/07 online article, he discusses provenance of antiquities – as one of the three essential “value components” a collector should look for when purchasing antiquities, the other two components being quality, and condition (See The Time Magazine Article: Thoughts That Didn’t Make it into the Article on Collecting Antiquities ). Provenance, according to Mr. Ambrose, may be assured to a potential collector by a statement in a catalogue published by a reputable dealer.

What is so troubling about these articles, let alone the sales of the items themselves, is that the issue of private ownership vs. public access is never addressed. How does the public gain access to the common cultural heritage of mankind, when it is privately owned? What obligation does a private owner have to providing public access to such valuable works? To give credit to the Magna Carta’s new owner, Mr. Rubinstein, he says that he considers himself just the “temporary custodian” of the document, and plans to keep it on public display at the National Archives, where it has been since 1988. Public access to this precious document appears safe, for now. But what will become of the Guennol Lioness? Will it, too, be put on display by its new owner, or will it disappear from public view?

This is exactly the problem addressed in Marina Papa Sokal’s excellent essay, “Antiquities Collecting and the Looting of Archaeological Sites (published in the Proceedings of the Second Annual Ename International Colloquium “Who Owns the Past? Heritage Rights and Responsibilities in a Multicultural World”, Ghent, Belgium, March 22-25, 2006). One of Sokal’s essential arguments is that “Private collecting, by definition, does not serve the interest of the general public” (Sokal, p. 3). Public access to private collections under the best of circumstances would be problematic; might require changes in legal codes addressing private property rights; and, in fact, would mostly be unworkable. In other words, private art and antiquities collections are just that – private. Museums, on the other hand, are specifically designed to educate the public, to permit scholarly study, and to guarantee a reliable degree of safety and preservation to artifacts. Knowledge is kept in the public domain in a museum; it is restricted in a private collection.

Contrary to the opinions expressed in the Time article, antiquities should not be lumped in with artworks as an investment option; antiquities are intrinsically valuable for the knowledge they may transmit about long-vanished cultures, for information about technology, for historical details, and so forth. In fact, Sokal draws a sharp line between art collections and antiquities collections. Antiquities, she notes, are a finite resource: “Of course, all art by non-living artists is a non-renewable resource; but for no other kind of artwork is context so important as for antiquities. The historic (as opposed to merely aesthetic) value of any ancient artifact resides principally in its relation to its original context” (Sokal, p. 4). Sokal observes, “. . . many objects in private collections have no provenance, thus vastly reducing their scholarly value . . .” (Sokal, pp. 5-6). Further, “fashions” in collecting have been proven to stimulate selective looting of archaeological sites in order to supply the private antiquities market; “. . . as long as there exists a private market in archaeological artifacts, there will be an incentive for looting and plunder” (Sokal, p. 6).

And as long as rare antiquities can command the kind of well-publicized prices that the Sotheby auctions have demonstrated, there will continue to be a keen interest in “trading up” private collections. The archaeological community, together with SAFE, should give serious consideration to addressing as a unified body the ethical ramifications of these transactions. (CREDIT: Jacob Silberberg / Reuters)

"All the news that's fit to print"?

A few important omissions in Jeremy Kahn’s “Coin Dealers Sue State Dept. for Details on Import Bans” in the New York Times, on November 17, 2007 should be pointed out:

In the article, Mr. Kahn claimed, “It was the first time the government had barred trade in a broad category of ancient coins…” But this is not true. While the US/Cyprus bilateral agreement does represent the first time that ancient coins have been subject to temporary import restrictions under the Cultural Property Implementation Act, coins have been subject to government-mandated import restrictions for many years in other contexts. For example, Executive Order 12722, which prohibits the importation of ancient coins from Iraq, went into effect on August 2, 1990. This order has been renewed several times, e.g., see section 4 of the renewal dated July 29, 2004. This prohibition remains in effect. In addition, antiquities, coins and other artifacts of Iranian origin have also been subject to trade restrictions for a number of years; importing such items to the U.S. is currently prohibited, and the US Customs and/or the Department of Justice does confiscate such items. In addition, according to the US Customs and Border Protection’s website, “gold coins ... originating in or brought from Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Serbia, and Sudan are prohibited entry” under regulations administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Mr. Kahn wrongly characterizes import restrictions on Cypriot coins as a sweeping ban. For example, the photo caption in the article reads: “Importing Cypriot coins like this one is now banned.” But according to the U.S. Federal Register, the coins restricted from entering the US under the bilateral agreement are quite specific and listed as:

Coins of Cypriot types made of gold, silver, and bronze including but not limited to:

1. Issues of the ancient kingdoms of Amathus, Kition, Kourion, Idalion, Lapethos, Marion, Paphos, Soli, and Salamis dating from the end of the 6th century B.C. to 332 B.C.

2. Issues of the Hellenistic period, such as those of Paphos, Salamis, and Kition from 332 B.C. to c. 30 B.C.

3. Provincial and local issues of the Roman period from c. 30 B.C. to 235 A.D. Often these have a bust or head on one side and the image of a temple (the Temple of Aphrodite at Palaipaphos) or statue (statue of Zeus Salaminios) on the other.

Coins minted in Cyprus outside of the categories specified are not affected. In addition, no import ban exists for these types of coins, or any coin of Cypriot type, if the coin is accompanied by a valid export permit from the Government of Cyprus. Any bona fide museum, university or organization with a need to access and study Cypriot coins, can apply to the Cyprus government for a long-term loan, as described in Section 27 (subsections 1 and 2) of the Cyprus Antiquities Law.

The State Department operates under the provisions of the Cultural Property Implementation Act, the enabling legislation passed on January 12, 1983 and amended December 22, 1987, which implements into US law the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (UNESCO 1970). As parties to the Convention, Cyprus and the US, as well as more than 100 countries, have agreed to abide by Article 1(e), which includes under the definition of Cultural Property subject to protection, “antiquities more than one hundred years old, such as inscriptions, coins and engraved seals”. Parties to the Convention have also agreed to abide by Article 9: "Any State Party to this Convention whose cultural patrimony is in jeopardy from pillage of archaeological or ethnological materials may call upon other States Parties ... to participate in a concerted international effort to determine and to carry out the necessary concrete measures, including the control of exports and imports and international commerce in the specific materials concerned. Pending agreement each State concerned shall take provisional measures to the extent feasible to prevent irremediable injury to the cultural heritage of the requesting State."

In other words, the US-Cyprus bilateral agreement is fully in keeping with an international legal mechanism that has been in place for decades.

To describe the import restrictions of ancient Cypriot coins without including the proper background information and circumstances does not serve the purpose of pursuing “greater disclosure”, reportedly the basis for bringing the lawsuit. Context does matter. We believe the public deserves better from The New York Times.

As for the lawsuit itself, the 15-page complaint speaks for itself. But consider this fact: it costs as little as $100/month to hire an archaeological site guard; an FOIA attorney in Washington, D.C. typically receives $400 per hour, or more, to sue the federal government.

A critical look at U.S. media coverage of antiquities issues

"Anyone who reads a newspaper knows that major American museums are facing unprecedented scrutiny in the press over their antiquities collections. Investigative-reporting teams more accustomed to covering government graft or corporate malfeasance have been probing museum acquisitions and finding dubious practices at some of the country's most prestigious cultural institutions." Author and journalist Roger Atwood compares "coverage by three major newspapers—The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe and The New York Times—of antiquities issues as they relate to museums in the newspapers' respective cities. Other news organizations, including National Public Radio and Bloomberg News, have also covered antiquities issues but these three metropolitan dailies have dedicated the most resources and set the pace within journalism." Read the full story.

Looking beyond 2007

In early November 2006 I gave a seminar to our university research group on the return of Italian antiquities from Boston. The news was just breaking about the Getty agreement - the list included many of the museum's 'Masterpieces'.

Then ten months later the Getty's list has become much longer. The analysis of collectors, dealers and galleries is changing by the week - and it sometimes feels as if it is by the day.

But what lies ahead?

1. Museum returns
The raid in the Geneva Freeport brought to light thousands of Polaroids showing antiquities which appeared to have been looted from Italy in recent years. We have yet to pass the milestone of the first hundred antiquities identified and returned.

2. Private collections
The Geneva Polaroids have identified objects in North American private collections. Some had already passed into public collections (e.g. the Fleischman Collection at the Getty). Private collectors are now in a quandry. They can hardly donate their objects to a museum which would then find itself facing a formal request from a foreign government. What should they do?

3. Scale of the market
There needs to be some detailed work of the scale of the problem. What is the value of the market in antiquities? How many pieces come from "secure" collections? How many pieces have a known find-spot?

4. Intellectual consequences
We need to be worried about looting because their are intellectual consequences for the study of material culture. Knowledge is being lost and it can never be retrieved.

5. Public opinion
There needs to be engagement with those who care about cultural heritage. And this is where this blog should help. Ask your questions. Give us feedback. Urge us to address the issues. I look forward to hearing your views.