[MSN] Anthropologist Bennet Bronson recalls working on an archaeological dig in Thailand for months, then returning the next year to discover that the site had been destroyed by looters who used backhoes and machine guns.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

The search for plundered treasure
June 19, 2006

TARA BURGHART

By TARA BURGHART 

The Associated Press

Anthropologist Bennet Bronson recalls working on an archaeological dig in
Thailand for months, then returning the next year to discover that the site
had been destroyed by looters who used backhoes and machine guns.

Cultural heritage expert Patty Gerstenblith relates stories of plunderers in
China walking around with auction house catalogs to determine what artifacts
they should target to bring in the most money.

Art museums, meanwhile, tell of curators spending months tracking down
ownership records for potential acquisitions and trying to verify if
documents are legitimate.

They point to studies they say prove how little influence U.S. art museums
have on the global trade in antiquities and indicate private collectors are
driving the black market.

Provenance

The issue of provenance - or the history of an artwork's ownership - has
never before been a more debated topic among archaeologists and attorneys,
collectors and curators, museum directors and donors, nations and cultural
groups.

It's occurring as the Metropolitan Museum of Art agrees to return ancient
objects to Italy, a former U.S. antiquities curator faces charges of
knowingly buying stolen artifacts and museums continue to address claims
about artwork stolen by Nazis up to 70 years ago.

"Museums have not been willing to address those discussions because they
fear once they do, the museum doors will open up and the historical
collections will go out the door," said David Rudenstine, dean of the
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University.

Rudenstine is writing a book about one of the most disputed artifacts in
history - the Elgin Marbles, sculptures from the ruins of the Parthenon
removed by the British Lord Elgin in the 19th century and on view at the
British Museum in London. Greece has waged a long, unsuccessful campaign to
win back the large collection of sculptures and is building a new Acropolis
Museum with hopes they will one day be displayed there.

In February, the Met agreed to return nearly two dozen artifacts Italy says
were illegally taken from the country, including a collection of Hellenistic
silver and the prized Euphronios Krater, a 2,500-year-old Greek vase the
museum bought 30 years ago. In exchange, Italy will loan the Met objects of
"equal beauty and historical and cultural significance," and the two sides
will cooperate on future excavations and restoration work.

Egypt - led by Zahi Hawass, the country's charismatic and often
controversial chief archaeologist - is particularly pushing the case of a
3,200-year-old funerary mask of a mummy depicting a young woman, which it
said disappeared from the Egyptian Museum.

Smaller institutions have struggled with provenance issues as well. The
Illinois State Museum is preparing to return to Kenya a kigango, a
traditional wooden statue erected to honor a dead male elder. A curator in
Kenya wrote to the state museum on behalf of a family who said misfortune
had followed them ever since the wooden post was stolen from their property
20 years ago.

Those who track the issue say they wonder if the increased focus on looted
antiquities and stolen cultural artifacts is just a blip or something
sustainable.

"How long will this wave go before it flattens out?" asked Los Angeles
attorney Steven Thomas, who advises clients on the purchase, collection and
sale of fine art and cultural property. "Everyone is stepping up."

'Misperception'

Mary Sue Sweeney Price, president of the Association of Art Museum
Directors, believes museums have been unfairly characterized in the debate.

"I think there is a misperception that museums are evildoers, and museums -
which actually preserve, publish and make more widely accessible
archaeological works - are the creators of an illicit trade. That is so far
from the truth, and it's an unfortunate mischaracterization," she said.

Richard Leventhal, director of the University of Pennsylvania museum, said
he would like to see art museums be more open about purchasing antiquities,
and publicizing their purchases so that countries can immediately speak up
if they feel that an item has left their borders illegally.

He wants the burden of proof shifted to the buyer, instead of the country
having to prove that the artifact was wrongfully removed from its borders.
Without proof like the photos Italy obtained in the warehouse raid, it's a
hard case to make, he said.

He also believes that art museums need to become more creative in how they
interact with countries with ancient cultural treasures. U.S. museums could
get loans from those institutions, perhaps in exchange for helping to train
staff and improving conservation efforts.

"The bottom line goal has to be to stop the looting. ... We can reach that
goal by turning off the spigot, which is the desire on the part of large
museums and collectors to purchase more and more objects," Leventhal said.

But the group that represents about 170 art museum directors argues that
museums are already acting responsibly and do not drive the looting trade.

A recent survey by the AAMD found that museum buys of archaeological
material and antiquities represent less than 10 percent of the global annual
trade in antiquities.

In its guidelines for purchasing ancient art and archaeological materials,
the group "deplores" the unscientific excavation of such materials and their
thefts. But its 2004 guidelines also said the group recognizes that some
artworks "for which provenance information is incomplete or unobtainable may
deserve to be publicly displayed, preserved, studied and published because
of their rarity, importance and aesthetic merit."

Philippe de Montebello, director of the Met, is an AAMD trustee. Soon after
the Met reached its agreement with Italy in February, he said he didn't
foresee the museum stiffening its policies for future acquisitions.

"We go through the normal research on objects, and if we have any doubt, any
question that object may have been illicitly removed from somewhere, we will
not consider its acquisition," he said. As a result, in the past 15 years,
the number of antiquities purchased by the Met has declined.

He does think, however, that the Met will increase its efforts at publishing
the provenance of antiquities it buys to help claimant nations find them.

Until about World War II, much of the Met's collection was built on the
concept of sharing with other countries what was found in the ground. A
modern solution, he said, would be if the Met directed an archaeological dig
and found objects, they would then be lent to the Met and displayed -
without transferring title to the artwork. The Met now has digs underway in
Egypt, Syria and Turkey. But found objects remain in those countries.

"Whether museums buy objects or not, the plundering will continue until
source countries can protect each and every site," said the AAMD's Price.
"I'm afraid that is practically impossible.

"Greed always seems to trump idealism." 

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