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The complexities of the claims by Turkey for the return of artefacts in foreign museums is well-illustrated in a recent article by John Leonard ('The looting of Sardis', Athens News 24 May 2012) which discusses the removal of artefacts from ancient Sardis, in western Asia Minor by American excavators in 1921-1922. The action was:
This export of cultural property was not an isolated event and "symptomatic of a larger trend in which rapacious European and American individuals and institutions sought to take advantage of the late 19th- and early 20th-century decline of the Ottoman Empire to enrich private collections and national museums". I summarise Leonard's admirable presentation of the background to this in another post. Archaeologist Fikret Yegul, discussed these events in a 2010 article, and:
Excavations by foreign missions in the region were brought to a halt by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, but when it ended, the digging gradually resumed, as did illegal exportation. According to Leonard, finds were taken to American museums from the Harvard University excavations at Colophon and Sardis in 1922. From the latter site the removed artefacts were enough to fill 56 crates ("enough to fill three railroad cars").
Vignette: The Gymnasium of Sardis, wikipedia.
encouraged by prominent American archaeological and business-world figures as well as a particularly brazen group (the Executive Committee of the Society for the Excavation of Sardis, or ECSES) determined to enrich one of the world’s most important museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (or Met) in New York. To top it off, the actions of the smugglers were publicly announced and advocated in the pages of the New York Times. [...] Moreover, some of the historical riches from Sardis were carried off to New York in September 1922 aboard a US navy ship, in direct disregard of well-known Ottoman Turkish antiquities laws, in effect since 1884.The decision to export the Sardis material was "effected, however, in the weeks following the Ottoman Turkish invasion of Smyrna; perhaps even during the period of 13-22 September 1922, when the port city was burning and in a state of tragic, wartime confusion". So no doubt the "safeguarding the artefacts" argument might be employed. There is however a difference between safeguarding and taking.
This export of cultural property was not an isolated event and "symptomatic of a larger trend in which rapacious European and American individuals and institutions sought to take advantage of the late 19th- and early 20th-century decline of the Ottoman Empire to enrich private collections and national museums". I summarise Leonard's admirable presentation of the background to this in another post. Archaeologist Fikret Yegul, discussed these events in a 2010 article, and:
notes the clear statement of intentions made in January 1922 by Lloyd Warren, secretary of the ECSES, who pushed for the fruits of future Sardis excavations to be brought home to America. Yegul observes: “The sheer mendacity of this candidness may be jarring to our modern sensibilities, but for the business and museum crowd that the secretary was addressing, it was very much the culturally responsible and patriotic thing to do.” The question that seems to lie at the heart of the looting of Anatolian archaeological sites in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, according to Yegul, is whether the moribund Ottoman Empire had any right to the rich cultural heritage that lay within its boundaries. “To cast the followers of Mohammed,” Yegul writes, “in the role of caretakers of classical culture - a culture all European nation states claimed as their own, with similar noises coming from across the [Atlantic] - was an anathema.” Indeed, the Ottomans’ “exotic” eastern empire “was seen as an illegitimate and barbaric power, especially as concerned dominion over the Greco-Roman heritage of Western Anatolia and Christian Jerusalem”.One might note that nothing much seems to have altered, American collectors and dealers still today voice such opinions in justification of their own no-questions-asked dealings with dugup artefacts from other people's territories.
Excavations by foreign missions in the region were brought to a halt by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, but when it ended, the digging gradually resumed, as did illegal exportation. According to Leonard, finds were taken to American museums from the Harvard University excavations at Colophon and Sardis in 1922. From the latter site the removed artefacts were enough to fill 56 crates ("enough to fill three railroad cars").
Upon learning of the clandestine shipment, the cultural authorities of the newly established Republic of Turkey immediately stopped the Americans’ excavation permit for Sardis and for all other Anatolian sites. A diplomatic resolution was finally reached after 53 of the original crates - including the 30 gold coins and 122 silver coins - were shipped back to Turkey in 1924, where they were inspected and divided up. Ultimately, 12 crates containing various artefacts and four gold coins arrived back in New York by the end of August 1925 - a “gift” from Turkey.Thus ended "an era when Anatolian antiquities were regularly used by both Turks and foreigners as currency with which one could purchase fame, professional success and political favour". The antiquities authorities of the new Turkish state struggled to compensate for centuries of Ottoman neglect of the region’s cultural heritage, between 1923 and 1926 they built seven new archaeological museums.
Vignette: The Gymnasium of Sardis, wikipedia.
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7 comments:
hi paul,george horton was hardly a "rogue civil servant" as the article suggests,he was a highly respected diplomat.i must admit that he was very pro greek and very anti turkish,whom he thought of as barbarians.
i can understand why,at the time,he thought he was "saving" greek culture for the west from the ottoman turks.
for centuries the turks neglected and cared very little for the greek culture of asia minor[or any other for that matter]THAT CERTAINLY IS NOT THE CASE NOW,but this is a relatively recent phenomenom.as recently as 1955 we had the pogroms of constantinopole were everything and anything greek [churches,monuments ect] were destroyed and again in cyprus as recently as 1974 greek archaeological sites were being looted with the turkish authorities turning a blind eye.
if you put yourself in hortons shoes in 1922 and you have seen the last greek enclaves of asia minor fall into the hands of the turks[who were behaving like barbarians at the time]in fact one of hortons closest freinds,bishop chrysostomos was barbaricly murderd[his nose and ears cut off than draged through the streets by a mob],in his eyes,he might have believed he was "saving" the sardis antiquities.the 30 gold coins he carried in his pocket,a fact published in articles at the time,to potray him as some kind of looter/nutter,is not right.in 1922 turkey was a very different place when it comes to greek artifacts,than it is now.
the article states that 12 crates were gifted by the turks to the us,do they also want these pieces back?
kyri
I think the "rogue" bit refers to the fact that removal WAS against the prevailing law at the time. So how many other diplomats are respected FOR breaking the law?
of course,because these crates were removed without permision and there was a law in place at the time,you have to come to the conclusion that they were illegally removed,allthough in the context of what was going on at the time,i can understand why it was done.
kyri.
sometimes laws have to be broken,even by diplomats.as i said i can understand why horton thought he was doing the "right thing"at the time.
in times of war many things are spirited away for safekeeping.this is why i am a big supporter of the encyclopedic museums,lets all share our heritage,a heritage of all mankind,,not stuff national museums with cultural objects relative only to that particular nation and risk loosing it all in times of war or religeous fervour.
kyri.
I imagine people looting shops in the London riots last year used similar arguments ("wiv these brokem winders, those ipads'll only git wet if it rains, so I'll take them home to keep 'em nice and dry")
"have to be"? Who decides they have to be and on what grounds? I think these are dangerous arguments: "One law for you, another for me"? ("One law for you, another for me because I'm American"?)
hi paul,i bet paul bucherer was not thinking about laws or treaties when he was trying to illegaly export thousands of artifacts out of afghanistan for safe keeping.he to was denounced by some unesco hard liners.
they flatly denied permission for him to remove anything from afghanistan and it took the demolition of the bamiyan buddahs to change their minds.for bucherer you could say horton,he honestly thought he was saving these pieces from turkish fanatics .
dr.kwame anthony appiah explains much better than i can. http://www.rfrost.people.si.umich.edu/courses/MatCult/content/Appiah,%20Whose%20Culture.pdf
sometimes laws or treaties must be bent or broken,for the good of all mankind.
kyri.
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