Italian police recover £6m treasure looted by Artefact Hunters

 

An ancient site was damaged by artefact hunters who accidentally discovered an Etruscan cemetery on their land in Citta della Pieve, located approximately 90 miles (150 km) north of Rome. They removed a number of items from the graves (including a sarcophagus containing the complete skeleton of a woman in her forties) and tried to sell them on the black market. The site was irreversibly impacted by the clumsy attempts to extract the artefacts. The latter included eight painted vases, and beauty accessories such as a bronze mirror and a perfume bottle ("still retaining its scent"), and were valued at over €8 million (£6.7 million). According to Perugia chief prosecutor Raffaele Cantone, the damage inflicted on the necropolis by two entrepreneurs who stumbled upon the burial chambers while excavating their property was extensive. They "had nothing to do with the world of professional tomb raiders" but were "clumsy" and "amateurish" in their attempt to access the black market.

The pair drew the attention of the authorities after they posted pictures of the artifacts online to find buyers. Authorities then began monitoring their phones, conducting stakeouts, and using drones to track their activities. The police intervened when one of the suspects posted a picture on Facebook of himself with one of the artifacts.

Both individuals face charges of theft and trafficking in stolen goods, with potential sentences of up to 10 years in prison if convicted. Good.

Italian police recover £6m treasure looted by amateur 'tomb raiders' MSN

.

Anti-Social Awareness Week

                                                                           

HE Heritage Crime @HeritageCrime · Nov 17

"Tomorrow marks the start of Anti-Social Awareness Week, look out for updates relating to partnership action and activity to prevent anti-social behaviour in the historic environment".

But I bet once again it will shrink from sayoing what should be being saidf about collection-driven exploitation of teh archaeological record. As per usual.

Lebanon: 34 cultural properties placed under enhanced protection

 
The UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict has decided to grant provisional enhanced protection to 34 cultural properties in Lebanon and to grant international financial assistance to support the implementation of emergency heritage measures. UNESCO Press Release 18 November 2024 'Lebanon: 34 cultural properties placed under enhanced protection":

On 30 October, at the request of the Lebanese authorities, UNESCO convened an extraordinary session of the Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. This was held on Monday at the Organization's headquarters in Paris. It resulted in the provisional inclusion of 34 Lebanese cultural properties on the International List of Cultural Property under Enhanced Protection, including the World Heritage sites of Baalbek and Tyre, near to which strikes have recently been recorded.

These 34 cultural properties now benefit from the highest level of immunity against attack and use for military purposes. Non-compliance with these clauses would constitute ‘serious violations’ of the 1954 Hague Convention and would constitute potential grounds for prosecution.

The sites placed under enhanced protection will receive technical and financial assistance from UNESCO to reinforce their legal protections, improve risk anticipation and management measures, and provide further training for site managers in this area. Enhanced protection also helps send a signal to the entire international community of the urgent need to protect these sites.

This emergency initiative falls within the framework of the 1954 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property and its Second Protocol drawn up in 1999. It complements the actions already undertaken by UNESCO in recent weeks to protect Lebanon's cultural heritage.

Since the outbreak of hostilities, UNESCO has been in close contact with site managers, cultural professionals and national authorities. The Organization has offered its support in identifying emergency measures, inventorying museum collections, and moving works that can be moved to safe locations elsewhere in Lebanon.

UNESCO is also carrying out satellite monitoring of historical and heritage sites, in order to assess their state of conservation and any damage they have incurred, in partnership with UNOSAT, the United Nations Satellite Centre.

UNESCO has also set up an emergency programme for Lebanon covering the culture, education, information and communication sectors. The Organization is calling on its Member States to support the implementation of this programme with financial contributions.

Making Knowledge Ain't Just Digging up Old Stuff

A chip on the shoulder:

@graceygrumble 1 month ago (edited)
Detectorists and 'amateur' historians have made incalculable contributions to our discovery and understanding of the past. [....] The UK has a history of interested amateurs, more focused on 'doing' as opposed to expecting it to be done. Passion drives progress. We have an extraordinary number of people who are, for the most part, focused on 'giving back' as opposed to 'wealth creation'. Who were we? Who are we? What could we be? If we all waited around until someone with a 'certificate' was interested, we would know very little. We don't always need money to be enriched.

My reply: 

"If we all waited around until someone with a 'certificate' was interested, we would know very little". What do you mean by that? How many actual archaeological reports or articles about the "things found", for example in "Antiquity", "Britannia", "Medieval Archaeology" or by publishers like Brill or Routledge have been written by blokes and lasses off the street who happen to have metal detectors. How do you define "making knowledge"?

Can you not do better first aid, and avoid making bad mistakes, in the case of somebody who's suffered an accident if you HAVE done a course and been taught how to do it? that is get the proper qualifications? As in anything like that, no?

The Metal Detecting PROBLEM: One Person's View

"We ask the question. Is Metal Detecting Ruining Archaeology?" ummm, yeah... duh. And it's not just the "nighthawks"

.

Posted on You Tube (The Metal Detecting PROBLEM. ) by Paul Whitewick

But we need more people asking this question. 

,

Russian Archaeologist Accused of Conducting Illegal Excavations in Ukraine

 

                                                                                            

The press service of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and the Office of the Prosecutor General are reporting that the head of the archaeology department at Russia’s State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg has been charged in absentia for conducting illegal excavations in Russian-occupied Crimea for over 10 years. After the occupation of the peninsula and to this day, the "Myrmekian Archaeological Expedition" of the Hermitage has been operating illegally, without having any permits from the competent authorities of Ukraine. These actions of the suspect are actually destroying a legally protected monument of national importance.

The SBU, together with the National Police and the Prosecutor's Office, has gathered evidence against a Russian citizen who has been looting Ukraine's cultural heritage in the temporarily occupied Crimea. [...] In 2014, the archaeologist led an expedition personally visited by Putin, which has been conducting illegal excavations for more than 10 years at a Ukrainian cultural heritage site in Crimea. This includes unauthorized excavations across hundreds of square meters at the Ukrainian archaeological complex Ancient City of Myrmekion, located in the Kerch region. Russians have removed the so-called cultural layer of the Ukrainian peninsula to a depth of nearly 2 meters. [...] Based on the collected evidence, the archaeologist has been notified in absentia of suspicion under Part 4 of Article 298 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (illegal archaeological excavations, destruction, or damage to cultural heritage sites, carried out with the purpose of finding movable artifacts originating from archaeological heritage sites). The individual is planned to be placed on an international wanted list to bring him to criminal responsibility for crimes against the cultural heritage of Ukraine [...]

During the 10 years of occupation, the Russian Federation and its occupation administration have facilitated illegal archaeological excavations on the territory of the peninsula, which has led to the destruction of cultural heritage sites in Ukraine. The occupiers also carry out illegal restorations of such sites in order to distort the history of Crimea and demonstrate its "Russian" component. The investigation into the work at the M site is being conducted under the procedural guidance of the Prosecutor's Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.

A 2021 report by the 'Golos Krimu' [Crimean Voice] shows the extent of the activities by the occupant: 'Myrmekion. Consequences of the occupation for cultural heritage'.

Involvement of one of the leading scientific cultural institutions of the Russian Federation (the State Hermitage) in unlawful activities on the archeological site increases the threat of impunity for the destruction of the site due to the business, scientific and cultural ties of this institution and its employees with scientific, cultural, political circles of foreign countries. The actions of the occupation authorities, which resulted in unlawful appropriation, unlawful archeological excavations, during which archeological artifacts were seized are a violation of international humanitarian law. These actions of the Russian Federation, together with other actions of the Occupying Power in their entirety may constitute a war crime in the form of extensive destruction and appropriation of cultural property, not justified by military necessity, and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.

Confirmation that this activity is ongoing comes from the website of the Hermitage Museum archaeological expedition in Myrmekion.

Sources

Espresso, 'Russian archaeologist charged with looting Ukrainian heritage in Crimea' Espresso 15 November, 2024 

Anastasiia Bolshakova, 'Russian archaeologist who carried out illegal excavations in Crimea served with notice of suspicion', Ukrainska Pravda Friday, 15 November 2024,

Stolen goddess figurine from Catalhoyuk returns to Türkiye

                                                 

A Mother Goddess figurine, dating back 9,000 years, discovered in the 1960s during excavations at the ancient site of Catalhoyuk, has now been brought back to Türkiye and is on display in Konya. The figurine had been illegally taken by looters from the Catalhoyuk site in the late 1960s (the circumstances are not reported) and had been smuggled abroad to become part of the Shelby White collection in the United States (the circumstances are not reported, presumably a dealer was involved, no?). After a long and difficult process and through the diligent efforts of Türkiye’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, it was successfully repatriated from the United States (no circumstances of why it was made a long process once the object was spotted are reported, did White kick up a fight?). Claire Voon noted in 2022 when objects were seized from this collection: "An ongoing investigation into White's collection expects to see more objects repatriated in the future", this seems one of them. How many more were there? 

References
Koray Erdogan, 'Stolen goddess figurine from Catalhoyuk returns to Türkiye' Turkiye Ttoday Nov 14, 2024

Claire Voon, 'Looted antiquities returned to Turkey and Italy were seized from New York home of Met trustee Shelby White' The Art Newspaper 2 December 2022 .