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Illicit Antiquities |
Colombia, illicit antiquities and the ICOM Red List Latin America |
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Colombia has suffered as much as any country from the attentions of archaeological bandits, probably more than most, and authorities there have been working with increasing effect to raise awareness of the importance of cultural heritage, with a view to stopping its theft. It is no surprise then that ICOM chose Bogota to be the venue of their April 2002 workshop for the preparation of the Red List - Latin America. The meeting was hosted by the Ministry of Culture of Colombia and attended by museums and heritage professionals from Latin America, Europe and North America. They compiled a list of categories of cultural heritage thought to be under severe threat from looting and theft, much along the lines of ICOM’s similar and highly effective Red List - Africa, published in 2000. ICOM’s 1997 volume in their One Hundred Missing Objects series Looting in Latin America had already illustrated 22 objects missing from Colombia, but the reality that lies behind the illustrations is far worse. Some of the photographs were of objects known to be stolen, for example the stone anthropomorphic figures stolen in San Agustín, but many other objects shown were in fact only examples — examples of types of artefacts under threat from looting. And it was a long list of examples: Sinú and Muisca gold, Muisca pottery, Tairona pottery, La Miel pottery, Tamalameque pottery, Tumaco pottery, Calima pottery, and Malagana pottery. Not much is known about the looting of archaeological sites in Colombia, nor about how much archaeological material has been illegally removed. We can gain some idea from the widely reported plunder of a cemetery at Hacienda Malagana in 1992, when something like 160 kg of gold were removed by more than 5000 people and one person was murdered.
Hundreds of tombs were destroyed in this one incident, and presumably it is a loss that has been repeated many times over throughout Colombia. Not much is known either about how much archaeological material has left the country, and it probably never will, but very little has ever been recovered. Those objects that have been recovered include some anthropomorphic figures from San Agustín, an area which was badly looted during the 1980s and 1990s. 17 statues are known to have been stolen, although a number have been returned. One piece, weighing over 1200 lb, left Colombia illegally in 1993 and was discovered at a gallery in California whence it was returned to Colombia; the French government has also returned another four figures that had been bought by a private collector in Nantes.
There is certainly a good market for Colombian material. In 2000, for example, at the annual Cultura Fair, in Basel, Switzerland, one dealer offered a gold hoard from Colombia (consisting of 130 archaeological objects) for about $3 million. The Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History reports that some pieces leaving Colombia illegally may have two certificates: the first, which accompanies the piece through customs certifies that it is a replica; the second, which is produced at point of sale when the piece has left Colombia, guarantees its authenticity as an archaeological piece. Colombian response The energetic and committed team at the Colombian Ministry of Culture have publicized heritage laws and created an innovative National Campaign against Illicit Traffic in Cultural Heritage. The aim of the programme is raise awareness and protect cultural heritage by means of press campaigns, posters, community group and youth activities and educational initiatives. At cinemas in Colombia, advertisements produced by the National Campaign are screened between films and graphically highlight the damage done by archaeological theft. They leave the viewer with powerful images in mind, such as lifesize, Precolumbian San Agustín statues bleeding as they are ripped from their contexts. Posters, an effective tool seen also in other awareness campaigns, are prominently placed. In the National Museum, labels attached to artefacts that have been returned — like one of the San Agustín statues mentioned above, stolen in 1994 and repatriated from France in 1998 — include references to the ‘incalculable value of our heritage’, and are designed to encourage Colombians to care for and protect cultural heritage. An example of such curation is very visible in the form of young members of the Vigia programme, which was the brainchild of Director of Heritage, Katya González Rosales and Minster for Culture, Araceli Morales López.
The Vigia initiative harnesses the enthusiasm and energy of civic-minded university students from all over Colombia, who are prepared to become volunteer ‘culture scouts’ as part of a legally sanctioned, organized culture programme designed to encourage the protection and promotion of Colombia’s rich heritage. It is hoped that programmes like this will consolidate or change attitudes, helping to create a vision of a shared future.
Vigia culture scouts are given their distinctive blue and yellow uniforms when they swear an oath to help fight for the preservation of the national heritage bequeathed to them by their ancestors, and to help maintain and enrich that resource for the sake of future generations. Their duties include supporting the work of the Ministry for Culture by helping to inventory collections, organizing and participating in cultural events, like National Culture Day, acting as educators at places of interest for local citizens (Fig. 7), campaigning against the destruction of moveable and immoveable cultural heritage, conducting scholarly research on cultural themes and providing an example of citizen participation for their communities. In relation to the ongoing campaign against illicit antiquities their value is clear and explicitly stated, especially in the areas of documentation, promoting legislation and education. Beyond archaeology Archaeological artefacts are not the only category of cultural heritage under threat in Colombia, or indeed Latin America more generally, a reality that is acknowledged in the ICOM Red List - Latin America. In a paper issued by the Colombian Ministry of Culture Maria Isabel Gomez Ayala (the Coordinator of the National Campaign against Illicit Traffic in Cultural Objects) gave an account of the theft of paintings by Colombian artists and of historical artefacts which go to feed the appetite in Spain and the United States for ‘Colonial Art’. She wrote1: As dawn broke on 26 February 1993 a group of men arrived at the church of La Peña in Bogotá. They bound and gagged the parish priest and an employee, and proceeded to take 11 colonial paintings, mainly of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Some are by anonymous artists, others by Baltazar de Figueroa and one is by the master Gonzalo Ariza. None have been recovered. In May 1993 the Museum of Religious Art in Santafé de Antioquia was robbed of 18 large format colonial paintings, of the Quiteño school and by painter Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos. Fortunately, these pieces were listed in the cultural heritage inventory of Antioquia and, despite having to be restored after recovery due to the damage they had suffered, they escaped the fate of most other listed items that have disappeared. Timely notification, through press and television, together with public cooperation and efficient work by DAS, allowed the recovery of 15 of these works in October. Investigations suggest the thieves belonged to a gang specializing in looting art. The Art Museum of the National University discovered that 35 engravings from the Pizano collection went missing between 1992 and 1995; while from 1971 to 1998 the Colonial Art Museum lost 217 objects from its collection, mainly silver pieces. The last robbery happened in 1998, when 136 pieces were taken. On 30 August 2001 111 pieces were recovered by the national police after efficient action by their intelligence service. It is important to emphasize that without pre-existing documentation (recording forms and photographs) and the active commitment of this organization the search for this valuable material would have been fruitless. On 20 December 2001, 11 colonial paintings were taken from the collection of the church of Tópaga, Boyacá. They are invaluable to the national heritage because of their religious and historical value and also their great antiquity. Also, in the April 2001, 68 pieces were taken from the collection of the Historical Museum of Cartagena — archaeological and historical and objects among them. Over the last few decades the Augustinian and Franciscan communities, as well as the churches of small villages in Boyacá, Pasto, Santander and Cundinamarca, have also been the victims of continuing robberies. Unfortunately, because of the lack of inventories, search and recovery cannot even begin. Similar events have taken place in galleries as well as the homes of painters and collectors, although scant information of these thefts is available in the offices of the Directory of Heritage of the Ministry of Culture. In most cases thefts are not reported to this department, despite the fact that it is entrusted with sending data to INTERPOL, and within Colombia to the relevant police and customs agencies, the office of Public Prosecution, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the media, in order to help in the search and recovery of the missing pieces. The owners are often not aware of the procedures to be followed in such cases, and so their complaints seldom arrive in time for action to be effective. Even so, one can mention the robbery of 34 pieces from radiologist Hernándo Morales in 1994, some of which have been recovered. The teacher Edgar Negret was also a victim of crime when, in 1993, 17 of his paintings were taken; the painter Armando Villegas was robbed in his own house when 15 paintings from the series Los Guerreros were taken; in 1990, 53 colonial works were stolen from the home of Soffy Arboleda in Cali by bogus workers of a telephone company; 23 works by the painter Fernando Botero were stolen from his country home, near Bogotá, in December 1999, all of which were recovered. This list cites only some of the best-known cases. Everyday objects from the colonial period are also in demand. They are antiques in effect, but as they are from a poorly-recorded period they still constitute an irreplaceable source of knowledge for the social history of colonial Colombia. Coffers, large and small chests, desks, tableware, screens, boxes and many other types of furniture are all in demand. Some pieces are related to important historical events. They are valuable no doubt for adding a touch of authenticity to a neo-colonial hacienda, and uninteresting as historical documents to those who buy them, but when properly studied they have much to tell us about techniques of production and the organization of the colonial economy. This is yet another group of illegally exported cultural objects, and one which deserves to be protected with the same zeal as stolen art or archaeology. Red List - Latin America The Red List - Latin America was agreed at the April 2002 workshop in Bogota and is now available in preliminary form on ICOM’s website at http://icom.museum/redlist_latina_eng.html. It comprises a list of types of Precolumbian and Colonial cultural objects that are thought to be particularly at risk from looting and theft. The categories are critical in that they represent material most in danger, but they are certainly not exhaustive. There is much other material in Latin America under threat, and its non-inclusion on the list is not intended to legitimise its sale or collection. The Red List is scheduled for full publication, in paper and electronic formats, in September 2003, when a full description of each category of object, photos and details of legislation protecting those objects will be added. Note Translated from the original Spanish by Alexander Herrera. First posted March 2004; Page design updated September 2006 |
