Like many poorer countries, Belize has suffered from removal of its cultural heritage in the past by richer nations. The looting of artefacts to be sold on the black market is still a problem today & a new database created by The International Council of Museums aims to try to create an awareness of this.

From:
7 News Belize

Looted Archaeological Treasures on Red List
posted (June 10, 2010)

We all know about the Jade Head, or the Buena Vista Vase, or the Crystal skull…these are well known treasures of antiquity. But what about all the mayan treasures that have been looted by temple raiders or the state sanctioned plunder that happened in the colonial era? Those are gone forever – there’s no inventory of all the treasured antiquities lying undiscovered at sites across Belize and now way of knowing what all was looted.

It is a problem throughout Latin America where looting of mayan sites is widespread. However it’s become a problem for developed countries as well where the trafficking in cultural objects has become widespread.
Read the rest of this entry »

Further coverage of India’s new attempts to secure the return of numerous artefacts held in institutions outside the country.

From:
Thaindian News

India to join global campaign to retrieve captured heritage treasures
June 1st, 2010 – 1:16 pm ICT by ANI -

London/New Delhi, June 1 (ANI): Indian authorities have announced they will try to recover and retrieve thousands of allegedly looted objects held in Western museums.

The head of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Dr. Gautam Sengupta, told The Independent that the list of his country’s treasures held abroad was “too long to handle” and there was a need for a “diplomatic and legal campaign” for their restitution from institutions including the British Museum, the Royal Collection and the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
Read the rest of this entry »

Egypt’s Zahi Hawass has already secured the return of over 30,000 looted artefacts in recent years – he is still aiming higher though at some of the most well known items that hold an iconic status internationally & for him, define Egypt’s identity.

From:
Free Internet Press

Zahi Hawass – Egypt’s Avenger Of The Pharaohs
2010-05-28 15:20:10
Posted By: Intellpuke

Egypt, plagued by tomb raiders and art dealers, has lost large portions of its pharaonic heritage to Europe and the United States. The head of the country’s Supreme Council of Antiquities is waging a bitter moral campaign against the West, and he is now demanding the return of six of the most beautiful masterpieces.

It is 5 a.m. and Zahi Hawass is sitting in his SUV, freshly showered, about to drive out to the Bahariya Oasis for a press appearance. The streets are still empty as Cairo shimmers in the rose-colored morning sun. Hawass must hurry to avoid the morning traffic.
Read the rest of this entry »

Illegal excavation & sale of archaeological artefacts remains a problem today, just as much as it was hundreds of years ago. Two statues are on display in Athens, having been recovered from an illegal excavation in Greece.

From:
Balkan Travellers

25 May 2010
Recovered statues on display in Athens

Two marble statues of male youths, dated between 550 and 520 BC, were displayed at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens last week, following their recovery by the police from farmers who were allegedly planning to sell them abroad.

The statues, Culture and Tourism Minister Pavlos Geroulanos and Greek police Chief Eleftherios Economou told media, were recovered during a sting operation near Corinth on May 14, when two men were arrested as they were loading the figures into a truck.
Read the rest of this entry »

Much of Italy’s recent success in restitution claims against institutions in the USA stems from the raids on the Geneva warehouse of Giacomo Medici. It now seems that other artefacts seen in photographs seized in the raids are now coming up for auction.

From:
New York Observer

Digging Up the Past
By Michael H. Miller
May 25, 2010 | 3:17 p.m

In June 1964, a group of fishermen off the northern Adriatic coast pulled a dull gray mass, shaped like a man, covered in barnacles, out of the water. It was the statue now known as Victorious Youth, believed to be the work of Lysippus-Alexander the Great’s personal sculptor. The fishermen took the statue ashore and sold it, cheap. It changed hands many times after that, quietly, until 1977, when the J. Paul Getty Trust purchased it for a then-record sum of $4 million from a Munich art dealer. In February 2010, Italy won a lawsuit in Italian court against the Los Angeles museum, demanding the statue’s return. The Getty, appealing, has yet to comply, arguing it was a Greek statue found in international waters.
Victorious Youth is far from the only masterpiece in limbo-or in court. As million-dollar antiquities auctions (and a controversy surrounding them) kick off in in New York the week of June 6, never has the tension between collector, dealer and so-called “source” nation been higher. Late last week, Germany’s Foreign Minister formally spurned Egypt’s request for the return of the 3,000-year-old Bust of Nefertiti that sits in a Berlin Museum; three months ago Egypt hosted an international conference demanding the return of the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum, which has had it for 200 years. There are ongoing legal battles and new, or louder, claims from Turkey, China and Greece for the return of items. But Italy has been the most aggressive, successfully demanding the return of objects from both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Getty. (The Getty has returned 39 disputed objects to Italy since 2006, and isn’t finished, according to the museum’s general counsel, Stephen Clark.) Such disputes have pulled in collectors and chilled the climate for buying certain works, regardless of quality, dealers and auctioneers report. Now, three pricey ancient Greek items up for sale at Christie’s next month threaten to become a part of the messy, murky issues clouding the market.
Read the rest of this entry »

In many ways, the actions of people like Lord Elgin were a product of their time – it is assumed that what was tolerated then would not still be seen as acceptable today. The term Elginisme was used by the French to describe the practice of stealing antique fittings from old houses & in this sense it appears that for the super rich, this practice continues in the same way it always has done.

After the end of the original article, is a response by SAFE.

From:
New York Times

Trophy Hunters With Their Eye on Interiors
By JOYCE WADLER
Published: June 16, 2010

BRAGGING rights for homeowners are fleeting, hard to hold as a fistful of fog. You think your home is special because your backsplash is covered in tile imported from Mexico? There are those who think nothing of dispatching their architects and builders to the ends of the earth to personally scope out far more exotic goods — to the Middle East for the perfect limestone, even as bombs are going off, or to Indonesia for centuries-old reclaimed teak.

For the ultra-high-end contractor, it’s just part of a day’s work.

Consider John Finton, a Los Angeles contractor who is known (at least to his press agent) as “a modern day Indiana Jones.”
Read the rest of this entry »

At the conclusion of the conference in Egypt on the restitution of looted artefacts, Zahi Hawass re-iterated a point that he has made in the past, that Museums that he has the power to make life very difficult for institutions that refuse to co-operate to try & resolve cases involving disputed artefacts.

From:
Bloomberg News

Egypt’s Hawass Sees ‘Miserable Life’ for Museums With Relics
By Daniel Williams

April 8 (Bloomberg) — Egypt’s chief antiquities administrator wrapped up a two-day conference among countries that want valuable relics held abroad returned by threatening to make “life miserable” for museums that keep them.

“We will decide together what to do,” said Zahi Hawass, who heads the Supreme Council of Antiquities, at the end of the Cairo conference that attracted 16 delegates and nine observers from abroad. “We will make life miserable for museums that refuse to repatriate.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Further coverage of the recent conference in Cairo on the restitution of looted antiquities.

From:
BBC News

Page last updated at 23:31 GMT, Wednesday, 7 April 2010 00:31 UK
Egypt calls for antiquities unity

States which say artefacts have been stolen and displayed overseas should unite to recover their stolen heritage, Egypt’s top archaeologist has said.

Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), urged culture officials from around the world to draw up lists of missing items.
Read the rest of this entry »

The British government is causing controversy by ordering various artefacts to be sold by liquidators to pay the tax bill of collector Robin Symes, despite the fact that, with no export licenses, it is likely that these artefacts were illegally looted from Italy.

From:
The Guardian

UK accused over sale of ‘looted’ Italian treasures to pay tax bill
Rome wants back the 3,000-year-old Etruscan artefacts that came into the hands of a dealer – but ministers aim to sell them
Dalya Alberge
Sunday 11 April 2010

Ministers have been condemned for forcing through the sale of up to 1,000 antiquities allegedly stolen from Italy, in order to pay the debts of a bankrupt private collector.

The Home Office has sparked outrage by allowing Roman bronzes, Etruscan gold and other treasures to be placed on the market by liquidators acting for the government in an attempt to recover unpaid taxes from the former owner, Robin Symes, a dealer with alleged links to the smuggling trade and a UK prison record.
Read the rest of this entry »

Egypt’s conference on looted antiquities opened with the inimitable Zahi Hawass calling for unity & cooperation between the countries that are trying to retrieve artefacts.

From:
Zawya (UAE)

Egypt forum on looted antiquities opens with call for unity
By Christophe de Roquefeuil

CAIRO, Apr 07, 2010 (AFP) – Egyptian antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass on Wednesday opened an international conference on recovering ancient artefacts from abroad, saying countries must unite to recover their stolen heritage.

“We need to cooperate, we need a unification between our countries,” Hawass told antiquities officials, deputy culture ministers and museum directors from 21 countries at the two-day Cairo meeting.
Read the rest of this entry »

An art exhibition by Peju Layiwola marking the fiftieth anniversary of Nigeria aims to tell the story of the destruction & subsequent looting of the kingdom of Benin.

From:
Modern Ghana

Revisiting the 1897 destruction of Benin
By Akintayo Abodunrin
Feature Article | 14 hours ago

The looting of African artefacts and the ceaseless calls for their repatriation will take centre stage when ‘Benin1897.com: Art and the Restitution Question’, a solo travelling exhibition by artist, Peju Layiwola, opens.

The exhibition, being organised to mark Nigeria’s 50th anniversary, will open on April 8 at the Main Auditorium Gallery, University of Lagos, and run till May 30. The Enogie of Obazuwa, Edun Akenzua, will declare the exhibition open.
Read the rest of this entry »

Egypt is holding a conference on stolen & looted antiquities, bringing together representatives from many of the nations that are requesting returns. Hopefully, many other countries can learn from some of Egypt’s recent successes in this field.

From:
BBC News

Page last updated at 01:23 GMT, Wednesday, 7 April 2010 02:23 UK
Egypt hosts meeting on recovery of ‘stolen treasures’

Global culture officials are to meet to discuss how to recover ancient treasures which they say have been stolen and displayed overseas.

Sixteen countries will be represented at the two-day conference in Cairo.
Read the rest of this entry »