Sevso and Questions in Parliament

There has been growing political interest in the Sevso Treasure since its outing at Bonham's last year. This controversial hoard has drawn comment in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn received a written answer to his question about the Bonham's exhibition on 12 October 2006. Lord Davies of Oldham replied:

We are not aware of any proposal by a UK public museum or public institution to acquire or exhibit the Sevso silver. My department's document Combating Illicit Trade: Due Diligence Guidelines for Museums, Libraries and Archives on Collecting and Borrowing Cultural Material sets out guidance and is not legally binding on institutions. However, it is stated clearly under those guidelines that, if a public institution feels that there are any doubts about the legal or ethical status of an object, it should not proceed with an acquisition or loan of that object.

A further question was asked by Mark Fisher on 4 Dec 2006. The minister, David Lammy, replied:

We have had a number of contacts with representatives of the Ministry of Education and Culture in Hungary in relation to the Sevso treasure. Representatives of the Ministry wrote to my Department to set out the Republic of Hungary’s official position in relation to the Sevso silver in October 2005, and subsequently in October 2006 to reiterate their concerns in the light of the exhibition of the Sevso treasure at Bonhams. Officials in my Department have also met representatives of the Ministry of Education and Culture to discuss the Sevso treasure.

This was followed by an Early Day Motion (18 December 2006) on the Sevso Treasure which was put down by Tim Loughton (MP for E Worthing and Shoreham). This reads:

That this House views with concern the re-entry of the Sevso silver into the commercial domain; notes recent resolutions to this effect passed by the All-Party Group for Archaeology; in view of the outstanding importance of the silver and the desirability of it being available for research and public exhibition calls on the Trustee of the Marquess of Northampton 1987 Settlement and the government of the Republic of Hungary to refer all available evidence on the origin, provenance and recent movement of the silver to an independent expert evaluation charged with identifying on the balance of probabilities the country of origin of the silver and making recommendations; and further calls on the Trustee of the Marquess of Northampton 1987 Settlement, the government of the Republic of Hungary and the United Kingdom authorities to put a stop to any disposal of the silver (other than one occurring by consent of all parties) until the evaluation has occurred.

As this stands it has been supported by 51 MPs from across the political parties.

The Sevso Treasure and "Unprovenanced Antiquities": A Response to John H. Merryman

Ruth Leader-Newby made a wise observation about the Sevso Treasure:

The tragedy of the Sevso Treasure is that it is futile to attempt a guess at its provenance. ... it is interesting to note that the countries which rumour has associated with the Sevso Treasure, and which tried to claim possession of the hoard in the New York court case held to establish its ownership (Hungary, Croatia and Lebanon) have no record of similar material being found in their soil previously. In fact, any one of the Roman Empire's many provinces could have been the home of the treasure.

There are clear intellectual consequences that are linked to the hoard's loss of archaeological context. Where was it displayed?

John H. Merryman has now issued a working paper on the Treasure that addresses the issue of "unprovenanced antiquities". I prefer the term "recently surfaced", though "hoard without documented history" could be used. I suspect that there is somebody who does know the find-spot of the hoard. After all, few believe it has been sitting forgotten in somebody's attic.

Merryman reviews the quantitative research undertaken by Chippindale and Gill (though he is apparently unaware of Chippindale et al. 2001; and see also figures for Egyptian sales at auction in New York) and finds:

These data confirm that a large proportion of the antiquities traded on the international market are unaccompanied by reliable information about findspot, context and subsequent history. The data also provide inferential support for the claim that many of the objects lacking documentation may have been removed from the ground and/or smuggled abroad in violation of source nation laws and international conventions.

However since our study of private classical collections (Chippindale and Gill 2000) some of the items from the Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman (see Gill and Chippindale 2007a, uncited by Merryman), and the Shelby White and Leon Levy collections have been returned to Italy. Lack of documented history and find-spot had suggested that they had been removed from archaeological contexts in an illicit manner; and there must be a reason why these pieces have now gone "home". Merryman concludes:

There is little room for argument with any of this. The data appear to be unchallengeable, and the authors’ statement of material and intellectual consequences is persuasive.

He then turns to the issue of publishing recently surfaced antiquities and cites the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS) "Statement of Concern". But this is a problematic statement as I have demonstrated with the example of the inscribed ivory pomegranate. Let me repeat an earlier comment:

The pomegranate is a good reminder that forgers choose something that people want to be true, and will prove both intellectually stimulating and commercially rewarding.

Indeed last year's spat over University College London (UCL) and the incantation bowls was not entirely unrelated to the BAS statement. There are good intellectual reasons for making scholars think twice - I put it no more strongly than that - before publishing works of "ancient art" that are undocumented before 1970. (See also some of the issues surrounding the publication of an archaic bronze krater in a contemporary North American private collection.)

Merryman then moves to the role of the private collector in the formation of the North American museum collection (White 2005, uncited by Merryman). But the return to Italy of objects from these recently formed private collections either suggests a naivety concerning the origin of the pieces or a willingness to ignore the concerns of the archaeological community that sites were being destroyed to supply the market. (And the Medici Conspiracy, also missing from Merryman's bibliography, demonstrates this issue all too well; see Gill and Chippindale 2007b). The Nostoi exhibition in Rome includes material from four significant North American private collections.

Merryman then turns to "source nations". There are broader issues here. Is an antiquity that has been removed illicitly from its archaeological context somehow less "unprovenanced" because it forms part of a private collection in, say, Athens rather than Manhattan? He has strayed from the issue that is central to archaeologists, the destruction / protection of archaeological contexts, to the one beloved by collectors and museum curators, ownership.

But I find a mismatch in Merryman's approach. If he argues for our shared ("cosmopolitan"; see Appiah 2006 [also surprisingly missing from his bibliography]) culture, does it matter if North American institutions (such as the AIA) and legal courts are in the forefront of protecting world ("cosmopolitan") heritage? Can North American import restrictions help to reduce the destruction of archaeological sites on, say, Cyprus?

He poses the more difficult question about what should be done with the Sevso Treasure. The archaeological context for this find has, as far as we know, been lost for ever. Is the Treasure best displayed in some public collection? Where should that be? Should anyone benefit from the transaction? Should any profit be handed over to a cultural body for the benefit of world heritage? Is there a legal solution?

Merryman concludes with a reflection on the conflict between the two "sides" and a plea to find common ground. Yet there is an unresolved tension: museums and collectors want to acquire, and archaeologists wish to preserve and protect archaeological contexts as a finite resource.

So how do we move forwards?

• We need to explore the possibilities for short- and long-term loans of archaeological material from source countries to museums and institutions.
• We need to have more transparency over the acquisition of newly surfaced antiquities.
• We need to accept that looting has intellectual as well as material consequences.
• We need to acknowledge the ethical as well as the legal issues surrounding collecting.
  
• We need to find a workable solution for "unprovenanced antiquities" like the Sevso Treasure.
• We need to listen to both sides.
  

Bibliography
Appiah, K. A. 2006. Cosmopolitanism: ethics in a world of strangers. London: Allen Lane. [Worldcat]
Chippindale, C., and D. W. J. Gill. 2000. "Material consequences of contemporary classical collecting." American Journal of Archaeology 104: 463-511. [JSTOR]
Chippindale, C., D. W. J. Gill, E. Salter, and C. Hamilton. 2001. "Collecting the classical world: first steps in a quantitative history." International Journal of Cultural Property 10: 1-31. [IJCP]
Gill, D. W. J., and C. Chippindale. 2006. "From Boston to Rome: reflections on returning antiquities." International Journal of Cultural Property 13: 311-31. [IJCP]
Gill, D. W. J., and C. Chippindale. 2007a. "From Malibu to Rome: further developments on the return of antiquities." International Journal of Cultural Property 14: 205-40. [IJCP]
Gill, D. W. J., and C. Chippindale. 2007b. "The illicit antiquities scandal: what it has done to classical archaeology collections." American Journal of Archaeology 111: 571-74. [AJA]
Leader-Newby, Ruth E. 2004. Silver and society in late antiquity: functions and meanings of silver plate in the fourth to seventh centuries. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Merryman, John Henry, "Thinking about the Sevso Treasure" (March 12, 2008). Stanford Public Law Working Paper No. 1105584 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1105584
Watson, P., and C. Todeschini. 2006. The Medici conspiracy: the illicit journey of looted antiquities from Italy's tomb raiders to the world's great museums. New York: Public Affairs.
White, S. 2005. "Building American museums: the role of the private collector." In Who owns the past? Cultural policy, cultural property, and the law, edited by K. Fitz Gibbon, pp. 165-77. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press / American Council for Cultural Policy.

The Sevso Treasure Revisited

Time Team covered the Sevso Treasure on (UK) Channel 4 on December 26, 2008 ("The mystery of the Roman treasure"). Channel 4's website has plenty of useful links including a quiz on "the illegal antiquities trade".

As Channel 4 recommends "Looting Matters" in its list of resources to "Find Out More" here are previous postings on the Sevso Treasure:

• The Sevso Treasure and "Unprovenanced Antiquities": A Response to John H. Merryman
• Sevso and Questions in Parliament
  

Sevso Treasure and Hungary

It appears that the Hungarian Government has purchased 7 pieces of the Sevso Roman Treasure for 15 million euros. the details of the vendors have not been disclosed.

Can we be certain that the Sevso Treasu was found in Hungary? will other countries feel that they have an equal right to it? who are the beneficiaries of this transaction? 

Should this entire group be on public display as a group?

Readers of LM will know that I would want to emphasise the loss of knowledge. Where was the treasure found? What was the context? Were there any associated finds? what information has been lost?

Sevso Treasure acquired by Hungary

A further seven pieces of the Sevso Treasure have been acquired by Hungary ("Hungary Buys 2nd Half of Roman-Era Silver Treasure", AP 12 July 2017). It is reported that 28 million euros were paid for the remaining pieces, making 43 million euros for the hoard.

This contextless hoard has been stripped of valuable information. We do not know for certain where it was found. And it is unlikely that the original finder will have received a significant sum of money.

Who are the beneficiaries of these sales?

A Hoard of Byzantine Silver "from Bulgaria"?

The last time I was in the Benaki Museum in Athens I had a look at set of three pieces of Byzantine silver from a "hoard" - the find-spot was not provided. (A Podcast of my audio notes reacting to the display and label is now available [with an unrelated background].) There was an appeal to buy the silver plates (for a reported 2.2 million Euros) and put them on display in Greece. (The purchase was reported to be from a London-based dealer.)

Where was the "hoard" found?

Recent reports in Kathimerini ("Artefacts in Greece ‘legally’", August 1, 2007; see also "Greek prosecutors investigate Bulgarian claim to Byzantine-era silver plates", International Herald Tribune, July 31, 2007) suggest that Greece has rejected a request from Bulgaria "for the return of nine silver medieval plates which Sofia says were illegally excavated and smuggled out of the country". It is claimed that the hoard was found in Bulgaria during the 1990s. The official press statement from the Bulgarian delegation to Europe suggested that the find was made in 1999 ("Bulgaria struggles to prevent the sale of an ancient silver dish", November 13, 2006).

"The plates, on display in Greece’s Benaki Museum, the Museum of Byzantine Culture and the Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens, date back to the 13th and 14th centuries and are decorated with gold."

An official from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture is quoted as saying, "Greece will have a full documentation dossier proving they were legally purchased, when the case goes to court".

But the matter in unlikely to stop there. The Sofia press has responded ("Greece probes Bulgaria's claim to Byzantine-era silver plates", Sofiaecho.com, August 2, 2007). It is noted:

"Earlier this month, Bulgarian prosecutor Kamen Mihov said he had “categorical proof” the artefacts were illegally excavated at a Bulgarian site. Bulgarian prosecutors sent documents to Greece claiming the plates were excavated in late 2000 and 2001 at a site near the town of Pazardzhik in central Bulgaria."

Details of the case emerged in May. It appears that an agricultural worker, Naiden Blagnev, had purchased a metal detector in late 2000 and came across the hoard (Matthew Brunwasser, "Looter describes 'beginner's luck'", International Herald Tribune, May 22, 2007).

It appears that Blagnev had seen a picture of one of silver plates - "The Stanford Place Dish" - which had been offered for auction at Christie's in London (Matthew Brunwasser, "Bulgarian relics spark an international scuffle", International Herald Tribune, May 22, 2007). In spite of attempts to stop the sale ("Bulgaria demands suspension of London auction of allegedly looted medieval silver dish", International Herald Tribune, November 7, 2006; "Christie's to sell unique plate regardless of Bulgaria's protests", Sofiaecho.com, November 8, 2006; Dimana Trankova, "The plate of discord", Vagabond), the dish was left unsold and is said to have been returned to the vendor ("Disputed Bulgarian Dish Fails at London Auction", Artinfo, November 9, 2006). A Bulgarian official claimed, "another nine dishes, on display in three Greek museums since October 2003, were part of the same set".

What is this group of apparently related material?

The auction entry for "The Stanford Place Dish" places it stylistically with 13 other silver dishes: the 9 in the three Greek collections, 3 in Paris, and 1 in a private collection in London.

a. The 3 pieces in Paris are said to have been found in 1903 in Tatar Pazarcik, Bulgaria (and purchased there by the French Consul).
b. The 9 pieces in the three Greek collections are said, "by family tradition" to have been "acquired by a Mr. A. Barry after their accidental discovery in Tatar Pazarick. Mr. Barry, an Englishman from the Midlands, was working in Smyrna exporting currants until 1922. As a result of the conflict between Greece and Turkey in the same year, Barry moved to Patras, Greece, and in 1937 sold them to his Greek business partner for £ 15, 000. With the outset of the Second World War, the business partner moved to London and it is also very likely that, at that stage, Barry returned to the Midlands. Upon the former's death, the ten dishes were bequeathed to his son who eventually sold nine to the Greek museums in October 2003". (See also A. Ballian and A. Drandaki, "A middle Byzantine silver treasure", Benaki Museum Journal, March 2003, pp. 47-92.)
c. The London dish is said to have been discovered with "the dishes in Greece ... [which were] discovered together at an unspecified date in the early 20th century also near Tatar Pazarcik, in Bulgaria".

The auction entry for "The Stanford Place Dish" (archived here) provided the history ("provenance") as:

"By tradition acquired by an 'elderly gentleman collector' in the Midlands in the early 1950s"; "Sold to the UK trade in the mid 1980s"; "Purchased by the Trustees of the Stanford Place collection through a London dealer in 1997 or 1998".

This is expanded in the discussion:

"The Stanford Place dish entered the collection sometime in 1998 from the London trade. The dealer from whom it was purchased had acquired it from a middle man who had, himself, acquired the dish some years earlier from a dealer in the Midlands. The latter informed the middle-man that the dish had previously belonged to an 'elderly gentleman collector' from the Midlands since the early 1950s and that he believed it had a Strawberry Hill provenance.

Recent research by archivists seems to show that the dish never came from Strawberry Hill. However, what is possible is that the original hoard from Tatar Pazarick included all of the Paris dishes, the Greek dishes, the London dish and the present lot. Barry may have owned all eleven of the Greek, London and Stanford Place dishes and sold all but the present lot to his business partner. He then returned to the Midlands with the Stanford Place dish. It is therefore possible that the 'elderly gentleman collector' said to have owned the Stanford Place dish was, in fact, Barry himself, or someone to whom he had sold it in the Midlands."

The IHT has revealed the individual behind "The Trustees of the Stanford Place Collection" is Sir Claude Hankes (Hankes-Drielsma) who is perhaps best known for his ethical position over the Oil-for-Food Programme in Iraq (see: "UN orders Iraq corruption inquiry", with interview, April 22, 2004, from the BBC). (For the context of the collection: "The Stanford Place Collection of Antiquities", April 26, 2006). Among his listed interests are "Chairman of the Support Group of the Greek and Roman Department at the British Museum; Patron of the British Museum, ... and the Ashmolean Museum; and a member of the Getty Villa Council, Los Angeles".

It now appears that "The Stanford Place Dish" should not be linked to the 9 pieces of silver plate in the Greek collections. An invoice for "The Stanford Place Dish" has been produced by Hankes' lawyer, Ludovic de Walden. (De Walden acted for the Marquess of Northampton over "The Sevso Treasure"; see his contribution, with Harvey Kurzwell and Leo V. Gagion, "The trial of the Sevso Treasure: What a nation will do in the name of its heritage", in Kate FitzGibbon, Who Owns the Past? Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law [2005]). The IHT reports De Walden produced an invoice, dated July 7, 1998, "showing that Hankes had bought a 12th-century silver dish for £200,000 from Sam Fogg, a well-known London dealer".

"The Stanford Place Dish" thus seems to have a "paper-trail" predating 2000 when Blagnev is reported to have found his hoard of silver in Bulgaria.

Where now?

Where does this leave the 9 pieces of silver plate in the Greek collections? What is the secure documentary evidence? Who is the London-based dealer?

We watch how the Bulgarian request to Greece will develop.

UCL and the Incantation Bowls: Lord Renfrew comments

Earlier this week Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn was speaking in the House of Lords on the "Amendment of Treasure Act 1996" [record]. After mentioning the Sevso Treasure he turned to the UCL Incantation Bowls:

The second case to which I shall refer is as scandalous but less well known in view of intimations of libel action by the lawyers of Mr Martin Schøyen, a Norwegian shipowner. He purchased a major series of 654 Aramaic incantation bowls that had been imported into this country in the 1990s in dubious circumstances and lent them for study to a London university. When the university realised that they might be looted antiquities, it rightly set up a committee of inquiry on which I had the honour of sitting under the chairmanship of the distinguished lawyer, Mr David Freeman. We determined that they had indeed been looted from Iraq, or more precisely concluded,

“on the balance of probabilities that the bowls were removed from Iraq, and that their removal took place after 6th August 1990”,

and was therefore illegal. We recommended,

“the return of the incantation bowls to the Department of Antiquities of the State of Iraq”.

A copy of that report is in the Library of the House.

Despite that, I am sorry to say that the bowls were not returned to Iraq: they were returned to the custody of Mr Martin Schøyen. Under the new clause proposed in Amendments 70 and 68, lending and borrowing would both be dealing in terms of the Bill. It would be an offence to deal in undocumented archaeological objects in such a way—and so it should be: it is scandalous that the heritage of Iraq has been treated in this way.

Buying from the Lebanon market

Those buying antiquities that had once allegedly passed through the Lebanese market need to be on their guard when conducting their due diligence search. Items include the major silver hoard, the Morgantina treasure, that was clearly derived from Sicily. The Sevso treasure was claimed to have been derived (among a number of locations). The Sarpedon krater was reported to have a Beirut connection. Likewise the statues of the Dioskouroi on loan to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art are linked to Sidon when other documentary evidence points to a findspot in Syria.

Back in 2010 I even draw attention to Late Antique (Byzantine) mosaics with a Lebanon link. Does this sound familiar?

Looting Matters: looking back on 2017

Detail of Paestan krater
Source: Dr Christos Tsirogiannis

My predictions for 2017 make a good introduction: further seizures as a result of the photographic archives, heritage crime at archaeological sites in the UK, and moves in Westminster to address the protection of cultural property in time of war. I have not covered the latter on LM as some of the discussions are sensitive.

Seizures
The year started with the news of several thousand seizures in a Europe wide Operation Pandora. A major set of seizures were made on the collection formed by the Hobby Lobby.

Smaller seizures included sculptures from Eshmun in the Lebanon, and a fragment of a Persepolis relief.

A head of Drusus Minor was returned to Italy from the Cleveland Museum of Art after it was realised that it had come from a known excavation and had been removed from the archaeological store.

A series of objects were seized from an unnamed Manhattan gallery (Sardinian warrior, Paestan lekythos, Apulian kantharos from the 'J.M.E. collection'). Another seizure included an Attic red-figured lenythos that had formed part of the Kluge collection. An Attic red-figured amphora was seized from a Manhattan gallery after it was recognised from the Becchina archive. A sarcophagus was seized from a Manhattan gallery.

Fragments of a Roman sarcophagus from outside Rome were seized on Sardinia.

Hungary has purchased further part of the Sevso Treasure.

Surfacings
There have been several sightings of objects identified from the photographic archives. They include:

• Marble funerary markers (Becchina)
• Marble stele (Becchina)
• Attic red-figured cup (Medici)
• Attic red-figured skyphos in Toledo (Medici)
• a marble athlete (Symes)
• Scythian silver rhyton, Scythian moose, and Roman portrait head (Symes and Medici) 

A Paestan krater was returned by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a marble Zeus sold by the Fleischmans to the J. Paul Getty Museum was handed over.

Metal-detecting
The police are acknowledging that there is an issue relating to illegal metal-detecting in East Anglia. An example of such activity was noted for Weeting Castle. The number of Treasure Finds in the UK has increased. The revised code of practice for metal-detecting has been issued.

Reviewing old cases
Although looting continues to be a problem, it is important to look back at historic cases that have yet to be resolved. They include the series of Roman imperial portraits looted from Bubon in Turkey and now in North American and European collections.

The process of how looted antiquities were acquired by museums and private collectors continues to be researched.  One of the key figures in the acquisition of objects by the J. Paul Getty Museum was was Fritz Bürki. Until the full histories of the objects are disclosed a question mark must remain over the objects.

The Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University has yet to resolve the case of three disputed items that have been identified in the Greek press.

Forgeries
Forgeries continue to corrupt the market and provide false information about 'ancient art'. The problem of forging Anatolian sculptures has been discussed.

Looting Matters: looking ahead

The Blogging Archaeology Carnival has asked contributors to reflect on the future of blogging.

I would like to think that the art market, private collectors, and public museums have now distanced themselves from handling recently surfaced antiquities and therefore there is no need to continue 'Looting Matters'. But in the coming days objects handled by Giacomo Medici and Gianfranco Becchina are due to resurface on the London market through major auction houses. And in the last week it has been announced that Hungary has purchased part of the Sevso Treasure.

We also know that only some 1 per cent of the objects illustrated by the seized polaroid archives in Switzerland and Greece have been identified. So there is work to be done.

We are also aware of museums such as the Ny Carlsberg, the Allard Pierson Museum, and the Miho Museum that appear to have acquired recently surfaced antiquities.

Blogging requires time and that is a precious commodity. At a personal level I am about to change roles and that could allow for more time allocated to 'Looting Matters'. But would it be better to invest time in 'published' (i.e. print) outputs? But then there are times when the immediacy of blogging allows rapid comment and reflection.

I suspect that micro-blogging will become more important and that needs to be linked to blogs and online materials.

But the internet is changing along with the tools to generate information. Will I be incorporating self-generated audio and video commentaries within blog posts?

One thing that does need to concern bloggers is how we archive the information that we have generated over the years. Do we need a "blogging archaeology" archive? Where will it be hosted?

The Intellectual Consequences of Collecting Archaeological Material

Context helps to explain archaeological material. There is information about the specific location, the stratigraphic relationship with other objects, and the association with related material. 

It is easy for archaeologists to document the looting of archaeological sites. And the Medici Dossier, the Becchina Archive, and the Schinoussa Images have made it possible to identify objects that have entered the market.

But we also need to consider the limitations of discussing such 'unexcavated' objects. Chris Chippindale and I explored some of the issues relating to Cycladic figures, and I have published a study of the intellectual consequences of acquiring the Sarpedon krater. I will be exploring further issues at a seminar in Cambridge this week.

Among the areas that the seminar will consider are:

• Athenian red-figured pots attributed to the Berlin painter
• Etruscan architectural terracottas
• Apulian cavalry armour
• Apulian pottery
• Classical bronze statues
• The Icklingham bronzes
• The 'Crosby Garrett' helmet
• The Sevso Treasure

Do archaeologists, and especially those dealing with the classical world, need to see how little material comes from secure contexts?

Corrupting knowledge: inaccurate information

One issue surrounding recently-surfaced antiquities is that the objects may be supplied with misleading collecting-histories. Sellers may be keen for a potential buyer to think that a Greek pot has resided in a collection formed in the 1920s when in fact it was removed from an Etruscan grave in the 1980s. Another seller could suggest that a Roman silver cup was found in, say, Afghanistan as this would be more exotic than Turkey.

I have been considering this concept as part of the wider intellectual consequences of collecting. I explored the theme in my 2010 article for the Journal of Art Crime. I noted how two pieces that passed through Palladion Antike Kunst in Basel, Switzerland (and acquired by Boston's Museum of Fine Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum) were placed in "old collections": those of Karl Haug in Basel since 1936, and the late nineteenth century Rycroft collection. Such misleading information does not relate just to genuine objects: the Getty kouros, considered by some to be a modern forgery, was said to have formed part of the Jean Lauffenberger collection and could be traced back to a Greek dealer in 1930. The kouros was said to have been sold by Gianfranco Becchina, whose wife Rosie was the proprietor of Palladion Antike Kunst.

The Late Roman hoard known as the Sevso Treasure is linked in the broadest sense with several possible countries (including Hungary, Croatia and Lebanon). The Icklingham Bronzes were once said to have been removed from Britain in the 1940s and then formed part of a collection in Switzerland. The Morgantina Hoard was said to have passed through the hands of a Lebanese dealer and then through a Swiss collection in 1961. (The more recent removal of the hoard from its archaeological context seems to have been dated by a coin apparently dropped by one of the looters.) The marble statue of Sabina returned to Italy from Boston was reportedly from an old Bavarian aristocratic collection.

I have also noted that collecting histories can sometimes be placed back in the period before the 1970 UNESCO Convention. For example a series of Late Antique ('Byzantine') mosaics are reported (in recent years) to have passed through Lebanese dealers in Beirut in 1969. Is this a documented (and authenticated) part of the collecting histories? Or an Attic krater can be said to have resided in an undocumented (and unspecified) Swiss private collection for a number of years that would place it (conveniently) in the late 1960s. Another example could be a piece of sculpture that is said to have been in a Lebanese private collection in the 1950s when other evidence shows it was in another country decades later. Or did Apulian pots from an apparent single grave-group form part of a nineteenth-century collection in Switzerland?

Then there are cases where the collecting history supplied by a dealer can be disputed by other informed authorities thus creating two parallel histories? Was a bronze Apollo found in Greece or had it resided in an obscure East German collection?

These case studies show why museums need to be transparent over the collecting histories of objects in their care whether they are acquisitions or loans.

This issue matters. If misleading information accompanies the object, then not only has the original archaeological context been lost, but the piece may be used by modern scholars to construct a false view about the past.

Review of 2014

Cycladic figure returned to Greece from Karlsruhe

In January this year I made some predictions. The first was that there would be continued sightings of objects handled by Medici and Becchina on the antiquities market. And there have been, including Bonhams in London (and again in October), Christies in London, Christie's in New York (and see here), and an Egyptian statue at Sothebys New York.

Interestingly the Italians were threatening to take legal action over the Symes material. But this did not seem to materialise.

I had suggested that there needed to be more rigorous due diligence checks prior to sales: clearly this continues to be a weakness. So I addressed it in my column, "Context Matters", in the Fall number of the Journal of Art Crime (2014).

I have not discussed objects identified from the Medici Dossier now in one major North American museum during 2014. However it is likely that the collector and museum will be named in 2015. However Christos Tsirogannis discussed the collecting history of a Paestan krater that had been acquired by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I wondered if material would be returned to Italy from Copenhagen and the Museum of Cycladic Art (Goulandris Collection). But still no movement.

Mosaics acquired by Fordham University
Source: Fordham

LM has reviewed the collection at Fordham University and in particular the collecting histories of the antiquities. We noted that Fordham had hand to relinquish title to a Villanovan hut. Fordham also acquired some Christian mosaics that appear to come from the Near East. The collection also contains a Roman imperial bronze apparently derived from the Sebastaieon at Bubon in Turkey.

I continue to note the issues surrounding the sale of antiquities on the market.

There has been no movement on the Koreschnica krater, the Icklingham bronzes, the Minoan larnax in the Michael C. Carlos Museum, and the SLAM Mummy Mask. However, a detailed study of the acquisition of the Ka Nefer Nefer Mask was published in the Fall Number of the Journal of Art Crime (2014). This is likely to prompt renewed questions of SLAM.

However part of the Sevso Treasure was purchased by the Hungarian Government. Lydian stelai were returned from the US to Turkey. And a Cycladic figure returned from Karlsruhe to Greece. Nor should we forget the coins sent to Greece from the collection of a Rhode Island medic, or the Shiva sent back from Australia to India.

Transparency relating to the Bothmer potsherd collection continues to be an issue. However some of the issues will be addressed in a forthcoming article (with Christos Tsirogiannis) in the International Journal of Cultural Property.

All continues to be quiet about the planned symposium on the Cleveland "Apollo".

Heritage Crime continues to be a major issue in England and Wales. And there continue to be muted responses from members of the Portable Antiquities Scheme. The so-called "Crosby Garrett" helmet went on display at the British Museum. (I published an extended essay on the helmet in the Journal of Art Crime.) The problem of "nighthawking" was highlighted by the opening of a small exhibition of finds from Rendlesham in Suffolk. And the English Heritage site of Eynsford Castle was damaged by such activity. And of course the BBC produced a so-called comedy on Detectorists (in Suffolk). Issues about the reliability of information for objects documented by the Portable Antiquities Scheme was raised by a fellow curator at the British Museum.

We noted the theft of part of a fresco from Pompeii.

There were interesting issues raised about the collecting history of the Sappho Papyrus.

The MOU between the US and Bulgaria was signed.

Parthenon sculpture on loan to Russia © David Gill

Museums have been selling off part of their collection. In England it was the case of the Northampton Museum and the disposal of an Egyptian statue. This had serious implications for the museum's funding. The St Louis branch of the AIA was also selling off material. Meanwhile the British Museum decided to loan a pedimental sculpture from the Parthenon to Russia.

Finally there has been the extensive looting of archaeological sites in Syria.