Showing results 349 - 355 of 355 for the tag: Looting.

May 14, 2008

The looting of Baghdad

Posted at 1:37 pm in Similar cases

The looting in Baghdad following the fall of Iraq has been a recurring topic in the news for the last few years. It is interesting, not least because it brings home to people the reality of many acquisitions from archaeological sites, which is probably far closer to the truth than the image of an English gentleman picking up a few select items for their country residence. Certainly, the latter happened – but in many cases it was preceded by the former more brutal style of acquisition.

Peter Stone and Joanne Farchakh have written a new book on the subject which is reviewed in The Times.

Also, I thought it worthwhile at this point though to mention a book by one of the key people involved in trying to unravel the current situation – Matthew Bogdanos who I met in Athens in March has been largely responsible for leading recovery efforts, first on the ground in Iraq & now from within the US as he tackles the international art trafficking networks head on. His book is available in paperback soon.

From:
The Times

From The Times
May 9, 2008
The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq by Peter Stone and Joanne Farchakh
Reviewed by Mary Beard
Bajjaly Boydell, £50; 352pp

THE TWO MOST FAMOUS words ever spoken by Donald Rumsfeld – “Stuff happens” – were given in response to persistent questioning in April, 2003 about the looting of Baghdad, including the National Museum. Rumsfeld did not have a clue what had happened to the 5,000-year-old Wark Vase, or the thousands of other antiquities that had been systematically lifted; nor did he much care.
Read the rest of this entry »

Denmark denies looting artefacts from Bahrain

Posted at 1:23 pm in Similar cases

Danish officials have issued denials that expeditions from their country during the 1970s were involved in the illegal looting of artefacts from Bahrain.

From:
Gulf Daily News (Bahrain)

Denmark denies theft charges
14th May 2008
By GEOFFREY BEW

DANISH officials yesterday hit back at allegations that their country stole some of Bahrain’s ancient national treasures.

Shura Council members Huda Nonoo and Faisal Fulad demanded artefacts discovered by Danish teams during expeditions in the 1970s be returned immediately during its weekly meeting on Monday.
Read the rest of this entry »

May 6, 2008

Why there should be a ban on trading Iraqi antiquities

Posted at 12:26 pm in Similar cases

Discussion continues on a total ban on trade in Iraqi artefacts until the situation in the country has stabilised.

From:
The Guardian

Ban proposed on Iraqi antiquities trade
Maev Kennedy
Thursday May 1, 2008
guardian.co.uk

A worldwide ban on buying and selling any Iraqi antiquities was proposed yesterday in London by a senior Iraqi official, as the only way of ending an illicit trade which has left looted sites resembling lunar landscapes, pitted with hundreds of holes and trenches.

Dr Bahaa Mayah, an archaeologist and adviser to the Iraqi Minister for Tourism and Antiquities, speaking at the British Museum where Iraqi, British and American experts had gathered to discuss the plight of looted antiquities, said, “we have to stop this problem at the roots”. A ban on trading in any Iraqi artefacts would strip them of their commercial value, he said, and mean there was no longer any financial incentive to dig them out of the ground.
Read the rest of this entry »

May 1, 2008

Iraqi official implicates the west in looted antiquities trade

Posted at 1:27 pm in Similar cases

Many arguments have arisen from the looting of Iraq. Much of the trade in looted artefacts though is directly reliant on dealers in the west & not enough is being done to stop this.

From:
The Independent

Iraqi expert accuses West over antiquities trade
By Arifa Akbar, Arts Correspondent
Thursday, 1 May 2008

A senior Iraqi official has accused the West of not doing enough to stop the thriving trade in antiquities smuggled out of the country’s depleted archeological sites and sold in auction houses across Britain, America and Europe.

Dr Bahaa Mayah, a special adviser to Iraq’s Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, called for an immediate global ban on the sale of at least 100,000 artefacts that have been stolen since the invasion.
Read the rest of this entry »

April 22, 2008

Swiss dealer returns ancient vase to Greece

Posted at 12:52 pm in Elgin Marbles, Greece Archaeology, Similar cases

Some more information on the return of the lekythos to Greece yesterday from Switzerland. Looting Matters also discusses this event in more detail, looking at the secrecy that seems to surround some of the coverage of it.

Greek Culture Minister Mihalis Liapis has also used this event to highlight again the need for the Elgin Marbles to be returned.

From:
MSNBC

Ancient urn returns to Greece
Campaign underway to reclaim illegally exported antiquities
Associated Press

updated 3:41 p.m. ET April 21, 2008ATHENS, Greece – A 2,400-year-old funerary urn has been returned to Greece and put on display, part of a campaign to reclaim illegally exported antiquities from museums and art dealers around the world.

The marble urn was displayed Monday at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
Read the rest of this entry »

July 29, 2003

Differences in attitudes to artefact repatriation

Posted at 9:25 am in British Museum, Similar cases

Museums in the USA were founded on very different principles to many of those in Europe. Nowadays, this difference is starting to manifest itself in their more pragmatic approach to the restitution of disputed artefacts in their collections.

From:
Slate

Trading Places
Cultural property disputes are reshaping the art world—but how?
By Carol Kino
Posted Monday, July 28, 2003, at 12:25 PM PT

It’s a sad truth that the depredations of war and imperialism have sometimes had positive side effects for art history. Take the Metropolitan Museum’s recent “Manet-Velázquez” show, on the influence of 17th-century Spanish painting on 19th-century French art. For most of the 18th century, Spanish artists like Murillo, Zurbaran, and Velázquez were little known outside their homeland. Then in the early 1800s, hundreds of Spanish paintings arrived in Paris as Napoleonic war loot. Some were briefly shown at the Louvre before Napoleon’s defeat, after which they were returned. Later that century, French artists began adopting the Spanish artists’ realist aesthetic and loose, sensuous brushwork—a move that laid the foundations of Impressionism and radically changed the course of modern art.

Unlike many European museums, American museums were built with civic and capitalist muscle, rather than imperial might. Yet well into the 1970s their attitude toward acquisitions—as any expert will admit off the record—was frequently “don’t ask, don’t tell.” But today American courts are dealing with an unprecedented number of Holocaust reparation cases. And last year, the Justice Department successfully prosecuted a well-known New York dealer, Frederick Schultz, for conspiring to receive stolen Egyptian antiquities. As a result, some foreign collectors and museums have become more cautious about loaning work to museum shows—particularly those in America—and everyone has become vastly more diligent about conducting provenance research before buying.
Read the rest of this entry »

April 27, 2003

Looking back at the looting of Baghdad

Posted at 7:44 am in British Museum, Similar cases

Four articles look at different aspects of the looting of museums & archaeological sites in Iraq, whether similar things could happen in the west, & whether more steps could have been taken to anticipate it.

The British Museum has been eager to help the situation – which is to be welcomed, but at the same time is slightly odd behaviour, as so many of the museum’s own artefacts were acquired through similar situation in the past. Despite this fact though, they continue to maintain that what happened in the past was perfectly acceptable, but that what is happening now in Iraq is to be condemned.

From:
Post Gazette

Looting of Baghdad treasures shines light on a ‘dirty business’
Sunday, April 27, 2003
By Dennis B. Roddy, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

The Byzantine frescos of Lysi, painted in Cyprus, kidnapped to Germany and now staring down from the ceiling of a museum chapel in Texas, testify by their travels that the world views much of its cultural legacy through a catalog of stolen property.

For nine centuries, the frescos hung unmolested on a small chapel in Cyprus before being cut from the ceiling by Turkish looters during the 1974 war. Ten years later, a Houston foundation, working with the Cypriot Orthodox Church, saved them and installed them in the museum chapel, where they are an example of the moral ambiguity of the antiquities trade.
Read the rest of this entry »