Iraq: "Chippindale's Law" and the Scale of Looting

Larry Rothfield has continued to post significant information through the day. In his latest posting, "Some Known Knowns and Known Unknowns about Extent of Site Looting", he discusses the work of Professor Elizabeth Stone in southern Iraq (published earlier this year).

I was very struck by this statement:

The [satellite] imagery she is working with reveals that the area destroyed by looters is roughly 50 times the size of the area dug by archaeologists, and this is only for southern Iraq.

Consider the numbers.

To put them into perspective, Gill and Chippindale suggested that some 85% of the archaeological record of the Early Bronze Age Cyclades had been destroyed through the search for marble Cycladic figures. And we thought that this was catastrophic.

But "Chippindale's Law" kicks in ...

If Stone is right, we may need to think in terms of 98% of the archaeological record of southern Iraq being lost for ever. Now this is a pessimistic figure (and I sincerely hope it is), and it does not take into account unknown and unexcavated (and unlooted) archaeological sites. But if we factor in future excavations in the same area, are we looking at 80% or 70% of the archaeological record being lost? This is a major cultural disaster.

And that is why the reporting by The Art Newspaper could be considered lacking in balance.

New Response to James Cuno

There is a new review of James Cuno's Who Owns Antiquity? by Peter Stone, professor of heritage studies at Newcastle University ("Clinging on to their marbles", THE July 3, 2008). Stone disagrees with Cuno over cultural objects relating to indigenous groups in the US, and addresses the issue over historic items such as the Rosetta stone ("What many, if not most, archaeologists would lament is the loss of additional information that may well have been provided had the stone been excavated carefully from its archaeological context.").

Stone agrees with Cuno over the distribution of objects around the world "to better ensure their preservation, broaden our knowledge of them, and increase the world's access to them" (Cuno). But Stone asks how this distribution is to be made.

He then alludes to what I presume is the example of the Harvard acquisition of pottery fragments. (I presume Stone means 1995 when he gives the date of 1998.) Stone continues:

That a museum director could have been oblivious to the issue [sc. the 1970 Unesco Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property] in 1998 [sic.?] is staggering, almost unbelievable.

Stone presents a solution to the lack of progress:

Yes, let's have museums around the world with examples of material from around the world, but let's achieve it through dialogue and agreement and not through the continuation of a system that is so obviously flawed.

The returns to Italy and the need for the AAMD to produce new guidelines on acquisitions and short-term loans have confirmed the faults in the present system.

Stone ends with some strong words about Cuno's approach. Directors of encyclopaedic art museums "are badly served by this book that entrenches their position". But the punch is in the closing paragraph:

I assume that many will hope and some I know will pray that this book represents the last death throes of a failed traditional world-view: the dominance of the many by the (very) few; the dominance of a Western scientific tradition over all others; the dominance of a closed view clinging, perhaps subconsciously, to what can only be described as colonial oppression. Perhaps if a dinosaur could have written a book arguing against its extinction, it would have read like this.

Cuno appears to be failing in his bid to win over his critics.

Looting in Southern Iraq

Safecorner has posted a video of the slides from a lecture (April 2008), "Protection and Documentation: The Archaeological Sites in Southern Iraq", by Dr Abdulamir Hamdani, Director of Antiquities, Nasiriya Province, Southern Iraq. This puts a different perspective on the situation as presented by The Art Newspaper earlier this week.

Iraqi Cultural Heritage: "to protect and preserve"

The invasion of Iraq has had its consequences: humanitarian, social, political, and economic. (A flavour of the situation can be gained from the excellent Revolution Day: the Human Story of the Battle for Iraq [2004] by the former BBC correspondent Rageh Omaar.)

Looting Matters has tried to confine itself to issues of cultural property and archaeological ethics. Over Iraq I would endorse the British Museum's official statement (read again today), that there is,

a pressing need for action to protect and preserve the Iraqi cultural heritage.

The statement continues:

The problem is multi-faceted. It is not just about the looting of the major museums, particularly Baghdad and Mosul, but the destruction of libraries and archives, the damage to historic buildings, the extensive looting of archaeological sites, the illicit trade in antiquities, and now the undermining of the higher education system.

A recent report in The Art Newspaper has stirred up a hornets' nest. It is has been pointed out that the 8 sites discussed in AN are not representative of the whole of southern Iraq let alone the whole country. Larry Rothfield has now expanded ("Sites in Iraq Not Looted? Get Real!") on his earlier comments ("No Recent Looting on 8 Sites in southern Iraq: What does it show us? Not what the Art Newspaper thinks it does") about the evidence for looting in Iraq.

If we care about our universal cultural heritage ("cosmopolitanism" so beloved by some cultural property commentators) then it is worth giving some time to reflect on the state of damage to archaeological sites in Iraq. Culture matters.

Image © David Gill.

Looting in Britain

A railway guard from Kent has been a three-year conditional discharge for looting at some 20 known archaeological sites in England ("Guard Raids Roman Sites", The Gloucestershire Echo, June 28, 2008; see also "Man Accused of Illegal Digs at Historic sites", The Guardian June 11, 2008). These included:

• Richborough, Kent
• Reculver, Kent
• Chilham, Kent
• Chanctonbury, West Sussex
• Spoonley Wood, Gloucestershire (where he removed part of a mosaic)

Sadly it is a good reminder that the destruction of archaeological sites is taking place close to home.

Looting in Iraq: Getting the Facts Straight

Yesterday Martin Bailey reported in the The Art Newspaper, "Archaeological sites in south Iraq have not been looted, say experts" (July 1, 2008).

An international team of archaeologists which made an unpublicised visit to southern Iraq last month found no evidence of recent looting—contrary to long-expressed claims about sustained illegal digging at major sites.

Larry Rothfield has now responded on Safe Corner ("No Recent Looting on 8 Sites in Southern Iraq: What does it show us? Not what the Art Newspaper thinks it does"; [mirror]). He points out that the archaeological team visited 8 out of some 10,000 registered sites (and there will be other unknown sites). Rothfield also includes comments from Donny George about why these 8 sites had not shown signs of looting.

These 8 locations do not form a representative selection of archaeological sites in Iraq.

Professor Elizabeth Stone, who was part of the visiting team, has been using satellite imaging to study the impact of looting elsewhere in Iraq. The findings were published in Antiquity earlier this year (Professor Elizabeth C. Stone, "Patterns of looting in southern Iraq", Antiquity, Vol. 82, No. 315, 2008, 125–38).

Rothfield rightly urges caution when it comes to announcing that the looting of archaeological sites is fiction. This has not stopped some cultural property observers starting to talk about "misinformation" that has been used to enforce restrictions on the import of antiquities. Indeed they overlooked the quote from Dr John Curtis of the British Museum:

It may not be typical of the country as a whole, and the situation could well be worse further north. [Emphasis mine]

Perhaps Martin Bailey and The Art Newspaper need to adopt a more responsible approach to reporting antiquities. A follow-up article is needed.

The Intellectual Consequences of Collecting Coptic Art

The Art Newspaper (July 1, 2008) has carried a story by Martin Bailey that "A third of the Coptic sculptures at the Brooklyn Museum of Art are modern fakes". The identifications had been made by Dr Gary Vikan, director of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

And the problem does not stop at Brooklyn:

Brooklyn curator Dr Edna Russmann, who is concluding a study of the works, warns that other museums which acquired Coptic sculptures in the past 50 years are likely to face similar problems.

Apparently the pieces were acquired in the 1960s and 1970s due to desire by museums to augment their collections.

The fakes were mainly bought in the 1960s and 70s, and can be traced back to major antiquities dealers in New York and in Switzerland, to where they were shipped from Egypt. Dr Russmann believes that the dismissal of these works will encourage scholars to “re-evaluate Coptic art”.

What is striking about the fakes is that they place a greater emphasis on Christian iconography than the authentic works. This reflects market demand for such imagery in Europe and North America.

The report stresses the importance of archaeological context for finds, a point that has been made repeatedly in work presented by Gill and Chippindale.

How do we know if it is genuine? Frequently because of its find-spot. The report notes:

The number of surviving authentic sculptures is probably around 1,000. Examples from early excavations (such as those at the British Museum and New York’s Metropolitan Museum, which has the largest US collection) are authentic. Later finds need to be treated with caution.

Vikan identifies the production centre for these modern creations as well as other museums affected by his findings.

Dr Vikan explained that the fakes appeared to have originated from the village of Sheikh ‘Ibada (ancient Antinoöpolis), south of Cairo. He believes that “hundreds” were later acquired by museums in North America (including Princeton University Art Museum and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC) and Europe, particularly in Germany (including Berlin State Museums and the Icon Museum in Recklinghausen).

The Art Newspaper makes the point, "The acceptance of fakes has distorted our concept of Coptic art." This is exactly the issue that Gill and Chippindale have emphasised over the years. Collecting recently-surfaced antiquities (ancient or of modern creation) has intellectual consequences for the study of the ancient world.