 Trial of Frederick Schultz
The high-profile New York trial of Frederick Schultz (see
In The News, CWC
issue 9), former president of NADAOPA (National Association of Dealers in Ancient Oriental
and Primitive Art) ended on 12 February with his conviction. The jury deliberated for four
hours before finding Schultz guilty of conspiring to smuggle and possess looted
Egyptian artefacts (see Gerstenblith and
Watson articles this issue.)
On 11 June Judge Jed Rakoff sentenced Schultz to 33 months imprisonment. The
judge explained an additional fine of $50,000 was remarkably lower than the
pre-sentencing recommendation of $575,000 because jail sentences are more of a deterrent
for white-collar criminals. There had been some debate over the value of economic damage
the case entailed, revolving around the value of the smuggled head of Amenhotep,
estimated by the US Government at $2 million and Schultz at $70,000, even though he had
sold it for $1.2 million. Judge Rakoff decreed the value to be clearly in the
$1.5–2.5 million range but, to the dismay of archaeologists, took no account of
anything other than the monetary value of the smuggled objects. Schultz is now expected to
appeal.
A looted bronze disc, with gold depictions of the sun, moon and stars, has gone
on display at the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle, Germany. Believed to date from the
Bronze Age, it was stolen in 1998 from a site at Sangerhausen, in Saxony Anhalt.
Two thieves sold the artefact for 15,000 euros (US$13,000) to a dealer who then
unsuccessfully attempted to sell it to Berlin Museum. Police finally retrieved the disc in
February 2002 when a middleman and Düsseldorf teacher who had purchased the piece
(which under German law belongs to the State) met Saxony Anhalt archaeologist, Harald
Meller, to negotiate a sale. Both teacher and go-between were arrested, but not yet
charged.
Status of international conventions
• At the end of January, the French government made moves towards adopting
the 1995 Unidroit Convention when an initial reading of the bill to ratify was
adopted by the Assemblée Nationale (lower-house). It was noted that any ratification (not
expected until autumn at the earliest) would have to be accompanied by legislation to
ensure that the terms of the Convention do not contradict France’s constitution. At a
Press Conference on 3 October 2001, the Syndicat National des Antiquaires (National
Dealers’ Association of France) had already pointed out that Chapter 3 of the
convention contravened the European Convention of Human Rights and the French
Constitution. President and Oriental dealer Dominique Chevalier also noted that, should
the Unidroit Convention become law, museum curators fear that collectors will be
too scared to lend objects to French museums, and said that major donations to the Musée
Guimet had been suspended while donors awaited the government’s decision. The
Syndicat, which has signed recent agreements with TEFAF and the British Art Market
Federation to fight ratification of the Convention in its present form and vowed that if
it were to become law in France they would support and encourage challenges to its
legality in the courts, announced themselves very satisfied that the government had noted
problems they felt to be inherent in the Unidroit text.
• January: The Cambodian government announced that it has ratified
the 1995 Unidroit Convention following a unanimous vote in favour in the national
assembly.
• According to reports in the Japanese press, the Japanese government is making
moves towards signing the 1970 UNESCO Convention. Some changes in Japanese law
and other amendments must first be completed before the terms of the Convention could be
met, including a change in the statute of limitation on claiming return of stolen property
(from 2 years to 10 years), stricter import and export controls, and the creation of a
list of cultural heritage. Japanese diplomats have indicated that the issue is a top
priority and it is hoped the ratification will be approved during the current session of
the Japanese parliament.
• In March, Tessa Blackstone, UK Arts Minister, announced that the UK
government will sign up to the 1970 UNESCO Convention by July. Legal issues relating
to the form of UK accession to the Convention have now been resolved.
• During the November 2001 World Trade Organization Ministerial Summit, in
Doha, Qatar, at which countries agreed a working agenda on trade negotiations which will
be negotiated over coming years, the notion of ‘cultural exception’ was
upheld in principle. Under the terms of the first General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (GATT) 1948, indirect restriction or discrimination in international trade is not
permitted, but special exceptions have been allowed regarding measures intended to promote
or protect national cultural interests and values.
Museum
ethics
• Hershel Shanks, writing in Biblical Archaeology Review (September/October
2001), reflects sadly that stricter museum policies are causing loss of knowledge, because
artefacts of scholarly importance are now more likely to be sold to a collector ‘who
would keep them a secret lest he be vilified by the archaeological establishment’. He
cites as an example one of two collections of eulogiai (enigmatic ancient
Greek-inscribed tokens associated with early Christian pilgrim shrines) which was
purchased on the antiquities market by the British Museum in 1973 — a purchase which
the Museum confirmed would no longer be possible as their acquisition policy now
requires that, except in exceptional circumstances, that unprovenanced antiquities must
have documentation to show they left their country of origin before 1970.
• Geffrey Lewis, Chair of the Ethics Committee of ICOM (International Council of
Museums) reports that six alleged violations of the ICOM Code of Ethics were
discussed during between 1998–2001, including acquisition or display by museums of
allegedly illicitly exported material, a senior museum worker contributing to the
catalogue of an exhibition which contained stolen artefacts, and issues surrounding public
valuation services by an art dealer at a major museum event. ICOM’s Code of Ethics
has, after consultation with the membership, been thoroughly revised and is available on
ICOM’s WWW site at http://icom.museum/.
• The National Museum of Taiwan, Taipei faced criticism from national
legislator Chen Chin-jun, who declared it a disgrace that in 50 years the museum still hasn’t
finished inventorying its collection, and made public his belief that some museum
staff had been working with antiquities traders to steal and sell museum pieces.
Chen said that, based on current museum lists, at least a thousand objects are missing
from storerooms and checks indicated that some had been substituted by modern
reproductions. A representative from the Council for Cultural Affairs announced that a
working group would be assigned to look into the matter, while museum director James An
added that inventory work should be complete within the next two years, which could
confirm whether or not museum workers have been involved in any illegality.
Nok
resolution
January: French Minister for European Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, announced that
under the terms of an agreement between the
governments of France and Nigeria, three apparently illegally exported Nok
terracottas currently on display in the Louvre (see In The News, CWC issues 6
& 7 and Red Alert in Nigeria issue 6), will remain in France. Nigeria’s
legal ownership of the pieces is confirmed, but they will be kept for a 25-year, renewable
term at the future museum of ethnography at Quai Branly, Paris. ICOM welcomed the
agreement.
Latin
American meeting
In April 2002 the Ministry for Culture of Colombia hosted the Third Regional
Workshop Against Illicit Traffic of Cultural Heritage. As part of the four-day
meeting, archaeologists, museum and heritage professionals from around the world began the
process of developing an ICOM Red List for Latin America, using as an inspiration
the highly effective format of the Red List for Africa produced in 2000.
Looting in Java
According to The Art Newspaper (April 2002), Javanese cultural heritage is
under increasing threat, especially since the fall of the Suharto government in
Indonesia in 1998.
• Widespread looting is taking place of medieval Majapahit sites in East
Java, and shipwrecks in the Java Sea.
• Spectacular Hindu-Buddhist temple sites like Borobudur and Prambanan in
Central Java, have apparently been looted out since the 1960s. Many heads and even
whole figure have allegedly been stolen, smuggled out and replaced with excellent replicas
produced by local stone masons.
• During the 1980s, shipwrecks were legally, though allegedly dubiously, excavated
by marine archaeologists under the auspices of Admiral Sudomo of the Ministry of
Stability, and objects removed from Indonesia.
• The Tek Sing horde of 350,000 Qing dynasty ceramics, excavated off the
coast of Sumatra with the help of Indonesia officials, found its way to the Nagel
salesrooms in Stuttgart after being smuggled in container loads via an Australian
beach. Auctioned in November 2002 the collection made $10.1 million, and the
Indonesian government eventually managed to claw back one third of the profits.
• Javanese artefacts often end up on sale in Singapore, which imposes few
controls over art sales. Magnificent, unprovenanced East Javanese sculptures have been
seen for sale in Tanglin Mall, and Majapahit items are offered in magazines like Orientations
and Arts of Asia by an anonymous seller, with only a yahoo.com e-mail and
Singapore fax contact number.
Begram
ivories adventure
Oriental dealer Johnny Eskenazi describes in The Art Newspaper (January
2002) how, following a two-year search and a tip-off from one his regular middlemen in
Peshawar, he finally located 107 Begram ivories in 1996 in the possession of a
powerful Pakistani official. The ivories, looted from Kabul Museum when it was
destroyed during the Afghan civil war in the early 1990s, had apparently been smuggled
into Pakistan by mujaheddin commanders and sold, probably for not very much to Pakistani
politicians who then found the pieces too hot to tempt Western collectors. Eskenazi
describes how he was taken in disguise and at dead of night to a rich house and the
treasures were presented to him in three large suitcases, wrapped in pink toilet paper.
The ivories were apparently beginning to crumble. Eskenazi laments that ‘political
correctness’ (or a general unwillingness in the West to sponsor looting by buying
looted antiquities) prevented him from saving them, and concludes that they should belong
to anyone willing to look after them for future generations.
Tales from USA
• Archaeologists in Utah, USA reacted angrily to a scheme run by a San Juan County
landowner which, for $2500 per day, offers members of the public the chance to
dig for relics at the 1000-year-old, Anasazi site of Montezuma Village which
contains nearly 100 house mounds. The business, called Anasazi Digs, is legal,
since state antiquities laws do not apply to private land with the exception of burials.
Howard Ransdell, whose family have owned the property since the 1950s, said that only
areas in danger from erosion would be offered for commercial excavation, under the
supervision of anthropology graduate Daniel Thomas, and that the idea was to give people
the opportunity to dig in an undisturbed site.
• Archaeologists in Texas continue to push for stronger grave protection
laws and better enforcement in the light of extensive pot-hunting for prized Caddo
ceramics in the State. But opposition from amateur archaeologists and private
landowners is strong: Bob McWilliams, founder of Texas Amateur Archaeological Association,
quoted in The Knight Ridder Tribune, argues that private citizens have the right to
use private property as they see fit.
• Concerns that widespread looting was destroying an unexcavated ancient shell
mound at Hooker Key in Pine Island Sound, Florida, led to archaeological rescue
excavations at the site in 2000. Artefacts and radiocarbon dates from samples taken from
areas damaged by looters’ holes up to 9-feet deep, have proved that the midden was
occupied from 500 bc to ad 100 — much earlier than archaeologists previously
believed. A two-year restoration project has now been completed to restore the gaping
pits in the sides of the mound.
• Robert Hicks of the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services (see
Time
Crime: Looting in the USA, CWC issue 9) told a conference on Indian Affairs that,
when a sheriff organized members of a local Cherokee tribe to patrol a Native American
cemetery in Tennessee which was frequently targeted by grave robbers, looting there
stopped.
Austrian
antiquity decision
The Austrian Supreme Court ended a lengthy legal dispute when it awarded ownership of
a 2000-year-old statue of the Greek goddess Hekate to a kebab shop owner who
purchased it from a German customer in 1980 for £1000. In 1997, the Turkish Embassy had
obtained an injunction to stop the piece being auctioned for more than a million pounds at
the Dorotheum auction house in Vienna, claiming that it must have been looted and
smuggled from eastern Anatolia. The kebab shop owner proved good faith with a
written purchase agreement.
Chinese
dilemma
Archaeologists continue debating the wisdom of opening the 1200-year-old mausoleum
of Qianling, tomb of Empress Wu Zetian and her husband Emperor Li Zhi, the only Tang
dynasty tomb not to have been looted. Authorities say they have found evidence of eight
recent failed robberies there.
Israeli
issues
• December 2001: Officials of the Israeli Antiquities
Authority, acting on a tip-off, detained a group of scuba divers from coastal
kibbutz Neveh Yam, on suspicion of stealing artefacts — including amphorae,
coins and architectural pieces — from the sea near the Roman port of Caesarea.
The alleged thieves face up to three-year prison sentences.
• Officials in the Antiquities Authority’s Unit for the Prevention of
Antiquity Theft warn that probable budget cuts will hamper their ability to protect
the estimated 30,000 ancient sites under their jurisdiction in the country.
• Three young Palestinians were caught in February attempting to break into an
ancient tomb in Gai Ben-Hinnom, a steep ravine circling the west and south of the Old
City of Jerusalem and the site of a wealth of unexcavated caves in which high-ranking
ancient citizens were buried. Amir Ganor head of the Unit for the Prevention of Theft of
Antiquities blames economic suffering caused by the unrest for the recent rise in grave
robbing and antiquities thefts by Palestinians, particularly along the Green Line.
French
windfall
December 2001: French museum authorities took possession of a selection of more
than 100 Italian antiquities, which had originally been confiscated in 1992 by
French customs officials at Thionville, in eastern France. The objects, worth as much as
$11,000 each, included bronze necklaces, bracelets (some with fragments of ancient bone
inside), spearheads, and pins, along with Etruscan busts and Roman vases, and dated
between the seventh and eighth centuries bc. They were found roughly packed in newspaper
at the bottom of large suitcases carried by two train passengers en route from Milan to
Brussels. The bronzes were looted from tombs in the Basilicata region.
According to the Louvre, which will add some of the pieces to its permanent collection,
Italian authorities declined to take steps to recover the artefacts, probably because of a
surplus of similar objects within Italy and the complicated legal process repatriation
would have entailed.
Sybaris
antiquities returned
November 2001: About 500 antiquities were returned to the Museum of the
Archaeological Park in Sibari, Southern Italy from the J P Getty Museum in California and the Institute for Classical Archaeology at the
University of Bern, Switzerland. The terracotta and bronze pieces had been acquired as
donations between 1976 and 1983 but have been the subject of negotiations since 1993, when
an archaeologist recognized them as having come from the ancient Greek city of Sybaris.
Greek
round-up
• 274 artefacts stolen from Corinth Museum in Greece in 1990,
and recovered by the FBI in Miami in 1999 (see In The News, CWC issues
5, 6,
7 & 8) were due to be returned to display once more at the museum on December 1.
Security at the site has been improved.
• In September 2001, archaeologists investigating illegal excavations in
Macedonia, Northern Greece found a previously
unknown, archaeologically significant 2300-year-old tomb near the ancient route to
the oracle of Zeus at Dodona.
• More than 100 ancient vases, vessels, pottery fragments and statues were
confiscated in January from the Athens home of retired economist George
Gerogiannis. Gerogiannis was arrest for illegal possession of the antiquities, which date
from early prehistoric to late Byzantine eras.
• January 2002: Argiris Argiriou was arrested in Thessaloniki after
police found in his possession around 1000 allegedly illegal antiquities. The
objects, including gold coins, statuettes, amphorae, belt buckles and swords, mostly from
burial sites — are believed to have been obtained from black market dealers in
Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey. Argiriou produced Greek owner’s permits
for some of the objects.
• February 2002: Hundreds of ancient Egyptian and Greek artefacts
— including an Egyptian necklace, 411 bronze and silver coins, 200 Archaic, Classical
and Hellenistic period bronze amphorae, clay lamps, statuettes, swords, jewellery items,
arrowheads and belt buckles — were found and seized during a search of a house in Serres.
Nikolas Laoutidis will be charged with theft of antiquities.
• February 2002: Athenian police intercepted 5 men negotiating the sale
to a foreign buyer of 19 illicit antiquities for 440,000 euros. The collection of
Classical period pieces included terracotta, bronze and marble artefacts and a 20-cm-wide
golden wreath in the shape of a bent oak twig with leaves and acorns.
• In February 2002, police in the Southern Greek town of Kalamata confiscated
two ancient statues and 16 Byzantine coins from the home of Pandelis Semertzidis, who
they believe intended to sell them.
• In February 2002 Michalis Halkitis, a goatherd from the Greek island of Kalymnos,
his family and three neighbours, were given a 294,000 euro reward for reporting to
the Central Archaeological Council the discovery of 37 marble statues and fragments
in a field near the early Christian basilica of the Jerusalem Christ. The statues, found
when a cistern was being dug, date between the third and first centuries bc and may have
been connected with a nearby temple of Apollo.
• March 2002: Giorgos Krambokoupis, owner of a bulldozing firm in Agrinio,
was arrested following the discovery by police of 17 Archaic, Classical and Roman
bronze, marble and clay antiquities in his home in Neapolis. He had attempted
to negotiate a sale and was charged with illegal trading in antiquities.
News from Egypt
• An Egyptian citizen ceded a collection of 17,000 antiquities to
the Egyptian Culture Ministry. Officials said that the pieces, of Pharaonic, Graeco-Roman,
Coptic and Islamic date, were assessed and moved into official stores.
• Five inscribed-stone architectural elements stolen by night from the Ramses
II fort at Om El Rakhm in Mersa Matrouh, have been recovered by the Supreme Council of
Antiquities. The identity of the thieves was not revealed.
Pakistani
seizure
A steel box containing 18 second-century ad Buddha statues, destined for Dubai,
was seized by Pakistani officials at Peshawar airport, close to the Afghan border.
Puglia
artefacts recovered
February 2002: Italian police filed complaints to magistrates against 21 people
in connection with a crime ring alleged to have been stealing archaeological artefacts
to order for Italian collectors. During a three-month operation, about 500 items looted
from Puglia, southern Italy and dating from 400 bc to ad 200 were recovered (including
black figure vases and ancient helmets) often from open display in peoples’ homes.
The pieces were sold via a middleman in Milan to well-to-do clients, like medics,
architects and lawyers, who had commissioned the thefts and, according to police
chief Sergio Banchellini, knew perfectly well that what they were buying was illegal.
Bond
Street raid
A Bond Street, London antiquities dealer offered a £22,000 reward for
information leading to the safe recovery of Cambodian, Indian and Tibetan artefacts
worth up to £250,000 stolen from his shop in December 2001. Half of the foot of a
6-foot tall, £110,000, thirteenth-century wooden Buddha had apparently been broken off
during the robbery and was found near a window on a fire escape the thieves used to make
their getaway. Many even more valuable pieces were ignored by the robbers during the raid,
leading police to believe they were disturbed or ignorant of the value of the objects and
probably sold them on for a pittance.
Indian
discovery and arrest
• January 2002: A stunning 800-year-old statue of the Hindu god Vishnu,
weighing over 50 kilograms and decorated with gold alloy, was discovered in a police
stolen property store in Roop Nagar, New Delhi during a routine stock check. A
police officer unaware of its worth seized the piece five years ago from a man named Bhatti,
who had tried to sell it in a central Delhi restaurant. The sculpture, worth £2.8
million, will now go on display in a museum.
• A long police investigation in Bangalore, Mangalore and Nellore, India
led to the arrest in May 2001 of two men for alleged involvement in the theft of
three valuable idols from the Sri Chanakeshvaswami temple in Chitlure village, Nellore,
Andhra Pradesh, Southern India. The pieces — Vijaynagar period sculptures of
Hindu deities Vishnu, Sridevi and Bhudevi, which had been stolen at the end of September
1999 — were seized at the Ardarsh Hotel, Mangalore in February 2000. It is alleged
that M Jagdish Rao, who owns the hotel, was in regular contact with Rakesh Dhiman who
procured antiquities for him from a thief and a middleman, both of whom remain at large.
Delhi’s Central Bureau of Investigation are awaiting clearance from local government
to catch the other members of the a Nellore-based gang involved in stealing
antiquities.
Euro
question
Responding to a question by a Greek Euro-deputy, the European Commission
said they will call on the Turkish authorities to adopt the EU Council of Ministers
Regulation on the export of cultural good and respect the Directive for the return of
cultural goods that have been removed illegally from an EU member-state.
Illegal metal-detecting
in Ireland
Archaeologists excavating at Cullenmore Bends of Ashford in Wicklow, Ireland
have had problems with illegal metal-detectorists trespassing on sites in the area
following a newspaper article which, according to the archaeologists, falsely stated that
a Bronze Age jewellery industry may have been located there.
Gold
Museum up-date
The Gold Museum of Lima, Peru is appealing against a government fine of
around $17,700, imposed when it was discovered that many of the objects in its
collections are modern creations and some not even made from precious metals (see
In
The News, CWC issue 9). Following scientific investigations, Peruvian consumer
protection agency INDECOPI concluded that 27 per cent (about 4200 items) were fakes
and these are reported to have removed them from display. Victoria Mujica, daughter of the
museum’s founder, emphasized that the museum has now put the scandal behind it and is
now modernizing its presentation and planning a series of international exhibitions.
Afghan
up-date
• During a visit to UNESCO headquarters in Paris in March 2002, Hamid Karzai, interim
leader of Afghanistan, urged the United Nations and Afghanistan’s neighbours
to help stop widespread smuggling of Afghan cultural heritage. He stressed that his
country does not have the resources to prevent looting and smuggling of archaeological
material and portable antiquities, and referred to numerous stories of businessmen
organizing the looting of archaeological sites and graves for material to sell on the
black market.
• On the same visit, Afghan Culture Minister Raheen Makhdoom signed an
agreement for UNESCO help to reopen, or possibly build anew, Kabul’s destroyed National
Museum to provide a home for artworks now looted which the nation hopes to retrieve.
• IWPR (Institute for War and Peace Reporting) reported on afghanweb.org (17 April
2002) that looting is on the rise in post-Taliban Afghanistan, with authorities
powerless to stop or prioritize policing the plunder:
The number of illegal excavations has more than doubled in recent months.
° Best locations for digging are well-known: ancient sites in the Eastern provinces of
Nangarhar, Laghman and Kunar. Illegal excavations are also mentioned in the
districts of Sherzad, Pacheer and Agam, Surkh Road, Rodat and Haskamina.
° A Pakistani owner of a shop in Andarshar bazaar, Peshawar, who gave his name as
Mohammad Zareef, has two ongoing illicit excavations on hills near Wazeer and
Zaviee villages which, he believes (having studied maps of ancient Gandhara) will
yield Buddhist artefacts. He pays the locals before work begins and does not view the digs
as illegal since he says the villagers regard material found on their land as theirs.
° Two 1.5-metre-high Gandharan sculptures are the latest find from unlicensed
digging by locals near the villages of Tutu and Nari Taba, Sherzad.
° At Baloch village, Surkh Road, villagers had been digging for 10 days
with no major finds, but remained optimistic saying they heard every day of someone who
struck lucky, and of the money they made.
° A digger in Laghman said he had made more than 100,000 rupees, adding
that although he knew it to be illegal he had no other way to make the money to
feed his large family.
° Maulawee Anwar ul-Haq, head of the information and culture department for Hangarhar
admitted that although they were informed of illegal excavations it was difficult
to act since smugglers had often bribed local armed militia commanders for
protection, and authorities are tied up with political matters.
• Archaeology magazine devotes much of its May/June 2002 issue to ‘The
Race to Save Afghan Culture’, reporting the concept and struggles behind the
creation of the Afghan Museum in Bubendorf, Switzerland (see
In the News, CWC issue
6 and Editorial, issue 8). Founder of the museum, Swiss architect Paul
Bucherer-Dietschi:
° explains why he felt compelled to create a safe-house for looted and smuggled
Afghan cultural material, to be returned to the country when the time is right —
a project which he began in the 1990s;
° describes his relations with UNESCO (who eventually, in 2001, established a
policy on saving Afghan cultural heritage following the destruction by the Taleban of the
Bamiyam Buddhas: see CWC issue 8) as difficult. According to Bucherer even a
last-ditch official edict from the recognized president of Afghanistan, allowing him to
take objects out of the country to safety, was not acceptable to UNESCO;
° believes that criticism from scholars, who suggest that buying looted
antiquities means buying into the looting process, is motivated by professional jealousy;
° recalls that the only point of common agreement amongst warring factions within
Afghanistan was often a desire to save cultural heritage.
The museum now houses and displays mainly ethnographic material, often donated by
Europeans and Americans who purchased them while working or travelling in Afghanistan,
with some donations from antiquities dealers and collectors. The enterprise also stores in
safe bank vaults some archaeological items of considerable importance.
Sources
ABC Radio Australia News
Ananova
Antiques Trade Gazette
Archaeology magazine
The Art Newspaper
The Asian Age
Athens News
BBC News
BHMA.net
Biblical Archaeology Review
Deseret News
Egyptian State Information Service
The Guardian
ICOM (International Council of Museums)
ICOM News
The Independent
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Japan Today
The Jerusalem Post
Kathimerini
Nature
news-press.com
Reuters
San Francisco Examiner
Taipei Times
The Washington Times
Wicklow People
www.afghan.web
Xinhua News Agency
Return
to Top of Page
First posted December 2002; Page
design updated September 2006 |
