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The Emperor's summer palace taken and sacked, affording immense spoil.
Discussion of the archaeological ethics surrounding the collecting of antiquities and archaeological material.
The Emperor's summer palace taken and sacked, affording immense spoil.
China said it will tighten control on the activities of Christie’s International, hours after the auction house sold a pair of Qing Dynasty bronzes in Paris for 31.4 million euros ($40 million), ignoring calls to return them.Would it best for these bronze heads to be displayed together in China as their Italian creator originally intended? The French courts may feel that there is no legal case to answer, but the moral cause is compelling. We wait to see what the new owner(s) of the heads will do with them.London-based Christie’s must give details of the ownership and provenance of any artifacts it wants to bring into or out of China, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage said today in a statement on its Web site. Antiques that are without papers won’t be allowed to enter or leave.
Wayne Sayles, spokesman for the ACCG, told those attending the Jan. 10 meeting [of the New York International Numismatic Convention] that he is against the looting of archaeological sites, but feels the views of some activist archaeologists on how to protect the sites are too severe and too left wing in their approach.
what do you do when a country demands the return of coins found buried within their borders but struck elsewhere (as in the case of the Decadrachm Hoard)Are they saying that it is acceptable to loot an archaeological site in Turkey because the coins found in the hoard were not minted within the territory of the modern state of Turkey?
In 1989 the farmer began an 18 month long campaign to recover objects which did not receive official support from the UK authorities (Rescue News 53 1991). The outcome of the eventual court case will result in some artefacts eventually being given to the British Museum. Although suspects for the original theft were identified, the strength of the evidence was not felt sufficient for a prosecution to proceed.As far as I know there was no "court case" or "course action" (9.9.4) but rather a legal out-of-court agreement.
the Italian courts are currently prosecuting a number of dealers and museum officials following a complex investigation.So who are all these dealers (plural) and museum officials (plural)? Or is this a reference to the Hecht-True case in Rome? A little more precision would have been helpful.
We are concerned that the nighthawking survey may not be able to assess fully and accurately the scale of the issue due to a lack of evidence. In Norfolk we suspect is that the problem is one of considerable dimensions with the (very few) prosecutions being merely the tip of an iceberg. We currently identify over 20,000 metal objects per annum in the county, which we estimate is only a proportion of the total recovered, leading to a concomitant unknown loss of knowledge. That said, we do not know how much of this additional knowledge is lost as a result of the deliberate non-reporting of finds, or how much of this information we might be able to capture if we had more resources to undertake outreach to metal-detectorists and farmers with whom we currently have no contact.
The results of the Nighthawking Survey show that in England on Scheduled Monuments, the level of Nighthawking is decreasing. ... It is likely that this figure is an underestimation of the problem, as was the original figure from the 1995 survey. ... Despite a national decrease in reported incidences, there is evidence to suggest that in some areas the incidence of Nighthawking is increasing on Scheduled sites, with some of these areas also showing a large number of non-designated sites also affected.In other words: data would suggest that "Nighthawking" is decreasing ... and increasing.
In the case of unscheduled sites it is not possible to assess whether the level of Nighthawking is increasing or decreasing as this survey is the first to collect information about such sites.
The number of scheduled monuments that have been attacked and the number of archaeological units that have been reported where excavations have been attacked by nighthawking has declined, and we’re keen to get that message across.One of the issues to be emerging from the report is the under-reporting of looting from archaeological sites in the UK.
the corruption through looted objects is so deep and wide and long-lasting that even people of good character who bought things decades ago may inadvertently have acquired illicit stuff.
A coin and a gold brooch in the shape of a winged sea horse were taken from a museum displaying possessions of the wealthy king of Lydia who ruled in the 6th century B.C. ...
A court in the western city of Usak says museum director Kazim Akbiyiklioglu was imprisoned on Friday for nearly 13 years for theft and embezzlement. Nine others received lesser prison terms.
The treasures were replaced by fakes in 2006 and the original pieces have not been recovered.
The pieces were among items smuggled out of Turkey in the 1960s and returned to the country only in 1993.
The two animal-heads -- a rabbit and a rat -- were severed from a water fountain at Beijing’s imperial Summer Palace when British and French troops plundered and burned the palace in October 1860.The pieces are lots 677 and 678.
The auction house said last month that “each and every item” in the Berge Collection has a clear legal title. Today’s statement from Christie’s reiterates that, saying the objects, “including the fountainheads, have a clear and extensive history of ownership.” Proceeds from the sale will help set up a foundation for AIDS research.
In December 2008, the Italians presented a list of 100 artefacts that they believed were acquired illegally and wanted returned. The Glyptoteket management refused to oblige, stating that many of the objects on the list were purchased legally after the former administrators, who are suspected of purchasing the alleged illegal artefacts, left their positions at the museum.The paper also notes, "Many of the illegal artefacts purchased by Glyptoteket during the 1970s were from art dealers Robert Hecht and Giacomo Medici."
Source: Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art has agreed that the bronze figure acquired in 1986 will be returned to Türkiye. ...