The May 2013 Christie's Antiquity Bust

New information is emerging about the aborted Christie's sale of six Egyptian artefacts back in May discussed in this blog. The items were to be auctioned at the beginning of May and claimed to have been in a private UK collection since the 1940s.

Marcel Marée (British Museum Assistant Keeper of Ancient Egypt and Sudan Department) spotted the stolen ancient Egyptian objects in the catalogue of the sale. Hourig Sourouzian (who has been conducting excavations at the Amenhotep III mortuary temple on Luxor's west bank)  recognised a red granite relief fragment as having been discovered in King Amenhotep III temple in 2000.  It depicts a Nubian captive -  a motif found typically at the bases of colossal royal statues.


Marée calls on Egyptian authorities to sort out their records:

"One important measure that would help bring criminals to justice is the systematic photography of every piece that is kept in storerooms, and these photos should be stored somewhere central," added Marée.  Some Egyptian officials have been quoted as saying that they are considering the idea, but it requires a huge budget. "Such photographic documentation may take a few years, but it must and can be done; a growing photo database will have numerous additional benefits," Marée explains. Once photographic documentation exists, continued Marée, any theft can be easily detected and reported, most notably to the London-based international database Art Loss Register (ALR) as well as among the Egyptologists' community. [....] Except these six objects, no other stolen objects have come to the attention of the museum experts since the 2011 revolution. "I have little doubt, though, that more stolen pieces are circulating, but they simply cannot be detected if no one reported them as missing - and no report is complete without photographs," Marée concludes. He and his colleagues advise the Egyptian authorities to notify the ALR and the Egyptology community all over the world of any stolen objects. "If, in Egypt, those charged with the protection of monuments and storerooms fail to notice and report a theft, it is usually impossible for auctioneers and Egyptologists to know if some piece on the market was stolen, especially since so much of Egypt’s heritage has yet to be published."

Well, except that - since its freshly dugup items that are of concern too, which are in nobody's photo archive - the "market" should be looking at any fresh item from the point of view of establishing where it came from. The onus should be on the seller to document legitimate origins, rather than the buyer having to falsify illicit origins (which necessarily will involved solely negative evidence - negative evidence is notoriously not proof of anything).   

So, in a like vein, where is the photographic evidence that these objects were in a private UK collection from the 1940s?

Amer Sultan, 'British Museum and archaeologist confirm identity of stolen Egyptian artefact', Al-Ahram online, Friday 9 Aug 2013.

Vignette: the characteristic fragment (from Al-Ahram)