Looting Matters

Did the US Authorities handle the case of the mummy mask in the St Louis Art Museum in the most appropriate way? I am sure that readers of LM will have views on this.
but there is a more important issue. do we believe the collecting history, the so-called provenance, of the mask supplied by the vendor and presented by the museum? The answer has to be no. The documentation from Cairo seems to be clear that the mask was in Egypt at the time that it is claimed that it was also passing through the hands of dealers and private collectors in Europe.
And if the collecting history is flawed, how comfortable is the museum with the acquisition? Are the officers willing to say that they have full confidence in the collecting history? Or do they have reservations? and if they have reservations, will they consider taking the appropriate professional and ethical action by opening up positive negotiations with the Egyptian authorities?
does the SLAM mask remind us that some museum curators in North Ame…

It seems that the Museums Association has reviewed the decision of Northampton Museum and Art Gallery to sell its Egyptian statue to fund future developments. It looks as if the the MA do not consider that Northampton followed the due process to deaccession the statue as outlined in the MA code of ethics, This is probably the first step in the process for the Northampton museum service to lose its accreditation.
Local councillors and officers in Northampton will now have to explain why they took the course of action that they followed.

Ric St Hilaire has written about a new forfeiture of two items that seem to be identified from the Becchina archive. The two items are an Attic red-figured skyphos and an Apulian bell-krater, valued at $55,000. They are reported to have been consigned to Christie's in New York. It is reported that they were seized in 2011 from from Walter M. Banko Enterprises, Ltd. of Montreal.

It appears that the paperwork for the objects may have been fabricated as the skyphos passed through the hands of Becchina in 1982 even though there had been a link with Borowski. The krater appears to have been in Becchina's possession in 1992 even though the paperwork suggested an alternative collecting history.

St Hilaire notes the quoted collecting history for the krater that was later moved from France to Canada:
Documents recovered from the search of Becchina’s gallery and warehouse reveal the occurrence of the following events: in February of 1992, Becchina purchased the Krater, in fragments, fro…

I note that papyri are coming under the spotlight at SBL in San Diego this November. The session on 'Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World' includes a section on 'Issues of Provenance'. I have argued that the word provenance is now obsolete, and I would encourage participants to start thinking in terms of the collecting history of particular papyri and objects.
This session will consist of a panel of speakers addressing the ethical and scholarly issues concerning the presentation and publication of unprovenanced artifacts. The line-up appears to be:
Organized by Christine Thomas (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Daniel Schowalter (Carthage College). The speakers are: Timothy Potts (Getty Museum) Roberta Mazza (University of Manchester) Michael Peppard (Fordham University) Responses from: Douglas Boin (St. Louis University)David Trobisch (Green Collection)Cary Summers (Museum of the Bible). I presume that somebody will ask Michael Peppard about the docu…

Arts Council England (ACE) is due to make a decision today about Northampton Borough Council's decision to sell an Egyptian statue from the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery (see Gareth Harris, "Northampton awaits Arts Council's response after controversial sale", Art Newspaper 24 July 2014). The decision will be announced on 1 August.

If ACE removes accreditation from Northampton, it will mean that the borough will be unable to apply for funding for the proposed development of the museum.
Scott Furlong, the director of ACE’s Acquisitions Exports Loans Collections Unit, says: “Those who choose to approach the sale of collections cynically or with little regard for the sectoral standards or their long-term responsibilities will only further alienate both key funders and the public who put their trust in them to care for our shared inheritance.”

#Kent Police search for illegal metal detectorists who have targeted historic #Eynsford Castle @kentpoliceruralhttp://t.co/TQCGCp8v7V
— EH Heritage Crime (@EHHeritageCrime) July 9, 2014
The grounds of Eynsford Castle in Kent (not far from Lullingstone Roman Villa) have been pockmarked by what appear to be the telltale signs of metal-detecting. This is a protected site and there can be no excuse for this activity.

Such infringements bring us back to the core issues raised in the forum debate in the Papers of the Institute of Archaeology [link].

My review of the (slightly) revised edition of Pat Getz-Gentle's Personal Styles in Early Cycladic Sculpture. Wisconsin Studies in Classics (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2013) has now appeared on BMCR. I consider some of the intellectual issues surrounding this category of material and discuss some of the figures appearing on the market. I remake the case for using the term "Keros Haul" (rather than "hoard") for the fragmentary Cycladic figures.
It is unnecessary to revisit some of the concerns about reconstructing artistic personalities in the third millennium BC. The progression of style is unsupported by any evidence, and relies more on the art historian's perception of how the corpus should be ordered.