Zakaria Goneim and the discovery of Sekhemkhet's Buried Pyramid

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There is an interesting 2009 Heritage Key article here about Goneim and the unfinished Sekhemkhet Pyramid and also "the sons of Seth" (it is worth remembering that according to some reports Hawass had himself been subjected to similar accusations in 1993, and we have seen them surface again after his dismissal as Minister of antiquities in 2011).

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Rich US Collector Pair Patronise Loot-Retaining Missouri Museum

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"The Saint Louis Art Museum announces that Mark Weil and Phoebe Dent Weil have pledged to the Museum their collection of European art. Collected over the past 25 years, this generous promised gift of paintings, sculpture, drawings and prints will enhance the experience of generations of Museum visitors. The nearly 150 paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints are predominantly from Italy, Germany and the Netherlands and represent a variety of media. Some particularly noteworthy works are [yawn...] ...[...] a legacy of philanthropic giving which has built the Saint Louis Art Museum over 132 years into the internationally-recognized institution it is today". Phoebe Dent is an art conservator, Mark Weil is an art historian, former director of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. I was more interested in the comment of Ton Cremers:

Most interesting. This museum is NOT a member of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), and still refusing to return a stolen Egyptian mask (the Ka Nefer Nefer mask that was stolen from a warehouse in Saqqara, Egypt). The Saint Louis Art museum ignores the ICOM code of ethics. Not exactly the kind of museum clever collectors would offer their collection.

Photomontage, the donors Mark and Phoebe Dent Weil.

The Status of Egyptian Antiquities "Floating Around the USA"?

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It would seem that the St Louis Art Museum has engaged the wrong cultural property lawyers in their fight to keep the Ka Nefer Nefer mask from Saqqara which they bought from the Aboutaam brothers' Pheonix Ancient Art for half a million dollars. ACCG Executive Director Wayne Sayles would obviously be doing his local art museum a favour putting them in touch with the Guild's own cultural property law expert:

Egyptian Archaeological Objects Like Cocaine? As hard as it might be to believe, the US Government has apparently claimed so in a court filing relating to the pending forfeiture action against the SLAM Mummy Mask.[...] Hopefully, the Government is basing its contention on more than the fact that Egypt has had at some point (1983 was the date adopted by the Court in the Schultz case) a patrimony law that vests unequivocal state ownership of Egyptian artifacts found in the ground of that country and that the artifact is indeed "Egyptian." But, if not, what exactly is the status of the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other Egyptian antiquities, significant or not, floating around the United States, according to the USDOJ?[...] Have senior US Government officials cleared such arguments to be made? And, if so, do they truly understand the implications of such claims?

Well, isn't that a thought-provoking topic for the collector who has bought no-questions-asked antiquities to ponder? How can a US collector who cannot prove legal title to an object claimed by another party establish legal title? Only by a documentation of the fact that the other party had actually relinquished title to the object.

Before too many collectors start shooting themselves in the head in anticipation of prison sentences, perhaps it should be recalled that this case does not hinge just on the state ownership of excavated artefacts due to Egypt's patrimony laws (what the ACCG's lawyer calls "the wildest claims of Egyptian cultural property nationalists like the now disgraced former Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass"). The object falls under the terms of the 1970 UNESCO Convention (to which, like it or not, the US is a state party) because it was allegedly stolen from museum storage, and Egypt has asked for it back. I really do not see why a US museum would not react to such a situation in any way other than to surrender the object.

The ACCG's lawyer says "there is no US law on the books that bans the possession of Egyptian artifacts as is the case with cocaine", what about stolen Egyptian artefacts? So basically all SLAM has to do is to prove that the items was not stolen from museum storage and that any movements since its excavation were in accordance with international laws and agreements in force.

St Louis Art Museum Mummy Mask: "Like Cocaine"

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Rick St. Hilaire has a piece on his blog: 'US Claims SLAM Lacks Legal Standing— Asserts That Mummy Mask is Illegal Contraband — Discovery Reveals More Information'.

Lawyers for the US Attorney’s Office in St. Louis [...] in their July 27 pleading, contend that SLAM’s “claim of ownership is legally impossible, and as such the Mask is effectively contraband in the hands of the Museum.” The government argues that Egypt’s patrimony law, which gives ownership rights of cultural property to the Egyptians, makes it impossible for the SLAM to own the mummy mask. Therefore, SLAM has no legal standing to assert that it can own the mask. The government’s brief analogizes SLAM’s claim of ownership to the mask is similar to asserting ownership to cocaine — one cannot legally claim ownership. Since the mask cannot be owned by the museum, the museum lacks standing to claim ownership, the government argues.

This is indeed an interesting argument and applies equally to dugup antiquities smuggled to the United States from a number of so-called "source countries". They cannot be legally owned in the USA if they are still the (stolen) property of another entity, a foreign state.

In justification of its case, SLAM supplied Federal authorities with details of the purchase and what due diligence they think they have exercised, including revealing that they "conducted a provenance investigation" by contacting, among others "the Missouri Highway Patrol". Having established that Ka Nefer Nefer was not being sought by them (presumably with regard offences such as hit-and-run, speeding, DUI or driving licence violations in Missouri) or anyone else they asked, they decided to buy it. Although "Swiss legal counsel confirmed [indicated former owner] Jelinek’s address", it's a pity that they did not ask about the Aboutaams' landlady about her "collection". As St Hilaire notes:

Missing from the documents list is a purchase or sales agreement between Jenilek and Pheonix Ancient Art. SLAM claimed in past court filings that such a transaction would have occurred in 1995. SLAM, nevertheless, includes on the list of documents a 1997 fax from Phoenix that purportedly attaches a letter of provenance from Jenilek.

Also missing from the documents list are shipping papers or import papers describing the mask’s entry into the United States. Import papers generally describe a package’s date of entry, location of entry, country of origin, value, and contents. The court papers suggest that the mummy mask traveled from Switzerland to the United States in 1998, but this information remains unclear. The mask must have been imported into the United States at some time and at a specific point of entry. But the question of whether papers exist documenting the importation of the Egyptian mummy mask, valued at several thousands of dollars, remains unanswered thus far.

The question raised about this by St Hilaire is of interest because as will be recalled a few years later (2003) Hitcham Aboutaam was in trouble with federal authorities over the import of an odd-shaped rhyton, supposedly from the Western Cave Treasure in Iran, and in the same year his brother Ali was suspected (apparently accused and maybe even convicted, though details are wholly unclear) of being part of a group of people smuggling artefacts out of Egypt about the same time. With what kind of paperwork did the Ka Nefer Nefer mask enter the US and why has it not been supplied as evidence that SLAM ensured that proper procedure was followed in making this purchase?

Hawass: Ka Nefer Nefer mummy Mask Returns Next Week

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A few days ago emails were being exchanged behind the scenes to establish the foundation for the report by Nevine El-Aref ('Egypt steps up bid for Nefertiti bust', Ahram Online, 3 May 2011) according to which:

Hawass told reporters that in the next week, an ancient Egyptian statue which was illegally smuggled out of the country will return from Switzerland as well as the Ka Nefer mummy mask from the United States.

A week has passed and the mummy mask in SLAM has not been moved a centimetre nearer the door. Who knows, or cares any more, about what happened to the Swiss statue? Why do the Egyptian media continually come out with stories which contain not a shred of truth? For whose benefit did Nevine El-Aref present this as a "fact"? What purpose does this serve except to make observers even more distrustful of "news" from Cairo?

Hawass: Ka Nefer Nefer mummy Mask Returns Next Week

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Nevine El-Aref, 'Egypt steps up bid for Nefertiti bust', Ahram Online, 3 May 2011

Hawass told reporters that in the next week, an ancient Egyptian statue which was illegally smuggled out of the country will return from Switzerland as well as the Ka Nefer mummy mask from the United States.

Did he? Will it?

"My ancient lineages"

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Response to “Saint Louis Art Museum – Ka Nefer Nefer mask – U.S. demands art museum hand over Egyptian artifact" Reuters, by Rose on Mar 18, 2011:

”I am thrilled this mask is in St Louis. As a history buff and female with a very unusual MtDNA Subgroup from Egypt, I would like to enquire the Library do DNA testing of the artifact. A MtDna test would be most beneficial with the advent of ancient lineages of which I belong.

Well, as history "buff" and a male with DNA too (which I am sure comes from a "lineage" just as ancient as Rose's), I am not in favour of any "library" doing any DNA work on a stolen artefact. This illustrates rather well the problems with this antiquity collecting issue. Many people do not see it in terms of what is right or wrong, but purely from the point of view of what they personally want. Rose is convinced she's the descendant of some ancient Egyptian "lineage" (and obviously concerned to let all and sundry hear about it). Therefore the only thing she thinks worth commenting on is that the SLAM should do a DNA analysis of this object for her own personal benefit. The whole problem is reduced to selfishness and self-interest. Rose comes over here as a selfish idiot. Most of the DNA on that mask will be from the restorer who sneezed on it as he wiped off the ownership inscription, and a prospective buyer who spluttered the Aboutaams' proffered champagne when told by the dealer how much they wanted for it.

I am always a bit suspicious of all these internet DNA-buffs, in my experience whenever you start to try and follow a discussion by looking something up on the internet, you always end up on a Neo-Nazi /White Supremacist website. Then you find that some of THEM also collect antiquities ...

The theft of the golden mask

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Zahi Hawass has a new book coming out, about the theft of antiquities from Egypt which should be a good read and is bound to have some stunning photographs. It will deal with "how such antiquities were smuggled out of the country, as well as how they were returned, following conflicts and deliberations with those who found themselves in possession of stolen artifacts" (Zahi Hawass , 'The theft of the golden mask', Asharq Alawsat 15/4/2011).

After denouncing those who use the recent thefts and looting to claim that returned objects are not as safe in Egypt as in other countries, he then discusses the St Louis Ka Nefer Nefer mask which is "a vivid example of the conflict between those who claim that our stolen antiquities should remain abroad, and the broad range of archaeologists who call for these antiquities to be returned to their native Egypt".

Dr. Mohammed Zakaria Ghoneim, may he rest in peace, discovered this beautiful mask in [1950 at the Saqqara pyramids near Cairo]. It remained in storage until 1966, when it was on its way to the Egyptian Museum, where it was scheduled to be shipped to Japan to feature in an exhibition when it disappeared. Official records confirm that the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask was in Egypt until at least 1966, and evidence suggests that it was stolen en route to the Egyptian museum. The mask never arrived at the museum, nor was it registered in the museum's records, but the question remains: Who stole the mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer? And how did it leave Egypt?/

Hawass answers his own question with the following statement:

It seems that this was the work of an organized international gang smuggling antiquities from Egypt, and one of its most prominent members was well known to the FBI and the Egyptian intelligence services. This thief was able to steal many artifacts from Egypt, and was heavily involved in the case known as the "great artifact robbery". This thief stole the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask and sold it to the Saint Louis Art Museum in America.

That is a pretty transparent allegation. Although the object ended up with an international dealer, any evidence the Egyptian intelligence service may have linking them directly with the actual theft has, I think, never been made public. Hawass goes on to say:

a formal request was sent to the Saint Louis Art Museum in order to recover the mask, and later a formal request was sent to the US Congress and the St. Louis Senator. When we did not receive a positive response, we turned our attention to civil society, contacting school students in the city asking them not to visit the museum, because it was in possession of stolen Egyptian artifacts. We did not try to raise the issue in U.S. courts, given the high financial costs that are unfortunately associated with these types of issues. It is Egypt's antiquities that are in most need of these funds, for their restoration and care. After thinking long and hard, the file was sent to the Department of Homeland Security in the U.S., and they conducted a series of measures to get the mask and return it to Egypt. However, the museum quickly filed a lawsuit against the Department, to stop the process. The museum management claimed that Egypt had donated this mask to the late Zakaria Ghoneim, but these words are lies and cannot be believed.Soon, we will send Egyptian archeologists to America to testify in this case, in order to ensure the return of this mask to Egypt after its long absence.

Well, it's no use contacting US senators, I don't think many of them care. As it seems is the case with the citizens of St Louis whose schoolkids still go and gaze on stolen property.

A Warning From Beyond the Grave for Looters

Attention has been focussed on the legal, rather than moral, aspects of the current retention by the St Louis Art Museum of the cartonnage mask which proper due diligence should have revealed clearly should be in the archives of the 1952 excavation by archaeologist Mohammed Zakaria Goneim in Sakkara. The excavation has been published (Goneim  1956), but there is a nice online resource detailing her burial by K.M. Johnston, a previous correspondent with this blog, on Egyptology Geek and Amduat Wiki.

Johnston notes that the contents of Ka Nefer Nefer’s burial are in several respects extraordinary for such a simple interment. The body has the cartonnage accompaniments of a mummy, but was not actually mummified. A recent re-examination in association with the upcoming court case of the field catalogue of finds still held in Egypt however reveals (pers. comm. A. Mustafa Laff, Feb 2011) that also now missing from the Sakkara storeroom (presumably removed at the same time as the mask and presumably scattered in the no-questions-asked antiquities trade), are several fragments of cartonnage bands found loose in the vicinity of the body. Although, unlike the mask, they do not bear the name of the deceased, they clearly belong to this burial. There is a hieratic inscription on the cartonnage, and the text (visible in  the low resolution photos in the field journal) is transcribed as below by Prof. Ivar Lupe, egyptologist in the Estonian Academy of Sciences, whose  recent research has focussed on Ramesside non-royal burial practices and who will be publishing this new discovery in due course:
Lupe observes that a feature of great interest in these lost fragments is that alongside the usual funerary formulae, the mummy bands contain a text of the type popularly known as a „mummy’s curse”.  Lupe translates this portion of the text as follows:

"Death will come on swift wings to those who disturb my peace and shall do evil or wickedness to this. The  City of the Gate  will fall, and to its land will come fire, water and pestilence [...]."

This seems to me a further argument for returning Ka Nefer Nefer's coffin mask to  Egypt to rejoin the rest of the material excavated from her burial. It is what she would have wanted. The formulae are well known from other inscriptions of this type, but Prof. Lupe was unable to decipher the meaning of the „City of the Gate” in an ancient Egyptian context, suggesting it either refers to a local town or more likely refers to a military outpost on Egypt’s western borders in the Delta, referring to a text on a Late Ramesside papyrus from Deir El-Medina in a time of crisis at the end of the 21st dynasty which makes reference to the „foreign-born princes” ruling in a „City of the Gate on the Western Horizon” indicating a collapse of central control of this strategically important region.


Readers cannot fail to note the coincidence that St Louis which refuses to allow Ka Nefer Nefer’s face to be reunited with the rest of her burial also calls itself the „Gateway to the West”. One may only speculate whether the priests and seers (re)burying Ka Nefer Nefer's remains foresaw the violation of the integrity of her burial and  were issuing a warning to the people of St Louis, that under the rule of a foreign-born prince „fire, water and pestilence” will visit their land. Just to be on the SAFE side, in their place, and given all the other factors, I would be urging the local museum to give it back right now.


Reference: (Goneim, M. Zakaria. The Lost Pyramid. Rinehardt & Co Inc. 1956. pp  64-66; Goneim, M. Zakaria, Service des Antiquites de L'Egypte. Horus  Sekhem-khet - The Unfinished Step Pyramid At Saqqara, Volume 1.  Excavations at Saqqara. Imprimerie de L'Institut Francais D'Archeologie  Orientale. Cairo. 1957.  pp 23-27, Plates LXVII-LXXI)

A Question for St Louis

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The good people of St Louis have in their city a museum which has a mummy mask from a Ramesside burial at Sakkara, excavated in 1952. The Museum trustees insist the object came onto the market soon after excavation by entirely legitimate means. The Egyptian authorities however say this is not true and allege it came onto the market after a theft from a museum storeroom in the 1980s. So are the citizens of St Louis harbouring a stolen artwork?

There is a question that St Louis Art Museum has not yet answered, and I would like the people of St Louis to ask the Museum's trustees for an answer.At some stage in its collecting history the object has been tampered with and this has led to the concealment of a vital piece of information about its origins and associations.

When the mask was originally found, there was a hieratic inscription in black ink near the thumb on the left hand reading from right to left "Neferu". ie. The name of the owner. This is visible in old pictures of the mask but was apparently rubbed off when the object was sold onto the antiquities market. It is not visible in modern pictures (from K. M. Johnston's wiki page on the Ka Nefer Nefer burial).

Indeed it is not. The inscription could be transcribed into something that looked like this:
It reads "The Osiris, Neferu".

The erasure of this inscription raises an important question, when and by whom was this done and why?

Let us note that the assurance by the dealer who sold it to SLAM that the object was licitly obtained relies on a chain of ownership, each owner being assured that the object was legitimately on the market and passing that assurance on to the next owner.

Secondly most collectors would value an object with an inscription linking it to a particular person (and in this case, since it is published, a particular findspot) over an anonymous, generic, object. Quite apart from any ethical issues, removing the inscription reduces the value of the mask as a collectable, removes a part of the "story" it can tell.

These are two good reasons why a collector who believed the object was legitimately obtained would not remove the inscription naming the person it represents.

There is however a very good reason for removing the inscription. If the object was stolen and somebody was intending to sell it, it would have been rather awkward if the potential buyer did a search for the name in a resource like Porter-Moss and found the Goneim Sakkara "Neferu" mask in the literature and started asking questions. Removing the name makes it more difficult for the average buyer to make the connection (SLAM obviously did not). It reduces the risk that the object will be immediately identified as of illicit origins.

Removing the name makes sense ONLY if the person selling this object knows it has been illicitly-obtained.

So now we have a plausible reason "why", we may ask when and by whom was this done?

- By the dealer in an unnamed Brussels gallery where, according to the Phoenix-SLAM version of the collecting history, it was seen by a Swiss man (Charly Mathez) in the 1950s?

- In the collection of one "Kaloterna" (Kaliterna?) family, according to the Phoenix-SLAM version of the collecting history, until the early 1960s.

- In the early 1960s, according to the Phoenix-SLAM version of the collecting history, when it was bought by a Swiss collector named "Zuzi Jelinek"?

- Four decades later, when it came into the possession of the dealers Phoenix Ancient Art in 1997?

- When the St Louis Art Museum bought it in 1998?

Let the Trustees of St Louis Art Museum answer the question, how would the fact that any of these people would have altered the object in this manner square with their story that the object was checked out by SLAM staff and they found no evidence that the object was not of licit provenance? Is not the erasure of this inscription evidence in itself that somewhere along the line one of the sellers was trying to hide something? Doing proper due diligence before purchase surely would entail finding out what that was, and if that was impossible, walking away from the deal. What is the preferred explanation of the Trustees of St Louis Art Museum for the removal of the inscription, and will we or the people of St Louis ever hear it? Maybe somebody there can ask them outright.

US Government sues to seize St. Louis Museum Mummy mask

After reasoning with these people failed, the U.S. attorney's office has now filed a series of court motions intending to result in the seizure of the 3,200-year-old mummy mask at the centre of a controversy (Government sues to seize St. Louis museum's mummy mask). It is believed by many (most?) informed people outside the charmed circle of the Museum's directorate and trustees that the mask was illegally removed from Egypt some time before being bought for display in the St. Louis Art Museum. Readers will recall perhaps that the SLAM has already filed its own civil suit last month in federal court, trying to pre-empt such a move. See Ricardo St Hilaire's coverage too.

Let us hope the case finds a successful resolution - preferably by the museum saving face and admitting that there were indeed holes in its due diligence policy and coming to some kind of agreement with the Egyptians. Do the good citizens of St Louis really want their kids coming to the museum to view stolen artworks as a trophy and exemplar of modern US morality and attitudes to the rest of the world? Do they? Why do they not ask the Museum's Trustees why they are clinging to this clearly misappropriately acquired object so hard? Is it just the money involved?

Slam the SLAM for their position on Egyptian Looting

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St Louis Art Museum whose Director Brent R. Benjamin was until recently one of George Bush's cultural property 'advisors' has really scored a home goal with the timing of this. As the head of the Egyptian Antiquities Service is otherwise engaged, and as international concern grows about the illegal export of antiquities stolen from Egyptian museum stores, this institution is actually suing the US State Department (seems a popular pastime in US antiquity collecting circles!) to prevent them from seizing the ancient Egyptian mummy Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer in their collections (Joe Harris, 'Museum Sues USA Over Mummy Mask', Courthouse News 16th Feb 2011). As we know, the Museum bought this item from a well-known antiquity dealer brotherhood in 1998. The Museum says they did:

a "months long" investigation of the mask's origins and found no evidence that it was stolen - it claims that even Egyptian law is on its side. "The museum conducted a thorough investigation of the mask's provenance before purchasing the mask," the complaint states. "The museum's investigation revealed no evidence that the mask was owned by Egypt under applicable Egyptian law at the time of excavation, that the mask was stolen from Egypt, or that the mask had unlawfully entered the United States.

Well, of course the text does not say that the Museum ascertained it had legally left Egypt, which should be the starting point of any investigation. What evidence did they seek? DID they find out about the mask's "origins" before they bought it? My reading of the story indicates that they did not discover that it had been excavated in 1952 at Saqqara and published. A thorough investigation of the "provenance" (ie collecting history) would not leave the glaring gaps and inconsistencies uncovered by a pair of journalists working for the local paper who probably did not have to take "many months" to write their story.

SLAM contests that "Egyptian Law No. 215 on the Protection of Antiquities", does not make the ownership of the mask illegal in Egypt, and therefore not in the US either. They are hoping:

"The United States government cannot show probable cause the mask was 'stolen, smuggled, or clandestinely imported or introduced' into the United States.

But then neither (I bet) can they show that it was not smuggled out of Egypt. Whether or not it was "clandestinely" imported or introduced into the USA is neither here nor there unless you are a cultural property lawyer arguing on behalf of a client.

Even if the mask was stolen, the museum says, the Tariff Act of 1930's 5-year statute of limitations has expired. "As early as December 31, 2005 ... the United States government had actual or constructive knowledge the mask was allegedly stolen. ... As such, the United States government possessed, more than five years ago, either constructive or actual knowledge sufficient to discover the alleged theft of the Mask from Egypt," the complaint states. "Pursuant to 19 U.S.C. § 1621, the United States government is time-barred from proceeding against the Museum under the Tariff Act."

Whether or not US culture-thievery laws are on the side of the museum, what does this say about the people of St Louis, their Museum and its trustees? Will they be acquiring much more dugup stuff from Egypt as it comes onto the international market after doing similarly "thorough" investigations of its origins? Is it for the US government to investigate the doings of the local museum, or is this something the good people (the good ones) of St Louis should be demanding the Museum does for itself? St Louis, the Lootier City? Whatever the museum claims to have "done" in 1998, there are awkward questions about the collecting history of this object, what has St Louis done to break through the fog, instead of waiting passively to see if anyone outside can "discover the alleged theft" and then when the statutory five years are up thumbing their nose at everyone?

Previous coverage here, here, here ("it would be interesting to hear Mr Goldstein's side of the story" - never did), here, (talks about the "won't get this from me until you prize it from my cold dead hands" attitude this court case illustrates - but also draws attention to Laura Elizabeth Young's online 2007 MSc Thesis which "provides a few additional details about what documentation SLAM posessed at the time of purchase and what joined the files after" do have a look at that and see why that is so significant to the case put forward by SLAM) . Also here. But the story has its real beginnings in the February 2006 Riverfront Times article "Out of Egypt: From a long-buried pyramid to the Saint Louis Art Museum: The mysterious voyage of the Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask"

UPDATE: Two hours later, I see somebody on a computer I identified earlier as probably in SLAM has spent quite a bit of time looking through this post and the links. Good. Give it back!!

Ton Cremers has written a rather more sharply-worded post on MSN ("THIS MASK WAS STOLEN IN EGYPT AND THE SAINT LOUIS ART MUSEUM KNOWS") which puts it in a nutshell. This is a matter of collecting ethics and not US law. It was Tom Cremers, then the operator of the Museum Security Network, in Amsterdam, who alerted the world to this case, sending according to SLAM "multiple e-mails to government officials in 2005 and 2006 calling for an investigation". The fact that the gubn'mint did not do any such thing is what this legal case celebrates. The US government scandalously has no bilateral cultural property agreement with its big ally in the Middle East, Egypt. This is because under the Mubarak government Article 9 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention the only one that the CCPIA (US sham "implementation" of the Convention) recognises) was not felt applicable.

Other coverage of this truly bizarre news item:
David Gill, St Louis Art Museum and AAMD Guidelines,

Derek Fincham, St. Louis Art Museum Sues the United States to Preclude a Forfeiture

ARCA Blog: St. Louis Art Museum Sues the United States to Preclude a Forfeiture

Catherine Schofield Sezgin on the ARCA blog: Ton Cremers Weighs in on the lawsuit by the St. Louis Art Museum on Keeping the Ka-Nefer-Nefer Mask

UPDATE: And the collectors' view? "The Grand SLAM".


Vignette: Egyptian documentation (you know, the ones SLAM - stalling maybe to wait out their five years - said if the Egyptians produced it they'd give the object back?) from the Stanford summary of the case.

New Move in St Louis Mask Case?

According to Ula Ilnytzkye (Egyptian official chides museums over antiquities - AP 22/4/10) Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said he was continuing the struggle to get back the Ka Nefer Nefer mask from St. Louis Art Museum, and had turned over to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security "all the evidence that I have to prove that this mask was stolen, and we have to bring it back".

On Wednesday, St. Louis Art Museum spokeswoman Jennifer Stoffel, said the institution "had correspondence with Hawass in 2006 and 2007 and has not heard anything on the matter since". At the time, she said the museum shared information with Hawass on the mask's provenance and said "we would do the right thing ... if there was something that refuted the legitimacy of the provenance." The St. Louis museum has said it bought the mask from an art dealer in the United States in 1998 after checking with authorities and with the international Art Loss Register. It said it also approved the purchase with the Egyptian Museum.

The St Louis museum claims it "has not heard anything' since 2007, but what has the museum been doing to verify the story it wants everybody to accept about its whereabouts in the decades preceding its purchase in 1998? Mr Charly Mathez, who apparently has a memory like a sieve when asked for details about where he saw the mask in 1952 is not likely to provide more information, but what progress have SLAM made in tracking down the mysterious 'Kaloterna (Kaliterna?) collection in Croatia? Then the collector in Switzerland who gives a provenance of the "early sixties", but who turns out to be Suzanna Jelinek who it seems was the Aboutaam's landlady in Geneva. What has SLAM found out about her "collection" in the past few years since the fuss blew up about this item's route from Sakkara to St Louis?

Salt on St Louis

A few days ago, Alun Salt wrote an extremely readable account of the affair of the 'Ka Nefer Nefer' mask from Sakkara now in St Louis. The text is called "Do you need a note from a criminal to prove an artefact is stolen?" which just about says it all.

He has an amusing mock test for museum staff involved in the purchase ("If you scored mostly ‘A’s: Congratulations! You would not be not looking like a prize buffoon. ..."), which reminded me that one person we have heard very little from is Sidney Goldstein, the curator of ancient and islamic art at the St Louis Art Museum that was (at least according to the Riverfront Times article on the affair) primarily responsible for the purchase. I guess in Salt's test, he would have "scored mostly ‘B’s". I wonder what the Trustees of the beleagured museum think about that. It would be interesting to hear Mr Goldstein's side of the story.