[MSN] Peru tries to stop the auctioning of its culture

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Peru tries to stop the auctioning of its culture
Fri May 18, 2007 8:45 AM IST

By Jean Luis Arce

LIMA (Reuters) - Peru has urged the world's leading auction houses, Christie's and Sotheby's, to halt the sale of dozens of pre-Colombian artifacts and hand them over to Peru, saying they were almost certainly exported illegally.

The pieces, which include gold and silver jewelry, rare ceramics and delicate textiles, some over 2,000 years old, went under the hammer in New York at Sotheby's on Thursday afternoon and are scheduled to be sold at Christie's next Wednesday.

"What we're asking is that as a gesture of goodwill, they don't auction these pieces," said Cecilia Bakula, director of Peru's National Institute of Culture, a state body responsible for safeguarding cultural assets.

"I'd like to think these auction houses have high ethical standards and that they'll understand that Peru's claim is not against them but is about exercising a right that we cannot give up on," she told a news conference late on Wednesday.

Christie's and Sotheby's said in separate statements on Thursday they had carefully reviewed the provenance of each item up for auction and rejected the claims by Peru.

"We have received no information from the Peruvian government or from any other sources which would lead us to believe that any of these lots were stolen or improperly exported out of Peru," Christie's said.

Sotheby's said it was "regrettable that the Peruvian government waited until the very last moment to contact us with such obviously flawed claims."

"We have concluded that there was no merit to the request to remove them from the sale," it said. "The objects were therefore included in today's sale and we are confident that our purchasers obtained good title to these objects."

Peruvian diplomatic sources in the United States said the Embassy in Washington had written to the U.S. State Department on several occasions regarding the sales.

Many of the artifacts for sale are from the Chavin, Chimu, Paracas, Mochica, Huari and Nazca cultures that flourished in Peru before the Incas rose to power in the 12th century.

According to the catalogs of the two auction houses, some of the nearly 50 lots were expected to fetch up to $35,000.

'EVIL NETWORK'

Bakula said Peru passed a law in 1822, a year after it gained independence from Spain, to protect its rich heritage.

As such, the Andean nation regards any piece of art removed from Peru after that date as having been taken illegally.

Bakula said the onus was on sellers and auction houses to prove the pieces were not taken from Peru without permission.

"I am absolutely sure they won't be able to do that," she said.

Peru has one of the richest pre-Colombian legacies in Latin America and is littered with archeological sites predating the Spanish conquest of the early 16th century.

Over the years, countless treasures have been removed from the country illegally.

According to the INC, in May alone it has recovered over 70 Peruvian artifacts from Uruguay, Germany, Mexico, Colombia and New Zealand and is expecting the repatriation next month of nearly 500 pieces from the United States.

"We're trying to find out who the organizers of this trafficking are," Bakula said. "It's not casual, this is part of an evil, destructive and powerful network."

(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York)

http://in.today.reuters.com