The Curator, the Fax and the Mummy Mask

I remain puzzled by the St Louis Art Museum. It seems that less than one year after acquiring the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mummy mask (the one with the name erased from the hand), a distinguished Egyptologist from a major international museum faxed a member of the curatorial team at SLAM drawing attention to the link with Saqqara.

It also seems that another museum-based Egyptologist encouraged the leadership team at SLAM to contact the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), in part because it was known that the archaeological store at Saqqara had been 'disturbed'.

The leadership team at SLAM will need to explain how they responded to this information. Or did they wait until Zahi Hawass contacted SLAM's director of February 14, 2006?

Ka Nefer Nefer Mask: some clarification

I am very grateful to officials at SLAM for clarifying some of the collecting history of the Ka Nefer Nefer mask. It has now been confirmed that a SLAM conservator was informed by a European Egyptologist in February 1999 that the mask was the one excavated at Saqqara by Goneim (and subsequently published by him). It is not clear if curators at SLAM contacted the SCA immediately or if they waited seven years until they received a letter from Zahi Hawass in February 2006.

The identification of Ka Nefer Nefer

I have already reflected on the significance of 1999 for the collecting history of the Ka Nefer Nefer mask acquired by the St Louis Art Museum.

It now appears that a member of the curatorial team at SLAM was informed about the Saqqara link by an Egyptologist at a major encyclopedic museum less than a year after its acquisition.

This is correspondence that has not been mentioned in the discussion of the mask up to this point.

During the subsequent few months Sidney Goldstein seems to have been made aware of Charly Mathez's claim to have seen the mask in Belgium, and in late September 1999 Goldstein wrote to him for clarification. (Up to now it has not been clear what prompted Goldstein to write his letter.)

Did Goldstein write again to Mohammed Saleh in Cairo seeking further advice? Which Egyptian officials were contacted by SLAM curators in 1999 to check out the Saqqara story?

What additional due diligence steps did SLAM undertake to explore the emerging collecting history for the mask?

Zakaria Goneim at Saqqara

Zahi Hawass discusses the excavations at Saqqara by Zakaria Goneim.

A Middle Kingdom Alabaster Duck - and a member of the IADAA

A Middle Kingdom alabaster duck has recently been handed over to Egyptian officials in New York (Bradley Hope, "Stolen Egyptian Artifact Handed Over to Consulate", The New York Sun, August 10, 2007).

Why the interest?
It turns out that the piece had been excavated "at the pyramid of Amenemhat III" [reigned 1831-1786 BCE] in 1979, and then stolen from the store at Saqqara where the finds were kept. It had surfaced at auction at Christie's in New York (but was withdrawn when concerns were raised).

Old news?
In one sense it is old news (see short statement from Zahi Hawass). This was one of two pieces to surface last year (Brian Handwerk, "Egypt's Antiquities Chief Combines Passion, Clout to Protect Artifacts", National Geographic News, October 24, 2006).

What about the second duck?
The second piece had bobbed up in the gallery of Rupert Wace Ancient Art (London).

Is this the object presented as one of the "Rare and ancient works of art dating from 4000 BC to the 10th century AD [that] will be displayed by the London dealer Rupert Wace at the Winter Antiques Show that takes place at the Seventh Regiment Armory, 67th Street and Park Avenue, New York, from Friday 20 to Sunday 29 January 2006" [Press Statement]? Among the "objets" is listed:

"A more unusual piece is an alabaster vessel carved in two separate halves in the form of a plucked duck that would originally have contained an actual duck as an offering. From a private collection in France, it dates from the Middle Kingdom, 2040-1648 BC."

A colour image is posted on the gallery's Public Relations website.

So what is this private collection in France?
It turns out, according to Hawass, to be PIASA in Paris.

What is PIASA?
"PIASA was founded by four auctioneers (Picard, Audap, Solanet, Velliet) with a common commitment to high ethical standards and the desire to pursue their development in the wake of the reform of the French auction market and its opening to international competition".

Praise to Wace and PIASA: the duck has been returned to Egypt (though the case is still "under investigation").

But how did a member of the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA) end up offering a stolen antiquity for sale?

"The members of the IADAA undertake not to purchase or sell objects until they have established to the best of their ability that such objects were not stolen from excavations. architectural monuments, public institutions or private property."

Would careful research have picked up the fact that the piece had been stolen from the excavation store?

What is "the best of their ability"?
Such an incident is likely to undermine confidence in the IADAA. Is adequate "research" being undertaken to stop stolen (let alone looted) antiquities being offered for sale by IADAA members?

And who is Rupert Wace?
Wace has "handled the private sales of antiquities from the British Rail Pension Fund and his clients include the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the National Museum of Wales, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, Staatliche Museum in Munich, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Cleveland Museum of Art. As well as being a member of IADAA, Rupert Wace is Chairman of the Antiquities Dealers Association in the UK which also rigorously upholds the ethics of dealing in ancient art." [Quoted from Press Release for Basel Ancient Art Fair, November 2007].

Wace was also a member of the Ministerial Advisory Panel on Illicit Antiquities, Department of Culture, Media and Sport, UK Government in 2000 [Report].

What sort of advice was being offered to the Panel? How does the IADAA define "upholding" ethical standards?

These Middle Kingdom ducks have raised a clutch of questions.