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Culture Without Context
Issue 9,
Autumn 2001
UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater
Cultural Heritage
Internet antiquities sales and Israeli law
Transparent market?
Time Crime
model |
- On 2 November 2001 the Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage
was
adopted by the plenary session of the 31st General Conference of UNESCO. It will enter
into force three months after it has been ratified by at least twenty States. The
Convention aims to secure protection of underwater cultural heritage, which is defined as:
‘... all traces of human existence having a cultural, historical or archaeological
character which have been partially or totally underwater, periodically or continuously,
for at least 100 years ...’. Thus although this latest UNESCO Convention (which has
been in preparation for four years) gained its initial impetus from concerns raised by the
commercially-motivated plunder of shipwrecks, it is designed to protect submerged
settlements and other cultural landscapes as well. It makes provision for the protection
of heritage in both territorial and international waters.
News of the convention is available at:
http://www.unesco.org/opi/eng/unescopress/2001/01-118e.shtml
The text of the convention is at:
http://www.unesco.org/culture/laws/underwater/html_eng/conven2.shtml
- In their article this issue on the expanding Internet
market Chippindale and Gill draw attention to (amongst other things) the sale of material
in Jerusalem (pp. 9–10). The looting of archaeological sites in Israel and
neighbouring countries is a growing problem, and yet despite this many antiquities appear
on the market with a valid Israeli export licence. But the situation is not all that it
might seem. The official website of the Israel Antiquities Authority has this to say about
it:
The demand for antiquities as objects of artistic and historic value, has given rise to
illicit excavations at archaeological sites.
Dealing in antiquities is permitted by law. The Israel Antiquities Authority issues
licenses to deal in antiquities and export antiquities, in accord with conditions set in
the Antiquities Law and its regulations.
Licensed archaeological excavations employ qualified, trained, and experienced
archaeologists working on behalf of recognized academic or research institutions. All
antiquities uncovered in excavations are, by law, the property of the State of Israel, at
least since the 1978 Antiquities Law was passed. Therefore, licensed excavations are not a
source of goods for antiquities dealers. The contradictory situation that exists is that
in spite of the fact that dealing in antiquities is legal, the source for dealers’
wares must clearly be illegal excavations as only a smaller proportion of antiquities
arrive in the marketplace as a result of theft from museums and legal excavations. In
plain terms, the source of many antiquities is robbery! (<http://www.israntique.org.il/eng/news.html>,
accessed 16 November 2001)
Clearly, there is a loophole in Israeli law which allows the legal export of
antiquities obtained through unlicensed (illegal) excavation. This is where ethics and the
law part company. It may well be legal to buy antiquities with an Israeli export licence,
but can it be justified given their obviously suspect source?
- In the last issue of CWC (Editorial, Issue 8,
Issues of Provenance) we
noted that John Eskenazi had been travelling and unavailable for comment when the
New
York Times (18 April 2001) tried to contact him about a stone bodhisattva his company
had sold to the Miho Museum. He was on his travels again in November when the New York
Times (5 November 2001) once more attempted to contact him about the provenance of a
Gandharan head which he had offered for sale in New York at the International Asian Art
Fair in March 2001. The Times article also revealed that the director of the
Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California, had turned down an offer of fragments of the
Begram ivories made by a London antiquities dealer, but once again the name of the dealer
was not revealed. In asking for an open market we stand accused in some quarters of being
‘extreme’; nevertheless, we continue to believe that a fully transparent market
would go a long way towards stamping out the trade in illicit antiquities.
- In the state of Virginia the term ‘time
crime’ has been coined to describe the ‘criminal offences relating to thefts of
and vandalism to historic resources’. In this issue
Robert
Hicks describes a training programme of the same name which aims to alert law
enforcement officers to the problem and mobilize an effective response. The most recent
seminar took place in Richmond from 30 July to 3 August 2001 when the Federal Bureau of
Investigation in conjunction with the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Departments of
Criminal Justice Services and Historic Resources held an Archaeological Law Enforcement
Class. Over the five days participants attended day school and were assigned reading for
the evenings. Topics included the nature of archaeological crime, its investigation
(including practical exercises), statutes and regulations available for the prosecution of
archaeological criminals, and the preparation of cases for presentation in court. The 48
participants included FBI agents, archaeologists, customs officers, park rangers and other
federal and state agents. This programme is now well-established and successful, and
provides a model that could usefully be emulated both throughout the United States and in
Europe.
First posted April 2002; Page
design updated September 2006 |
