Sevso Treasure acquired by Hungary

A further seven pieces of the Sevso Treasure have been acquired by Hungary ("Hungary Buys 2nd Half of Roman-Era Silver Treasure", AP 12 July 2017). It is reported that 28 million euros were paid for the remaining pieces, making 43 million euros for the hoard.

This contextless hoard has been stripped of valuable information. We do not know for certain where it was found. And it is unlikely that the original finder will have received a significant sum of money.

Who are the beneficiaries of these sales?

Sevso Treasure and Hungary

It appears that the Hungarian Government has purchased 7 pieces of the Sevso Roman Treasure for 15 million euros. the details of the vendors have not been disclosed.

Can we be certain that the Sevso Treasu was found in Hungary? will other countries feel that they have an equal right to it? who are the beneficiaries of this transaction? 

Should this entire group be on public display as a group?

Readers of LM will know that I would want to emphasise the loss of knowledge. Where was the treasure found? What was the context? Were there any associated finds? what information has been lost?

Corrupting knowledge: inaccurate information

One issue surrounding recently-surfaced antiquities is that the objects may be supplied with misleading collecting-histories. Sellers may be keen for a potential buyer to think that a Greek pot has resided in a collection formed in the 1920s when in fact it was removed from an Etruscan grave in the 1980s. Another seller could suggest that a Roman silver cup was found in, say, Afghanistan as this would be more exotic than Turkey.

I have been considering this concept as part of the wider intellectual consequences of collecting. I explored the theme in my 2010 article for the Journal of Art Crime. I noted how two pieces that passed through Palladion Antike Kunst in Basel, Switzerland (and acquired by Boston's Museum of Fine Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum) were placed in "old collections": those of Karl Haug in Basel since 1936, and the late nineteenth century Rycroft collection. Such misleading information does not relate just to genuine objects: the Getty kouros, considered by some to be a modern forgery, was said to have formed part of the Jean Lauffenberger collection and could be traced back to a Greek dealer in 1930. The kouros was said to have been sold by Gianfranco Becchina, whose wife Rosie was the proprietor of Palladion Antike Kunst.

The Late Roman hoard known as the Sevso Treasure is linked in the broadest sense with several possible countries (including Hungary, Croatia and Lebanon). The Icklingham Bronzes were once said to have been removed from Britain in the 1940s and then formed part of a collection in Switzerland. The Morgantina Hoard was said to have passed through the hands of a Lebanese dealer and then through a Swiss collection in 1961. (The more recent removal of the hoard from its archaeological context seems to have been dated by a coin apparently dropped by one of the looters.) The marble statue of Sabina returned to Italy from Boston was reportedly from an old Bavarian aristocratic collection.

I have also noted that collecting histories can sometimes be placed back in the period before the 1970 UNESCO Convention. For example a series of Late Antique ('Byzantine') mosaics are reported (in recent years) to have passed through Lebanese dealers in Beirut in 1969. Is this a documented (and authenticated) part of the collecting histories? Or an Attic krater can be said to have resided in an undocumented (and unspecified) Swiss private collection for a number of years that would place it (conveniently) in the late 1960s. Another example could be a piece of sculpture that is said to have been in a Lebanese private collection in the 1950s when other evidence shows it was in another country decades later. Or did Apulian pots from an apparent single grave-group form part of a nineteenth-century collection in Switzerland?

Then there are cases where the collecting history supplied by a dealer can be disputed by other informed authorities thus creating two parallel histories? Was a bronze Apollo found in Greece or had it resided in an obscure East German collection?

These case studies show why museums need to be transparent over the collecting histories of objects in their care whether they are acquisitions or loans.

This issue matters. If misleading information accompanies the object, then not only has the original archaeological context been lost, but the piece may be used by modern scholars to construct a false view about the past.

The Sevso Treasure Revisited

Time Team covered the Sevso Treasure on (UK) Channel 4 on December 26, 2008 ("The mystery of the Roman treasure"). Channel 4's website has plenty of useful links including a quiz on "the illegal antiquities trade".

As Channel 4 recommends "Looting Matters" in its list of resources to "Find Out More" here are previous postings on the Sevso Treasure:

• The Sevso Treasure and "Unprovenanced Antiquities": A Response to John H. Merryman
• Sevso and Questions in Parliament
  

The Sevso Treasure and "Unprovenanced Antiquities": A Response to John H. Merryman

Ruth Leader-Newby made a wise observation about the Sevso Treasure:

The tragedy of the Sevso Treasure is that it is futile to attempt a guess at its provenance. ... it is interesting to note that the countries which rumour has associated with the Sevso Treasure, and which tried to claim possession of the hoard in the New York court case held to establish its ownership (Hungary, Croatia and Lebanon) have no record of similar material being found in their soil previously. In fact, any one of the Roman Empire's many provinces could have been the home of the treasure.

There are clear intellectual consequences that are linked to the hoard's loss of archaeological context. Where was it displayed?

John H. Merryman has now issued a working paper on the Treasure that addresses the issue of "unprovenanced antiquities". I prefer the term "recently surfaced", though "hoard without documented history" could be used. I suspect that there is somebody who does know the find-spot of the hoard. After all, few believe it has been sitting forgotten in somebody's attic.

Merryman reviews the quantitative research undertaken by Chippindale and Gill (though he is apparently unaware of Chippindale et al. 2001; and see also figures for Egyptian sales at auction in New York) and finds:

These data confirm that a large proportion of the antiquities traded on the international market are unaccompanied by reliable information about findspot, context and subsequent history. The data also provide inferential support for the claim that many of the objects lacking documentation may have been removed from the ground and/or smuggled abroad in violation of source nation laws and international conventions.

However since our study of private classical collections (Chippindale and Gill 2000) some of the items from the Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman (see Gill and Chippindale 2007a, uncited by Merryman), and the Shelby White and Leon Levy collections have been returned to Italy. Lack of documented history and find-spot had suggested that they had been removed from archaeological contexts in an illicit manner; and there must be a reason why these pieces have now gone "home". Merryman concludes:

There is little room for argument with any of this. The data appear to be unchallengeable, and the authors’ statement of material and intellectual consequences is persuasive.

He then turns to the issue of publishing recently surfaced antiquities and cites the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS) "Statement of Concern". But this is a problematic statement as I have demonstrated with the example of the inscribed ivory pomegranate. Let me repeat an earlier comment:

The pomegranate is a good reminder that forgers choose something that people want to be true, and will prove both intellectually stimulating and commercially rewarding.

Indeed last year's spat over University College London (UCL) and the incantation bowls was not entirely unrelated to the BAS statement. There are good intellectual reasons for making scholars think twice - I put it no more strongly than that - before publishing works of "ancient art" that are undocumented before 1970. (See also some of the issues surrounding the publication of an archaic bronze krater in a contemporary North American private collection.)

Merryman then moves to the role of the private collector in the formation of the North American museum collection (White 2005, uncited by Merryman). But the return to Italy of objects from these recently formed private collections either suggests a naivety concerning the origin of the pieces or a willingness to ignore the concerns of the archaeological community that sites were being destroyed to supply the market. (And the Medici Conspiracy, also missing from Merryman's bibliography, demonstrates this issue all too well; see Gill and Chippindale 2007b). The Nostoi exhibition in Rome includes material from four significant North American private collections.

Merryman then turns to "source nations". There are broader issues here. Is an antiquity that has been removed illicitly from its archaeological context somehow less "unprovenanced" because it forms part of a private collection in, say, Athens rather than Manhattan? He has strayed from the issue that is central to archaeologists, the destruction / protection of archaeological contexts, to the one beloved by collectors and museum curators, ownership.

But I find a mismatch in Merryman's approach. If he argues for our shared ("cosmopolitan"; see Appiah 2006 [also surprisingly missing from his bibliography]) culture, does it matter if North American institutions (such as the AIA) and legal courts are in the forefront of protecting world ("cosmopolitan") heritage? Can North American import restrictions help to reduce the destruction of archaeological sites on, say, Cyprus?

He poses the more difficult question about what should be done with the Sevso Treasure. The archaeological context for this find has, as far as we know, been lost for ever. Is the Treasure best displayed in some public collection? Where should that be? Should anyone benefit from the transaction? Should any profit be handed over to a cultural body for the benefit of world heritage? Is there a legal solution?

Merryman concludes with a reflection on the conflict between the two "sides" and a plea to find common ground. Yet there is an unresolved tension: museums and collectors want to acquire, and archaeologists wish to preserve and protect archaeological contexts as a finite resource.

So how do we move forwards?

• We need to explore the possibilities for short- and long-term loans of archaeological material from source countries to museums and institutions.
• We need to have more transparency over the acquisition of newly surfaced antiquities.
• We need to accept that looting has intellectual as well as material consequences.
• We need to acknowledge the ethical as well as the legal issues surrounding collecting.
  
• We need to find a workable solution for "unprovenanced antiquities" like the Sevso Treasure.
• We need to listen to both sides.
  

Bibliography
Appiah, K. A. 2006. Cosmopolitanism: ethics in a world of strangers. London: Allen Lane. [Worldcat]
Chippindale, C., and D. W. J. Gill. 2000. "Material consequences of contemporary classical collecting." American Journal of Archaeology 104: 463-511. [JSTOR]
Chippindale, C., D. W. J. Gill, E. Salter, and C. Hamilton. 2001. "Collecting the classical world: first steps in a quantitative history." International Journal of Cultural Property 10: 1-31. [IJCP]
Gill, D. W. J., and C. Chippindale. 2006. "From Boston to Rome: reflections on returning antiquities." International Journal of Cultural Property 13: 311-31. [IJCP]
Gill, D. W. J., and C. Chippindale. 2007a. "From Malibu to Rome: further developments on the return of antiquities." International Journal of Cultural Property 14: 205-40. [IJCP]
Gill, D. W. J., and C. Chippindale. 2007b. "The illicit antiquities scandal: what it has done to classical archaeology collections." American Journal of Archaeology 111: 571-74. [AJA]
Leader-Newby, Ruth E. 2004. Silver and society in late antiquity: functions and meanings of silver plate in the fourth to seventh centuries. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Merryman, John Henry, "Thinking about the Sevso Treasure" (March 12, 2008). Stanford Public Law Working Paper No. 1105584 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1105584
Watson, P., and C. Todeschini. 2006. The Medici conspiracy: the illicit journey of looted antiquities from Italy's tomb raiders to the world's great museums. New York: Public Affairs.
White, S. 2005. "Building American museums: the role of the private collector." In Who owns the past? Cultural policy, cultural property, and the law, edited by K. Fitz Gibbon, pp. 165-77. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press / American Council for Cultural Policy.

Sevso and Questions in Parliament

There has been growing political interest in the Sevso Treasure since its outing at Bonham's last year. This controversial hoard has drawn comment in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn received a written answer to his question about the Bonham's exhibition on 12 October 2006. Lord Davies of Oldham replied:

We are not aware of any proposal by a UK public museum or public institution to acquire or exhibit the Sevso silver. My department's document Combating Illicit Trade: Due Diligence Guidelines for Museums, Libraries and Archives on Collecting and Borrowing Cultural Material sets out guidance and is not legally binding on institutions. However, it is stated clearly under those guidelines that, if a public institution feels that there are any doubts about the legal or ethical status of an object, it should not proceed with an acquisition or loan of that object.

A further question was asked by Mark Fisher on 4 Dec 2006. The minister, David Lammy, replied:

We have had a number of contacts with representatives of the Ministry of Education and Culture in Hungary in relation to the Sevso treasure. Representatives of the Ministry wrote to my Department to set out the Republic of Hungary’s official position in relation to the Sevso silver in October 2005, and subsequently in October 2006 to reiterate their concerns in the light of the exhibition of the Sevso treasure at Bonhams. Officials in my Department have also met representatives of the Ministry of Education and Culture to discuss the Sevso treasure.

This was followed by an Early Day Motion (18 December 2006) on the Sevso Treasure which was put down by Tim Loughton (MP for E Worthing and Shoreham). This reads:

That this House views with concern the re-entry of the Sevso silver into the commercial domain; notes recent resolutions to this effect passed by the All-Party Group for Archaeology; in view of the outstanding importance of the silver and the desirability of it being available for research and public exhibition calls on the Trustee of the Marquess of Northampton 1987 Settlement and the government of the Republic of Hungary to refer all available evidence on the origin, provenance and recent movement of the silver to an independent expert evaluation charged with identifying on the balance of probabilities the country of origin of the silver and making recommendations; and further calls on the Trustee of the Marquess of Northampton 1987 Settlement, the government of the Republic of Hungary and the United Kingdom authorities to put a stop to any disposal of the silver (other than one occurring by consent of all parties) until the evaluation has occurred.

As this stands it has been supported by 51 MPs from across the political parties.