[MSN] NEAR the end of The Medici Conspiracy, the antiquities business is described as a mess - "a commercial cesspool of greed and vanity founded on loot and filled with deceit at every level".

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

Chasing tomb raiders
Nick Bray investigates the art racket trail  

July 22, 2006

NEAR the end of The Medici Conspiracy, the antiquities business is described
as a mess - "a commercial cesspool of greed and vanity founded on loot and
filled with deceit at every level".

If you pay attention while reading this investigative work by Peter Watson
and Cecilia Todeschini, you will find yourself nodding your head sadly in
agreement. 

The authors begin their story in 1994, with the robbery of eight,
2500-year-old terracotta pots from a lightly guarded, state-controlled
castle in the Italian town of Melfi.

Their eventual recovery from a palatial German estate sparks an
investigation that uncovers an international trafficking ring worth up to
$US6 billion a year.

The sums of money involved are gob-smacking, but, more importantly, Watson
and Todeschini expose one of the most shameful episodes in the history of
Western civilisation.

It begins in the shady underworld of tomb robbers, thieves, smugglers and
small-time dealers.

In their quest to feed a voracious market, these bottom feeders do enormous
damage, and it's not confined to Italy.

"The world's archeological heritage - the material remains of past human
activities is being destroyed at an undiminished pace," the authors say.

They list a catalogue of horrific vandalism occurring in South America,
Africa, India, Pakistan, Spain, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

An example: "In 1997 in the Qinghai Province of China, the ancient tombs at
Reshui, one of the country's 10 most famous archeological sites, were looted
by more than 1000 local people who 'excavated' the tombs with high
explosives and bulldozers."

Not only do such ham-fisted excavation techniques invariably destroy some of
the objects being sought, once the objects are removed and reach their final
destination, their historical context is lost.

But this appears to be of little concern to those keen on acquiring an
Etruscan vase say, or an ancient Greek statue.

And who are these rich barbarians, who profess a love of antiquities, but
turn a blind eye to their provenance, or history of discovery and ownership,
and the crimes that transport them from ransacked tomb to penthouse display
case?

The answers are surprising and shocking.

Aided by brilliant detective work by Italian authorities and a few lucky
breaks, a list of names that reads like a colourful who's who of the art
world is slowly revealed.

There are the billionaire Hunt brothers, Nelson Bunker and William Herbert,
who first came to the world's attention when they tried to corner the
world's silver market in the 1970s.

They are joined by Leon Levy and Shelby White, whose collection of Greek and
Roman vases was displayed at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and
Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman, whose collection was displayed at the
well-endowed Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Mining magnate Maurice Templesman, perhaps most notable as the social
handbag of the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, also makes an appearance as
a big collector.

It's perhaps not surprising to find such wealthy people willing to break a
few rules to get what they want.

However, there's no excuse for the likes of Dietrich von Bothmer, revered
curator of the Greek and Roman department at the Met, or Marion True, of the
antiquities department at the Getty.

Both were to be embroiled in controversy over the acquisition for their
respective museums of antiquities that were obviously looted treasures.

Both have said they acted in good faith, but despite a number of buffers
between themselves and the tomb raiders in the form of a tortuous network of
dealers, galleries and auction houses, they must have known what they were
dealing with.

As did the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and other seemingly respectable
museums throughout the world (Australian museums receive no mention).

Watson and Todeschini argue convincingly that it is no longer possible to
form a collection of classical antiquities by legitimate means and provide
the evidence to back it up in the pages of their book.

True, von Bothmer, the Hunt brothers and all the others may have indulged in
some wishful thinking, but they would have known otherwise.

Why this is such a wicked combination is explained by distinguished
Cambridge archaeologists Christopher Chippindale and David Gill.

"They seem to be taking the view that so long as the objects are beautiful
it does not matter that the original archeological context has been lost and
can never be recovered," they write in The American Journal of Archeology.

"Such a view merely serves to encourage the market and private collectors to
continue the destruction."

Or, as Watson and Todeschini put it, the collectors are the real looters.

The Getty and the Met have recently returned several objects worth millions
of dollars to the Italian state and are in continuing delicate negotiations
to save face.

One of the dealers central to the investigation, Giacomo Medici, has been
sentenced to prison for his role in dealing in tens of thousands of looted
antiquities worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

True is now on trial in Rome for allegedly conspiring with dealers to
traffic in looted artefacts.

Watson and Todeschini tell this story well, giving a rare insight into a
world most of us only experience at a vast remove, but in which we should
all take an interest.

The Medici Conspiracy Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini (Hardie Grant
Books, $34.95)