More coverage of the problems facing many of Greece’s archaeological sites as a result of the ongoing financial difficulties in the country.

From:
New York Times

Greek Antiquities, Long Fragile, Are Endangered by Austerity
By RANDY KENNEDY
Published: June 11, 2012

KYTHIRA, Greece — A jarring public-awareness ad that has appeared recently on Greek television news shows a little girl strolling with her mother through the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, one of the country’s cultural crown jewels. The girl skips off by herself, and as she stands alone before a 2,500-year-old marble statue, a hand suddenly sweeps in from behind, covering her mouth and yanking her away.

An instant later, she reappears, apparently unharmed but staring forlornly at an empty plinth: The kidnappers weren’t after the girl — they were after the statue.
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Coverage of the Provenance Research Training Program that took place in Germany last week.

From:
Times of Israel

Experts trained in recovering art looted during Nazi era
Millions of items stolen during WWII and Holocaust still unaccounted for; some pieces ending up in auction after elderly owners pass away
June 16, 2012, 1:56 am

BERLIN (AP) — Call them the looted treasure detectives.

Experts from museums, auction houses, government agencies and other institutions are meeting in Germany this week as part of an international effort to train art-world professionals in recovering art and cultural treasures looted during the Nazi era.
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Another review of Chasing Aphrodite, The book about the problems of looted artefacts in their collection that have plagued the Getty Museum for the last decade.

Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum
Author: Ralph Frammolino
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)
ISBN: 0151015015

From:
Paste

By Chaz Oreshkov
Chasing Aphrodite by Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino
The Art of Looting
Published at 12:32 PM on June 12, 2012

“To me my works of art are all vividly alive. They’re the embodiment of whoever created them—a mirror of their creator’s hopes, dreams and frustrations. They have led eventful lives—pampered by the aristocracy and pillaged by revolution, courted with ardor and cold-bloodedly abandoned. They have been honored by drawing rooms and humbled by attics. So many worlds in their lifespan, yet all were transitory. What stories they could tell, what sights they must have seen! Their worlds have long since disintegrated, yet they live on.”—J. Paul Getty, The Collector’s Choice

Artifacts belong in museums. We know this much from Indiana Jones’ epic words at the beginning of Last Crusade, when he yells (on a sinking ship in the middle of a typhoon, no less) “That belongs in a museum!” to another explorer who wants to keep an artifact for private use.
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The civil unrest in Syria, has received a lot of coverage that focusses on the human aspects of it – and rightly so. What has not been picked up as much by the press, is how much damage is also being inflicted on many of the country’s ancient sites, that form part of Syria’s history.

From:
Gadling

Destruction, Looting Of Syria’s Ancient Heritage Continues, Report Says
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) on Jun 6th 2012 at 10:00AM

The upheaval in Syria has been going on for more than a year now, and in that time thousands of people have been killed, including many civilians and children. Syria’s many ancient sites are also getting damaged. Previously, we’ve talked about how the Syrian army has shelled the ancient city of Palmyra and the Crusader castle Crac des Chevaliers. Both of these are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, of which there are six in the country.

A report by the Global Heritage Fund states that these and many other sites and museums, are getting damaged and looted in the chaos. Sites like Tell Sheikh Hamad, pictured above in this Wikimedia Commons image. This Assyrian town was inhabited for several centuries and archaeologists have found numerous cuneiform inscriptions there. Recently it became a battleground between the Syrian army and deserters. An Assyrian temple reportedly collapsed when it got hit by shellfire and the rest of the site likely suffered serious damage as well.
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Could proactive protection of cultural property in regions of unrest be used by the USA as an opportunity for political diplomacy? Initially, after the invasion of Iraq led by the USA, little was done to protect many of the country’s treasures being looted by opportunist thieves – but, perhaps if more had been done to protect the historic sites & ancient artefacts, Iraqi citizens would have been more confident of the US military’s role as one of protectors rather than invaders?

From:
Chicago Tribune

Repatriating part of Saddam statue could promote democracy
U.S. should consider strategic protection of cultural artifacts
By Erik Nemeth
June 7, 2012

A few months ago a former British soldier made headlines for trying to sell part of the backside of the Saddam Hussein statue that was famously toppled in 2003. Though Saddam was long gone, the Iraqi government, happy to be rid of him, requested the return of the “artifact.” Their interest in repatriating a symbol of their “dictator in hindsight” illustrates the unforeseeable significance of cultural property in foreign relations.

The example suggests that the U.S. might consider proactive protection of cultural property in regions of conflict as an underutilized opportunity for political diplomacy, if not outright negotiation.
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Jason Felch, talks about his plans for a “wikiloot” database to help located looted artefacts based on the evidence that is already available. Unfortunately, the project is unsuccessful in getting the funding grant from the Knight Foundation, but they are still looking for other organisations that might be interested in funding such an endeavour.

From:
Guardian

WikiLoot aims to use crowdsourcing to track down stolen ancient artefacts
Man behind WikiLoot hopes crowdsourcing experiment will help to find some of the world’s oldest and most valuable treasures
Tom Kington in Rome
Wednesday 6 June 2012 18.39 BST

Campaigns to combat archaeological tomb raiders have notched up some big successes, notably a deal under which the J Paul Getty museum in Los Angeles agreed to hand back 40 precious artefacts after it was shown they had been looted from digs in Italy.

Activists, however, call that a drop in the ocean in a business valued at as much as $10bn (£6.5bn) a year, and claim hard-pressed lawyers and police forces are struggling against unscrupulous dealers.
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Some sources have described this situation as restitution in reverse – but it is really only reversed, in terms of the fact that the party the artefact was taken from is a museum & the party that now holds it is an individual. The ruling does nothing to reverse the logical outcome – that the party holding onto the looted artefact is instructed to hand it back to the original owner.

From:
New York Times

Nazi Victim’s Family Told to Return Artifact
By PATRICIA COHEN
Published: June 1, 2012

The decision turns on its head the familiar scenario of Holocaust victims suing to reclaim property stolen or extorted from them by the Nazis. But in this case, according to court papers, the precious 3,200-year-old Assyrian artifact had been looted, not from the survivor, but from the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, at the close of World War II.

It is not clear how the survivor, Riven Flamenbaum, came into possession of the tablet after his liberation from Auschwitz in 1945, when he was sent to a displaced persons camp in southeastern Germany.
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Two stolen artefacts from a Greek church & one of the monasteries on mount Athos have now been returned to Greece & are going on temporary display.

From:
Greek Reporter

Ancient Greek Items Exhibited at Athens Byzantine Museum
By Marianna Tsatsou on June 3, 2012

Two stolen ancient items, which were displayed until recently in the UK, were transferred to Greece and are now hosted by the Athens Byzantine and Christian Museum beginning as of Wednesday, May 30.

The items will be kept in Athens only temporarily at the Museum, until being given to representatives of the appropriate Ephorates of the Hellenic Museum of Culture.
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Following a visit to the British Museum, Kwame Opoku questions what significance some of the museums artefacts (that were immensely significant to their original owners) can have within the context of the museum. In the majority of cases, the answer to this would be far less. Certainly, more people may see them, but in many cases they pass by it quickly – the piece means nothing to them, once it is displayed isolated from its culture.

From:
SPY Ghana

Sat, May 26th, 2012
DO THEY KNOW QUEEN-MOTHER IDIA OF BENIN?

A recent visit to the British Museum confirmed what we have observed in previous years: many Western visitors to the museum have no specific interest in any particular Benin object, even if they visit the Sainsbury Gallery and look at the Benin Bronzes. They are mostly unaware of the looted Queen-Mother-Idia (?Iyoba?) ivory mask.

Have the hundred years of illegal retention of this mask had any effect on the knowledge and interest of the average Western visitor to the museum? It seems hardly any European visitor is even aware that the mask represents an important personality in Benin history. Most Western visitors are certainly unaware of her important and decisive role and influence in stabilizing the Kingdom of Benin
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The Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act has stirred up quite a bit of controversy in the USA.

Many who have examined the bill (S. 2212) say that despite exemptions in the planned law, it is only really there to protect the interests of the big museums – while reducing the chances of recovering looted artefacts by the original owners (or their descendants).

From:
New York Times

Dispute Over Bill on Borrowed Art
The heirs of Malevich sought to recover paintings, including the ones displayed above center and right.
By DOREEN CARVAJAL
Published: May 21, 2012

The lending and borrowing of famous artworks is the essence of cultural exchange between museums in the United States and abroad. So routine is the practice, and so universally valued, that the American government has traditionally protected it with a law that shields a lent work from being seized by anyone with a claim to legal ownership while the art is on display here.

In recent years, though, American museum directors have come to fear that this safeguard has eroded, and that foreign museums, dreading entanglement in costly ownership battles, are more hesitant to make loans. So they have asked Congress to increase the security for global art swaps.
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ARCA’s annual conference is being held in Amelia, Italy on 23rd & 24th June.

You can view the official flyer for the conference here.

From:
Art Crime

May 10, 2012
ARCA Annual Conference, June 23-24, Amelia

In order to encourage continued awareness of the growing field of art crime and cultural heritage protection ARCA will host its fourth-annual conference in Amelia.

The interdisciplinary event brings together those who have an interest in the responsible stewardship of our collective cultural heritage. Presenters will discuss topics including:
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A comment on my earlier post about the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act, also known as Senate Bill S. 2212 highlights some more issues with this proposed law.

I’ve copied the information below directly from the comment by Pierre Ciric.

People who are concerned about the potential impact of the act are encouraged to sign the petition here.

As a second generation holocaust survivor, I have concluded that S. 2212, in shielding any government-related foreign institution from ANY liability or suit in the United States for claims for artworks related to cultural exchanges, and subject to pillage, plunder or illegal excavation, is appalling.

In 1998, the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and its members promised to perform in-depth provenance research for their entire collections, during hearings held by Jim Leach, Chair of the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services.
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