Saturday, 21 June 2008

AAMD and Antiquities: The Object Register

The AAMD announced its new policy on the acquisition of antiquities earlier this month. The Object Registry is now available.
The AAMD Object Registry provides access to all relevant information known about our members' acquisitions of archaeological material and ancient art lacking complete provenance after November 1970, the date of the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import and Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. Art museums regularly acquire archaeological material and works of ancient art - of which objects with incomplete provenance represent but a fraction.
It continues:
A complete recent ownership history may not be obtainable for all archaeological material and every work of ancient art. Recognizing this, AAMD believes that its member museums have the right to exercise their institutional responsibility to make informed judgments about the appropriateness of acquiring such an object. AAMD is committed to ensuring that these acquisitions take place transparently and in full public view. This Object Registry is a central component of AAMD's process to make information about such objects freely available to students, teachers, visitors, source countries, officials, as well as possible claimants.
At the moment the register is empty:
There are currently no Object Types registered. Please check back again soon.
However it would be interesting to have details of the following pieces:
I understand that there are no plans to place details of long-term loans on the Register: this is an issue that the AAMD will be addressing shortly.

1 comment:

David Gill said...

The register is still empty on July 19, 2008.

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