Illicit Antiquities
Research Centre
against the theft & traffic
of archaeology

Supply and demand: a glimpse into the traffic of illicit Khmer antiquities

Terressa Davis

HeritageWatch
Phnom Penh
Cambodia

Culture Without Context

Issue 18,
Spring 2006

Background

As a tangible witness to the past, archaeology provides invaluable information about human history. But to some collectors and dealers of antiquities, it is viewed only as a source of economic or cultural capital — an attitude that has commercialized archaeology, creating a demand for artefacts that is spurring a worldwide epidemic of looting at ancient sites. At this very moment, looters around the world are reducing countless sites to rubble in their search for buried treasures. No corner of the world is left untouched.

The archaeology of few countries is more threatened than that of the small Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia, where throughout their centuries-long rule, the ancient Khmer built thousands of stone temples for their different gods. Some, like Angkor Wat, rival the Egyptian pyramids in scale, while today, others are all but invisible, lost to the jungle. These temples have immense historic and religious significance to the Cambodian people, and since they attract millions of tourists to the country each year, are one of Cambodia’s most important economic resources. They are also among its most delicate, and despite having survived centuries of war and abandonment, they may in the end be destroyed by their own popularity.

Many temples have already been badly damaged, and the destruction continues at an unprecedented rate: entire temples are reduced to rubble as looters sever prized statues and reliefs, destroying unwanted artefacts in the process (Figs. 1–3). The situation is clearly dismal, but largely unquantified. It is, after all, impossible to track the rate of artefacts leaving the country, owing to both the covert nature of the traffic and the large number of thefts that go unreported.

It may be, however, possible to judge the number of artefacts that have already left the country by gauging how many have reached their final destination — the art market. An analysis of the art market presents a glimpse into the extent of the traffic in Cambodian antiquities — providing much-needed data on the number and type of artefacts available for sale. Such information reveals more than just what artefacts are available on the market: it offers clues as to where they are coming from.

The role of Sotheby’s

The physical reach and economic consequence of the international trade in art is extensive, though it currently lacks the governmental regulation required for many businesses of a similar size. It ranges widely in scale, from individual, specialized dealers to large, international auction houses. Only the latter, however, regularly publish their sales in catalogues, thereby providing a tangible record of the market. These catalogues usually provide the following information for each piece: a detailed physical description, including the height, material, and current condition; the culture and country of origin; the presumed age; the estimated price; and sometimes the provenance.

The catalogues of Sotheby’s auction house — unsurpassed in terms of size and reputation — provide an excellent starting place for examining the wider market in Khmer art. Though founded in London, and now based in New York, Sotheby’s has a sizeable presence in Asia, with several offices in the region. It also has a long established interest in Khmer art. Khmer artefacts were traditionally sold in Sotheby’s general antiquities auctions until 1988, when regular sales of South and Southeast Asian art began. Owing to a growing demand, several such auctions now take place annually around the world, most of which are published in Sotheby’s catalogues Indian and Southeast Asian Art.¹ To date, over thirty sales have been held in New York City alone, with many more around the world. All of these sales have included at least some pieces of Khmer art.

Between 1988 and 2005, approximately 348 Khmer artefacts were auctioned at Sotheby’s Indian and Southeast Asian Art sales in New York. Almost all of these objects were sculpture of some sort — either statues in the round or reliefs. Approximately 59 per cent were made from sandstone, 36 per cent from bronze, and the rest from various other materials. The stone artefacts were offered for higher prices ($18,600 to $27,600) than the bronzes ($7500 to $10,900), but this is probably due more to their larger average size, than to their material.

While a few pieces dated as early as the sixth century, and others as late as the sixteenth, over half were from the twelfth century, with most of the remainder dating to the centuries immediately before or after. This was the height of the Angkorian period, so it is not surprising that stylistically nearly half of the artefacts auctioned belonged to either the Angkor Wat or the later Angkor Thom schools.

80 per cent of these objects had no listed provenance. While generally defined as ‘place of origin’, in the art world provenance refers to a piece’s ownership history. Pieces with a provenance — those known to have been published, exhibited, or to have come from collections already in existence — are usually more valuable than those without. Thus, if an auction house does not advertise an artefact’s provenance, it is usually for one of three reasons — the provenance is legal but the consignor does not want it known, the provenance is known but somehow incriminating, or the provenance really is not known. Either of the last two reasons suggests that some of the objects, at some point in their histories, could have been illegally acquired.

Knowing what types of object are available on the art market and most popular with collectors should aid the Cambodian authorities in protecting their country’s archaeological sites, by revealing which sites are most at risk. The authorities also need to know the source of material on the market. It is said by auction houses to come from existing collections, but claimed by archaeologists to be derived from looting. It is problematical to verify either position irrefutably. But while direct evidence is lacking, circumstantial evidence is available in abundance.

Trends in the market and what they might mean

The fluctuations in the annual number of Khmer objects auctioned by Sotheby’s, for example, is one such piece of circumstantial evidence (Fig. 4). At the beginning of the period in question, the late 1980s, few artefacts were available for sale. But then the number of artefacts climbed each year, tripling in 1990, and reaching a maximum of 42 in 1991. The number remained high until 1994, after which it began to drop. The number peaked again in 1998, but this was a result of Sotheby’s acquiring the substantial collection of Samuel and Natasha Eilenberg, which provided 29 of the 41 Khmer artefacts sold that year. Since this collection dated back to the 1950s and 60s, its sale did not reflect the market trends of the 1990s, so for the purposes of this study, when the 1998 data exclude the Eilenberg collection, they continue the general decline started in 1993.

Though regaining strength in 1999, the annual number of auctioned artefacts sharply fell to an all-time low in 2000. Despite a gradual increase in subsequent years, by 2004, Sotheby’s was auctioning fewer than the small number of artefacts it auctioned in 1988.

It could be argued that these fluctuations represent the changing demand for Khmer art — that when Sotheby’s first began its Indian and Southeast Asian Art auctions demand was naturally low, but grew throughout the early 1990s because of Cambodia’s increasing newsworthiness, and then tapered off when the country faded from the headlines. This argument, however, is belied by numerous other indications that the market for Khmer art has steadily grown over the period in question. During that time, the annual number of foreign tourists to Cambodia increased from practically zero to millions, and numerous museums across the world built — or added to — extensive collections of Khmer art. In consequence, millions of people are being exposed to Khmer art each year, and it is only natural to assume that this increased exposure translates into increased demand. Also, art collectors are beginning to turn away from the standard ‘art’ of the Classical world, and to the more exotic artefacts of Asia and Latin America. Owing to all this, it is more likely that the popularity for Khmer art is at an all-time high, than a low, although this popularity is not reflected in the auction record.

If the trends seen in the auction data do not reflect the demand for Khmer art, it is only natural to presume they reflect the supply. If this supply originates in existing collections of Khmer art, as the trade affirms, it would seem likely that there would be a steady decline in the number of Khmer artefacts for sale each year, since no new pieces would be entering the market. This is not the case — the supply instead rises and falls, seemingly randomly. If the Sotheby’s supply, however, has a recent origin in Cambodia, these fluctuations are not so random after all. In fact, the most notable fluctuations — the increased number of artefacts available after 1989, the drop after 1993, the peak in 1999, and the subsequent drop — can be linked to several events that would be expected to affect the number of artefacts leaving Cambodia and entering the United States.

Cambodia spent the last half of the 1970s and the major part of the 1980s in near complete seclusion from the world. The self-imposed isolation demanded by the communist Khmer Rouge, who took control of the country in April 1975, was continued, albeit to a lesser extent, by the Vietnamese, who ousted the Khmer Rouge in 1979. The Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia lasted a decade, ending only when Hanoi bowed to international pressure and withdrew its troops in 1989.

The sudden exit of the Vietnamese left a power vacuum in Cambodia — the country was divided into several political factions, each with its own army. The Khmer Rouge army remained a major threat, still occupying the jungles near the Thai border. It wasted no time in using the Vietnamese withdrawal to its advantage, beginning immediate offensives to regain lost territory. Cambodia was in chaos, and open to the world for the first time in decades — an ideal breeding ground for illegal activity. Arms dealing, drug trafficking, and antiquities smuggling skyrocketed. It is no wonder then, that following 1989, a greater number of Khmer artefacts passed through Sotheby’s — for the first time in decades, it was relatively easy for them to leave Cambodia.

This situation continued through into the early 1990s. With the completion of UN-sponsored elections in 1993, however, some stability began to return, allowing the Cambodian government to secure the temples at Angkor. Gradually, the number of artefacts making their way onto the market appears to have decreased.

This decline continued until 1998, then in 1999 sales suddenly increased by some 230 per cent. This rise corresponded with political events in the country — in 1998, the last remnants of the Khmer Rouge surrendered, bringing a final end to the conflict in Cambodia. This unlocked parts of the country along the Thai border that had been inaccessible since the 1970s, opening up smuggling routes to Bangkok, the centre of the antiquities trade in Southeast Asia. This newly-opened territory also included some of the country’s greatest temple complexes. It is no wonder that Sotheby’s sales peaked in 1999.

Cambodia enacted clear laws criminalizing both looting and the export of antiquities following the 1993 elections, but enforcing such laws is practically impossible, and they appear to have had no effect on the number of artefacts leaving the country. The Cambodian government, believing the United States to be the final destination of much looted Khmer material, requested an emergency ban under the terms of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the import of ‘stone sculpture and architectural elements from Cambodia unless ... accompanied by an export permit’. The United States granted this ban in 1999. Apparently, it was effective — the number of Khmer artefacts offered for sale at Sotheby’s New York after 1999 dropped by more than 80 per cent. The import ban was renewed in 2003 and extended to other categories of archaeological material.

These data are certainly not irrefutable, but are suggestive, and they suggest an illegal origin for much of the material that is offered for sale at auction.

If anything, these data also show that the fight against the looting has to be taken to those countries where the art is sold. Cambodia’s own laws protecting its antiquities had little effect on the amount of material entering the art market, but the 1999 United States law appears to have made a significant impact. Looting is a demand-driven crime, and only by stifling this demand can the world hope to protect its ancient sites.

Note

1.  Occasionally entitled Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art.

 Figure 1. Isolated until recently by land mines and poor roads, the tenth-century Khmer capital of Koh Ker is one of the most heavily looted sites in Cambodia. (Photograph Terressa Davis.)

Figure 2. Headless apsara, temple of Preah Khan, Angkor temple complex . (Photograph Terressa Davis.)

Figure 3. Every apsara at the temple of Phnom Banan, NW Cambodia, has been decapitated. (Photograph Terressa Davis.)

Figure 4. Annual number of Khmer artefacts sold at Sotheby’s New York auctions. (This chart does not include the Eilenberg Collection sold in 1998.)

First posted December 2006