Attention on the Eurozone crisis has focused on Greece, but other countries such as Italy have also had to make massive cuts to government budgets, bringing similar problems to their archaeological sites.

From:
Daily Star (Lebanon)

Austerity strikes at Italy’s crumbling treasures
April 13, 2012 12:03 AM
By Gildas Le Roux
Agence France Presse

ROME: After slashing arts budgets and with its most famous monuments badly in need of repair, Italy’s government is increasingly looking to private investors to help it preserve a priceless cultural heritage.

The biggest initiative so far, however, is faltering after billionaire Diego Della Valle said he might pull his 25 million euros ($33 million) to restore the Coliseum following union protests and investigations into the project.
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Despite the dire state of Greece’s economy, one of its biggest tourist draws & most recognisable assets is its ancient heritage. Plans to try & monetise these site with commercial filming charges have however met with mixed reviews.

From:
Kathimerini (English Edition)

Thursday February 9, 2012 (18:32)
Ancient treasures to the rescue of Greece’s ruined economy?
By Margarita Pournara

Greece’s Culture and Tourism Ministry last month said it would slash the cost of permits for filming and photographic shoots at more than 100 of the country’s ancient monuments, including the world-famous Parthenon in Athens.

Some foreign reports reacted to the news by saying the Greek government was putting the Parthenon under the hammer. Culture Minister Pavlos Geroulanos tweeted that speculation that the sites would be “rented out” was totally unfounded.
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There were many derogatory comments made, when Greece first announced that it was going to do more to encourage filming on the Acropolis by private companies (for a fee). At the end of the day though, it makes more sense to explore solutions to solve the problems of finding the funds to maintain the sites, than to sit back doing nothing. Greece’s finances are already stretched to the limit – so anything that can help the country in such a situation should be welcomed.

From:
Press Europ

Cultural heritage
How Europe hawks its monuments
8 February 2012
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Dieter Bartetzko

As Greece pimps its ancient monuments to bring in the tourists, lovers of cultural heritage are up in arms. But the country is only doing openly what the whole of Europe is: looting historic sites to drum up more ready cash.

Disparaging comments went to press practically before the Greek government spokesman had even reached the end of his declaration that the country’s ancient monuments would be used in future for commercial purposes. The Acropolis is thus to become a stage for advertisements and action movies; the Athens’ Agora, birthplace of parliamentary democracy, a playground for fashion shows and 007 stunts; and the Kerameikos, the nearly three-thousand-year-old cemetery, will become the backdrop for commercials featured perfumed sex maniacs touching themselves in their sleep. That’s more or less the future for Greece’s ancient cultural heritage in the looming shadow of the European financial crisis, as cultural pessimists paint it.
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Quite aside from all the other ethical issues about purchasing ancient artefacts on the black market at bargain prices, there is also a high chance, that you might not get exactly what you thought you were paying for. Quite why people think that someone who would loot ancient sites is likely to be true to their word, in what they claim something is is another matter.

One also has to ask, how someone expected to pass off as legitimate, exact copies of works from a major museum.

From:
BBC News

3 April 2012 Last updated at 16:23
‘Ancient’ Greek statue found in sheep pen is fake

An “ancient” Greek statue found in a sheep pen north-west of Athens last week has now been deemed a fake.

At first, archaeologists at Greece’s Culture ministry thought the figure of a woman dated from the 6th century BC.
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More coverage of the problems facing Greece’s ancient sites, as a result of the country’s continuing financial difficulties. Unfortunately, it seems at the moment that the end of these problems is a long way off, so the issues are not going to disappear quickly, although help from other countries in blocking sales of looted artefacts helps to limit the market for such items.

From:
Agence France Presse

Amid debt crisis, archaeology Greece’s Achilles heel
By Isabel Malsang (AFP)

ATHENS — Faced with massive public debt, Greece is finding that its fabled antiquity heritage is proving a growing burden — with licensed digs postponed, illegal ones proliferating, museum staff trimmed and valuable pieces stolen.

“Greece’s historic remains have become our curse,” whispered an archaeologist at a recent media event organised to protest spending cuts imposed on the country for the past two years as a condition for European Union and International Monetary Fund loans.
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For reasons that are unclear to me, Britain has never ratified the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. This is despite declaring in 2004 that they would ratify the convention. The only reason I have ever been given was that it conflicted in some places with existing laws in Britain, that would need to be amended first.

From:
Independent

Letters: Back the world ban on looting
Friday 30 March 2012

The March 2003 invasion of Iraq by a coalition led by the US and the UK failed to prevent the immediate and appalling looting of museums, libraries, archives and art galleries, followed by years of looting of archaeological sites across the country.

On 14 May 2004, the UK Government announced its intention to ratify the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, and its protocols of 1954 and 1999. Today, on the ninth anniversary of the invasion, it has still to honour this commitment. This is despite all-party support for ratification and recently reiterated support for ratification from the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The USA ratified the Convention in 2009. This leaves the UK as arguably the most significant military power, and certainly the only power with extensive military involvements abroad, not to have ratified it.
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In what can only be a backwards step aimed at benefiting grab & sell type excavations, a new law proposed in Alabama would remove the need for treasure hunters to require permits for underwater excavations, as long as they keep away from Native American burial sites & shipwrecks.

From:
Al.com

New Alabama law could mean finders-keepers for historic artifacts found underwater
Published: Monday, January 16, 2012, 7:45 AM

MONTGOMERY, Alabama — A battle over historic artifacts hidden below the surface of Alabama’s rivers, lakes and bays is surfacing in advance of the opening of Legislature’s 2012 regular session on Feb. 7.

Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, has introduced a bill to amend the Alabama Cultural Resources Act, a law that requires underwater explorers to get a permit from the Alabama Historical Commission before going after submerged wrecks and relics.
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Unfortunately, I only spotted this one today, but it appears that the lecture took place yesterday.

See original flyer for the event here.

From:
City Press

Lecture for the return of the Parthenon Marbles
Post: 26-03-2012 13:30 | City Press Newsroom

The Arcadian Centre for Greek, Mediterranean and Balkan Studies hosts at 19.30 archaeologist and Ph.D. Candidate University of Cambridge, Ms. Venus Chatzoglou, which will give a lecture entitled:

The politics of Archaeological Heritage: The case study of the Parthenon Marbles and the New Acropolis Museum
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For some, metal detecting is an innocent hobby with an occasional chance of making a big find. For many archaeologists though, the practice requires much tighter regulation, to stop illicit digging of artefacts without any proper excavation or cataloguing of the finds taking place. New programmes in the US, American Digger & Diggers, both seem to be encouraging this fairly carefree attitude to digging up the past & a there are a fears that a new series in the UK could also serve to publicise it.

Paul Barford has already written quite a bit about this program on his blog.

From:
Guardian

TV treasure hunt show to pick Britain’s most important archaeological find
Britain’s Secret Treasures on ITV to follow experts as they judge the merits of antiquities discovered in the UK in the last 15 years
Maev Kennedy
Monday 26 March 2012 13.17 BST

Historians and archaeologists are arguing over the single most historically important archaeological find among almost a million objects discovered in the UK in the last 15 years. Contenders include the heap of glittering Anglo-Saxon gold of the Staffordshire Hoard, a scruffy little coin that proved the existence of a previously unknown Roman emperor, a bronze token that some claim entitled the bearer to the illustrated services in a Roman brothel, a stone hand axe, or the eerie shimmering beauty of the Crosby Garrett Roman helmet.

The debate will be followed over a week of primetime television programmes being made for ITV, Britain’s Secret Treasures, to be broadcast in July and presented by the historian Bettany Hughes and the veteran journalist Michael Buerk in his first appearance on the channel.
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More coverage of the effects that the Greek debt crisis is having on the country’s museums & historic sites. This is a problem, not just for the tourists who are unable to get access, but also for the monuments themselves, which may now have lower levels of security & smaller maintenance budgets than was previously the case.

From:
Reuters

Debt crisis strikes Greek monuments, irks tourists
By Gareth Jones
ATHENS | Tue Dec 6, 2011 8:51am EST

(Reuters) – At the end of a sunny day on the Acropolis last month, Svein Davoy gazed awe-struck at the columns of the Parthenon gleaming in the twilight.

“It’s marvellous. This is where Western civilisation began. I will certainly tell my friends to come to Greece and see all this,” enthused Davoy, 63, an economist from Norway.
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Belzoni, along with Bernardino Drovetti were perhaps the two people, who more than any others started the raiding of Egypt’s antiquities, to fill the museums & palaces of the west. Were they just doing, what was accepted at the time, or was a lot of history plundered to their reckless methods?

From:
Wall Street Journal

A Pre-Digital Tomb Raider
Sifting sand, opening crypts, raising fallen statues and scooping up anything marketable—and transportable—to Britain.
By GERARD HELFERICH

In the Egyptian gallery of London’s British Museum stands a 3,400-year-old statue carved from polished black stone. Lifted from the city of Thebes, the figure depicts Amenhotep III, who ruled Egypt from about 1386 B.C. to 1350 B.C., when the kingdom was at the peak of its power and prosperity. Sitting erect but serene, his hands resting on his thighs, Amenhotep seems every inch the pharaoh. But one detail disturbs the regal impression: Beside the king’s left foot, with all the subtlety of a Times Square billboard, appears the crudely carved name “Belzoni.” How this Italian commoner came to be forever linked with an Egyptian pharaoh is now the subject of a lively, witty biography by Ivor Noël Hume.

Though Giovanni Battista Belzoni is not generally recalled today, he is still infamous among archaeologists. Born in 1778 in Padua, Italy, Giovanni worked in his father’s barbershop until age 16, then left to study in Rome. After Napoleon Bonaparte captured the Eternal City in 1797, Belzoni wandered Europe for a time, ending up in London, where he hoped to secure work as a hydraulic engineer. But the only job the 6-foot-6 Italian could find was as a circus performer, billed as “the Patagonian Sampson” and toting a dozen lesser men about the stage.
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Durham University is organising a debate on the ethics of repatriation of human remains from museums.

From:
Durham university

Durham University Archaeology Society Conference 2012
Whose Past? An Interdisciplinary debate on the repatriation of artefacts and reburial of human remains
Saturday April 28th 2012 10am-5pm

Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Dawson Building, Durham University Science Site

Durham University Archaeology Society presents a one day interdisciplinary conference to be held at Durham University involving the Archaeology, Anthropology, Philosophy and Law departments from Durham and Newcastle University and selected guest speakers. This year’s theme ‘Whose Past? An Interdisciplinary debate on the repatriation of artefacts and reburial of human remains’ aims to generate a stimulating debate about the ownership and ethical principles associated with two types of archaeological material; artefacts and human remains, with the focus on the repatriation of artefacts and reburial of human remains.
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