New York court issues arrest warrant for collector of looted Anatolian statue

Caveat emptor, buy with caution and responsibility ('New York court issues arrest warrant for collector of looted Anatolian statue', Türkiye News Hürriyet Daily News September 13 2025):

A 74-year-old American collector is facing legal trouble in New York after prosecutors accused him of knowingly purchasing an ancient statue looted from Türkiye. According to a report by The New York Times, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has issued an arrest warrant for Aaron Mendelsohn, who in 2007 bought a 2,000-year-old Roman emperor statue originally stolen from the ancient city of Bubon in the western province of Burdur. Investigators say the statue, one of about ten illegally excavated from Bubon in the 1960s, travelled first to the United Kingdom before reaching the United States. Despite being aware of its illicit origins, Mendelsohn acquired the piece from a gallery and continued to display it. Court filings revealed that he even sought advice from a former museum curator on how to avoid legal consequences, who reportedly suggested showing the piece only to private guests. The case gained momentum following the establishment of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in 2017. Working in close cooperation with Türkiye’s Culture and Tourism Ministry, prosecutors gathered electronic correspondence and documentation that linked Mendelsohn directly to the illegal acquisition. The evidence, authorities said, made clear that the collector had full knowledge of the statue’s stolen provenance.

"Small Number of People in Hugely Respectful Community of Artefact Hunters"

Well, it's called "nighthawking innit?" Dr Jonathan Berry, Senior Inspector of Ancient Monuments and archaeology, is interviewed in a feature on heritage crime in Wales in BBC News online:  Will Fyfe ' Night-time treasure thieves threatening a nation's heritage' BBC News 17 August 2025

As darkness falls in one corner of Wales, police officers begin their hunt for treasure thieves - a crime that would sound like fantasy if it wasn't for the evidence. In Gwent Police's patch, the hills are littered with ancient forts and Roman remains - and have become a regular target for those hoping to unearth rare artefacts for the black market. Often, investigators are left with nothing but a hole in the ground - with little idea of what has been stolen or its value - though some looted treasures have been worth millions. Nighthawking, as it is nicknamed, is now seen as a genuine threat to the nation's heritage.

PC Dan Counsell had never heard of the term nighthawking before he took a call in September 2019. He was told locals of an ancient village near Chepstow had awoken to find more than 50 holes mysteriously dug among the gravestones of their churchyard. Residents were horrified and newspaper headlines spoke of "grave robbers." PC Counsell understood the upset - many of his own family members, including grandparents, were buried there. In truth the robbers weren't interested in the dead, but the artefacts that may be buried beyond them, deep into the Earth. Before it became a Christian church about 700 years ago, there were Romans here. [...] After PC Counsell's first case in the graveyard, he began looking out for the phenomenon. Within two years his team had uncovered 23 suspected incidents in the force's patch - a 600 sq mile (1,550 sq km) corner of south-east Wales peppered with imposing castles, ancient hill forts and Roman ruins. Reports of people in fields at night and mysterious holes being discovered has all led PC Counsell's team to uncover cases of nighthawking. He said one of the most worrying things was that most targeted Scheduled Monuments

Not worried about the rest then... If knowledge thieves go out in daytime and pocket stuff without telling anyone, that's "OK....." yeah? That's what cultural resource management looks like these days in Brexited Britain. 

I can't help but think that if Wales has an area of 20,779 km² (8,023 sq mi), PC Counsell's patch is 1/13 of the whole. He alone has spotted 23 suspected incidents (that's ones where thieving idiots were seen, or neglected to fill their holes properly) so, extrapolating from that this might be the equivalent of a minimum 23 x 13 = 299 cases. That's a minimum of 150 a year. But the text says:

Cadw, the authority charged with protecting Wales' 4,000-plus protected ancient sites, said it saw 10 to 20 nighthawking incidents each year, but that the nature of it meant was very likely underreported.

Indeed. By how much? Once upon a time in the UK they did a half-hearted "nighthawking report" (2008). I produced arguments at the time that this was severely underestimating the problem - which the report facilely tried to make out had been "solved" by having the PAS. If there have been a minimum of 150 nighthawking episode that could have been found in each of those 17 years since the report was treated as the definitive answer... that means at least 2550 sites have been "nighthawked" under the noses of the self-satisfied arkies and their pals in PAS 

But the scale of the site-looting problem is pretty massive in Wales. If there are however just 60700 finds reported from all of Wales in the period from 1st Jan 2008 to today (an average of 3570 per year - this is a higher figure than was being shown by the PAS database at the time of the 2019 estimate - I'm not clear why). That does not tally well with the figures from even six years ago that everybody ignored then:

   The Scale of the Artefact Hunting Recording Crisis in Wales, PACHI Thursday, 10 January 2019.

The estimate there is that "the total should be therefore somewhere around 40,660 objects". It seems that, however many of the evidence-trashing blighters there are (because the size of the UK metal detecting community has gone up since the 2019 estimate), VERY FEW OF THEM ARE RESPONSIBLY REPORTING/RECORDING THEIR FINDS. The rest are just taking, who knows whether with or without the landowner's knowledge and permission? Basically the only thing we know is they were not caught.

So Plonky Plod the policeman has not the FAINTEST justification for saying the usual British crap-fluff:

Archaeologists and police point out this is a small number of people in an otherwise hugely respectful community of metal detectorists.

Except for the ones that aren't eh? Why do we need this misleading bollocks from British archaeologists? How much actual thinking and research lies behind such hopelessly glib and unnuanced statements misleading the public? [that is a rhetorical question].

 

US Antiquities Dealer Sentenced for Smuggling Hundreds of Egyptian Antiquities

Ashraf Omar Eldarir, 52, a Brooklyn resident and naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Egypt, has been sentenced to six months in federal prison for smuggling hundreds of ancient Egyptian artefacts into the United States. The sentence was handed down by United States District Judge Rachel P. Kovner in Brooklyn federal court following Eldarir’s guilty plea in February 2025 to four counts of smuggling.

 According to court filings, Eldarir trafficked artefacts on at least four occasions between April 2019 and January 2020, using falsified provenance documents to sell the items through U.S.-based auction houses.  Eldarir fabricated provenance records to disguise the illicit origins of the looted antiquities. The case came to light on January 22, 2020, when Eldarir arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport from Egypt. He falsely declared that the goods he was carrying were worth only $300. A search of his three checked suitcases revealed 590 artifacts wrapped in bubble wrap and foam, many still covered in loose sand and dirt. Among the objects were gold amulets from a funerary set and wooden tomb model figures with linen garments dating to around 1900 BCE. Officers also discovered a kit containing materials used to forge documentation for the items. 

 Subsequent investigation led to the recovery of additional smuggled artefacts, bringing the total seized to more than 600. All have since been forfeited, and U.S. officials stated that they intend to repatriate them to Egypt. The usual performative statements are included in media reports of the case.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys William P. Campos and Nomi Berenson led the prosecution, with support from Paralegal Specialist Amara Padilla. Forfeiture proceedings are being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura D. Mantell. Eldarir will serve his prison sentence and forfeit all seized antiquities, which are expected to be returned to Egypt.

US CPAC Trudges on its 1980s Path to Nowhere

 In the US  the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announces that the Cultural Property Advisory Committee intends to meet September 15-17, 2025, to review a new request for a cultural property agreement from Cameroon; to review the proposed extensions of the cultural property agreements with Colombia and Türkiye; and to review the proposed extension of the emergency import restrictions unilaterally imposed by the United States on archaeological and ethnological material from Afghanistan.

I don't know why they bother going through the rite of pretending to care any longer. Trump has withdrawn the US frtom UNESCO, whose treaty this pathetic ritual pretends to be honouring.

Facebook Pages of Interest

Facebook: Ancient Artifacts Information and Identification
Public group
19,700 members.

Administrators and moderators:

Darren Gold (Administrator)
Works at: Florida International University

Tim Haines (Administrator)
Expert in the Group
London

Kerry Drew (Moderator)
UC Berkeley

Damon David Knell (Moderator)
Expert in the Group
University of Toronto

The old Ancient Artifacts Discussion List
AncientArtifacts@groups.io 1,711 Members, started 31 Dec 2002.

Then there is the "The Other Artifacts":List : 

Some of you may have noticed that there is an area of ancient artifact collection which focuses on rock-like items which may or may not be of manmade origin.  The decision whether these items are natural formations or worked artifacts is highly subjective.  Our group does not specialize in these and we tend toward the more commonly recognized artifacts of civilizations which are, without a doubt, manmade constructs. 

If you find yourself wanting to post some rocklike items that you suspect may be of manmade origin you may want to try a group that specializes in such items:  

Page by Damion White  The Other ArtifactsGroup 

Private· 26 996 members (!) Created 2 Dec 2019.

This page is for sharing the obscure artifacts that are found all over North America and Europe as well that do not fit the criteria of typical artifacts. Have you been told that a stone you found is natural that is clearly worked into shapes of human heads, animals, or other effigys (sic) [?]. Use any phrase like "levarite" , "no sign of human alteration", or "natural" here, and your ass is out, period. Enjoy some real works of art here. You may post common stuff like arrowheads but we all have seen plenty of those. This page is for the good stuff 

Roxy Brukley and 3 other members (Damion White, Jackie Lynn White, Brandon McDonald) are administrators, Angela Ewing Brown is the moderator.

Kabul Museum

Kabul Museum:

(Bayt Al Fann)

Once one of the greatest museums in the world, it opened in 1919 and most of the artefacts exhibited were excavated in Afghanistan. It’s objects testified to the location of the region at the crossroads of Asia. An estimated 70% of its 100,000-object collection has been looted.

USA will quit UNESCO

As a reason for its latest withdrawal

from a global body,"the White House cites

UNESCO’s focus on ‘divisive social and cultural causes’...".

An article by Angelique Chrisafis in Paris 'Trump pulls US out of Unesco in blow for UN culture and education agency' (The Guardian 22 Jul 2025) as Donald Trump continues to pull an increasingly isolationist US out of international institutions. The United Nations’ culture and education agency UNESCO was founded after the Second World War to promote peace through international cooperation in education, science and culture, an initiative that should not be controversial.

Tammy Bruce 

The US State Department apparently currently now has other ideas:

“Unesco works to advance divisive social and cultural causes and maintains an outsized focus on the UN’s sustainable development goals, a globalist, ideological agenda for international development at odds with our America First foreign policy,”

according to Tammy Bruce, a state department spokesperson. Donald Trump's pick of Tammy Bruce for State spokesperson continues his trend of turning to the cable network for positions in his current administration

The US withdrawal, to take effect in December 2026, will be a blow to UNESCO’s work on education, culture and combating hate speech.

The US was a founding member of UNESCO in 1945, but this latest departure will be the third time it has quit. Washington first withdrew in 1983 under Ronald Reagan, whose administration said the global organisation had anti-western bias and “has extraneously politicised virtually every subject it deals with”. It rejoined under George W Bush in 2003, with the White House saying it was happy with Unesco reforms. Trump pulled the US out of Unesco in 2017, during his first term as president. His administration cited what it called “mounting arrears, the need for fundamental reform in the organisation, and continuing anti-Israel bias”. The US returned to UNESCO in 2023 under Joe Biden. The Biden administration said it was crucial to rejoin in order to counter “Chinese influence”. Beijing had become the organisation’s biggest financial backer in Washington’s absence. As a condition of readmission, the US agreed to pay about $619m in unpaid dues and make contributions to programmes supporting education access initiatives in Africa, Holocaust remembrance and journalists’ safety. In 2011, UNESCO voted to admit Palestine, which is not formally recognised by the US or Israel as a UN member state. The Barack Obama White House had cut UNESCO contributions, resulting in the US owing millions in arrears to the organisation.