Looting Matters

I would like to offer my personal congratulations to Professor Graeme Barker, former Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge University, for his nomination as CBE in the New Year's Honours List. Graeme was Director of the British School at Rome when I was Rome Scholar working on Greek pottery in Italian contexts.

.@DHSgov returns to Turkey dozens of artifacts intercepted at Newark International Airport https://t.co/tBIaUDuy3S
— Heritage at State (@HeritageAtState) December 30, 2014
The US Government has returned a number of antiquities to Turkey that had been intercepted at Newark International Airport ("Priceless 6th Century B.C. historical artifacts returned to Turkish government", 10 December 2014, ICE press release).
The artifacts were intercepted at Newark International Airport by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in February 2013 and HSI Newark returned the items Tuesday subsequent to an investigation that determined the artifacts were illegally smuggled out of Turkey using false documentation destined for an individual in Illinois. The return included 15 ancient coins.

Who is the private individual in Illinois? Are they a dealer? Or a collector? Or a dealer-collector? Will this person be named?

And how does a paid Washington lobbyist explain this seizure?

For earlier c…

In January this year I made some predictions. The first was that there would be continued sightings of objects handled by Medici and Becchina on the antiquities market. And there have been, including Bonhams in London (and again in October), Christies in London, Christie's in New York (and see here), and an Egyptian statue at Sothebys New York.

Interestingly the Italians were threatening to take legal action over the Symes material. But this did not seem to materialise.

I had suggested that there needed to be more rigorous due diligence checks prior to sales: clearly this continues to be a weakness. So I addressed it in my column, "Context Matters", in the Fall number of the Journal of Art Crime (2014).

I have not discussed objects identified from the Medici Dossier now in one major North American museum during 2014. However it is likely that the collector and museum will be named in 2015. However Christos Tsirogannis discussed the collecting history of a Paestan krater …

The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) "allows finds discovered by members of the public to be recorded for the benefit of researchers and the public alike" (Michael Lewis, press release). And I noticed that The Times on Saturday (Mark Bridge, "For history and riches go treasure-seeking", 27 December 2014) was discussing how PAS had reported its millionth find. Yet we also know that the PAS database includes material from "Controlled archaeological excavation". So a major Roman coin hoard excavated by archaeologists in Bath appears in the database.

One of the things that was discussed by Gill and Chippindale is the difference between objects with a secure archaeological context (a1), and those with a reported or alleged find-spot. To what extent is the PAS database falling into the 'a2' (or a3 / a4) categories? How far can we trust reported find-spots? ['a' stands for archaeology. And this is another reason why I am trying to discourage the…

I would like to wish all readers of LM a very happy and peaceful Christmas.

My article on the acquisition of the Ka Nefer Nefer mummy mask by the St Louis Art Museum has been published in The Journal of Art Crime ("The case of the Ka Nefer Nefer mummy mask", vol. 12, 13-25). It discusses previously undisclosed information about when the curatorial team at SLAM became aware of aspects of the collecting history. In particular, there is discussion of the exchanges in 1999 that brought about "new" information about when the mask had first been sighted.

The article is likely to raise issues about the apparent lack of rigour in the due diligence process adopted by SLAM during the acquisition, and the unwillingness to discuss the collecting history with Egyptian authorities when concerns were first raised with SLAM (including with the Director).

I close with this question:
Will professional responsibilities bring the SLAM team to reopen discussions with the Egyptian authorities to ensure the mask's return to Egypt?

The two big sales of antiquities at Christie's and Sotheby's have taken place in New York this week. It is time to review the year.

First it is clear that there has been a steady decrease each year from 2010 ($133.8 million) to the present $26.8 million. And that is nearly a $6 million drop since 2013.

Sotheby's has yielded more than Christie's for the third year in a row. This year's difference was more than $2.5 million. (Last year was $7.5 million, so the gap is narrowing.)

Both auction houses have had to address issues relating to the so-called "toxic antiquities" that their due diligence processes appear to have failed to spot.