Stolen Egyptian Artefacts Seized in Australia

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Over a hundred stolen ancient Egyptian Greek and Roman artefacts have been returned to Egypt after a whirlwind few months of travel. They were seized in Melbourne at an (unnamed) auction house in November 2010 and it was determined that they had been smuggled from Egypt to Australia. They were discovered because the seller had put them on sale through the internet and the Egyptian embassy presented an official request to retrieve them. They have been presented by Australian authorities to the Egyptian ambassador in Australia, Omar Metwali. This is apparently the third repatriation from Australia in such circumstances in recent years.

Samantha Meys, ' Australia will return 122 Egyptian archeological pieces', Canberra Times, September 18, 2011

Amany Saber, Australia will return 122 Egyptian archeological pieces', Youm7, Sep 17, 2011.

Vignette: Down-under bit of the Commonwealth

Watching Artefacts Surfacing Down Under: New Blog

The Southern Hemisphere is an area that (at least from the perspective of a northerner) has remained somewhat on the margins of the antiquities debate, even though comparatively large amounts of both ancient European and Middle Eastern antiquities "surface" unprovenanced on the market there, alongside SE Asian types. This seems an area too where some of the justifications offered by dealers and collectors for their activity can be examined in another environment where the post-colonial modern nation is a "melting pot" of emigrant groups from all over the Old World, but differing from those of the more vociferous Americas in several important respects. There seems therefore to be scope for some useful debate and observations here, but so far this has been little touched in the discussions in the northern hemisphere of the antiquities trade.

It is therefore an extremely welcome development that Damien Huffer, an American PhD candidate at the Australian National University, who has recently contributed a few posts to SAFECorner on the antiquities market in the Southern Hemisphere has begun a new blog, It Surfaced Down Under! Subtitled "An archaeologist's tracking of the Southern Hemisphere illicit antiquities trade". A handsome black and white starkness with two posts and the promise of more soon. I look forward to reading these contributions and following Damien's trail as he explores the shadowy world of the illicit antiquities trade down under. Welcome to the portable antiquities blogosphere Damien.

A Virtual clutter of Cuneiform, where's it from?

In the post above I discuss a few aspects of the code of ethics of the Vcoins web sales site for portable antiquities and question whether it is a code of ethics that actually takes into account the principle criticism of the archaeological resource protection lobby, that is that dealers and collectors are doing next to nothing to address the problem of looted objects on the global antiquities market.

In recent years the looting of archaeological sites in Iraq has been a very visible reminder of what is at stake, and the issue has become a very sensitive one in collecting circles. Dealers and their supporters have suggested that stories of the looting are “exaggerated” and that the looted items are allegedly not coming onto the western market, which should be (it is asserted by collectors and dealers) saturated by “department store” and other “legitimately obtained” artefacts of Iraqi origin.

This means that (even if a proportion of them have lost provenance) there must still be out there a substantial number of items whose legitimate origins and presence in former collections must be documentable. This is good news for reputable dealers who cannot these days run the risk of selling-on items of which they cannot document the legitimate origin. In that case, one might expect that those selling items that can be shown to be of legitimate origin would be keenly broadcasting that fact in order to set themselves aside from those who dare not reveal where the items really came from and when. (Unless of course there is a conspiracy of silence to shield the latter?)

So it was with some interest that I looked through the cuneiform tablets (the archetypical Iraqi archaeological artefact sought by artefact hunters and collectors alike), not on eBay, but ACCG president Bill Puetz’s :Strongly Ethical Alternative to eBay” Vcoins site.
Using the search engine, I found a number of COIN dealers on this one portal alone were offering these items.

Isadore Goldstein 'ZUZIM JUDAEA', Brooklyn, NY
UR III Sumerian Cuneiform tablet, 2112 - 2004 B.C.E., Approximate time of Abraham's birth
Ancient Babylonian Tablet. Period of Hammurapi, circa. 1750 B.C.E.
no provenances mentioned.

Wayne Hardenberg, Ancient Byways, Wethersfield, CT, USA
Sumerican (sic) Cuneiform Clay Tablet – O[ld] B[abylonian] Adminstartive (sic)
no provenance given.

Kevin Barry, Barry and Darling, Pt. Pleasant, NJ, USA
Mesopotamian Cuneiform Tablet, c. 3rd - 2nd Millennium BC.
Mesopotamian Proto-Cuneiform Tablet, c. 3,000 BC.
no provenance cited.

Pegasi Numismatics, Ann Arbor, MI/Holicong, PA , U.S.A
Cuneiform Tablet. Old Babylonian, XX-XVI Century BC. Temple receipt for donated goods.
no provenence mentioned.

But there is a whole lot on one Australian dealer’s site: Walter Holt, Bondi Junction, NSW Australia.
Mr Holt has had a number (eleven at the moment, but his numbering goes up to 17) of other cuneiform tablets (some which to my eyes look to have been in a very similar state of preservation) on his Vcoins store . All of them without any kind of explanation of where they came from, when and how they left Iraq (do they have Macey's in Australia?), such as:
CT 01 Cuneiform Tablet; Old Akkadian c.2350-2150BC Administrative document.
CT 04 Cuneiform Tablet; Ur III Period c.2150-2000BC
CT 11 Cuneiform Tablet; Ur III Period c.2150-2000BC
CT 12 Cuneiform Tablet; Ur III Period c.2150-2000BC Administrative document.
CT16. Cuneiform Tablet; Ur III Period, 2150-2000BC Administrative document.
CT17. Cuneiform Tablet; Ur III Period c.2150-2000BC Administrative document. I am not a cuneiform reader, but to my eye, CT16 and CT 17 are very similar in form and content. My guess is they originally came from the same archaeological site and the archive. Odd then to find them still together then if they’re “Macey’s artefacts” which have been on the market any length of time… To be honest I find this group of objects very disturbing and hope sincerely that Mr Holt can contact this blog and tell us how these items got from a hole in an ancient site to his shop in Australia.

In none of these cases of items offered for sale on the “strongly ethical” site is there any mention of documentation of provenance or legal export that the potential buyer can expect to obtain with their purchase. We can only presume in that case that they are all being sold “as seen”.

After what has (undeniably) been going on in Iraq since the imposition of sanctions, I find this on-line cluster of cuneiform bits for sale without any kind of provenance even hinted at in any of the sales blurbs profoundly disturbing. Maybe all of these dealers have a portfolio for each of these objects which the future buyer will get, including old Macey's sales receipts, export licences, former collection catalogue numbers, but if they have, why on earth do they not mention this fact on the "strongly ethical alternative to eBay"? Surely this is something which gives the object greater not less attrractiveness as a collectable? Surely this is a factor that would give VCoins more, not less kudos as an "ethical" site?

Personally I would have said - whatever their ultimate origin - that these items displayed in this way would be a factor very strongly undermining the “mutual trust between dealers and the public” and potentially bringing discredit not only to VCoins but also all other dealers associated with VCoins.

The bottom line is that it is quite clear from this sort of thing that both the Vcoins “Code of Dealer Ethics” and the “code of ethics” of the ACCG fall very far short of what is needed to clean up this untidy market. Perhaps, if they really are concerned about not encouraging the destruction of the archaeological resource by looting, it is time for those who created them to look at them again. The appointment of Bill Puetz as President of the ACCG seems a wonderful occasion in which this might be achievable. All that is needed is the will.