Skip to main content

Smash and grab


There is something very disheartening when you see the results of looting. Objects ripped out of context. Pots broken into fragments. Sculptures smashed. So much damage to supply the market and the appetites of museums and private collectors.

Some collectors will claim that they are preserving the past, but really their desire is to own the past (and to ignore the consequences of the "owning" process).

Do auction-houses and dealers care how recently surfaced antiquities arrived on the market?

Image
Dirt encrusted Roman limestone funerary bust that passed through the stock of a European dealer.

Bookmark and Share so Your Real Friends Know that You Know
Labels:

Comments

Nathan Elkins said…
When I was doing an MA in Britain, I recall a conversation with either a colleague or professor who told me about working in Ostia. Some years ago, he/she entered a tomb which was supposed to have been protected only to find it had been broken into. The ground was littered with cigarette butts and bottle caps and there was a also broken chainsaw blade on the floor. The figural relief on a sarcophagus in the tomb had been cut away by means of the chainsaw. Modern chisel and blade marks are apparent on so many sculptural works that enter the market without histories. One might say nauseating.

Damaging indeed.
22 April 2010 at 13:54
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The scale of the returns to Italy

I have been busy working on an overview, "Returning Archaeological Objects to Italy". The scale of the returns to Italy from North American collections and galleries is staggering: in excess of 350 objects. This is clearly the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the material that has surfaced on the market without a history that can be traced back to the period before 1970. 

I will provide more information in due course, but the researcher is a reminder that we need to take due diligence seriously when it comes to making acquisitions.

Post a Comment
Read more

Stele returns to Greece

The Hellenic Ministry of Culture has announced (Saturday 8 September 2018) that a stele that had been due to be auctioned at Sotheby's in London in June 2017 has been returned to Greece (Friday 7 September 2018). The identification had been made by Cambridge-based forensic archaeologist Dr Christos Tsirogiannis.

It appeared that the stele had been supplied with a falsified history as its presence with Becchina until 1990 contradicted the published sale catalogue entry. It then moved into the hands of George Ortiz.

A year ago it was suggested that Sotheby's should contact the Greek authorities. Those negotiations appear to have concluded successfully.

The 4th century BC stele fragment, with the personal name, Hestiaios, will be displayed in the Epigraphic Museum in Athens. It appears to have come from a cemetery in Attica.



Post a Comment
Read more

"Beating sites to death"

Policy decisions for protecting archaeological sites need to be informed by carefully argued positions based on data. Dr Sam Hardy has produced an important study, “Metal detecting for cultural objects until ‘there is nothing left’: The potential and limits of digital data, netnographic data and market data for analysis”. Arts 7, 3 (2018) [online]. This builds on Hardy's earlier research.

Readers should note Hardy's conclusion about his findings: "they corroborate the detecting community’s own perception that they are ‘beat[ing these sites] to death’".

Pieterjan Deckers, Andres Dobat, Natasha Ferguson, Stijn Heeren, Michael Lewis, and Suzie Thomas may wish to reflect on whether or not their own position is endangering the finite archaeological record. 

Abstract
This methodological study assesses the potential for automatically generated data, netnographic data and market data on metal-detecting to advance cultural property criminology. The method comprises the analysi…
Post a Comment
Read more