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Culture Without Context
Issue 5,
Autumn 1999
Greek Discoveries
Museum Matters
Italy: Stolen
Columns, Souvenirs & Etruscan Tombs
Statistics
Underwater Treasure Hunting
Cambodian Update & Thai
Crackdown
‘Steinhardt Phiale’
Decision
Siezures in Pakistan
More ‘Just Returns’
Arrest in Tibet
Dino-Mania
US Bi-lateral Agreements
Theft in LA
Looting in Lebanon
Illicit Antiquities in Israel
Powers of Seizure
Australian Mufti
Latin American Workshop
Local Hero
Sources
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- A wreath of 138 golden olive leaves, dating from the Hellenistic period and
stolen in June from Halkida Archaeological Museum, on the island of Evia, Greece,
has reportedly been found in hidden in a garden shed. Police questioned an unemployed man
who had allegedly made arrangements to sell the wreath. There had been no sign of a
break-in at the museum and other objects in the same display case were untouched.
- 271 artefacts, stolen nine years ago from the Archaeological Museum of Ancient
Corinth, were recovered by the FBI from 12 fish crates in a Miami storage depot
in September. Athens Police Chief Pavlos Roubis said investigators had acted on a tip-off.
No arrests have been made although a spokesman for the Greek Embassy in Washington
indicated that Greek police know who was responsible and are preparing a case.
During the raid, early in the morning of 12 April 1990, four robbers overcame an
unarmed guard. The objects — including pieces such as a fifth-century bc marble head
of a Kouros, a small marble statue of Pan, 13 Hellenistic and Roman marble heads, as well
as 164 varied ceramic vessels — were recovered in good condition and were taken to
FBI offices in New York as evidence. A skyphos from the haul had appeared for sale in an
international catalogue in 1997. Three items are still missing: a marble bust of Julius
Caesar, and carved marble heads of Eros and Serapis.
Ethical problems for museums once again feature in the news:
- The major museum exhibition, The Maya, has transferred from Venice’s
Palazzo Grassi to Mexico without some of its exhibits. The artefacts, originally removed
illegally from Mexico, were reportedly withdrawn by European museum curators who
believed that the Mexican government might impound them in Mexico. According to Dolores
Beistegui, director of the San Ildefonso museum, ‘Bringing them here would seem to be
asking for trouble’. The Maya also includes some stolen pieces which have been
recovered by the Mexican government.
- 316 Native American artefacts recently donated to the Nevada State Museum
in Carson City, by the mother of collector Stephan Mueller (now deceased), were apparently
removed illegally from public lands in remote areas of Utah and Nevada. The
collection contains tools, seed bags and moccasins with an estimated value of more than
$10,000. Officials say Mueller’s mother has now vanished. The material will remain at
the museum for the time being.
- A 3-ft high, 265 lb pink marble column was stolen in September from the Nympheum,
of Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli near Rome. Thieves are believed to have scaled a
5-ft-high fence and loaded the column onto a truck. Superintendent of Archaeology, Anna
Maria Reggiani regretted the timing and symbolism of the theft, which followed the £10
million restoration of the ruins.
- General Roberto Conforti, head of the Carabinieri Anti-Art Theft Squad said that
columns have also disappeared from the Appian Way.
- Three German tourists were arrested in Siena, given six-month suspended sentences
and fined £150 each for taking bricks stamped with heraldic emblems from a Renaissance
palazzo undergoing restoration. General Conforti commented that tourists unable to
resist taking a ‘souvenir’ often cause as much damage to sites and monuments as
professional thieves, saying that Italy’s penalties for such thefts constitute an
insufficient deterrent.
- The Guardia di Finanza (Italian tax police) have announced the discovery of a large
ninth- to fourth-century bc Etruscan necropolis at Cerveteri, west of Rome.
Archaeologist Maria Antonietta Rizzo described the discovery as ‘a great victory in
the fight against the illicit trade of Etruscan works’ which are in ever-increasing
demand by collectors. For the first time archaeologists will be able to apply modern
archaeological techniques to study some 280 unlooted tombs, containing thousands of
artefacts including funerary vases, jewellery, local and imported bronzework. The cemetery
was found during an archaeological survey of the area carried out because of concern about
rampant looting.
- Abdellah Salih, of Morocco’s Ministry of Cultural Affairs, estimates that 40
per cent of ancient rock engravings and 10 per cent of rock paintings in the region
have been stolen or damaged by looters.
- Italian police statistics report a sharp drop of almost 40 per cent in
theft from archaeological sites in the last year.
- June: Teresa Franco y Gonzalez, director of Mexico’s National Institute of
Anthropology and History, announced that more than 10,000 artefacts looted from
archaeological sites in the country have been recovered by the government during the past
year, seized by the federal attorney general’s office or returned via Mexican
consulates and embassies abroad. She commented that nearly all such looting occurs in
non-tourist areas.
- It is reported that 90 per cent of objects confiscated in the international
airport at Lima, Peru are souvenir replicas while many genuine artefacts are thought to
slip through.
- Spain has won her first victory in the war against treasure hunters. In July a US court
ruled that two frigates, the Juno and La Galga, shipwrecked off
Virginia in 1802 belong to Spain and not to the professional treasure hunter who
found them.
The Spanish government has outlawed commercial salvage in its own waters and
claims all wrecked Spanish ships as state property. A Spanish foreign ministry spokesman
said ‘Any Spanish galleon found in future will be reclaimed by the Spanish
authorities’.
In recent years Spanish museums have paid out vast sums of money to buy, or rent for
display, antiquities found by private treasure hunters. Experts say it would be cheaper
for the Spanish to mount their own salvage operations, especially since treasure
hunters’ main information resource for locating potentially valuable wrecks is
Spain’s own Archive of the Indies, in Seville.
- Some countries, like Cuba and the Dominican Republic, have signed deals with
commercial companies which allow them to search their waters in return for a percentage of
any treasure found. The Association for the Salvage of Spanish Galleons which supplied
some of the legal research used in the US court case believes that legal actions are
unlikely to be effective in these cases.
The looting crisis in Cambodia continues to feature frequently in news reports, along
with increasing evidence of a Thai crackdown on smuggling. Many reports highlight the link
between stolen and faked antiquities:
- Sor Vathana, researcher with the Cambodian Government’s Department of Antiquities
highlighted the case of a small Buddha head recently hammered and chiseled out of a
wall in the temple of Kroal Kor. She commented that usually looting techniques are
‘much more sophisticated’. There is speculation that looting has reached
epidemic proportions in recent months partly because of the regional economic crisis.
- Police investigators believe that about ten freelance gangs are now looting the
15-square-mile Angkor area.
- Two truck drivers whose lorries were impounded at the Cambodian/Thai border in January
carrying 117 pieces of sandstone reliefs looted from the Khmer temple of Banteay
Chmar (see
‘In The News’, Issue 4) are now
in jail. The loot has been returned to Cambodia by Thai authorities.
- Ten people, including two police officers, are reported to have been arrested
since late May in connection with looting at four ancient temples in the Angkor
complex. A newspaper reported that the thieves had removed ten statue heads, a full
statue and a bas-relief carving of an elephant.
- In July, Thai officials announced their biggest ever recovery of illicit antiquities
— probably smuggled from Cambodia. They discovered 40 tons of stone
carvings dating back to the eighth century after dredging ponds in the old royal
capital of Ayutthaya, north of Bangkok. Subsequent reports indicate that the
hoard probably consisted of fakes, which were being kept underwater to
‘age’ them.
- Shortly afterwards Thai customs agents seized 29 wooden crates containing 43
Cambodian antiquities including Buddhist and Hindu sculptures, weighing several tons
and estimated to be worth millions of dollars. Although usually such consignments are
smuggled over land, these are believed to have arrived in Bangkok by sea freighter via
Singapore from the Cambodian port of Sihnoukville. Three Thai men listed as
receiving agents on the invoices, which described the shipments as polished sandstone,
were arrested.
- A crackdown on antiquities smugglers ordered by Thai acting Education Minister
Somsak Prisana-anantakul resulted in the impounding by police of 110 artefacts
believed to have been smuggled from Cambodia after forced searches of antique shops
in the Riverside Shopping Mall, Bangkok. If the items prove to be genuine then
legal action will be taken, said a police spokesman.
- Acting minister Somsak said that Thailand is in the process of drafting tougher
laws against illicit antiquities dealers.
On 12 July, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York made its ruling in the case
of U.S. v. An Antique Platter of Gold, otherwise known as ‘the Steinhardt
Phiale’, affirming that it should be forfeited as the Federal District Court
had ordered two years ago. The phiale, a fourth-century bc gold platter, was apparently illegally
exported from Caltavutoro, northern Sicily, and imported into the US from Switzerland
where it was purchased by antiquities collector Michael Steinhardt for $1.2 million in
1992. It was seized by US Customs agents in 1995 in response to a request for assistance
by the Republic of Italy.
The appeals court decreed that misrepresentation of the country of origin
(entered as ‘Switzerland’ rather than Italy) on its documentation misled customs
officials and violated customs regulations. The judgment avoided the key question as to
whether, given that in Italy archaeological material is the property of the State, the
phiale counted as stolen property in the USA under the National Stolen Property Act.
In a letter to the Art Newspaper in June Robert Haber, the dealer who
imported the phiale into the US strongly denied that he made any false representation to
the Customs Service explaining that a computer default on his broker’s system caused
the ‘country of origin’ box to be completed with name of the country from which
the item was being shipped: Switzerland. The accompanying invoice, he argues, stated
clearly that the platter was ‘classical’ dating to ‘c. 450 bc’
and, as such, was clearly not Swiss. He did not address the issue of the value
discrepancy (reportedly listed on customs documentation as less than one quarter of
the sale price), which had also been highlighted.
The court rejected Steinhardt’s ‘innocent owner’ defense.
Six gun-metal boxes containing stolen antiquities were seized in May by
Pakistani customs authorities at an airstrip in Peshawar. Labelled as
‘handicrafts of no commercial value’, but estimated to be worth at least £20
million, they included Gandharan carvings, coins, metal weaponry, tiles and gold
jewellery probably plundered from museums and excavations in Afghanistan.
The boxes were bound for London, Frankfurt and Dubai via Pakistan International
Airlines (PIA). Two were addressed to Artworld Shipping of London, a freight
forwarding agency who told The Sunday Times that they could find no record of a
consignment due on that date.
The crates were discovered after police investigated the activities of Peshawar
dealer Haji Khalil who had boasted that he could get anything for the right
price. Their suspicions had reportedly been aroused earlier this year when £150,000 of
antiques were stolen from his shop, but no crime reported. PIA’s security manager and
a customs clearing agent apparently told police that Khalil had bribed them to ignore the
consignments.
- Four ancient sculptures looted from Nepal have been returned by a Los
Angeles-based art collector to the National Museum in Kathmandu. They are:
- a ninth-century Buddha image;
- a tenth-century Garudasana Vishnu image;
- the mutilated head of a twelfth-century Sarawati image;
- a fourteenth-century Surya image.
Nepalese Department of Archaeology officials did not reveal how the pieces were
recovered nor how they were smuggled out of the country.
Jürgen Schick, author of The Gods are Leaving the Country: Art Theft from Nepal
noted that this restitution was a ‘historic event’. He added that Nepal has
experienced less art theft in the nineties, commenting ‘I guess there is not much
left to steal’. Many remaining statues in Nepal are now protected by iron bars
cemented into the ground to deter looters.
- In July Jordan handed over to Iraqi authorities more than 1000 Mesopotamian
antiquities seized during a smuggling crackdown. Some were cuneiform tablets, statues,
incantation bowls and cylinder seals which an Iraqi archaeologist said ‘filled
gaps in our knowledge of ancient languages and deeds of Mesopotamian monarchs’. A
three-foot-high statue of a Sumerian monarch was also among the hoard, although it is
impossible to tell which king is depicted since the looters chopped off his head.
Jordanian officials said the police had stopped a plane that was about to take off, but
would give no further details.
- In August Jordanian officials returned to Egypt 28 artefacts seized from
thieves at the Red Sea port of Aqaba in April. The smugglers remain in custody, but
Egyptian officials have hinted they were Egyptians with a history of art smuggling.
The pieces, estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars, were looted from
Egyptian archaeological sites in the spring. They included the 66 lb head of a statue
of the god Serapis, six turquoise and brown magic charms and 21 shawabtis.
- New York lawyers Howard Spiegler and Lawrence Kaye, acting on behalf of the Guatemalan
government, have once again secured the return of a stolen antiquity — in this
case a section hacked from a 1000-year old, 71/2 ft, white stone stela carved in the shape
of a standing figure. The carving, which depicts a masked, bejewelled human figure was
offered for sale by an anonymous American collector who agreed to return it to Guatemala
when its provenance (the site of El Peru in Petén) and history were revealed.
Spiegler would not discuss how the collector had obtained the piece.
Guatemalan Consul General Fabiola Fuentes Orellana particularly thanked archaeologist Ian
Graham, who recognized the stolen piece and alerted US Customs, and the collector for
their co-operation. She emphasized that Guatemala will continue its tireless efforts to
ensure that all antiquities illegally removed are found and ‘brought home’.
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Reports of the arrest of prominent Tibetan art dealer, Tsering Tashi have
appeared in official media in Lhasa. He owns an exlusive art gallery in Kathmandu with a
Tibetan partner, has good connections in the international art world and travelled
frequently to Hong Kong.
Media coverage indicates that Tsering Tashi’s arrest may be linked to an early
morning raid on Yumbu Lagang palace in Lhoka prefecture, in the Tibet Autonomous
Region (TAR) in February, during which three men apparently stole 37 cultural relics
including a copper statue of Tibetan deity Chenresig. Ancient statues and a set of
thangkas were stolen from Nalendra monastery, Phenpo, TAR at around the same time.
It seems worth mentioning that palaeontologists are facing a similar situation to
archaeologists with sites and specimens looted to feed the commercial market.
- One of Mongolia’s top palaeontologists, Pagmin Narmandakh has
reported increasing incidence of looting of dinosaur skeletons in the Gobi
desert, recognized as a cradle of dinosaur life. She says she doesn’t know who is
buying the skeletons, or how they make it out of the country, but the money trail
allegedly leads to China and Japan.
- In August the FBI recovered from Europe a T-rex jawbone which had been stolen, in
1994, from a laboratory drawer in the Museum of Paleontology, University of California,
Berkeley.
Mark Goodwin, principal scientist at the museum said that when the theft was discovered
he was careful not to raise the alarm too loudly for fear that the thieves would go to
ground and the fossil disappear. From 1997 onwards he began to notice replicas obviously
made from the distinctive original appearing in fossil catalogues and museums. FBI agents
working with local authorities tracked the fossil markets in Germany and Belgium
and located the fossil, but could provide no further details as the investigation is still
active.
- On September 16, 1999, a cultural property request was received from the Government
of the Republic of Italy. It seeks U.S. import restrictions on categories of
archaeological material in stone, metal, ceramic, bone, and glass, and wall paintings from
the fifth millennium bc to the fifth century ad. The Cultural Property Advisory Committee
met to review the request on 12 and 13 October. It was vehemently opposed by dealers and
Democrat senators Moynihan and Shumen (see
Editorial).
- December: In response to a request from the Government of the Kingdom of Cambodia under
Article 9 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, the US Government imposed an emergency
import restriction on certain Khmer stone archaeological material ranging in date
from sixth–sixteenth century ad. The Cultural Property Advisory Committee, which
reviewed Cambodia’s request and recommended this action, found that the material is a
part of the remains of the Khmer culture ‘the record of which is in jeopardy from
pillage, dismantling, dispersal, or fragmentation which is, or threatens to be, of crisis
proportions’. The U.S. Department of State press release notes that the United States
takes this action in the hope it will reduce the incentive for further pillage of the
cultural heritage of the people of Cambodia.
In Los Angeles, a collection of rare Roman and Byzantine coins, worth an
estimated $1,000,000 was stolen from a third floor apartment in a off-campus office and
classroom used by Loyola Marymount university staff sometime between 25 and 27
June.
The Directorate-General of Antiquities in Lebanon continues its work documenting
the country’s archaeological heritage (see ‘In The
News’, Issue 4) noting that at the ruins of a Roman temple at Al-Husayn
indications of illicit excavation were still clearly evident. Although broken column
pieces were found, there was no sign of a single column base or capital.
Amir Ganor, chief of the theft prevention division of the Israel Antiquities
Authority says that arrests for antiquities thefts have more than quadrupled since
1996, when only four illegal antiquities traders were arrested. He says that dealers want
to stock up on ancient knik-knaks to sell to the many tourists expected to make a
millennium pilgrimage to the country in future months. Authorities have been working to
improve surveillance using infrared and night-
vision binoculars, installing alarms and increasing foot patrols.
In Israel it is legal for licensed dealers to buy and sell antiquities. There are 70
licensed antiquities dealers in the country, but Ganor estimates that 95 per cent
of their merchandise is stolen, although he cannot prove it.
Both Israeli and Palestinian authorities acknowledge that antiquities theft has
increased in newly-Palestinian controlled areas. The fledgling Palestinian Antiquities
Authority has promised to create an anti-theft division.
- May: A local man was apprehended completing a £13,000 sale of 300 antiquities
— including 84 decorated oil lamps (Hellenistic to Islamic period), Egyptian
scarabs, amulets and other items — to a Jerusalem shopkeeper.
- An unlicensed antiquities dealer was caught in Jaffa in July, after a
lengthy intelligence operation. He was offering for sale Hellenisitic and Roman coins
probably stolen from sites in the Jerusalem area. One was a rare bronze coin dating to the
time of the Bar-Kokhba revolt. After pleading guilty to unauthorized commerce in
antiquities the man was freed on 5000 NIS bail.
British Arts Minister Alan Howarth has emphasized that H.M. Government will use
its powers of seizure to prevent the illegal export of archaeological material,
following an incident in which an American attempted to smuggle out his metal detecting
finds. The several hundred coins and metal items, found in Norfolk, are now owned by
the Norfolk Museum Service.
The controversial Mufti, leader of Australia’s Moslem community who was
arrested in February for alleged involvement with a smuggling syndicate (see
‘In The News’, Issue 4) has told The Sydney
Morning Herald that he was the target of a conspiracy by elements of the
Egyptian authorities who want to ruin his reputation. Although he claimed that a judge had
cleared him of any charges, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs said their
understanding from the Egyptian authorities was that the case remained unresolved and the
Mufti would face another court hearing in Egypt.
A regional workshop entitled Fighting the Traffic of Objects of Cultural Heritage
was held in Cuzco, Peru early in October. Representatives of government and private
cultural institutes from Latin America, and staff from art and antiquities units of
Interpol, the FBI and Scotland Yard, met to explore options for preventing illicit trade.
Maria Isabel Gomez, Ministry of Culture, Colombia identified lax laws as a major
problem, but once again the crucial issue was seen to be education and awareness. The
conference agreed on the need to create art registries and train police and customs
agents, especially in recognizing fakes.
Archaeology enthusiast Alex Pastrana set off an unexpected chain of events when
he confronted two men extracting antiquities from the ground near Blue Creek, a
Maya site in northern Belize. The men had come across a Protoclassic (ad 50–250)
tomb in a earlier storage pit and refused to stop digging when Pastrana challenged
them. They allowed him to make notes and photograph in situ burial goods such as a jade
necklace, bracelet and 28 pots, but outnumbered and with no authority to seize the
artefacts, Pastrana had no choice but to leave. The next day he awoke to find all
the pots piled outside his front door, but the following morning, alerted by rumours,
government officials and police arrived to arrest him. The authorities changed their tune
when they saw Pastrana’s drawings and numbered lists.
APB 911 News
Archaeology Magazine
The Art Newspaper
Associated Press
The Bergen Record
Biblical Archaeology Review
Cable News Network
Channel 4 News
The Christian Science Monitor
Cnews
CNN Interactive
The Detroit News
Patty Gerstenblith
Herrick Feinstein
Israeli Antiquities Authority
LA Times
Lebanese Daily Star
Clare Lyons
Il Messaggero
The Miami Herald
Museum Security Net
National Geographic Magazine
The New Yorker
Reuters
The Salt Lake Tribune
The Sunday Times
The Times
We are always pleased to receive relevant press clippings and news items.
First posted March 2000; Page
design updated September 2006 |
Arrest
in Tibet