The US Market Should Foster Leadership, not Whoredom

The US should be world leaders in at least this:

in the case of so-called "ancient art", the only problem is... the denials, false arguments and resistance to change of those in the US who profit from these sales.

Antiquities Raid on Jerusalem's Mamilla Mall

Souvenir antiquities boxed
in olive wood from the Holy Land

Tourists visiting the Holy Land sometimes come home bringing with them antiquities (or what they've bought as such), believing it is "legal' to do so. That is not always the case however as shown by a recent issue ('Hundreds of illegally-sold artifacts seized in Jerusalem mall' Israeli International News 15th June 2016). New regulations have been in force since March 2016 requiring that antiquities dealers manage their commercial inventory using a computerized system developed by the IAA. The move, which will allow the tracking of the items, is designed to prevent antiquities dealers from "laundering" illegal artefacts that are the product of  the commercial illicit excavation of archaeological sites for profit. Not all shops follow these new laws:

Bronze arrowheads, coins bearing the names of the Hasmoneans rulers, special vessels for storing perfumes and hundreds of items that are thousands of years old were offered for sale in a store in Jerusalem's Mamilla Mall, which was not licensed to trade antiquities. All of the items were seized on Tuesday during an operation carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority’s (IAA) Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery. The raid took place after the store, which was under surveillance, sold ancient artifacts to undercover Antiquities Authority investigators. [...] The activity carried out in the Mamilla store is just part of much broader effort [...] preventing the 'laundering' of stolen antiquities by manipulating the commercial inventory of authorized antiquities dealers."  In the coming days an indictment will be filed against the store owner who is suspected of illicit trade in antiquities.

Buy a "piece of the past" in your hand

Or put 'em in a tray to admire and show off

Loads of loot to choose from

Hashish and Antiquities Trafficked by Greek Gang

Antiquities and metal detectors have been found in raid on a drug gang in Greece which suggests the connection between the dealing in both illicit commodities (Philip Chrysopoulos. 'Greek Police Dismantle Drug Ring Including 3 Army Officers', Greek Reporter Jun 14, 2016)

The Hellenic Police has dismantled a 32-person drug ring that includes three low-rank army officers, a fire department contract employee and a policeman [...] the arrests were made in Alexandroupolis, Orestiada, Thessaloniki, Veria, Edessa, Skydra, Mykonos and Santorini [...]. The four leaders of the group had set up the criminal organization in Thrace, gradually enrolling members. The ring expanded to Eastern and Central Macedonia and the Cyclades islands, operating through a network of bars and clubs. [...] Police searched the homes, offices and vehicles of those arrested [...]  Among the findings were also 76 ancient coins and 38 metal and stone antiquities, leading police to believe that the ring was also involved in illicit antiquities trade. Police are continuing the investigation to discover the whole scope of activities of the criminal ring.

Watch out dealers, they may be coming after you and your clients.


 

ADA as Illiterate as the rest?

Cats know, dealers don't

The ADA reckons that "‘Vital changes’ are needed to looted art bill as dealers says definition of ‘cultural property’ is too vague" but I think they need to get somebody who can actually read and write to argue their case. They propose that "cultural property" should be defined so narrowly as to preclude the artefacts which are the bread and butter of both the legal and illicit trade to be exempt from any kind of controls.

The association believe that [the existing] definition is not specific enough and could “unintentionally blight artworks and objects that have nothing to do with this issue”. ADA chairman Chris Martin said that the definition used in Article 1 of the UNESCO Convention – already adopted by 130 countries – is more appropriate “because it restricts the definition to items of ‘outstanding universal value’ in terms of cultural heritage.”

Mr Martin will, of course be only too happy to be asked to point out where that wording occurs anywhere in Art 1 of said Convention, or in any of the remaining 25. I think he is confusing it with the UNESCO World Heritage Convention and the US CCPIA, isn't he? Peter Tompa will no doubt come to his rescue. I think the time is over for dialogue with the antiquities dealers, past and current experience shows perfectly clearly that they quite obviously will use any number of false arguments denial and deflections to stave off the introduction of responsibility into this blighted trade. Time to call a STOP to their farrago of nonsense.

Surely what is cultural property is what is sold and used as precisely that.  Antiquity and art dealers do not sell potatoes for French-fry-making.


UPDATE 23rd June 2016

Mr Martin did not have the decency in him required to actually answer my letter enquiring about the source of the text he quoted, let alone that required to retract his false statement (antiquity dealers, eh?). Neither, be it noted, is there any trace of any dealer or collector in the ADA or from outside it  pulling him up on his evident ignorance of the wording of this important convention./ Not a single one.

Inigo Gilmore (National Geographic) "Blood Antiquities"

Inigo Gilmore, helped by a number of people, goes in search of artefact smugglers for National Geographic in a really slick production (which can be found here). Dealers claim that the freshly surfaced artefacts they handle come from antiquity elves deep in the heart of old Europe, investigative journalist Gilmore has a different idea:

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The trouble is, as previous posts on this blog discussing the incidents used to present its case show, very little of it is actually as presented ... A lot of 'journalistic licence' has been taken here. How cynically is difficult to assess.

There is however a nice quote from Tasoula Hadjtofi (London):

"Destruction and looting of cultural heritage is something that has been happening for centuries, the issue is ... we must not buy them.  If we can make the link and we say when you buy looted art you are paying money to extremists to bomb you, perhaps the message is more clear". 

The seizure of a lintel from a Grays antique centre dealer by Scotland Yard (42:42) is described as "one small victory in this vast invisible war" (43:01). The film concludes:

I think of Amr and the 'monuments men' on the front lines  (43:10), I think of 'The Turk' and the institutional corruption that sweeps truth under the rug, this black market in looted antiquities is larger, more complex, more insidious than I ever imagined but what can we do? Sure, ISIS should be prosecuted for war crimes, but buyers and dealers need to be named and shamed too. I feel it is high time we all become culture crime watchers (because a world with no regard for its heritage is not the kind of world I want to live in). 

So what of the people who earn their living as part of this 'insidious' market. What can we think of all those sealers and collectors who willingly participate and continue fund it? Would you let your daughter marry one? As for "naming and shaming", that is something Inigo Gilmore and his team assiduously avoid throughout this film. When and how do they propose making a start?

Vignette: Antiquity elves

Hat tip Dorothy L. King who first spotted it

What is Wrong with National Geographic's 6th June "Blood antiquities: Report?

Perhaps after the "Nazi War Diggers" fiasco, it would be expecting too much of the USA's "National Geographic" in its current configuration to produce work of the standard it once upon a time represented, but their slick production on "Blood Antiquities " broadcast on June 6th initially seemed likely to have potential to make good on that promise. Until you start looking carefully.

1. The producers can be forgiven for the dramatic introduction  (00:00 to 01:43 of the 44 minutes of the programme). The tense bathroom scene with which it opens is later revealed to be in the west End of London on the way to visit a dealer in a not-very-sinister popular antiques mall. The dynamic intercut scenes of ISIL mayhem which the viewer is expected to link with ISIL rule in Palmyra are not all depicting what the voice-over suggests, some is Iraq for example (and as somebody who has been through the ISIL propaganda videos, I suspect some of it is inserted from another context too). This material is intended to arrest attention and does, but it suggests that what it is we are about to watch is over-dramatised show rather than true investigative reporting. The material gathered follows the traditional paths.

The music and repeated asides are intended to generate an atmosphere of fear, the presenter introduces a few personal comments (like the stomach problems and never fails to repeat how nervous he is) these 'human touches' are presumably intended to draw the viewer into the narrative.

2. The filming starts off (02:16), traditionally, in Gaziantepe where the journalist meets Amr Al Azm (03:13-08:34) who as we know is in fact the main source of almost all journalists' information about what is happening in Syria just a few kilometres to the south.  Al Azm introduces Gilmore to some Syrian "monuments men" (at least one of whom I think we've seen in earlier films from the region). His role in setting up some of the other meetings portrayed throughout the film is unclear. What Al-Azm and these men are doing is not really revealed (it clearly involves cell-phones), three of them work in ISIL-held territory, the others in areas held by other rebels (portrayed as "more moderate").

In this segment of the film, we are shown a sequence (05:32-05:53) which it seems is of ISIL agents looting a site. This film is said to be unique, but readers will remember the story of Mike Giglio, 'Exclusive Video Shows Illicit Archaeological Dig In ISIS Stronghold', Buzzfeed Aug. 3, 2015 which I discussed earlier PACHI Tuesday, 4 August 2015, 'The "ISIL Excavation Videos". Who took this film and why (and of course where)? Some young men in colourful clothing are shown working in a hole, one wall of which is vertical and straight. Are they scrabbling in an old excavation trench? As in the earlier 'Giglio' film, there is no attempt to remove the spoil, there are no spoil heaps around where they are working, in the second part a young man handles some fallen stones, these look like weathered collapse and not freshly-excavated material. I think there is a good chance that this film is 'posed'.

3. The journalist then gets to meet an 'activist' who talks of the fall of Palmyra and shows him some antiquities on his phone, two are Palmyra grave slabs (genuine?) the third items is a statue I have seen before (the Giglio photo hoard which is archived in my other computer???). But we bear in mind what we learnt from Giglio's reports last year of opportunists wandering around with photos on their cell phones of objects they themselves do not have. 

4. Then we have the de rigeur sequence with some shady middlemen who show him stuff they have for sale - including a freshly-excavated mosaic. Of the loose artefacts we see, the Hittite head, while it is hard to see (16:26) I am not really convinced by what is shown (Mark Altaweel later in the film says [36:33] it is genuine, or "if a fake a very good fake"). The coin (17:22) looks for all the world like a cast modern tourist fake (modelled on a coin from Rhodes rather than Syria?).  These middlemen mention at the journalist's prompting a route "through Bulgaria". Who are these people?

5. There is then a shift in action to Bulgaria, to the Shuman garage find discussed earlier in this blog (PACHI Sunday, 29 March 2015, 'Bulgarian Artefact Bust - Shumen'; PACHI Sunday, 16 August 2015 'Bulgarian Antiquities Bust in news Again - Not ISIL Loot'). Readers might recall that I was very sceptical about the authenticity of many of the objects, this new record reinforces my scepticism. I think many of them are fakes. Furthermore, it has already been stressed (see my second post) that many of the sculptures are of types that would be more likely to have been found in Anatolia rather than Syria, even so, Gilmore stubbornly uses them as "evidence" of ISIL looting.

The flow of illicit goods through Bulgaria is controlled by criminal networks as he stresses (its where many antiquities on the market have been coming from). The Shumen garage find was discovered in March 2015 as the result of a tip-off . A number of ancient sculptures were found hidden under rugs in a garage and a Turkish national was arrested for antiquities trafficking (20:25). He claimed that he was an antiquities collector who'd bought the objects while on holiday in a market near Izmir (at this point the film shows a metal detectorist stressing the link between metal detecting and the illicit antiquities market). Working with a highly personable Bulgarian journalist Nadya Plamenova (20:49) he visits the museum basement with curators Zhenya Zhekova (numismatist and sigillographer)  and Stanmir Stoychev (head curator, Archaeology of Antiquity Department) who show him some objects from the seizure (22:01 - 12:56) "Some have suggested that these are forgeries:" ventures the journalist, Stoychev says that others disagree, but the film depicts him as not really convinced. I am pretty sure Gilmore knows these are fakes.

6. we get into the territory of weird when Gilmore contacts Shumen police. He'd tried (he says) to phone them from Gaziantepe (19:19- 19:38) but reports they "of course gave me the bloody runaround". Then he is shown warning the cameramen off (24:09- 24:20), "it will blow our access if they see cameras, they are very nervous" (and how does he know that?) But then why does he not use the same pinhole camera technique as he twice used in dealing with the Gaziantepe and london dealers? 

The Shumen police suggest he goes to look for the owner of the garage, "The Turk" who lives in the Grivitsa area, they tell him that he reports for parole every day. After some more suspense-building ploys, they are shown finding out that charges against him had been dropped and the man had earlier  returned to Turkey (30:29). They are contacted by somebody who initially wanted to talk about corruption in the town (28:43) but later changed his mind.

The film depicts the behaviour of the police as somehow suspicious and seem to be hinting that they are in some way in collusion with the antiquity traders (26:14). While that is not necessarily in itself implausible, I think this is taking the facts which they present too far. That one police department does not know what the other is doing is not just a Bulgarian speciality. That charges were dropped indicates that Bulgarian antiquities law applies to antiquities from Bulgarian soil, this "Turk" was let off because the law (like that of most countries) has a gaping loophole.

7. On 27th Feb 2016 he's back in Gaziantepe, the "monuments men" have been withdrawn (33:10). A film is shown of antiquities - pottery lamps and bowls - on sale, allegedly by ISIL guys (33:40-34:10) and then of a mosaic being excavated (34:12- 35:06).

8. Gilmore returns to London (35:30) and a meeting with Mark Altaweel (35:53-39:83) Altaweel says it is irrelevant that fakes are sold to raise money which goes to militant groups. They then go to see a lintel (37:44- 40:11) which is identified as from an ancient house in Nava, Syria located off the Golan Heights, near the Israeli border, on sale in central London (this lintel was discussed on my blog earlier PACHI Saturday, 16 April 2016, 'Syrian Artefacts in London?'). When he gets to the shop, the seller denies having such an object (39:40) and Gilmore wonders if it has been sold. He tries to report it to the British police:

14:24 (London) "I'm calling to report a crime"
The [British] police don't want to talk, but maybe I can report the crime to someone else...

What on earth? The police do not want to react to a report on looted and smuggled antiquities on the British market? How is this in any way different from the situation depicted in Bulgaria? Tasoula Hadjtofi (London) claims she reported the lintel from a Grays antique centre dealer was reported to Scotland Yard (42:42) and "it has been taken care of" (but the would-be seller was shown in the film, so is not in jail). It is unclear who in fact reported it. The problem is however that this item has no known connection with ISIL.

All in all, it is an interesting video, but has relatively low value as evidence of ISIL looting and the passage of the antiquities onto the markets. In fact the manner in which it relatively uncritically regurgitates previously-known material suggests that such evidence is extremely sparse.

The "ISIL Dig" Screenshots

A compilation of screenshots from the National Geographic "Blood Antiquities" video.

See: Inigo Gilmore (National Geographic) "Blood Antiquities"

'What is Wrong with National Geographic's 6th June "Blood antiquities: Report?'.