Terrorism Victims Blocked From Seizing Artefacts From Harvard

A bizarre and potentially damaging lawsuit has been slowly rolling throught the US courts. A group of American plaintiffs is still awaiting unpaid damages of $4-billion that a U.S. court ruled they were owed by the Iranian government as compensation for injuries received as victims of terrorist attacks sponsored by the Iranian government. In an effort to get this money, the group —under the leadership of Jenny Rubin— had laid claim to certain ancient artefacts which they believe to be the property of the Iranian government held in various US collections such as the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute and Harvard’s Peabody Museum. They demanded that the college and museum turn over the ancient Iranian artefacts for sale on the open market to raise the money for them. This week however a federal judge has blocked this disturbing move.

In a ruling handed down last week, Judge George A. O’Toole Jr., of the U.S. District Court in Boston, accepted Harvard’s argument that it, and not Iran, owned the artifacts, most of which are stored at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Even if the artifacts had been excavated and removed from Iran illegally, as the plaintiffs in the case assert, that still does not make the items the property of the Iranian government, Judge O’Toole held.

A similar judgement had been reached last spring, in the case involving ancient artefacts that Iran had lent to the University of Chicago.

a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a lower court had erred in rendering a default judgement denying the artifacts immunity from seizure under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act after the Iranian government failed to weigh in on the matter in court.

Let us hope this will see an end to this attempt to hold hostage archaeological material in academic institutions by those who see them only as commercial commodities to be cashed in.

Anon, 'Terrorism victims blocked from seizing persian artifacts from Harvard', the Ticker, September 19, 2011

More on "Windsor Antiquities"

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Windsor Antiquities has apparently ceased trading under that name. The website is no longer functional, but over on V-Coins the link that used to go to their page now goes to Palmyra Heritage where a rolling newsline gives the following information:

Palmyra Heritage is our new company name formally (sic) windsorantiquities/ Gallery address 1050 second avenue #16 between 56 and 55 streets/ we have a Gallery open to the public Monday throught friday/ i will be at the Fun Coin Show Orlando FL July 2011

The "About me" page gives a potted biography of the owner:

I am Morris Khouli. I moved to New York City in 1992 with my family and opened a gallery in New York City in 1995. My father had a gallery in Damascus for 35 Years, and he learned the business from my Grandfather who was in the business as well. I am the third generation in this business. Thanks to my dad, he taught me the business and I learned to love ancient coins and antiquities ever since I was a little boy.Many collectors and dealers know me since I do a lot of shows in New York, California, Maryland, Florida, Illinois, and the ANA show, wherever it is since 1993.

This is what Ancient and Medieval artefacts they have on sale today:

Showcase

world coins (10) Ptolemaic Kingdom Egypt (17)

Greek (294)

Celtic (8)

Roman

Republican (19) Imperial (140) Provincial (28)

Byzantine (55)

Persian and Indo Greek (55)

Islamic (22)

others (16)

Antiquities

Egyptian (40) Etruscan (8) Greek (15) Roman (28) Near Eastern (53) Miscellaneous (1)

Sold Items (5984)

Windsor Antiquities was cited in a recent article as having sold some incantation bowls of unclear origins ("Syria") [Neil Brodie 2008, 'The Market background to the April 2003 plunder of the Iraq National Museum pp. 41-54 [in:] Peter G. Stone, Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly, Robert Fisk (eds), 'The destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq', Boydell and Brewer]. See also here, here, here, and here.


Note the quantity of Luristan bronzes (pages 2-5) offered by Palmyra Heritage with regard to my earlier comments about the items co-defendant Ramadan was selling before he disappeared.

It would be interesting to know when the firm changed its well-established name, and what reasons were given for this to the collecting community.

Photo: A Manhattan Art & Antique Center vendor booth believed to belong to Mousa Khouli, who has recently been charged with smuggling Egyptian antiquities (Rob Bennett for The Wall Street Journal). Vignette: the real Palmyra, just up the road from Damascus, but quite a long way away from Luristan and Egypt.
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Ancient Near East Placemarks for Google Earth

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I had this installed earlier, but somehow managed to delete it, and on finding it again thought others might like to know (it was Chuck Jones who originally put me on to it some while back, thanks). ANE Placemarks for Google Earth by Olof Pedersén Professor in Assyriology at Uppsala University.


When you have it installed, preservation-minded people can zoom in on individual sites and have a look at the number of looters' holes in some regions. All you collectors out there who thinks every one of those sites should have a 24/7 guard squad on them as the 'only way' to stop illicit material appearing on a market near you, zoom in and look at each of them and think of the logistics and costs.

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Will Iran lay claim to Cyrus Cylinder?

The Guardian has an alarmist article [Ian Black and Saeed Kamali Dehghan"Iran lays claim to British Museum's Cyrus Cylinder" Guardian, 15 September 2010] which suggests that having borrowed the Cyrus Cylinder from the British Museum, Iran "might not" give it back. This seems however another bit of journalistic "Iran Bashing" that the western media are dishing out to the public these days rather than a concrete story.

The 6th century BC Babylonian object, arrived in Iran at the weekend on a four month loan to the national museum.

In a ceremony on Sunday President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad draped a Palestinian-style keffiyeh scarf worn by Basij militiamen over the shoulders of a bowing actor dressed as Cyrus. He also described Cyrus reverentially as "King of the World" – a striking phrase in a country where pride in Iran's pre-Islamic past, encouraged by the shah, has been downplayed since the 1979 revolution. For Ahmadinejad's domestic enemies, this was another glaring example both of his self-promotion and a religious-nationalist agenda that arouses their deepest suspicions.

"Isn't it correct that the Cyrus Cylinder belongs to Iran?" asked the Keyhan newspaper, mouthpiece of hardline conservatives. "Isn't it true that the British government stole this valuable and ancient object of ours? If the answer to these questions is positive, which it is, why should we return [it] … to the party which stole it."

[...] it seems destined to be the centre of controversy for as long as it stays in Tehran. Elyas Naderan, a fundamentalist MP, criticised the government for inviting British ambassador Simon Gass to Sunday's reception.

Ayatollah Makarem-e-Shirazi, an influential cleric, denied rumours that he wanted to see the cylinder. "He never visits any exhibition apart from Qur'anic ones," a statement said.

Critics on the left point to the irony of the president's celebration of the cylinder as "a charter against injustice and oppression" as he oversees unprecedented human rights abuses. The opposition Jaras website called the object "a stranger in its own home". Cyrus would have been shocked to hear Ahmadinejad invoke his name, it said.

The Cyrus Cylinder was not found in Iran, but excavated in Babylon, which was part of Cyrus' realm back in the sixth century BC.

British Museum to Lend Iran the Cyrus Cylinder for Four Months

Farah Nayeri, British Museum to Lend Iran the Cyrus Cylinder for Four Months, Bloomberg Sep 10, 2010.
The British Museum has agreed to lend the ancient artefact known as the Cyrus Cylinder to the National Museum of Iran for a period of four months, which will allow it to be featured in an exhibition opening September 12. The loan reciprocates those made by Iran's national museum to the successful Forgotten Empire and Shah Abbas exhibitions at the British Museum. The Cylinder dates to the reign of Cyrus the Great (539-530 B.C.) and is inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform with a text that has been described as the world’s earliest charter of human rights. A replica is kept at UN headquarters in New York City.

In a British Museum press release Neil MacGregor, director of the BM says:
“You could almost say that the Cyrus Cylinder is a history of the Middle East in one object, [...] “Objects are uniquely able to speak across time and space, and this object must be shared as widely as possible”. It was not an easy decision for the British Museum to lend one of its most treasured artefacts to a country which has a prickly relationship with the UK. Relations between London and Tehran have been strained to breaking point with the expulsion of British Council staff from Iran, the launch of the BBC Persian TV channel, and the violent and repressive aftermath of last summer's disputed presidential election. A museum spokesperson says: "This [loan] is part of our ongoing relationship with the National Museum of Iran which both institutions value as a cultural dialogue independent of political difficulties".

The Cylinder has been at the core of a dispute with Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Organization, which cut ties with the museum in February for delaying the loan. The British Museum originally promised to loan the Cylinder to Iran after its 2005-6 exhibition, “Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia.” In October 2009, following widespread protests in June 2009 against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the museum said that it was monitoring the Iranian political situation to make sure the loan was made in the best possible circumstances. The loan was further delayed in January 2010 when the British Museum said it discovered, in its own collections, inscriptions similar to the Cylinder’s on two pieces of cuneiform tablets from Babylonia.

The Cyrus Cylinder was excavated in Babylon, Iraq in 1879. It arrived there after Cyrus (king of Persia from 559-530 BC) had conquered Babylon (539 BC) and deposed and imprisoned the last Babylonian king Nabonidus. This cylinder, written in Babylonian cuneiform, was a piece of propaganda in favour of the new ruler, praising Cyrus's kingly virtues, listing his genealogy as a king from a line of kings, describes how he had restored shrines dedicated to different gods and repatriated deported peoples who had been brought to Babylon. (It was this that allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem after their expulsion by Nebuchadnezzar II and rebuild their temple.)

The cylinder had been loaned to Iran before when Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi arranged to borrow it in 1971 for the celebration of the 2,500th anniversary of the monarchy at Persepolis. The cylinder is due back in Bloomsbury in January.

(updated using Ian Black and Saeed Kamali Dehghan's alarmist text: Iran lays claim to British Museum's Cyrus Cylinder)

Photo: The 'Cyrus Cylinder').

Support A Fundamentalist Regime, Buy an Artefact or Two...

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The London-based Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (CAIS) is not terribly enthused about the 'Iran Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organisation', the state department responsible for the protrection of the heritage:

Since March 2009, Iranian archaeologists are banned giving interviews or reveal any information about the ICHTHO or the status of Iranian archaeology. By implementing such a ban the theocratic-totalitarian regime has closed the only reliable avenue for obtaining the accurate information about the status of the archaeological discoveries and the cultural treasures recovered from the sites. By some reports, the number of priceless artefacts passed to the Iranian museums by ICHTHO, especially those made of precious metals recovered from the sites have been fallen drastically. The illicit antiquities trade and selling Iranian historical relics to the European markets and private collectors worldwide has become one of the most lucrative revenues for the ruling clerics and their families. Since the rise of the Islamic Regime to power in 1979, not only the smuggling and looting of Iranian art and antiquity, but a deliberate destruction, mainly Iran’s pre-Islamic heritage have been systematic and widespread. These destructions have been increased since the appointment of Mahmood Ahmadinajad as the president by the Ali Khamanei, the regime's Spiritual Leader.

So would you buy an artefact from Iran, whether it had been imported legally or illegally? Does the money go to some poor peasant farmer "subsistence digging", or to "the ruling clerics and their families" and the international dealers trading with them?

Or is this another of those pieces of anti-Iran propaganda we hear so much these days?

Is the Kalmakara ('Western Cave') Griffin a Fake?

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Oscar Muscarella in a thought-provoking post on SAFECorner ( Cultural Heritage in Danger: The Griffin in Queens: Its Modern History ) reveals that he thinks (and has already published the reasons why) the Kalmakarra Cave griffin is a modern fake.

Of course it does not surprise anyone that the clandestine don't-ask-me-to-tell nature of the trade in newly-"surfaced" artefacts would allow fakes to be passed off as real looted artefacts. We see it daily in ebay, and here we see a suggestion that this is happening at the upper end of the market too. I guess buyers involved in an elaborate process of self deception are easily deceived.

Photo: Now I look more carefully at J.C. Rice's photo of the Kalmakarra Griffin, it does look decidedly improbable.

More Plugging of the ACE

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Once again the ACCG in a press release (and see here) is plugging its pet project the scandalous "Ancient Coins for Education". This uses free gifts of ancient coins donated by coin dealers in what purports to be an "educational" scheme, but in fact has a less altruistic agenda. It is quite clearly intended to create a future market for ancient coins and support for no-questions-asked trade in ancient artefacts by ensnaring young children in the hobby. A hobby which as I have shown numerous times on this blog shoves aside discussions of ethical considerations, is riddled with self-deception, and which in part is based on the market being supplied by those doing business with those who break cultural property protection and export laws (for example in the Balkans), a hobby which closes its discussion forums to outside view. A hobby that as a parent I certainly would not approve of my child taking up, mixing with people of this calibre, and would advise other parents against letting their kids get involved in. There are other ways of encouraging an interest in, and knowledge about, the past.

I've expressed my opinion on the ACE and what lies behind their activities before and really cannot be bothered to do so again (see here in particular). I am not alone in looking askance at their methods and agenda, and particularly the material used in these lessons (here and here).

I was however interested in one section of the ACCG press release which (falsely) claims that as well as lessons in loot appreciation these coineys are giving their captive audience "archaeology" lessons in the form of "simulated digs where they can excavate authentic ancient coins". (Whoopee.) But:

The coins used in this project are mostly in poorer condition than the coins used as inspiration and prizes for the essay contests or in the museum displays. Though actually quite common, they are typical of the coins also found at most Roman period archaeological sites.

So where do they come from then? Are these coins used in this simulation not in fact actually from foreign archaeological sites? If so, how insulting that they were looted and then used by the ACE to show kids how they should have been recovered from the ground inswtead of reaching the no-questions-asked market. Is this actually pointed out to the kids in the ACE "educational" packs that accompany these decontextualised archaeological artefacts (and if not, what kind of an education" are they providing)?

Secondly, note the implied dichotomy, the crappy coins are the ones that come from archaeological sites, but it is hinted that the "nicer ones" used as "inspiration and prizes [...] or in the museum displays" do not. They come from elsewhere? So where? Coin elves?


Photo: Wendy Owens, 15-year old schoolkid from Linganore High School (just down the road from Peter Tompa's office) won a denarius (of Trajan ?) for an essay that she wrote in her Latin class. Lots of writing on the label, but I bet it does not say where it came from, how it got on the market and how it got to America, but we can guess. (Bill Ryan/The Gazette). Wendy without the coin, you look just like my niece, currently studying to be a nurse.