[MSN] Expert charges officials doing nothing to protect national heritage

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

 Expert charges officials doing nothing to protect national heritage 

 By TIRANA TIMES STAFF news at tiranatimes.com 

 The Gllavenica Epitaph one of Albania's best known iconic objects was
stolen from the National History Museum in the mid-90s only to be recovered
a few years later by authorities. However, if you look at the international
list of missing objects, the Gllavenica Epitaph is still there, probably
because Albanian authorities never followed proper procedures to notify
their international partners that they had recovered the object. That
paradox was one of many worries that the former director of the National
Park of Butrint Auron Tare told the daily newspaper Shekulli in an
interview. Tare, who has in the past served as intermediary of bringing back
to Albania stolen objects in international possession, said the Albanian
government is not doing enough to protect antique art works, and added that
recent thefts in the southern village of Finiq were never taken seriously.
Tare said that illegal digging at archeological sites is a common place
occurrence in Albania. He said during his long experience in archeology, he
hasn't seen any serious steps from Albanian authorities is stopping such
phenomenon "Finiqi is an archeological center where illegal digging is
taking place to this day and tens of archeological monuments are being taken
to the foreign market each year. Can you please tell me the name of any
official who has done anything to stop this? Anyone? There is none. Let's
not even go to the signatures granted to build high-rises above the
archeological center of Saranda," Tare said. He also mentioned a photo file
of objects taken from Finiqi, which he claims had been trafficked in Greece
by an official at the Archeology Institute in Tirana, a file Tare said had
presented one year ago to authorities, who Tare said, had given him no
answers. That drove him to go public with the story, speaking the Albania's
highest circulation newspaper, Shekulli. "In the file I mention the person's
name and I demand the materials be checked for their originality and for
action to be taken so they won't leave Albania. But the file has now been
covered with dust," he said. Tare also said he has officially demanded an
explanation from the manager of the Butrinti Foundation regarding the sale
to an English expedition in 2004 of a collection of coins from the Crusades
period found by local residents. He said the sale was suspicious because it
was not accompanied by a official notice, inventory and was not done in
cooperation with institution in charge of the national park. It is something
authorities in charge at the time did nothing to prevent, he said. Shekulli
asked Tare about what is currently held at the Archeology Museum in Butrint,
to which he answered no one could say for sure "because if an inventory was
done it would become clear who is behind the losses and I believe those in
charge at the Archeology Institute in Tirana are behind this thing." But he
adds that the museum is of a high quality and has inside a great wealth of
archeological objects. "But anytime the lights go out, the cameras and
alarms don't work. Let's not forget this museum was robbed twice in 15 years
and we still haven't learned our lesson - our national historical wealth
demands more attention," Tare told Shekulli.