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Culture Without Context
Issue 8,
Spring 2001
The destruction and preservation of the cultural heritage
of Afghanistan
H. M. Government's Panel of Enquiry report and decision on 1970
UNESCO Convention
Head at the Metropolitan Museum
Meeting of ISCOTIA at the Cotsen Institute, University of Los
Angeles
Issues of provenance |
- The
cultural heritage of Afghanistan, together with that of its
neighbouring countries, has been badly plundered for more than a decade now, but a new
nadir was reached in March of this year after the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar,
ordered the destruction of all religious idols. Taliban soldiers responded promptly by
blowing up the two large Buddhas of Bamiyan valley, and it is reported that a further 40
statues were destroyed in Kabul Museum, and many more throughout the country. Although
this campaign of destruction was ordered for what are ostensibly religious reasons,
seasoned Taliban watchers suspect that the motives may have been more political. It is too
soon perhaps to discern the Taliban leader’s true intentions in all this, an act of
revenge perhaps against the inhabitants of the Bamiyan valley who have long opposed him,
or of defiance aimed at those in the West who refuse to offer diplomatic recognition or
relax sanctions. One thing is clear though. Afghan leaders of all political and religious
persuasions seem shocked that the plight of the Bamiyan Buddhas has attracted more
international sympathy than that of their compatriots who continue to suffer the effects
of prolonged drought and chronic war.
In this issue of Culture Without Context we print the UNESCO response to the
destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas. With the cultural heritage of Afghanistan now at the
point of extinction, UNESCO felt impelled to support ‘safe-havens’ for objects
of Afghan origin, such as the Afghanistan Museum in Bubendorf (Switzerland), provided they
are donated, and not sold. How effective will this initiative be? Time will tell, but it
seems hamstrung from the outset by what is now seen to be the defining feature of the
antiquities trade — no provenance. With no documented provenance, who can know
whether a particular piece has been removed from Afghanistan or Pakistan, or whether it is
fake or genuine?
Some dealers and museum curators have been quick to capitalize on the situation by
claiming that their collecting in the past has actually ‘saved’ Afghan heritage,
and that their example should be followed. UNESCO has been careful to state that it will
accept only pieces with documented provenance, but if past experience is anything to go by
we can presume that others will not be so discriminating. Yet the Taliban, remember, are
destroying material, not selling it. And the Taliban edict applies only to statues which
might be considered idols, not to the entire cultural heritage. Unexcavated sites would
remain untouched if looters were not searching for saleable material, and anything turning
up on the market which has not been stolen from a documented collection will almost
certainly have been torn from an archaeological or historic site. These looted pieces are
not fugitives from the religious wrath of the Taliban, to be offered sanctuary, but are
the sacrificial victims of Western greed. We should remember too that some of the proceeds
from looting are used to keep armed militias in the field, or to launder drug money, while
most finds its way into the pockets of shady smugglers and middlemen. A dirty business all
round.
In any case, the Bamiyan Buddhas had in fact already been ‘saved’ during the
1970s when Japanese scholars from Kyoto University spent eight years surveying the
Buddhist cave temples of the Bamiyan valley and produced a photogravimetric map of the
entire area, including the giant Buddhas. This work was published in four volumes, with
extended English summaries, and, as the expedition leader — Professor Higuchi —
said in 1995, in a statement with prophetic overtones, ‘As ever more destruction is
visited on these caves, the data base created in the 1970s by our work there gives the
world fundamental materials that cannot be recaptured or replaced’ (World
Archaeology 27(2), 300). One day, thanks to this work, it might prove possible to
install accurate replicas of the Bamiyan Buddhas, so that the damage will, in some sense,
be repaired. They will at the very least be a monument to the painstaking work of
Professor Higuchi and his colleagues.
In 1995 it was estimated that 70 per cent of the holdings of Kabul Museum had
disappeared, and the figure had not improved by March 2001 when it was reported that only
30,000 out of 100,000 artefacts recorded now survive. The destruction of the Bamiyan
Buddhas looks set to be the last act in a long tragedy, but there are no heroes in this
story, only victims and villains. The victims are the Afghan people and their heritage.
The villains are too many to name.
- On 24 May 2000 H.M. Government
appointed a Panel of Enquiry into the illicit trade in art and
antiquities. The panel, comprised of archaeologists and representatives of the trade and
of museums, was under the chairmanship of Norman Palmer, Professor of Commercial Law at
University College London. The Panel met on twelve occasions and took advice from a wide
range of experts before publishing its report in December 2000 (available on-line at <http://www.culture.gov.uk/heritage/index.html>).
Amongst other things, the report recommended that:
- The UK should accede to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and
Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.
- It should be a criminal offence to import dishonestly, deal in or be in possession of
any cultural object, knowing or believing that the object was stolen, or illegally
excavated, or removed from any monument or wreck contrary to local law.
- The current system of export control should be strengthened, and the resources necessary
to achieve this be made available.
The significance of these recommendations is amplified when it is remembered that half
the panel’s members were representatives of the trade and that the recommendations
were made unanimously.
In March 2001 the Arts minister Alan Howarth announced that the UK would accede to the
1970 UNESCO Convention, and that H.M. Government was considering the other recommendations
made by the Panel. The Panel itself continues to meet as an advisory body.
- Strange things happen in the museum
world and some of the stranger happen at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York. An article in the 25 April issue of the Internet magazine
Forbes.com
alleged that a small, poor-quality Archaic Greek marble head, on loan from an anonymous
donor and on display at the Metropolitan, was in fact a fake. The article went on to ask
why the museum should want to display such an undistinguished piece, particularly one it
did not own, and suggested that in so doing the Met had provided the head with a
respectable pedigree. In a telephone interview with Forbes.com the Met denied the
head was a fake, but it was taken off display nevertheless. The Metropolitan has since
assured Culture Without Context that in the view of several acknowledged experts
the head is indeed genuine, but also that it had been on loan to the museum since 1999.
Why it was exhibited in the first place is still not clear.
- At a meeting of ISCOTIA
(see CWC issue 5), held at the Cotsen
Institute (UCLA) from 26–28 April this year, members were joined by other concerned
parties. In view of this increased participation it was decided to enlarge ISCOTIA, and to
prepare a mission statement based on the 1999 Cambridge Resolution. Several sub-committees
were established, including those with responsibilities for law, education, communication
and research. Possible courses of future action were discussed and it was agreed that the
enlarged committee should reconvene in spring 2002 at a conference which will address the
critical situation in Latin America.
- No provenance
is what keeps the trade in illicit antiquities alive. Of course, illicit antiquities do
have a provenance, an illicit one, but it is deliberately witheld by those who aim to
profit, so that it is not possible to distinguish between antiquities which come onto the
market legally, and those which have arrived through more dubious channels. When pressed
about their policy of not revealing a provenance, or a source, most dealers fall back on
commercial arguments — keeping a ‘source’ secret — or on client
confidentiality. Are these always good reasons, though, or are they sometimes merely
obfuscation? In the News reports on two museum acquisitions which were discovered to have
originally been stolen and so returned — although the museums were under no legal
obligation to do so — while at the same time the names of the vendors were kept
secret. The J.P. Getty Museum returned a second-century marble sculpture to Italy which
had apparently been stolen in 1956. The Miho Museum agreed to hand back a sixth-century ad
stone bodhisattva which had originally been stolen from Shandong province in China. The
Getty would not reveal its source. The Miho bought its piece from J.E. Eskenazi Ltd of
London, who, when approached by the New York Times, also refused to identify their
source. While major dealers and institutions continue to protect vendors who pass on
stolen material, the trade in illicit antiquities will continue. Certainly, most dealers
will be stung now and then, even the most diligent; it is a hazard of the trade. But
surely it is in everyone’s interest that those who continually pass on illicit
material be named — and shamed.
First posted September 2001; Page
design updated September 2006 |
