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.

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.

Zakaria Goneim at Saqqara

Zahi Hawass discusses the excavations at Saqqara by Zakaria Goneim.

Egypt: Ministry of State for Antiquities

It appears that Egypt's Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) is now leaderless after the appointment was cancelled (following the removal of Zahi Hawass). See "PM Sharaf cancels El-Banna's nomination for antiquities", ahramonline July 18, 2011.

Prime minister Essam Sharaf has cancelled the nomination of the Abdel Fatah El-Banna to hold Egypt’s antiquities portfolio. The decision was taken following the demonstrations of archaeologists and the employees of the Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) at the front gate of the cabinet building calling for the cancellation of El-Banna’s nomination to the ministry's top post.

North American Charges: The Network

© ICE

Yesterday's news about the charges brought against dealers and a collector of Egyptian antiquities in North America appears to be part of a much wider picture. Zahi Hawass has now written about the story.

In 2009, U.S. customs authorities seized a shipment of antiquities on their way to a gallery in New York City. This shipment included an ancient Egyptian coffin, which the Ministry of State for Antiquities (then the Supreme Council of Antiquities) was able to help authenticate. By investigating this and other suspicious shipments, Homeland Security investigators were able to reveal a network of smugglers and collectors that reached to Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Iraq, and other countries.

It will be interesting to learn about the UK connection. Who is involved?

It also looks as if this could be part of a larger criminal network:

According to evidence gathered by the investigators, the suspects had been using their New York gallery to import and sell stolen artifacts, allowing them to funnel large sums of money to other criminals in many parts of the world.

I suspect more information will be released when the legal wheels start to turn.

Egypt: MOU under consideration

Dr Zahi Hawass reports that one option to restrain the movement of recently surfaced Egyptian antiquities onto the market could be a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the US ("The International Coalition to Support Protection of Egyptian Antiquities").  One of the projects under immediate consideration is the monitoring of Egyptian archaeological sites by satellite technology.

Such a development is likely to unsettle those selling Egyptian antiquities. These objects form a significant section of the New York auction market and few have collecting histories that can be traced back to the period before the 1970 UNESCO Convention. Clearly there is a need for those involved with the market to  demonstrate the past history of these items especially as it is now clear that collecting histories can be fabricated by some sectors of the commercial community.

The Zahi Look

One of feeds delivered to my reader is from the ever entertaining (and informative) Archaeopop written by Daniel Shoup of the University of Bologna. The latest entry is on the Zahi Hawass range of clothing.

I am sure LM readers will be interested.

Hawass appointed minister

It appears that Zahi Hawass has been appointed Minister of Antiquities ("Egypt antiquities chief becomes minister", AFP March 30, 2010).

Kate Taylor has also commented on the story ("Egyptian Antiquities Minister Returns Less Than a Month After Quitting", New York Times March 30, 2010).

His departure had left a power vacuum at the antiquities ministry, according to Christian Manhart, the chief of the museums and cultural objects section of Unesco, who led a delegation to Egypt last week. Mr. Manhart said he was not surprised that Mr. Hawass had been reinstated, only that it had happened so quickly.

Mr. Hawass, who has never been accused of being humble, said on Wednesday that he did not ask to come back, but that there was no one else who could do the job. “I cannot live without antiquities, and antiquities cannot live without me,” he said.

Top of the agenda will be the recovery of the outstanding looted items from the Cairo Museum and other archaeological stores in Egypt. However attention is likely to turn to negotiations for the return of Saqqara material from a Barcelona galerista, and the mummy mask from the St Louis Art Museum (SLAM).

Egyptian antiquities: "a smoke screen"?

Vernon Silver has published a reflective piece on the recent looting of antiquities and the debate about cultural property ("Looting in Egypt Arms Critics of Sending Antiquities Back Home", Bloomberg.com March 9, 2011). Has the looting of the Cairo Museum during the recent political upheavals changed the nature of the debate?

Silver has interviewed William Pearlstein who is seen as opposing claims by Egypt: "My clients will have an easier time against retention laws”. Silver also quotes Ursula Kampmann, the press officer for the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA): “The incidents during the Egyptian revolution could be taken as basis for a change of discussion ... It comes to the question, what is the best way to protect our world’s cultural heritage?”

Hawass also makes the point:

“Arguments against repatriation because of the current situation in Egypt are completely wrong ... If the police left the streets of New York City, London, or Tokyo, the criminals of those cities would smash the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, or any other museums in those cities.”

Thomas Campbell, director of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, has wisely stated that the museum will return the objects relating to Tutankhamun once the political situation has stablised.

I was interviewed for the piece. Instead of rejecting claims on cultural property, museums and those involved in the antiquities market need to be conducting more thorough due diligence checks. Will members of the IADAA ensure that they have full collecting histories of all Egyptian material that they handle? Will the Barcelona Galerista return the material from Saqqara? Will the St Louis Art Museum (SLAM) produce the full authenticated documention relating to the mummy mask that it acquired?

Why does this matter? If we believe in Cosmopolitanism, like Kwame Anthony Appiah and James Cuno, these objects belong to world culture. They are our shared heritage.

Zahi Hawass Resigns: Statement

Zahi Hawass has made a full statement about his resignation. He specifically states why he has chosen this moment to resign:

I am leaving because of a variety of important reasons. The first reason is that, during the Revolution of January 25th, the Egyptian Army protected our heritage sites and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. However, in the last 10 days the army has left these posts because it has other tasks to do. The group now in charge of the protection of these sites is the Tourist Police, but there are no Tourist Police to do this either. Therefore, what happens? Egyptian criminals, thieves (you know, in every revolution bad people always appear…), have begun to destroy tombs. They damaged the tomb of Hetep-ka at Saqqara, the tomb of Petah-Shepses at Abu Sir and the tomb of a person called Em-pi at Giza. They attacked a storage magazine at Saqqara and we do not yet know how many artifacts are missing; they opened two storage magazines at Giza; one tomb dated to the 19th Dynasty, the only one in the Delta in fact, was damaged at Ismaïlia; and a store at El-Qantara East has been broken into and looted for antiquities. People have begun to build houses and to excavate at night, everywhere, putting heritage sites all over the country at risk. I had to write a report and I sent it to the Director of UNESCO. That is why at the meeting of the Egyptian cabinet yesterday I had my speech prepared already and I said: “I cannot stay in Egypt and see antiquities being stolen when I cannot do anything to stop it!” This situation is not for me! I have always fought to return stolen artifacts to Egypt. I did fight Ahmed Ezz as well, the man in the Parliament, who was the most powerful man, because he wanted to allow antiquities to be sold in Egypt again.

It is now clear that Hawass has acknowledged that damage has been sustained to a number of sites and storage locations.

At the same time Hawass' resignation should not be seen as an excuse for museums and collectors to retain recently-surfaced antiquities listed by the (former) SCA.

Has Hawass resigned?

Lee Rosenbaum on Culturegrrl has presented evidence that Zahi Hawass may not have resigned.

Zahi Hawass Resigns

My Twitter feed first brought me indications that Zahi Hawass had resigned ... and then there was Kate Taylor's piece for the New York Times ("Egyptian Antiquities Chief Resigns", March 3, 2011).

Reached by telephone, Mr. Hawass said he was happy that he had made the “right decision” in resigning and lashed out at colleagues who have criticized him, including one who has accused him of smuggling antiquities.

Lee Rosenbaum has a good overview of the resignation ("End of an Egyptology Era: Zahi Hawass Resigns", CultureGrrl March 3, 2011). This came in the wake of Hawass listing of what appears to have been stolen from archaeological stores and sites during the recent unrest ("The status of Egyptian antiquities today, 3 March, 2011").

Looting in the Cairo Museum: Update

It appears that two of the items reported as stolen have now been found at the Cairo Museum (report from CNN).

Searchers found a heart scarab and one of 11 missing Shabti statuettes that had been reported missing Sunday, according to a statement from Zahi Hawass, Egypt's minister of antiquities.

He said it appeared thieves threw the scarab outside the museum. The statuette and part of a mummy were found on the ground outside of the museum's display areas, Hawass said.

 See also a report in Greek.

Zahi Hawass: update on situation in Egypt

Zahi Hawass has issued an update on the situation in Egypt ("The State of Egyptian Antiquities - 4 February 2011", February 4, 2011). He has clarified the situation at Saqqara:

Many people have been saying that Saqqara was looted and it is not true. If anything had happened there, the operation room in Zamalek would have called me immediately and reported what happened. I hope that you will all read each of the statements I have released on my website that say all our sites are safe. The army, curators, antiquities inspectors, and security guards guarded the important sites. As I have said everyday, the only two incidents that have occurred are the break-in at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, and the break-in at the storage magazine in Qantara East, in the Sinai.

Zahi Hawass: Comments from New York

Lee Rosenbaum has an important piece on Zahi Hawass ("Egyptian Turmoil: Will Hawass Survive a Regime Change?", Culturegrrl February 3, 2011). She points to Samantha Henig's piece on the New Yorker blog ("Protecting Egypt's Treasures", February 3, 2011).

It is significant that the cited information site is now Restore + Save the Egyptian Museum! on Facebook.

Looting at Saqqara

Zahi Hawass has commented on the situation in Saqqara:

The sites of Giza and Saqqara are also safe. Outlaws only broke the padlocks that secure the tombs of Saqqara, and when we went inside to check them we were happy to see that no damage had been done. The most serious offence that occurred was the looting of the storage magazine in Qantara, in the Sinai. On Friday night a group armed with guns entered the magazine and stole some antiquities that were stored in boxes. Yesterday, 288 of these objects were returned. We do not know the full extent of the damage done to this magazine, but we will soon.

The Met to return objects from Tomb of Tutankhamun

It has been announced today that New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art will be returning objects that had been found in the tomb of Tutankhamun ("Metropolitan Museum and Egyptian Government Announce Initiative to Recognize Egypt's Title to 19 Objects Originally from Tutankhamun's Tomb", press release, November 10, 2010). Tom Campbell, the Director of the Museum is quoted:

Research conducted by the Museum's Department of Egyptian Art has produced detailed evidence leading us to conclude without doubt that 19 objects, which entered the Met's collection over the period of the 1920s to 1940s, originated in Tutankhamun's tomb. Because of precise legislation relating to that excavation, these objects were never meant to have left Egypt, and therefore should rightfully belong to the Government of Egypt. I am therefore pleased to announce—in concert with our long-time colleague Zahi Hawass, who has contributed so greatly over many years to the recognition and preservation of the historic treasures of Egypt—this formal acknowledgment that title to the objects belongs to Egypt.

The press statement also quotes Zahi Hawass:

This is a wonderful gesture on the part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art ... For many years the museum, and especially the Egyptian art department, has been a strong partner in our ongoing efforts to repatriate illegally exported antiquities. Through their research, they have provided us with information that has helped us to recover a number of important objects, and last year, they even purchased and then gave to Egypt a granite fragment that joins with a shrine on display in Luxor, so that this object could be restored. Thanks to the generosity and ethical behavior of the Met, these 19 objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun can now be reunited with the other treasures of the boy king.

See also:

• "New York museum to return King Tut artefacts to Egypt", BBC News November 10, 2010
• "19 objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun returning to Egypt!", Zahi Hawass, November 10, 2010

For recent returns from New York:

• Naos fragment returned

Egyptian sarcophagi returning to Egypt

There are several reports that several Egyptian sarcophagi will be returning to Egypt from collections in the United States (e.g. "US to return smuggled sarcophagi to Egypt", Daily News Egypt October 14, 2010). The items were removed from Egypt 50 years ago (thus around 1960, long before the 1970 UNESCO Convention) and they have been recovered in North America.

Miami Law: Missing the Ethical Point?

Derek Fincham has drawn attention to a draft paper by Stephen K. Urice (University of Miami, School of Law) with Andrew Adler (University of Miami), "Unveiling the Executive Branch's Extralegal Cultural Property Policy", University of Miami Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2010-20 [SSRN].

There is a section on the Third Intermediate Period Egyptian coffin of Imesy seized in October 2008 as it arrived in Miami from Ireland (pp. 10-13). This has been discussed elsewhere: "Looting Matters: Why Has a Coffin Been Returned to Egypt?", PR Newswire March 19, 2010. According to the Spanish press, the coffin was acquired in the 1970s. It had been shipped by a Barcelona galerista, Félix Cervera, of "Arqueología Clásica"; the gallery at the time of seizure was a probationary member of the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA). This same gallery (and its galerista) has been linked to "Operation Ghelas" [story archived here]. One wonders why the Egyptian coffin was imported with agricultural products if all the "paperwork" was in order. The coffin was handed over to Egypt in March 2010 and then returned to Egypt.

Urice and Adler do add one interesting detail. Previously the final part of the coffin's history was recorded as follows:

The item had been sent to an unnamed US dealer; it was claimed that it had already been sold to an anonymous Canadian collector.

However we are now told (on the basis of the verified complaint):

In September 2008, Joseph A. Lewis III imported an Egyptian sarcophagus constructed between 1070 and 946 B.C. into the United States from Barcelona, Spain. Lewis purchased the sarcophagus from Felix Cervera Correa, the owner of a Spanish gallery.

I presume that this Joseph A. Lewis III is the same as the Joseph A. Lewis III (and Sofi Lewis) who loaned "an Egyptian falcon mummy dating from 664-332 B.C." to the Clay Center exhibition "Lost Kingdoms of the Nile" ("Falcon mummy joins Clay Center exhibit", Charleston Daily Mail (West Virginia) November 12, 2009 [see also here]). The Lewis collection appears to have other items and it would be interesting for their full collecting histories to be disclosed.

The comments of a Sofi left on the blog post of a Washington lobbyist are cited (p. 12, n. 88):

“I have not seen a single article on this coffin with the correct facts so far. . . . Hawass’ only claim to this item . . . was the lack of an export permit from Egypt[;] in fact he stated that the Egyptian government had no idea whatsoever when this coffin left Egypt as they had no record of this item—period.”

Who is this Sofi? How does Sofi expect the Egyptian authorities to know about looting in Third Intermediate Period tombs? How does Sofi expect the Egyptian authorities to have documentary and photographic records of objects last seen when they were placed in a tomb during the Third Intermediate Period? Why was the Barcelona galerista unable to supply the correct papers when the coffin was seized?

Urice and Adler note that a certificate for the coffin had been obtained from the Art Loss Register. Such certificates are relatively meaningless when it comes to antiquities and this aspect need not detain us.

The authors of the paper at least concede:

none of this means that Dr. Hawass was incorrect to assert that the sarcophagus was “likely the product of an illegal excavation.” Indeed, there is admittedly a “great difficulty . . . in establishing the date of export where the parties evading export controls have every incentive to conceal such evidence.”

Perhaps what this paper reminds us is that private collectors in North America continue to be willing to acquire recently-surfaced antiquities without considering the ethical dimension of their purchases.


Image
© ICE

Hawass calls on St Louis Art Museum to return mummy mask

Zahi Hawass has called on the St Louis Art Museum (SLAM) to return the mummy mask that appears to have been removed from one of the archaeological stores at Saqqara (Ula Ilnytzky, "Egyptian official chides museums over antiquities", AP April 22, 2010).

Last week, he said, he turned over to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security "all the evidence that I have to prove that this mask was stolen, and we have to bring it back."

On Wednesday, St. Louis Art Museum spokeswoman Jennifer Stoffel, said the institution "had correspondence with Hawass in 2006 and 2007 and has not heard anything on the matter since."

At the time, she said the museum shared information with Hawass on the mask's provenance and said "we would do the right thing ... if there was something that refuted the legitimacy of the provenance."

The St. Louis museum has said it bought the mask from an art dealer in the United States in 1998 after checking with authorities and with the international Art Loss Register. It said it also approved the purchase with the Egyptian Museum.

Earlier calls for its return as well as the different versions of its collecting history can be found here.