The Intellectual Consequences of Collecting a Panathenaic Amphora

Panathenaic Amphora
formerly in the Michael Steinhardt collection
Source: HSI New York / Manhattan DA

One of my long-standing concerns about looting and the subsequent collection of antiquities is that valuable archaeological information is lost. Findspots, contexts and associations are lost, with them the ability to assign appropriate dates. 

I would like to consider the Athenian Panathenaic amphora from the Steinhardt collection that has been returned to Egypt. The Manhattan DA's statement of fact about the Panathenaic amphora points the reader to the coastal site of Thonis-Heracleion.

The style and details on the Vase from the Pan-Athenian Games are characteristic of black-figure pots recovered from recent underwater excavations at Thonis-Heracleion, off the coast of Egypt.

As far as I know, there have been no Panathenaic amphorae (or fragments) found at Thunis-Heracleion. Indeed, I have only identified five Panathenaic amphora fragments (not complete pots) from Egypt: five from Naucratis (one of which is associated with the Hellenion) and one from Hadra (i.e. near the later foundation of Alexandria). If this amphora does indeed comes from Egypt it would be a most unusual find.

Furthermore, the Panathenaic amphora shows no sign that it comes from a submerged cemetery at Thonis-Heracleion. Or have looters discovered a cemetery site on land? 

However, there are numerous complete Panathenaic amphorae discovered in Cyrenaica in Libya. (See Faraj M. Elrashedy, Imports of post-Archaic Greek pottery into Cyrenaica from the end of the Archaic to the beginning of the Hellenistic period [BAR International Series, vol. 1022. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2002]). There are complete amphorae and fragments from Cyrene, Apollonia, Euesperides (Berenice / Benghazi), Tocra, Barca, Ptolemais and other sites. Could the Steinhardt amphora have been found in one of the cemeteries of, say, Cyrene, and then been smuggled to Egypt where it was associated with Thonis-Heracleion? 

The Manhattan DA may, of course, have access to other evidence that points to Thonis-Heracleion with a little more certainty. Or was this a hunch from someone researching the Steinhardt collection? 

The association of the Steinhardt amphora with Thonis-Heracleion seems, for now, unlikely and the mention of the alleged findspot should not be encouraged unless further information comes to light or is disclosed. Indeed, one wonders if the amphora should have been returned to Libya rather than Egypt. 

The case of the amphora is a reminder of the way that key information is irretrievably lost through the looting process.

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Steinhardt Panathenaic Amphora Returns to Egypt

Panathenaic amphora. Left: HSI New York. Right: Manhattan DA [Exhibit 73]

The return of antiquities to Egypt via the Manhattan DA included a Panathenaic amphora ("D.A. Bragg Returns 16 Stolen Antiquities to the People of Egypt", September 7, 2022). Images from the event show that it was one of the objects seized from the collection of Michael Steinhardt. 

The Manhattan DA document suggested an association with the site of Thonis-Heracleion. 

The style and details on the Vase from the Pan-Athenian Games are characteristic of black-figure pots recovered from recent underwater excavations at Thonis-Heracleion, off the coast of Egypt.

Such a findspot would be surprising given that there is no indication that the amphora has been derived from an underwater location. Was the amphora found elsewhere in Egypt?

The amphora was purchased by the dealer, Gil Chaya, in Dubai from Mohd Said Issa Mousa Jaradot. Steinhardt purchased the amphora on December 23,  2008, for $300,000.

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The Case of the St Louis Art Museum Mummy Mask

I am looking forward to exploring the parallel histories for the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mummy mask at the Transatlantic Cultural Property Crime Symposium (November 2021).

Tantalising Evidence and a Failed Legal Claim: 

The Case of the St Louis Art Museum Mummy Mask 

Abstract 

In 1952 Mohammed Zakaria Goneim, chief inspector of antiquities, excavated an Egyptian mummy and mask at Saqqara. This mummy mask was acquired by the St Louis Art Museum in 1998 from Phoenix Ancient Art for $499,000. The purchase led to a legal claim by the Egyptian authorities. However, the outcome was that the court confirmed the ownership with the St Louis Art Museum. The release of internal documents from the museum reveals a story that suggests that key members of the museum’s curatorial team were aware of sensitivities relating to the history of the mummy mask. 

There are two parallel and irreconcilable accounts of the mask between 1952 and 1998. The vendor had acquired a statement from Charly Mathez in 1997 that claimed that the mummy mask had been seen by him in Brussels in 1952 (or 1958). The mask is then reported to have been part of the collection of Suzana Jelinek in Zagreb, before moving into an anonymous Swiss private collection. The mask was then reported to have been displayed for a short time in Geneva’s Musées d’art et d’histoire in 1997 prior to its sale. 

The Egyptian authorities claimed that the mask had followed a different path and that it was recorded in the archaeological store in Saqqara in 1959. It then moved to the Cairo Museum from 1959 to 1962 when it returned to the store in Saqqara. It went back to Cairo in 1966, and was finally noted as missing in 1973. It appears to be significant that the personal name in hieratic script that was visible on the right hand of the mask when excavated had been removed by the time that the piece passed through the dealer in Switzerland as demonstrated by publicity photographs taken around 1997. 

The museum does not appear to have responded to suggestions (in January 2006) that it should check with the Egyptian authorities to ensure that the mask had not been stolen from the Saqqara store. Zahi Hawass, the then Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, raised his concerns about the mask in February 2006. This was supported by well-documented instances of thefts from the Saqqara stores, including two alabaster ducks that were returned to Egypt. 

The legal case developed in January 2011, and a case for forfeiture was filed in March 2011; this was dismissed on 31 March 2012 by a US District Judge. A parallel case for declamatory relief was finally withdrawn in June 2014. It does not appear to have been disclosed during the hearings that John H. Taylor, an Egyptologist at the British Museum, had raised his concerns about the mask to SLAM curators in February 1999. Such concerns were apparently left uninvestigated by the museum or the legal teams. 

The SLAM case raises the issue that legal challenges may not be the most effective way to reclaim cultural property. In contrast the Italian government has managed to secure the return of several hundred objects from North American public museums and private collections through the effective use of the media that has placed moral pressure on museums, auction houses and private individuals. The way ahead may be to develop a more rigorous due diligence process for museum acquisitions that would enhance the legal ownership of objects acquired through the market.

Context Matters: Collating the Past

Context Matters is based on the twenty essays contributed to the Journal of Art Crime over its first ten years. They are supplemented by articles and review articles that were published alongside them. The chapters were written as museums in Europe and North America were facing a series of claims on recently acquired objects in their collections in the light of the photographic dossiers that had been seized from dealers in Switzerland and Greece. They engage with some of the recent debates over cultural property that include the Ka Ka Nefer mummy mask currently in the St Louis Art Museum, and the Leutwitz Apollo acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art. Two of the essays reflect on the recent and controversial metal-detecting finds in England, the so-called Crosby Garrett helmet and the Lenborough Hoard. The volume contributes to the wider discussion about the appropriate due diligence process that should be conducted prior to the acquisition of archaeological material. 

Gill, D. W. J. 2020. Context matters: collating the past. ARCA. ISBN-13: 978-1734302615.

TEFAF Update

Following identifications made by Associate Professor Christos Tsirogiannis, two antiquities were seized at TEFAF, Masstricht last week (Theo Toebosch, "Twee oudheden in beslag genomen op kunstbeurs Tefaf", nrc.nl 17 March 2020). 

A Roman head of Apollo had formerly passed through the hands of Gianfranco Becchina and Palladion Antike Kunst in 1976. It is reported that it was displayed in the Merrin Gallery in New York from 1978–81, before passing into the hands of a Beverly Hills collector. It was auctioned in New York in 2008. This head had been displayed by the Chenel Gallery in Paris.

An Egyptian alabaster vase had passed through the hands of Robin Symes. This was displayed by the Merrin Gallery.

Papyri and due diligence

There is much comment at the moment about the sale of papyri to the Museum of the Bible (MOTB), and specifically how fragments owned by the Egypt Exploration Society and kept in the Sackler Library in Oxford have ended up in MOTB.

This is raising serious questions about the due diligence process that does not appear to have been followed by MOTB.

• 'Oxford University professor accused of selling ancient Bible fragments', BBC News 16 October 2019.
• 'Oxford professor accused of selling ancient Bible fragments', The Guardian 16 October 2019.

Tutankhamun, Christie's and rigorous due dligence

It was announced today that the Egyptian authorities would be taking legal action against Christie's over the sale of the head of Tutankhamun ("Egypt to sue Christie's to retrieve £4.7m Tutankhamun bust", BBC News 9 July 2019).

The BBC reports:

Egypt's former antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, said the bust appeared to have been "stolen" in the 1970s from the Temple of Karnak. "The owners have given false information," he told AFP news agency. "They have not shown any legal papers to prove its ownership."

Christie's maintain the history of the piece as follows:

It stated that Germany's Prince Wilhelm von Thurn und Taxis reputedly had it in his collection by the 1960s, and that it was acquired by an Austrian dealer in 1973-4.

However the family of von Thurn und Taxis claim that the head was never in that collection [see here].

Christie's reject any hint of criticism:

"Christie's would not and do not sell any work where there isn't clear title of ownership and a thorough understanding of modern provenance."

All the auction house needs to do is to present the authenticated documentation showing the sequential history of the head as it passed from collection to gallery. This is all part of the rigorous due diligence process that auction houses are expected to conduct.

Thefts from Archaeological Stores and Museums

One observable phenomenon in recent years has been that some recovered material was derived, not from an unexcavated archaeological site, but from archaeological museums and stores. This is explored in my latest column, 'Context Matters', for The Journal of Art Crime 20 (Fall 2018), entitled 'Thefts from museums and archaeological stores'. While many of the pieces come from collections in Italy, others are recorded from Greece, Egypt, and Libya. 

Setting high ethical standards for collecting antiquities

Ka Nefer Nefer mummy mask. Source: SLAM

Victoria Reed, from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has been discussing the need for due diligence in museums ("How should museums respond to art smuggling scandals?", Apollo January 24, 2017). This is clearly an important issue for the museum as it was one of the first of the North American museums to return objects to Italy in the wake of the Medici Conspiracy (see  "From Boston to Rome: reflections on returning antiquities").

Reed makes an important point about 'verified' information; I choose to talk about 'authenticated' documentation. How to we chart the collecting history of an object? What are the confirmed sources?

I was taken by this section:

If, however, an investigation turns up looted antiquities in a museum collection (for example, if photographs show an object shortly after it was illicitly removed from the ground, or if its provenance documentation was demonstrably forged), then a museum has an obligation to redress the break in the chain of that object’s ownership in some way. Usually such a resolution is achieved through a financial settlement with, or physical return to, the country of modern discovery. Museums hold their collections as public trusts, and no museum should wish knowingly to retain stolen property on behalf of the public.

It is worth returning to the case of the Ka Nefer Nefer mummy case at the St Louis Art Museum ("The Case of the Ka Nefer Nefer Mummy Mask"). Now that the email discussions have been made public it would be appropriate for the museum to revisit the acquisition and to start negotiating with the Egyptian authorities.

Minoan larnax. Source Becchina archive, and Carlos Museum

And what about the Minoan larnax in the Carlos Museum at Emory University? Why has there been no attempt to resolve this claim from Greece that has been on-going for so many years? Is the imagery from the Becchina unconvincing for the museum curators? How do they explain the images and the documentation?

Reed, I am sure, is sincere in what she writes. But her writing does not take full account of museums in North America that have yet to adjust their ethical positions in defiance of their public and educational roles.

Relief from temple of Hatshepsut returned to Egypt

AP circulated a press release last week noting that a relief stolen from the temple of Hatshepsut in 1975 had been returned to Egypt from London (e.g. "Egypt receives ancient stolen limestone relief", Daily Mail December 20, 2016). It appears that the relief had been purchased from a gallery in Spain by a London based dealer.

Which gallery in Spain?

I am particularly interested in the identity of the London dealer as due diligence in the London market is a major theme of the APPG on Cultural Property.

Remote Sensing and Looting in Egypt

The study by Sarah Parcak and her colleagues on looting in Egypt is extremely significant (Antiquity 2016 [link to CUP]). Their use of remote sensing has allowed an assessment to be made of the scale of damage to ancient sites across Egypt. The group plots the chronological changes in looting.

One of the striking things is that there is an apparent correlation with the amount of Egyptian material surfacing on the market (see here).

• Megan Gannon, "'Space Archaeologists' Show Spike in Looting at Egypt's Ancient Sites", Live Science February 17, 2016.

An Analysis of Looting in Egypt

My analysis of looting in Egypt is available here.

• "Egyptian antiquities on the market", in The management of Egypt's cultural heritage, edited by F. A. Hassan, G. J. Tassie, L. S. Owens, A. De Trafford, J. van Wetering, and O. El Daly, vol. 2: 67-77. London: ECHO and Golden House Publications.

Relief of Seti I returned from London

In October 2015 a relief of Seti I was recovered from an unspecified London auction-house (Nevine El-Aref, "Egypt recovers Stolen relief of King Seti I from London", ahramonline October 4, 2015). This was seized by British police and has now been returned to Egypt (Nevine El-Aref, "Stolen relief of Egyptian King Seti I recovered from London", ahramonline December 14, 2015).

The piece was identified by Marcel Marée of the British Museum.

The relief is currently being conserved in Egypt.

Statue of Amenhotep III recovered near Edfu

A black granite statue of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III has been recovered by police https://t.co/4ZvOutnkHq pic.twitter.com/YRsguEwE7F

— Archaeology Magazine (@archaeologymag) December 31, 2015

A black granite statue of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III has been recovered during a police operation to recover weapons and drugs at Al-Nakhi in Egypt (Archaeology magazine).

Further details can be found at ahramonline (Nevine El-Ahref, "King Amenhotep III statue accidently recovered in Edfu", December 31, 2015).

Amenhotep III statue.
Source: ahramonline

Sekhemka statue developments

The BBC is reporting that British Prime Minister David Cameron has been asked to intervene in the Sekhemka statue situation ("Sekhemka statue export: PM David Cameron urged to "intervene"", BBC News July 26, 2015). It looks as if the export restriction is likely to be lifted this week.

A statement has been issued by the Save Sekhemka Action Group.

Operation Mummy's Curse

Source: ICE.

There are times when you wonder if there is a lack of imagination when it comes to naming operations but 'Mummy's Curse' is probably one of them.

Put that aside, ICE has announced that it is has returned "dozens" of Egyptian antiquities to Egypt as part of an "ongoing five-year investigation by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) targeting an international criminal network that illegally smuggled and imported more than 7,000 cultural items from around the world". The total value of the seizures so far is approximately $3 million.

This sarcophagus appears to be the one siezed in a garage in Brooklyn in 2009. It is reported (Kathleen Caulderwood, "US Returns $2.5M In Egyptian Antiquities As Experts Call For Tougher Punishment On Smugglers", International Business Times April 22, 2015):

The coffin had been emblazoned with the name Shesepamutayesher and the title “Lady of the House” sometime between 664 and 111 B.C. But when Special Agent Brenton Easter of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) uncovered the artifact Sept. 8, 2009, after months of investigation, it had been slapped with a few false shipping labels.

So once again we are seeing that the "paper trail" of a significant object is being corrupted to allow the piece to enter the market.

Caulderwood reveals that the investigation is linked to Morris Khouli (and see my earlier discussion here).

Easter recovered the head and other objects from Khouli’s gallery, intercepted shipments in Newark, New Jersey, and eventually found the “Lady of the House” sarcophagus at Khouli’s home, in a crate all ready for shipment.

ICE issued a press release on these investigations back in 2011.

Caulderwood also makes the point that there is the potential for this investigation to be linked to material coming from Syria. And this is a point that I have made before with links to material allegedly from Palmyra.

The material is not just Egyptian in character. The press release states: "A related December 2010 shipment interception netted agents 638 ancient coins from different countries, 65 of which are being repatriated to Egypt today." Which countries? Who imported the coins? What did the paperwork say? And coins have already formed part of the discussion in the Khouli case.

This immediately raises the big question: who has acquired the 7000 plus objects mentioned in the release? Museums? Private collectors? Or are they still part of the stock in a range of dealers? And are some of these objects forming part of what some term "the licit market"?

And this stated case comes against a broad backdrop that appears to include an Egyptian coffin seized in Miami.

Mosaic glass: from Antinoupolis to London

Bonhams online catalogue showing lot 65

Dr Roberta Mazza has published an important discussion of a piece of Roman mosaic glass apparently from Antinoupolis in Egypt ("From Egypt to London: looting in Antinoupolis (el Sheikh ‘Abadah)", Faces and Voices, March 27, 2015). She draws attention to published research by Rosario Pintaudi who  has worked at the site. Mazza notes:

This little and beautiful piece traveled from Egypt to the showrooms of Bonhams in London, where the sale was stopped by the police, after the object sold for about £ 5,000.

The fragment was offered at Bonhams in London in their sale of antiquities on 23 October 2013, lot 65. The collecting history ("provenance") was given as "English private collection, acquired in the late 1960s".

The article is “Latrones: furti e recuperi da Antinoupolis”, Analecta Papyrologica XXVI 2014 pp. 359-402 and is available from academia.edu. This fragment is discussed on pp. 367-70.

Mazza also raises questions about lot 64 that came from "English private collection, acquired in the mid-1970s".

This raises various questions for Bonhams. Who was the vendor? What other objects were consigned by this individual (or individuals) in this and other sales? Which member of the Bonhams team conducted the due diligence search? What is the basis of the stated so-called "provenance"? What documents were shown to Bonhams?

It is significant that concerns were raised by the Egyptian authorities at the time of the sale ("Egypt’s government cracks down on illicit sales", Art Newspaper 31 October 2013):

This month, Bonhams planned to auction a set of 165 Egyptian artefacts. According to the website Egypt Independent, Mohamed Ibrahim, Egypt’s head of antiquities, requested documentation from the auction house to prove that the artefacts had left Egypt legally. Bonhams spokesman Julian Roup, however, says that that the firm received no official request from the police, the Egyptian embassy or Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities, and that the provenance in all cases was sound. The sale went ahead ...

Will Bonhams be conducting an internal investigation into how this piece was allowed to come to auction?

Egyptian antiquities on the market

My study of Egyptian antiquities surfacing on the market is due to be published in March 2015.

Gill, D. W. J. 2015. "Egyptian antiquities on the market." In The management of Egypt's cultural heritage, edited by F. A. Hassan, G. J. Tassie, L. S. Owens, A. De Trafford, J. van Wetering, and O. El Daly, vol. 2: 67-77. London: ECHO and Golden House Publications.

Abstract
Several million dollars’ worth of Egyptian antiquities are sold on the market every year. The majority of these items seem to have surfaced for the first time since 1973, the date of the Archaeological Institute of America’s ‘Resolution of the Acquisition of Antiquities by Museums’. Some of the material appearing on the market appears to have been removed from archaeological stores in Egypt. There is also clear evidence that reliefs and other items are being removed from recorded tombs. Many other items, such as the Akhmim stelae, come from previously unknown sites, and their removal has led to a loss of knowledge about the original contexts. The scandals surrounding the return of antiquities to Italy has resulted in more rigorous acquisition policies being developed by North American museums. This is likely to suppress the market for Egyptian objects that do not have recorded collecting histories.

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Bettany Hughes on the Sappho Papyrus

I have had the privilege of seeing the new #Sappho poems but was sworn to secrecy!
— Bettany Hughes (@bettanyhughes) January 30, 2014

At the end of January 2014 Bettany Hughes commented that she had seen the new Sappho papyrus fragments. This was in preparation for her Sunday Times article that appeared on 2 February. In that piece it was claimed:

The elderly owner of our new Sappho papyrus wishes to remain anonymous, and its provenance is obscure (it was originally owned, it seems, by a high-ranking German officer), but he was determined its secrets should not die with him.

Yet now Dirk Obbink has rejected this in an interview published on 23 January 2015.

Obbink characterized Hughes' story as a "fictionalization" and an "imaginative fantasy."

Who is telling the truth here? Or have Hughes and Obbink both presented (perhaps unwittingly) separate 'fictionalised' accounts? What makes the collecting history presented by Obbink more trustworthy? What is the authenticated and documented collecting history for the papyrus?

Can we believe that the fragments came from the Robinson collection? Has Obbink provided sufficient compelling evidence?

And why did it take from 2 February 2014 to 23 January 2015 for Obbink to reject Hughes' account?

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The (un)authenticated collecting history of the newly surfaced Sappho papyrus fragments

is no one bothered by the incongruencies between Obbink's account and Bettany Hughes' account of the provenance of the Sappho papyrus?
— rogueclassicist (@rogueclassicist) January 13, 2015

Dirk Obbink has presented a paper on "Provenance, authenticity, and text of the New Sappho Papyri" at New Orleans, January 2015. (Why do academics continue to use the obsolete term "provenance" when they mean "collecting history"?)

I have commented on the previously stated collecting history before. Now it appears that a new account has appeared "It was one of two pieces flat inside a sub-folder (folder 'E3') inside a main folder (labelled 'Papyri Fragments; Gk."), one of 59 packets of papyri fragments sold at auction at Christies in London in November 2011". Obbink thus places the new Sappho fragment in the David M. Robinson collection (and for the text of the discussion of the catalogue see discussion by Roberta Mazza here).

Lot 1 of Christies South Kensington sale on 28 November 2011 contained the following:

59 packets of papyri fragments, approximately 20 x 45mm to 300 x 100mm, the majority in Greek, from various manuscripts containing texts in a variety of hands and including documentary, petitionary and literary excerpts, receipts, contracts and accounts. A number of fragments belonged to the collection of David M. Robinson, a large part of which was subsequently bequeathed to the Library of the University of Mississippi. The collection is briefly described by William H. Willis in 'The New Collections of Papyri at the University of Mississippi', Proceedings of the IX International Congress of Papyrology, 1961, pp.381-82. Two of the packets were part of the collection of P. Deaton.

Not all --- only "a number" --- the fragments came from the Robinson collection. There is, as yet, no photographic evidence that this Sappho fragment was included in this lot.

But let us suppose the fragment was indeed in a 'sub-folder' that had passed through the Christie's sale. When was the fragment placed in the sub-folder? Who placed it there? Is there a catalogue entry, or even better a photograph, conclusively linking the fragment to the Robinson collection?

Is it possible that the Robinson connection has been constructed?

Obbink needs to demonstrate the authenticated and documented collecting history of the fragment as soon as possible.

And why was Bettany Hughes' account of the collecting history apparently so wrong? How can that be explained?

Obbink continues to raise more questions than to provide answers.