Coiney Mag: Libyan Looted Coins "Hard to Trace"

.
ACCG supporting coiney journalist Richard Giedroyc has an article in the Dec 27th 2011 issue of World Coin News: 'Looted Libyan Hoard Proves Hard to Trace'. Well, first of all, the so-called Treasure of Benghazi is not a hoard, but a group of disparate items (perhaps more than 10,000 ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic coins as well as small statues and jewelry from the same periods) held in secure storage that was looted:

During World War II, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini seized the artifacts when he conquered Libya [...]. The coins and artifacts were placed on view in an Italian colonial exhibition in 1940. Following Libya’s independence during the 1960s the coins and artifacts were returned. According to an Oct. 31 British Broadcasting Corporation report, “The collection has been kept in the vault of the Commercial Bank of Benghazi ever since, waiting for the opening of a museum that was never built. The coins were never photographed or documented and seemed to have been forgotten.” [...] The treasure was pilfered during the chaos in Benghazi between February and May when the city was in the midst of Libya’s recent civil war. Several reports indicate the treasure was in a basement vault. Thieves appear to have broken into the vault by using a jackhammer to break through the reinforced concrete ceiling.

There are reports of some of these coins appearing in the back room of a jewellery shop in Benghazi’s souk seen in November by a Reuter's reporter, several hundred coins may have been recovered in Egypt, according to an unconfirmed reports in the Nov. 1 issue of Al Arabiya News.

There are also reports of part of the treasure already having illegally entered antiquity markets in Europe. Without the existence of photographs or some form of inventory, it will be difficult to prove any of these items originate from the Benghazi Treasure.

Note the careful avoidance of the suggestion that any of them are on the US market...

So, let us get this right, there are "perhaps more than 10,000 ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic coins" now on the market that were not there at the beginning of the year. So a bloke in Wisconsin in the market for buying coins is not going to be asking a supplier who says he can get large numbers of "ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic coins" where they come from? Where and when they surfaced? Note that what concerns Giedroyć (himself involved in the coin trade) is whether anyone having bought these coins runs the risk of having it proven that they have ended up with one or more items originating from the Benghazi Treasure. Surely the emphasis should have been on avoiding buying potentially dodgy goods in the first place? How many dealers will be helping 'trace' the Libyan loot by getting on the phone to local law enforcement authorities reporting that they have been offered a batch of coins or other antiquities of undeclared origins which could be from the Libyan loot (or other looted artefacts)?

Or will those who have these artefacts have absolutely no problems passing them on to the no-questions-asked market now dealers and collectors are assured that in this case (too) there are not likely to be the coiney equivalent of the Medici Polaroids to trap them if they buy such items? Is no-questions-asked purchase of items of undeclared origins in such case really an "innocent until proven guilty" situation, and not a "so-what, they can't touch you for it" one?

Vignette: F & W Publications, Iola, Wisconsin, WCN - note the definition of "World" ("item can be shipped only within the U.S.")

Libya Roman Antiquities Seized by Revolutionaries Surface

Libyan revolutionaries, rebelling against the rule of Moammar Gadhafi reportedly took a number of second and third cent. A.D. Roman antiquities from loyalist troops on August 20th, as revolutionary forces were entering the capital Tripoli. It is said they were "seized from a truck on the road to Tripoli's airport" and it is suspected that "Gadhafi's forces wanted to smuggle them out of the country and sell them". The 17 ancient Roman figurines apparently from the collections of the Tripoli archaeological museum were put on display today there as "an important recovery of national treasures. The pieces include a female figurine and several small human busts in marble, as well as two pottery fragments". So where were these "figurines" for over three months and why are they being shown just now?

Associated Press, 'Libyans recover looted Roman antiquities', Nov 26th 2011.

Vignette: Seized from a truck by rebels in Libya.

Christie's Fouled in Web of Lies

.
Christie's not only employs smarmy sarcastic types in their public relations department, but also cannot always check out the stories about the origins of the objects it sells at such a glorious profit (Martin Bailey, 'Head sold at Christie’s stolen from Libya', ArtNewspaper 31 Oct 11). According to this, the Italian buyer of a head of a women with piggy eyes has voluntarily relinquished the work because it turned out after the sale on 14 April that it had been stolen in Libya in 1990.

It was bought at auction by an Italian for £91,250 and has now been recovered in Italy by the carabinieri.[...] At the time of the sale, an archaeologist contacted Christie’s to warn that lot 261 was the head of a statue at the Sabratha Museum, west of Tripoli; it had been detached and stolen in 1990.[...] A Christie’s spokesman said: “Additional information was brought to our attention after the auction. We subsequently cancelled the sale and are assisting all relevant bodies with the return of this object.”

The provenance was given as “private collection, Switzerland, circa 1975; acquired by the present owner in Switzerland in 1988”. In other words, the recent seller claims to have owned it two years before it was stolen. So I would say Christie's would be helping with more than merely the "return" of the object to the Museum, but the investigation of the crime of its theft, where an obvious first step would be establishing where the seller got it from and why they lied about the date he acquired it.

The Italian buyer voluntarily relinquished the head and is being reimbursed by Christie’s.

and why not the seller? If the surrender was 'voluntary', why were the carabinieri involved?

David Gill reflects:

Why is Christie's appearing so frequently in such cases? Perhaps those in senior positions in the auction house should start to ask some searching questions about their department of ancient art.

Personally, I'd suggest they have a look at certain aspects of the public relations department too.

Update on Looting in Libya

.
Readers might recall the London classical archaeologist who was building a database of looted objects describing the notion that there might have been looting going on in Libya during the civil ware there as "silly". Sadly it seems her sunny optimism was misplaced and she has some more stuff to include on her database. While attention was focussed on the spectacular ruins of Leptis Magna (where a CNN article, 'Libyans battle to protect ancient treasures from looting', October 13, 2011, reports some exemplary measures taken to preserve the museum objects and their inventory) it's a different story a day's drive to the east in Benghazi. Apparently the museum there has had

some of its most valuable and historic exhibits stolen, and to make matters worse for tracking them, no photographic documentation has so far come to light. More than 7,000 rare and valuable coins dating back to Alexander the Great comprise 90% of the so-called "Benghazi treasures." The other items in the collection are various artifacts from the same period. All of them are uniquely important and utterly irreplaceable.

UNESCO's senior crisis first responder, lawyer and archaeological expert Louise Haxthausen says UNESCO (you know, the one the US government threatens cutting funding for to prevent the world's nations from taking their OWN democratic decision about Palestine) is playing a lead role in helping the investigation. She says:

"we are working very closely with Interpol on this. Interpol sends out alerts to customs to the police officers with a clear description of that collection and then hopefully they can seize them." But the effort doesn't stop there, she says. Lists of the artifacts are being publicized and she says "we are also in contact with auction houses of course with dealers, with collectors, and we warn them of the situation so that if it comes on market they will know this is the result of illicit trafficking."

Will they? How will the no-questions-asked market react to unprovenanced coins of Alexander the Great with desert patina appearing from nowhere (like 99% of all the rest of the coins of Alexander the Great with desert patina on the market) ? Has the ACCG put out an alert for its members to watch out for coins of Alexander the great appearing on the market with no stated collecting history? Haxthausen worries that once items are taken out of the country getting them back can be nearly impossible.

She cites the wartime theft in 2003 of numerous treasures from the Baghdad museum in Iraq. Most experts, she says, believe the looting was the work of professional, organized international illicit traffickers. "The looting of the Baghdad museum was very heavy and it has been very difficult. Despite mobilizing all actors it has been very difficult to get a big part of the collection back." The biggest problem she says is that without, or with very limited documentation [in the no-questions-asked market - added PMB] it can be hard to prove the items' rightful owners, and if they are out of the country even harder to prove where they came from.

Of course if buyers in the trade actually asked for verifiable documentation of licit provenance, the problem would not exist, items on the market illicitly (because smuggled or stolen) would not be marketable.

Interpol alert on stolen treasures from Libya

UPDATE: More on this by Larry Rothfield from a different slant: 'Libyan Sites get the Once Over'. Please read.

"There they go again"

.
Predictable wasn't it?

There they go again. [...] archaeological trade groups are again taking advantage of another supposed emergency to call for yet another round of emergency import restrictions, which of course, are just the first step towards a permanent ban.

(Tompa of course).

And oh-ho-ho, looky-here what these nasty archaeological people say: "These actions are in keeping with U.S. international obligations under the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Goods". Indeed they are. It is a shame the US with its cop-out CCPIA needs reminding of that.

Well, I am not sure that Amnesty International who released a report today would agree with the Washington lawyer's suggestion that there has been only a "supposed" emergency (ie civil war) in Libya, but who are these archaeological "trade groups"?

Archaeology Division-American Anthropological Association
American Cultural Resources Association
Society for American Archaeology
Archaeological Institute of America-AIA
Australian Archaeological Association
Canadian Archaeological Association
European Association of Archaeologists-EAA
International Committee on Archaeological Heritage Management-ICAHM
International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences- UISPP
Pan African Archaeological Association for Prehistory and Related Studies
Society of Africanist
Archaeologists (SAfA)
Society for Archaeological Sciences
Society for Historical Archaeology-SHA
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
World Archaeological Congress-WAC

What do you call this kind of use of language? Merely sloppy?

So, obviously the remedy is for all the antiquity market's trade groups to get together and produce a parallel document calling on the nations NOT to help protect Libya's archaeological sites, museums and cultural heritage (giving the reasons why). Who'll be first on the list, Tompa's own Cultural Property Research Institute maybe as a "trade group" on a par with those named as signatories of the AIA document? The ACCG? The IAPN, PNG? Who else?
.

Museum Looting, Tripoli Style

.
According to an excellent Guardian report, the rumours about the looting of the Jamahiriya Museum in Tripoli that were reported here a few days ago turned out to be both true and false in a revealing manner. The museum located in the 16th century Red Castle, at the corner of former Green Square, opened 23 years ago, has a large collection of antiquities. these include "prehistoric paintings, spectacular mosaics, traditional desert clothes and interiors, and dozens of sculptures from the Roman city Leptis Magna". But apart from the ground floor devoted to glorifying Libya's past and traditional cultures, it had an upper floor devoted to glorifying modern Libya, or rather its leader, Muammar Gaddafi. The effect was that, as Dan Smith suggests: "visitors were left in no doubt that the flowering of Roman, Byzantine and Islamic cultures were mere historical footnotes to his own ascent as "king of kings"...". Here were exhibited mementoes of Gaddafi's rise to power:

[...] Gaddafi had airbrushed out of history King Idris, the country's monarch between 1951 and 1969, and Libya's early years of independence, instead devoting rooms to verses from his Green Book, agricultural and housing projects, gifts from foreign leaders, and thousands of photographs.

There were also two of his old cars. It was the latter series of galleries that were affected by an intrusion of a group of armed men mid-morning on 20 August 2011 (the day the rebels launched their first attack on the Libyan capital). Twenty armed men entered the museum, believing that there was a secret underground tunnel leading to one of Gaddafi's residences on the Mediterranean coast. When this proved to be false, they attacked Gaddafi's car.

Staff at the museum, which has been closed since February, had no choice but to let the rebels enter. Mustafa Turjman, head of research at the national department of archaeology, said: "It was a revolution – you can't resist. It was better to let the rebels in than have them enter by force. When they saw the objects belonging to Gaddafi they couldn't resist." But the vandalism was swiftly quelled by a plea. Mohamed Shakshuki, acting president of archaeology, said: "When I said, 'don't touch them', they stopped and left them. Some were educated people, like doctors, and they stopped the younger ones from making more damage. We were sad about what happened but thanks to God it was limited and can be restored".

Interestingly the Museum has pledged that the objects from the Gaddafi galleries would be restored and placed in storage or another museum as part of the nation's history, a refreshing difference to what normally happens in such cases. Apart from this, the museum is reported to have sustained only limited damage compared to what has happened in Iraq and Cairo.

Although there is graffiti in places and one broken window, just a cloak and a rifle, used in the Libyan resistance against Italian occupation, were stolen. These were of negligible value.

and an odd choice one would have thought. Most importantly:

Staff say they had time to prepare, spending two months registering, recording and transferring the most precious artefacts into storage at another site. These include 250 pieces of Greek and Roman pottery and sculpture, and 1,500 Greek and Ottoman gold, silver and bronze coins.

Photo: Roman statues in Libya's National Museum in Tripoli. These important artefacts remained untouched, unvandalised and unlooted during the revolution. Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian

David Smith, 'In Tripoli's museum of antiquity only Gaddafi is lost in revolution', Guardian, 11 September 2011.

‘Massive looting of ancient artefacts underway in Libya’

A Russian scholar warns that massive looting and destruction of ancient artefacts is already underway in Libya. Nikolai Sologubovsky, orientalist, writer and film maker, who spent several months in Libya this year as a correspondent for a Moscow tabloid, is deputy head of a Russian committee of solidarity with the people of Libya and Syria set up earlier this year. He told Russian television “The al-Jamahiriya National Museum in Tripoli has been looted and antiquities are being shipped out by sea to Europe”.

The National Museum houses some of Libya's most treasured archaeological and historical heritage. The collection includes invaluable samples of Neolithic, pre-historic, Berber, Garamantian, Phoenician, Punic, Greek, Roman and Byzantine culture. [...] The scholar accused NATO forces of destroying some of the most spectacular architectural sites included in UNESCO’s World Historical List. “NATO aircraft have bombed Leptis Magna and Sabratha,” said Mr. Sologobovsky [...] Earlier this summer, the government in Tripoli asked Egypt and other neighbouring countries to block the smuggling of artifacts from Libya, but the looting continued unabated. [...] The United Nation's cultural body last week warned international art dealers and museums to look out for artifacts that may have been looted from Libya. UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova said in a statement that dealers should be “particularly wary of objects from Libya in the present circumstances”. She called on Libyans, their neighbours and art dealers to protect the “invaluable cultural heritage”. Mr. Sologubovsky said the UNESCO appeal came too late, too little. “Plunder of Libya’s cultural heritage has been going on since February. I’m afraid it faces the same tragic fate as Iraq’s antiquities[...].

'Massive looting of ancient artefacts underway in Libya’, The Hindu August 29, 2011

The scholar said that rock art in the Acacus Mountains (World Heritage Site) that go back 14,000 years were being destroyed by looters. “They press silk cloth soaked in special chemical solution against rock frescoes and the paint sticks to the cloth and comes off the cave wall,” he said. This is disturbiong as it's easy to believe the story that a pot, statue or coin on offer for sale in a western gallery is from "an old collection" as advertised, brought out in the 1930s, 40s, etc. It's far more difficult to believe that of a professionally transferred piece of ancient rock art. People buying this "ancient art" are surely well aware where it came from and how it got on the market, and yet they'll still buy it. These sites have already been in the news because of the vandalism that has affected them in recent years. Vandalised Rock Art Sites In Acacus

See also Looting Matters: Cyrenaican antiquities: keep watch Compare with somebody else's: "Crying Wolf" (a lawyer working for international antiquity dealers):

"there have been no credible reports about either extensive looting of archaeological sites or attacks by NATO aircraft. Indeed, to the extent Libya's cultural heritage has gone missing, isn't it more likely to have happened due to the sticky fingers of Libya's former ruler and his family?"

As if it really mattered WHO was taking the stuff and supplying them to foreign markets. And PhDiva assures us: "Contrary to silly Russian claims yesterday, [the National Museum]'s safe and has been guarded by the rebels - and no NATO bombs have been dropped anywhere near it". But the article does not state they were.


Photo: Would this look the same on a Wisconsin collector's wall?