Sunday 1 January 2012

Looting Matters: Looking Ahead to 2012

2012 will start with the award of the Archaeological Institute of America's Outstanding Public Service Award. I hope that this will encourage a rigorous debate over compliance especially by those involved in the antiquities market.

On past records it can be expected that more objects identified from photographic archives will appear on the market. The main matter of concern is that one auction house seems to press on with sales even when objects have been spotted.

There are still several unresolved cases of cultural property from Italy. The museums include the Miho Museum, the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid, and the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens. The dispute between Egypt and the St Louis Art Museum also remains unresolved.

The US Government seems to be developing a series of MOUs with other countries to restrict the movement of recently surfaced antiquities. I suspect that there will be some interesting protests from some quarters.

I hope to concentrate on more of the intellectual consequences of looting.

As always, I am grateful to readers for their support and frequent suggestions for stories.

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3 comments:

Tom Flynn said...

David,
You say, "The main matter of concern is that one auction house seems to press on with sales even when objects have been spotted." I assume you mean Bonhams, so why don't you name them?
Happy New Year!
Tom

David Gill said...

Tom
I hadn't actually meant Bonhams ... and it was not Sotheby's who appear to have been very keen to check collecting histories.
Best wishes for 2012
David

Tom Flynn said...

OK, David. So that narrows it down a bit. In the interests of transparency I'm all for naming names where those names are known.
All best,
Tom

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