Grebkesh and Tompa, the Campaign Against the Cleanup Measures

What hope of a Future is there for those
prevented from trading the paperless
past by the US 'clean-up laws'?

No ancient or antique artefacts from a whole range of countries can be imported into the United States of America, according to the campaign run by the coin dealers' paid mouthpiece Peter Tompa. The USA currently has allegedly "trade-stopping" bilateral and other cultural property agreements with the following countries  Belize, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, China, Colombia, Cyprus, El Salvador, Greece,  Guatemala, Honduras, Iraq, Italy, Mali, Nicaragua and  Peru - See  here for details.

As a result of the draconian cleanup measures adopted by the Obama Regime, five hundred and forty three families of former US 'Mom-and-pop' antiquity and tribal art dealers are now on the bread line, living from charity handouts.

Halton Grebkesh, President of the US Philistines and Smugglers' Relief Club says "my members are desperate, we petition government day after day about this, but nobody listens. It is digusting how easily people believe the lies that to comply with these MOUs is no big deal, I bet these people have never  tried to import cultural goods into the United States, nor have they any contact with anyone who has actually imported artifacts themselves or represented those who do".

Meanwhile, US ports are jammed with antiques and antiquities seized at point of entry by US Customs from hapless people who simply do not realise that the US is now totally boycotting the import of cultural property from a large part of the world. The six giant warehouses that house Italian cultural property seized at the port of entry are like an Aladdin's cave of sculptures, armour, pottery vases and mosaics, all items now (according to Mr Grebkesh and Mr Tompa) forbidden on the US market. The Italian antiques and collectables trade used to be worth USD 4,189,800 (2012 figures), today, as a result of the MOU, it has dwindled to 19 dollars and forty-five cents.

Antiquities dealers are fed up with being silenced by the US Government and have decided to make the world aware of their plight, now totally unable to import a single old artefact into the United States.  They have started up dozens of  blogs, websites and action groups intended to inform the world about the great injustice that has been done to their industry, totally blocking access to antiquities from these source countries. The groundswell of loud protest from all these suffering dealers is threatening to jam the Internet.

Why, Mr Tompa has even dragged out and dusted off some hearsay anecdotal evidence about a few isolated cases which are supposed to bolster his case. Obviously the supporting evidence is in all those other websites saying the same thing and showing that more than 99% of cases of attempted licit import, there have been similar obstacles from persistent Customs officers unrestrained by any existing US law.

Lebanon gives back 78 stolen relics to Iraq

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On Saturday, in a ceremony held for the occasion at Beirut's National Museum, the Lebanese government returned 78 confiscated Mesopotamian artefacts smuggled into Lebanon from Iraq. The usual speeches were exchanged between Lebanese Culture Minister Gaby Layyoun and the Iraqi Ambassador to Lebanon, Omar Barzanji. As usual, there was no mention of any arrests made and the consequences.

Ahlul Bayt News Agency, 'Lebanon gives back 78 stolen relics to Iraq', March 25, 2012.

Potts on Laundering by Warehousing

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Larry Rothfield discusses Lee Rosenbaum's interview with Getty's Tim Potts (' "We have to support better policing of the sites", says the new Getty Museum Director. What does he have in mind?', February 25, 2012). The interview is also discussed by David Gill ("Timothy Potts: "the problem hasn't gone away" "). Potts concedes that "there is still a huge amount of ongoing looting and this issue is not being addressed". Rosenbaum reminded him (and us) that a few years ago Potts had supported a rolling 10-year statute of limitations on the ban on buying unprovenanced antiquities. This of course is wholly within the thinking behind the US 1983 Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act where is a dealer or importer can claim with a clear conscience (no need even to actually document it) that an object has been out of the country of origin for ten years or more, it can be regarded as "clean". As Larry Rothfield notes:

That position was rejected for the quite obvious reason that it would give thieves an easy way to loot with impunity: simply warehouse your finds for a decade. But Potts has not taken the point

But one wonders whether those that looted the sites in Iraq from the 1990s onwards did. The tenth anniversary of the 2003 invasion comes up next year, will we see the emergence of increasing numbers of Mesopotamian artefacts on the international market, all of which "left Iraq more than ten years ago and have been kept in an old [****} collection"? All that is needed now is for the US to lift emergency restrictions and replace them by a bilateral cultural property agreement (the MOU type) and there would be nothing to prevent these items being imported into the USA for private consumption in huge quantities perfectly legally under the terms of the CCPIA. If this happens, will the Getty be buying any?

Vignette: Dr Timothy Potts

Buttock - Purveyor Arrested

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This was one of the more bizarre "heritage" cases of 2011, but it is good to see that it was not just shrugged off. I explained the legal background in an earlier post, and it seems that I was not alone in thinking that what was happening was not right. Yesterday British police arrested somebody in Derbyshire alleging they were involved in the illegal removal of a fragment of a bronze statue of Saddam Hussein from Iraq. The suspect was not named but stated to be "66-year-old man", the press are suggesting that "the arrested man is connected to Derby-based war art relic company Trebletap".

He was held on suspicion of breaching the 2003 Iraq Sanctions Order, which bans the exportation of "illegally removed Iraqi cultural property," including items of archaeological, historical, cultural, or religious importance.

The arrested man has been released on bail pending further inquiries. The piece of the statue, and most newspaper articles do not fail to mention that it was from the "buttock" (some add "bronzed") of the person depicted, was about 0.6, tall and was removed from the statue by "a former soldier from Britain's elite SAS regiment, Nigel "Spud" Ely, 52, after he witnessed US Marines drag the statue down following the fall of the Iraqi leader". Ely had managed to extract the fragment from Iraq and imported it into Britain "and put it up for auction last year, although it failed to reach its reserve price of £250,000 ($390,000)".

Ely expressed shock at today's arrest, which is thought to be connected to a company trying to find a buyer for the souvenir, saying, "This is like having a chunk of the Berlin Wall - it's part of history but it's not cultural property." He said that US Marines gave it to him at a time when Baghdad was under US control, adding, "How can it be classed as cultural property when it was put up by the biggest tyrant since Attila the Hun?"

The "two wrongs make a right" claim, as we have ample opportunity to see, is a standard one of the cultural property takers worldwide. (I also think such rhetoric does poor justice to both Saddam and Attila, but that is by the by.) Certainly the US forces had no authority to "give" Mr Ely that object (and when it was taken, Baghdad was not yet formally "under US control"), Mr Ely did not have authorisation to export the item, and thus as illegally appropriated property, it presumably cannot legally be brought into or owned in the UK.

Guardian, 'Man arrested over importation of Saddam Hussein statue's buttock', Thursday 19 January 2012.

AFP, 'Man held over 'stolen' bronzed Saddam buttock', Herald Sun, January 20, 2012.

UPDATE 20.1.2012
Chuck Jones of ISAW - NYU has published the following information on the Iraq Crisis website:

Trebletap Ltd. is the organization founded by Nigel ’Spud’ Ely [to sell] the Saddam Hussein statue's buttock. [Their website] includes his "comment on the Iraqi demand for the return of Saddam's comment on the Iraqi demand for the return of Saddam's bum"

That text is a huge eye-opener into the mentality of the sort of person that joined George Bush's Smash-Baghdad escapade of 2003. Do also have a look at what "trebletap" means; these people are walking among us. Some of them even think they are "artists". The "War relics art" company are refusing to surrender the stolen piece:

As far as Trebletap is concerned, the arse is designated for sale [...] The time, effort and cost that have gone into Trebletap will not be used to pay the pension for The Minister of Culture and Tin Cans in Iraq. As a safeguard, Trebletap have hidden the piece[...]

and of course hoping to cash in on the publicity the dispute over their fragment of bronze slab is generating. The seller claims

as a result of what Spud has done, the value of this piece of scrap has escalated out of all control and depending on who you talk to, it is now worth between £250,000 and £1,000,000. However, this value results from the story, from Spud himself and from the positioning that turned a piece of scrap metal into a piece of Art. Indeed, it is the very first in the new concept now known as War Relic Art and by definition it automatically assumed an enormous increase in value.

The guy is seemingly a megalomaniac, of course it is by no means the first occasion when war trophies have been turned into "art". The value is only the price a buyer will pay, the object failed to reach its reserve price earlier, now it turns out that by international law it cannot be possessed legally, he will not be finding a buyer soon.

Or he could try finding a cultural property lawyer of the calibre of Bailey and Ehernberg PLC's Peter Tompa. He sees no legal impediment to owning this piece ('Chasing Saddam's Butt). Apparently this lawyer considers that the fragment of statue is legally owned because it was "given to him by US Marines following the fall of Baghdad". Well, as far as I can see, Baghdad has not "fallen" and has an Iraqi government who say they did not "give" the statue to Mr Ely. He also questions whether such an item can be cultural property

The veteran has it right: Describing the furore surrounding the buttock as farcical, Ely questioned how a piece of metal from a statue put up by a dictator could be classified as national cultural property.[...] "American Marines gave it to me and at that time Baghdad was under American control," he added. "There wasn't even an Iraqi government and I have since turned it into a piece of war relic art. "This is like having a chunk of the Berlin Wall – it's part of history but it's not cultural property."

So, maybe Mr Ely can provide a document issued by the Americans in control on the date he took the fragment, confirming transfer of ownership. I wonder what Mr Tompa would consider as an adequate definition of cultural property to cover such cases. Are the rail spikes from Auschwitz (to take a recent case) cultural property, or up free for grabs to anyone who fancies taking a couple as souvenirs? Bloodstained fragments of the World Trade Centre recovered from the landfill and sold on eBay? That smuggled aeroplane.

I think we should hear from the commanding officer of the body of troops responsible for the area in question and which "gave" permission for an onlooker to remove this items from the country. Most of us in the civilised world agree to abide by the principles embodied in the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. At the time of the looting in Baghdad of course the US had not got around to ratifying this convention, they only managed to do that in March 2009.

In order to further boost publicity, I see "Spud" Ely now has on his website a poll "Vote on whether we should send Saddam's bum back to Iraq". We see that 85.4% of the visitors to the firm's website (70 voters) oppose the option "send it back" but support the option "keep it" (to sell). I wonder how many of them are British servicemen or ex-servicemen with their own stash of "liberated" property from the Iraq - or other - escapade which they hope one day to cash in on?

Frankly, whether it's called "cultural property" or not, theft is theft, whether or not you're an ex-soldier and whether or not some American soldier in a foreign country says you can have it. Suggest two wrongs make a right if you like, but theft is theft. Whether Peter Tompa recognises it or not, theft is theft. Call a bit of shrapnel on a stick "art" if you like, but theft is theft.

UPDATE 13.03.12:
The Antiques Trade Gazette now has a piece on this for those who still do not get it ('Whitehall issues sanctions warning following Saddam ‘statue’ sale', 05 March 2012):

The government has issued a warning to the art and antiques industry over the sale of war trophies after a piece of a Saddam Hussein statue appeared at auction. Those in breach could face up to seven years in jail. Statutory Instrument 2003 No.1519 UNITED NATIONS The Iraq (United Nations Sanctions) Order 2003 restricts the trade in such cultural goods because UN sanctions are still in force "as a continuation of efforts contributing to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq", says the ministry of culture.

"Please note it is your responsibility to ensure that your activities do not breach these sanctions," it advises the industry through the British Art Market Federation. "If you wish to deal in Iraqi cultural property you are advised to look at the UKTI, BIS and HM Treasury websites. If there is any uncertainty you are advised to seek independent legal advice to ensure you do not breach sanctions. It is a criminal offence to breach these sanctions and carries a penalty of up to seven years imprisonment and/or a fine." [...] Auctioneers and dealers are also regulated by the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003, which makes it an offence for any person to dishonestly deal in a cultural object that is tainted (within the meaning of the 2003 Act), knowing or believing that the object is tainted. The offence set out in the Act complements the UK's obligations under the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, which the UK ratified in 2002.

The Iraqi Embassy in London had complained when the piece of Saddam Hussein statue was consigned by Jim Thorpe (director of Trebletap) to Hanson's auctioneers of Etwall, Derbyshire. The incident has raised the question as to who actually owns the piece.

His business partner, Nigel Ely, a former SAS soldier [...] is said to have been issued with a notice under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, telling him not to alter or dispose of the item until the investigation is completed. In the meantime, Mr Thorpe faced arrest and questioning under suspicion of having breached the UN sanctions.

More Freshly-Surfaced V-Coin Cunies for Sale

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Edgar Owen also has on his V-coins store a group of ten middle eastern antiquities which he says have the same (latter part of their) collecting history. As "provenance" for all of them, he gives (only) the following information:

"From the collection of a New York City professional entertainer acquired in the 1980's".

No more, nothing about how they left the source country. There are currently on offer seven "Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets, ca. 3rd millennium BC."

6689. clear cuneiform both sides. 1.9 x 2 inches.

6693. 1.5 x 1.8 inches. Clear cuneiform both sides. Intact.

6695. .9 x 3 inches. One side covered with cuneiform. corner chip [where it has been belted by a pickaxe in excavation].

6696. 1.8 x 2.8 inches. Considerable cuneiform both sides. Intact.

6701. 1.3 x 1.8 inches. Considerable clear cuneiform both sides. Reattached at middle.

6703. 1.9 x 2.5 inches. Roughly glued but with considerable clear cuneiform both sides.

6704. 1.8 x 2.5 inches. Several lines of cuneiform on the back which is intact, and covering the front which has chips with glue traces. [it also has a huge pickaxe scar across the front]

6707. tablet with cuneiform both sides. 2 x 2.6 inches. Repaired.

6708. tablet with cuneiform on one side. 2.25 x 2.25 inches. Repaired.

There are also two other objects:

9599. Syrian Bronze Calf Head, ca. 5th-3rd century BC. [...] pierced ears for earrings and attachment tenon at rear. 1.2 inches. Described as "rare".

9611. Ancient Holy Land Bronze Stamp Seal, ca. 1st millennium BC. [...] with a clear deep pattern, break to tip of handle. 1 inch in diameter. [described as "rare" and the suggestion made that the squiggles on the front "could be three letters in which case the seal might be traceable to a particular person". Or not of course].

The first thing that strikes the reader is the odd lack of any kind of translation of the cunies, many items on the market nowadays come with this, and this sometimes gives the name of the site they came from. The second is that several of the cunies are of similar appearance, colour, clay and the same crude glueing. Were these bought by the anonymous "New York City professional entertainer" as single items or a group? What other items were available on the New York market in the "1980s" and where did they come from? How and when did they leave "Mesopotamia" and why (if my suspicion about several of them being from the same discovery is correct) when they were bought by the collector, were these items still together?

Certainly tracing their presence on the collectors' market only as far back as the 1980s makes them "freshly surfaced". It does not take them back to before the institution of the heritage protection laws of Iraq (the probable source country), nor the 1970 AAMD "safe" date, so what documentation is there for where they were before then? Mr Owen neglects to say on his V-Coins portal. Why?

Iraqi Buttocks and Plates: No Problems Using the 'L' Word Here

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An Atlantic Wire article (Uri Friedman, 'Eating Off Saddam's Plates: Iraqi Militaria as a Hobby', 14.10.11) talks openly of the looting of Iraq by soldiers of the US-led invasion force. Even a few months ago, this was a topic that was not freely discussed, hushed up. We remember the unanswered questions about the reported involvement of a US military unit in the removal of an old Torah scroll from Iraq (a matter never resolved) and the embarrassment caused by the seizure of a chrome-plated AK47 that had somehow "arrived" in the States. Then this week we learn of a British ex-soldier, Nigel "Spud" Ely, working as a journalist 'embedded in' the invading army that took part of the "iconic" (only because the US media made it so) toppling on April 9, 2003 of the Firdos Square statue of the Iraqi president and is now hoping to earn a lot of money (perhaps about £10 000) from the sale of the item he drove about the country in the back of his jeep after removing it from the monument with a crowbar (? that's what it says):

He said the marines gave him permission to remove the buttock using a hammer and a crowbar. "The US Marines had erected a cordon of tanks to guard the square. But I wanted a piece of the statue -- and when I mentioned to the marines that I was an old soldier and with the press they told me, 'No problem, buddy -- help yourself,'" Ely said.

The Coalition Provisional Authority was only created on April 21st 2003. By what right were US military endowing ownership of this object to "Spud" the journalist? The President of Iraq was still the President and Iraqi ownership and cultural property laws still applied on April 9th- as did General Order 1A (GO-1A). International conventions and law are very clear about the duties and rights of an invading force on foreign soil. This was two days before Donald Rumsfeld's "stuff happens" pronouncement. Anyhow, "Spud" travelled around with this hunk of statue in the back of his jeep until it was time to go home. He only managed to get it across the Iraqi border by the tactic used by many antiquity smugglers too, misdescribing it:

"I threw it in the back of my truck and forgot about it until we tried to re-enter Kuwait, where the Kuwaiti army arrested us and searched us for plunder." The ex-serviceman was allowed to keep it after saying it was armour for a truck,

So it was removed from Iraq under false premises, no export licence is available for the auctioneers to show. We do not learn when "Spud" crossed the frontier, but it was after the UK had finally ratified the 1970 UNESCO Convention. I'd like to know why this object is on open sale in Britain by Hansons Auctioneers in Derby on October 27 as "war relic art".

The Atlantic Wire article writes about other "relics" which were "liberated" by the "stuff-happens" bit of the 2003 invasion.

Over the past week, several news outlets have picked up a story about how Kevin Lasko, a chef at the New York City restaurant Park Avenue Autumn (the name changes with the seasons), has teamed up with artist Michael Rakowitz to create a dish called "Spoils" that the restaurant is serving though November on plates looted from Saddam Hussein's palaces. [The dish was] deliberately designed to evoke mixed emotions in diners. "I wanted to explore the tension between the diner's tongue, the delicious and sweet meal, and the bitter surface upon which it is presented," Rakowitz explained. "Indeed, refusal, or the inability to eat or even order this dish because of the dishware's provenance or the circumstances under which it was acquired is just as important as the experience of consuming this dish."

Vignettes: Saddam hooded with US flag, "Heritage hero" Nigel Ely is the author of a book about soldiering, funny how blatant images of the Union Jack, aggressive stances and bits of old metal objects seem so often to go together...

Italy to Help Iraq Preserve the Past

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It has been announced by the spokesperson for the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities that Italy has agreed to train Iraqi archaeologists and modernize several halls of Iraq’s National Museum.

Abdulzahra Talaqani said some of the halls dedicated to the Assyrian and Islamic civilizations were to be rehabilitated by the Italians. He said the sides have signed a memorandum on the latest Italian assistance to the country’s national heritage.“The Italian side, in accordance with the memorandum, shall rehabilitate the 2nd Assyrian Hall in the museum and an Islamic hall. The agreement also calls for the training of Iraqi personnel involved in excavation and tourism,” said Talaqani. The Italian side will pay for the rehabilitation and the training, he added. Italy is actively involved in upgrading Iraqi museums. Previously, it rehabilitated two other halls in the museum and offered designs for the repair and modernization of provincial museum in Najaf, Nasiriya and Diwaniya. Italian experts have organized several seminars for their Iraqi counterparts on how to preserve and safeguard antiquities."

We recall that it was the Italians who (as part of the US-led 'Coalition of the Willing' which shamefully attacked Iraq in 2003) took the cultural preservation more seriously than most, sending a team of specially trained carabinieri there to protect archaeological sites. It is good to see this activity followed up in times of peace by concrete action in the form of international co-operation and exchange of expertise.

Shaymaa Adel, 'Italy to train Iraqi archaeologists and rehabilitate National Museum', Azzaman, September 30, 2011

Vignette: Assyrian hall in National Museum in Baghdad

Sir Mortimer's Cunies

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An item in Bonham's New Bond Street Sale 18947 - Antiquities, 5 Oct 2011 caught my eye:

Lot No: 152, A Mesopotamian terracotta cuneiform tablet, Sumerian, Third Dynasty of Ur, circa 2080-2000 B.C.[...] Provenance: Given to Lady Mavis Wheeler as a gift by Sir Mortimer Wheeler after their marriage in 1939. Thence by descent.

My initial interest was the connection with my boyhood hero (who I actually met when he came to give a talk in my town and my school history teacher took me along). The more I thought about the beguiling and colourful Mavis however it seems to me an object with really quite special associations. What a pity I don't collect antiquities!

So, where did Sir Mortimer get it from?

Ancient Coin Collectors Guild Celebrates (sic) a "Success"

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I said in the post above this that the press release "Ancient Coin Collectors Guild Celebrates Seven Years of Defending Ancient Numismatics" does not highlight its successes over the past seven years. That is not quite true, the ACCG draws to everyone's attention that

in its first days, the guild successfully opposed legislation that would have created unnecessary import restrictions on antiquities originating from Iraq and Afghanistan.

brilliant, a great "victory" for US dugup collectors.

So that's Iraq:



xx

and Afghanistan?






But US dug-up collectors don't care. Heaven forbid that the US should legislate making it impossible to sell the products there, eh?

Sources of pictures, Iraq, smuggled artefacts, trampled potsherds left by looters, Umma looters' pits trashing site, Nimrud gold, unprovenanced Ilkhanid coin (Baghdad), unprovenanced cuneiform tablet, Afghanistan, looters near Kabul, British Museum photo of artefact hunting "partners" in Afghanistan, knocked off "Gandhara" sculptures, more, Blood antiquities on sale, unprovenanced Kabul jital (medieval coin). Q- How do US coin collectors choose who writes press releases on their behalf?

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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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Freshly-surfaced Gold Vessel Goes Home

It took long enough to get there, but on the 4th July 2011 at the Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in Berlin, the Federal Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany Guido Westerwelle handed over to the Iraqis (represented by the Iraqi ambassador Al-Dr. Hussein Katheeb in the presence of the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Al-Shahristani), the ancient gold vessel of the 3rd Millennium BC which was seized in 2005 from an auction house in Munich - apparently Münzenhandlung Gerhard Hirsch Nachfolger. It is not recorded if dealers' pal, Minister Martin Zeile the Bavarian Minister of Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology, who boasts of the free trade in antiquities obtaining there (see here and here), was there to see this.

What remains to be established is where this actually "surfaced" from, and how it got to Munich, and what else came to Munich by the same route and was not spotted. Frankly, getting a decontextualised geegaw back home is only (a small) part of the task. Once again no announcement is being made about the conviction of any middlemen or looters in this horrible trade.
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Baghdad Museum: are "US Tax Dollars" the most important issue here?

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Professor Lamia al-Gailani Werr wrote on the University of Chicago's IraqCrisis list (Letter from Baghdad, May 24th 2011) of some of the recent archaeological and heritage events in Iraq, including some ongoing problems in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad with inventorisation, archiving and conservation despite having been helped by a grant from the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation. Most people on reading such a text would consider it a shame that so much cultural property is in peril and feeling deep sympathy and empathy for those colleagues who are fighting these problems out of their own concern for the situation (for example the people in Iraq who alerted prof al-Galiani Werr to the problems). They would be considering ways to offer their support and help. Not so the US collecting mob. Lawyer Tompa "Cultural Property Observer" considers this text as highlighting why the US should not be aiding the Iraqis attempting to preserve the cultural heritage of the country that was so recently subject to US-led invasion and occupation (Your tax dollars at work: Fraud, Waste and Abuse at the Iraq Museum). He seems not to notice that the problems highlighted in the text go far beyond the particular one the US ambassadors threw a bit of money at (largely one suspects as a public relations gesture, the US having earned such bad press over the way they treated the Iraq Museum and similar institutions during the Invasion). He apparently places the blame for this "fraud" (eh?), "waste and abuse" of US tax dollars on "Crusading Western archaeologists". He seems not to notice that the number of tax dollars spent on repairing the roof and showcases of the shelled and gutted Museum are insignificant compared to the number of tax dollars spent on invading a sovereign country, bombing, shooting arresting, torturing and killing its citizens, searching for imaginary super weapons and toppling a former US ally. He sees no evidence of Fraud, Waste and Abuse in the conduct of that war.

As for US tax dollars lost through the failure of those distributing them to apply some more effective form of fiscal accountability from those receiving them, "stuff happens" Mr Tompa. Is that not the US attitude? You cannot blame financial mismanagement and wastage on "crusading western archaeologists".

Is it not a bit much to blame the Iraqi people for the shortcomings of their heritage protection efforts today, given the huge human and humanitarian problems the country faces? The people of Iraq have gone through three wars in twenty years, had to suffer under a dictator that America's leaders would have the world believe was one of the worse in the world. They had to endure ten years under US imposed sanctions, a US-generated program of economic and social destabilisation, then a US-led invasion and and cope with the consequent instability that has prevailed until now. I wonder how well the heritage would fare in any other country (including the US) if it was forced to endure such conditions.

This sort of use of other peoples' misfortunes as pro-American "it could never happen here" and "look at what the wily Orientals are doing now" propaganda is upsetting when it is offered as an excuse for ceasing to express support and concern or offer help. The use of commercial interests of reports of other peoples' misfortunes as oblique propaganda for Tompa's trade partners arguing for the sustaining of current ongoing antiquity looting and smuggling (because "it's better off in US collections") is simply disgusting.

UPDATE 13.06.11
It seems the Iraqis, still less those dastardly 'crusading archaeologists' are not the whole (or maybe main) culprits here: Paul Richter, 'Missing Iraq money may have been stolen, auditors say', Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2011:

U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion, sent by the planeload in cash and intended for Iraq's reconstruction after the start of the war. [...] U.S. officials often didn't have time or staff to keep strict financial controls. Millions of dollars were stuffed in gunnysacks and hauled on pickups to Iraqi agencies or contractors, officials have testified. House Government Reform Committee investigators charged in 2005 that U.S. officials "used virtually no financial controls to account for these enormous cash withdrawals once they arrived in Iraq, and there is evidence of substantial waste, fraud and abuse in the actual spending and disbursement of the Iraqi funds." Pentagon officials have contended for the last six years that they could account for the money if given enough time to track down the records. But repeated attempts to find the documentation, or better yet the cash, were fruitless.

So, a leaky roof in a foreign museum is just the tip of the iceberg of a problem involving considerable mismanagement of US funds, by the representatives of US administration itself and nothing to do with archaeologists and preservationists.

Looted Art, the never-ending story

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Josh Rothman in the Boston Globe summarises a recent article ('Art in the Time of War') by British historian Richard J. Evans in The National Interest on the looting and destruction of art down through the ages from late antiquity through Napoleon and the Nazis, up to modern Iraq and Egypt. Twentieth -century warfare has led to the wholesale destruction of cities and the collections they contained by bombing and shelling.

The Nazis looted art on a massive scale never before seen in history, and squabbled among themselves over the gems of Europe's museums and private collections. There was so much stolen art that it was often treated carelessly -- the German governor of occupied Poland, Hans Frank, had to be reprimanded by a Nazi art historian "for hanging a painting by Leonardo da Vinci above a radiator". A surprisingly large amount of the art displaced by the World Wars has been returned, not necessarily to its owners, but at least to its country of origin.

Evans notes, the looting and destruction of art continues with every new conflict, as we saw in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with its shocking images of the looting and destruction of the museum and library collections there. He quotes the journalist Robert Fisk, who wrote, in his forward to The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq:

I was among the first to enter the looted Baghdad archaeological museum, crunching my way through piles of smashed Babylonian pots and broken Greek statues. I watched the Islamic library of Baghdad consumed by fire -- 14th and 15th century Korans embraced by flames so bright that it hurt my eyes to look into the inferno. And I have spent days trudging through the looters’ pits and tunnels of Samaria, vast cities dug up, their precious remains smashed open -- thousands upon thousands of magnificent clay jars, their necks as graceful as a heron’s, all broken open for gold or hurled to one side as the hunters burrowed ever deeper for ever older treasures.

The looting of art continues apace; if it's no longer motivated by nationalist fervor, it's still driven by personal greed. By 2005, four thousand of the 15,000 artworks looted from the Baghdad Museum in 2003 had been found. A thousand were found in the United States, and 600 in Italy. Many of them, Evans writes, were "pillaged by order from private collectors and their agents".

Of course antiquity collectors and their "agents" (antiquity dealers) bend over backwards to deny that they are in any way responsible for the existence of an antiquities market. It stands to reason that all those Mesopotamian bits of carved stone and impressed clay tablets cannot be selling themselves.

Iraq Seeks International Treaty Protecting Archaeological Artefacts

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Iraq is reportedly seeking a new international agreement protecting antiquities as a response to the ongoing looting of saleable antiquities from archaeological sites there (Radio Free Europe, 'Iraq Seeks International Treaty Protecting Antique Artifacts', April 20th 2011).

Iraq wants to conclude a new international agreement that will designate the dealing of antique Iraqi artifacts a crime, RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq reports. Iraqi officials said the goal is to preserve the country's heritage from thieves and smugglers. Baha al-Mayyah, an adviser at the Iraqi Tourism and Historic Monuments Ministry, told RFE/RL on April 18 that "Archaeological sites are still in danger of being looted and are subject to illegal excavations in many places." He said "the government is working on the possibility of concluding new international agreements that will designate dealing in ancient Iraqi artifacts a crime." [...] Al-Mayyah criticized the international community for not doing enough to deter smugglers and looters. He said Iraq wants to abolish the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property [...] Iraq plans to convene an international conference at the end of this year in Baghdad to discuss the creation of a new international organization. "Its task would be to push for the cancellation or the amendment of the 1970 convention," al-Mayyah said. "It would have as members all the countries of the world that are facing problems with the looting and smuggling of their heritage."

This would be a very interesting move. It is quite clear that a convention discussed and written in the late 1960s cannot possibly be applied to the changed antiquities market (especially in its dominating no-questions-asked variant) that has developed since the mid 1970s and then was again completely transformed in the mid 1990s by internet trading. It is totally inadequate to the task. This is quite apart from the fact that the US, one of the largest potential markets for illicitly acquired, and exported dugup antiquities refuses to implement it properly but only in a form which is a "compromise" with their own huge and lucrative no-questions-asked antiquities trade. The time for new agreements and standards on the international trade of this sort of material was yesterday. Whether or not US antiquity dealers want it or not, it's time to do some serious thinking about this problem while there is still some of the archaeological resource in the ground left to save from commercial looting.

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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Munich Dealer Loses Some of his Stock

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Over in Bavaria, apparently the 'Lootier Land' of Germany where the Minister of Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology boasts of the free trade in antiquities obtaining there (see here and here), one of the dealers has lost a bit of his stock. According to 'Monsters and Critics', when challenged, it turns out he was unable to show how a Mesopotamian item he was in possession of in 2004 had left Iraq ('Germany returns antique battleaxe to Iraq', Monsters and Critics, Feb 9, 2011). The dealer's name is not given.

The item in question, a decorated axe was found by police in 2004, and after the dealer was unable to produce any document confirming legitimate origins, was sent to the Roman-Germanic Museum in Mainz for evaluation. The Museum pronounced it 'typical of the military equipment used by early Mesopotamian city states'. The object was accordingly returned to Iraq on Wednesday following several years of legal limbo. The Iraqi ambassador Hussain Mahmood Fadhlalla al-Khateeb accepting the object said it was "important to crack down on trafficking in stolen goods, as this was an income stream for terrorist groups".

Antiquity Looted by US Military from Saddam Palace on Sale in US

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"Product (sic) 54/64": Shang Dynasty Sword: 4,000 Year old Bronze Shang Dynasty Sword Acquired by U.S. Military during a tour of Iraq from one of Saddam Hussein's Palaces. Museum Piece and Gallery 63 has it!"

What does it mean "acquired by U.S. Military during a tour of Iraq "? You mean pure and simple looted by U.S. Military. A museum piece - looted by US soldiers from an Iraqi museum. Well, as Donald Rumsfeld famously said "stuff happens" in a US led invasion of a sovereign country. Auction is on Sun, Feb 13th @ 11am.

Hat-tip Ton Cremers MSN

Bush on Antiquity Looting in Iraq

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Larry Rothfield (author of 'The Rape of Mesopotamia', 2009 - ISBN: 9780226729459) has an interesting post on his 'Punching Bag' blog. In it he takes a good hard look at G.W. Bush's own account in his autobiography "Decision Points" of his "surprise" at the looting in Iraq associated with the US-led invasion ('Bush's ghostwriters on the looting of the Iraq National Museum'). Bush skims over the topic.
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Troops headed to Iraq get lessons in ancient artefacts

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"Troops headed to Iraq get lessons in ancient artifacts" So, they did not go to ACE schools then? So they won't know about antiquity collecting, I guess.

C. Brian Rose, deputy director of Penn's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, talks with soldiers from the 352d Civil Affairs and Communications outfit about ancient Sumerian tablets. Photo: CLEM MURRAY / Philadephia Inquirer Staff Photographer.

Here is the News for Dullards

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Newscaster-for-dullard-coin-collectors-unable-to-discern-when-the-wool-is-being-pulled-over-their-eyes Peter Tompa wrote a shock-horror expose for a coiney rag supported by Lanz, Gorny und Mosch und Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH & Co.of the recent SAFE event I reported elsewhere (P. Tompa, 'U.S. Law Enforcement Accepts Award from Anti-Collector Advocacy Group' Coins Weekly). It begins as it means to go on:

An anti-collector advocacy group has awarded two former and two current members of U.S. law enforcement honorary awards for their efforts to stamp out the illicit trade in antiquities. The group, Saving Antiquities for Everyone or SAFE, has argued that unprovenanced artifacts, including those as common as ancient coins, should be considered “stolen” from countries such as China, Cyprus, Greece and Italy.

Is SAFE "anti collecting" or anti-no-questions-asked collecting and anti-looting advocacy group? I rather think it is the latter. Also I would be interested in seeing the lawyer's take on where SAFE has said that "unprovenanced artifacts, including those as common as ancient coins, should be considered “stolen” from countries such as China, Cyprus, Greece and Italy". Where, Mr Tompa? Nevertheless where do all those unprovenanced coins "surfacing" (from underground) on the market come from? Given the number of coins we know have been coming into the US from Bulgaria at least some will be stolen (no inverted commas) from Bulgarian sites, won't they? Which ones, well the dealers who sold them are unlikely to reveal that aren't they? Would there be any ACCG members among them, I wonder?

Well, US ancient dugup coin collectors seem to be dullards as they routinely let this sort of thing pass without comment or challenge. Likewise they are unlikely to see through the ambiguities of the lawyer's hardly-silver-tongued discussion of the following statement:

Senior Special Agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement James McAndrew, [stated], "Stolen and looted art trade sums up to almost $6 billion," and that "In many cases, the money is used to finance terrorism activities".

The first is nonsense says Tompa because Kate Fitzgibbon in a book Tompa likes to quote (because he has a free copy as he has a chapter in it too) says: “Press and public statements about the antiquities market often cite estimates of a billion or more dollars per year..." who spotted the difference between "art trade" (Picasso, Warhol, Tracy Emin and Damian Hirst) and "antiquities market"? Tompa is hoping nobody did, as he builds his case on it. Well it is a shame for him that not everybody has the lack of critical facilities it takes to collect artefacts no-questions-asked...

Tompa reckons he knows better than federal government employee Senior Special Agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement James McAndrew, who must be mistaken when he asserts that artefact sales are one of the sources used by groups like the Taliban to support terrorism because Wikileaks only mentions antiquities "sixteen times". Well, actually the connections between antiquity sales and all sorts of unsavoury business practices really do go a little beyond what we can learn (or not) from wikileaks. It's not exactly something antuiquity dealers are going to be trumpeting from the rooftops - but then how IS it that those huge numbers of artefacts are somehow getting across those borders? Somebody has the "connections" and resources to engage in illicit activity on a huge scale with impunity. Are all these REALLY the people the majority of clients of Mr Tompa's dealer sidekicks would want to be buying artefacts from? Just think about it.

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