Bernd Gackstätter and "His" Disputed Bowls

.

David Gill has joined the discussion of the "Frankfurt Bowls" case which has been in the antiquity collecting news (mostly due to the rather unorthodox, one might even say emotional, phrasing of a Frankfurt judge in his summing up, rather than the implications of the verdict itself). On Looting Matters he discusses how the disputed items came onto the market. On the basis of the existing accounts he notes: "It appears that the Phrygian bowls were removed from Turkey without a permit, wrapped in a carpet". In that case, David makes an observation and asks a very pertinent question which I would like to quote. The bowls are apparently the property of "den Frankfurter Antikenhändler Bernd Gackstätter" who:

"is a member of the IADAA. IADAA members are bound by an ethical code (German):The members of IADAA undertake not to purchase or sell objects until they have established to the best of their ability that such objects were not stolen from excavations, architectural monuments, public institutions or private property.

Die Mitglieder der IADAA verpflichten sich, Objekte erst zu erwerben oder zu verkaufen, wenn sie nach bestem Wissen und Gewissen sichergestellt haben, dass die Objekte nicht aus Ausgrabungsstätten, von Denkmälern der Architektur, aus öffentlichen Institutionen oder dem privaten Eigentümer gestohlen wurden. "

So has Bernd Gackstätter established ("to the best of their ability") that the phialai "were not stolen from excavations" (or indeed any unrecorded archaeological site)? Note that the IADAA expects its members to aspire to an ethical standard.

In their press release (which David Gill quotes) it is clear that the IADAA is aware of the facts of this case and as Gill suggests is "trying to present a story in their favour" (like actually missing out from their English translation the bottom half of the original document being quoted with the - revealing - nitty gritty of the verdict Cf: here with here), and that there is the world of difference between what is merely legal in the antiquities trade and what is ethical. Gill also notes evidence that suggests in other cases action has been taken by the IADAA against other members who transgressed the Code of Ethics. He concludes:

I hope IADAA members who value their ethical code will be urging Bernd Gackstätter to return the Phrygian phialai to Turkey without any further adverse publicity for their organisation.

It remains to be seen whether the IADAA code of ethics is actually worth more than the paper it is written on.

By the way, we should not lose sight of the fact that the disputed items also include two Byzantine metal vessels too, but the Phrygian omphalos bowls are perhaps more photogenic.

Vignette: the omphalos schlossen at the centre of the row (Frankfurter Rundschau).

Eight Tomb Robbers Arrested in Turkey

.

Last week in Turkey it was announced that the arrest of some illegal antiquity traders who they had been shadowing for seven months has revealed they had been taking artefacts from an especially significant site. The artefact hunters had been plundering the previously undiscovered tomb of a fourth-century B.C. king. State security officers discovered a clandestine excavation near Bodrum being conducted by as many as eight culture thieves, and in it was found the grave of King Hecatomnus who died in 377 BC (the father of King Mausolus, ruler of Caria, whose tomb was the better-known Mausoleum at Halicarnassus nearby). In the tomb was found a remarkable sculpted sarcophagus 2.75 meters long and 1.85 m high, hailed as "one of the most important archeological discovery in modern times".


MİLAS - Doğan News Agency, 'Illegal excavation reveals an important discovery', Aug 8th 2010.

See also The History Blog, 'Looters lead Turkish police to undiscovered tomb of king', Monday, August 9th, 2010.

Looting Matters: Looting in Caria.

There is a currently a video here of the men being led away by burly Turkish policemen and some of their grave looting equipment, as well as shots inside one or more of the tombs.

Quis custodiet - in America too

.

Those observing the blogs and websites of the advocates of the no-questions-asked collecting of antiquities cannot fail to notice that a constant theme in them is that collectable "artefacts" (that is all they are concerned about) are not always safe in public collections. They argue that museums cannot be trusted to look after a nation's heritage, but private collectors can. This is a variant of the "Good Collector" model.

One constant theme in their arguments is that concentrating all the cultural property in one place means that if the building is bombed, flooded, burnt down (or looted), then irreparable damage is caused to the cultural property of the nation/mankind. From this point of view, it is far better, they argue, to scatter these assets in various poorly-documented personal collections all over the place, including across the ocean in America. A further variant of this argument trotted out by western collectors presumes that every museum storeroom in the world's "source countries" must be either dusty and neglected, or damp, mouldering and neglected, and artefacts in them must be falling to bits. A third these is that museums cannot be trusted because museum employees will steal the objects (sometimes replacing them by fakes). Discussion lists like Dave Welsh's Unidroit-L and blogs like Peter Tompa's "Cultural Property Observer" are therefore full of shock-horror accounts of such nefarious dealings by untrustworthy museum employees gleaned from the world's press.

But, not the whole world's press. It is notable that these lobbyists present mainly cases from countries with brown-skinned inhabitants. In addition these foreign lands are presented in the spirit of orientalism as necessarily having corrupt un-American regimes. Thus Turkey, India, various African and Near Eastern states, China, but also Greece and Italy.

These problems however are not so frequently discussed in collecting circles when they affect public collections neaqrer home. An article touching on this subject in the LA Times has not been noted on the above-mentioned blogs (Faye Fiore, 'Guardians of the Nation's Attic', LATimes 8th August 2010).

When Paul Brachfeld took over as inspector general of the NationalArchives, guardian of the country's most beloved treasures, hediscovered the American people were being stolen blind.[...] what kind of country leaves its attic door open, allowing its past to slip away? [...] "We have taken theft out of the shadows," Brachfeld said, recalling the days when embarrassing losses were kept secret.[...] Brachfeld, who came out of the Secret Service internal affairs, took the job a decade ago and was alarmed by a string of brazen thefts, some by trusted archives staff. [...]The magnitude of the problem is impossible to measure. The National Archives did not exist until 1934. There has never been nor will there ever be the staff to catalog every item in a collection that predates the Revolution and is still growing. [...] It's hard to know what's missing when they don't know precisely what they have — which is precisely what compels some people to steal.

It is notable that many of the cases that have been discovered that the article discuses mostly relate to a collector becoming suspicuious about the origin of an item they had been offered for purchase. It is clear that if purchasers were asking more questions about where precisely this "newly-surfaced" item was before it was being offered for sale and how the seller can prove it was not taken from an illicit source. This is what collectors of antiquities should too be doing far more of, but they and the dealers that supply them especially, are extremely resistant to this idea, they claim it would "end the trade". That is food for thought, isn't it? Why are they so concerned to impresss the idea that the "source countries" from which they obtain their coveted collectables are inherently full of thieves?

A long time back at University as part of my course we had some seminars on museum security and what was impressed upon us by the nice man from the metropolitan Police Force was that in many cases, thefts from public collections are opportunistic, the opportunity arose and somebody was tempted to take advantage of it. It is the same with site looting isn't it? If there was no opportunity to make money from it (by selling things to a man who happens by with a pocketful of dollars and who does not ask questions) then fewer natives would be shifting tonnes of dust and grit to find the odd piece of shattered stone and clay tablet for them.

But, to return to the original topic, the answer to part of the problem with theft from public collections is a far more ethical approach among collectors generally and a greater awareness of the possibilities that in certain markets there is a high chance that a great part of the material available is of illicit origins and taking steps themselves against its dissemination. That way, and only that way, will it be impossible for the sellers to profit from handling illicitly obtained material.
.
Vignette: Graffiti from Pompeii? Quis custodiet ipsos custodies? ('Guardians' would surely be a better translation of Juvenal than 'watchmen')

Collecting History of a Coin

.

In the 'Coins of Britain, Ireland and Scotland 29 Sep 10' auction of Mayfair dealer Dix Noonan Webb (so probably contemporary with the upcoming third benefit auction of the Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild) is a coin of Charles I (1625-1649). US coin dealers claim that "traditionally" collecting histories are not recorded for old coins. Here's one however which has quite a nice collecting history, this one at least did not fall of the back of a lorry from the Balkans:

Provenance: H. Webb Collection, Sotheby Auction, 9-14 July 1894, lot 611;
T. Bliss Collection, Part II, Sotheby Auction, 15-19 May 1916, lot 470;
V.M. Brand Collection;
R.C. Lockett Collection, Part II, Glendining Auction, 11-17 October 1956, lot 2583

This coin has a largely verifiable collecting pedigree going back to before 1894, recorded as passing through the hands of four collectors at something like 20 year intervals, until 1956. Was that when the current seller bought it? Or has it become "traditional" not to pay less attention to changes in ownership of older numismatic items only with the rise of the modern mass market?

Vignette: Scarborough Castle (old photo taken c. 1890).

.

Washington Judge Challenges Preservation of Historical Material in (Foreign) State Collections

.

We have seen that the no-questions-asked "internationalist" antiquities trade questions the exercise of (foreign) states of responsibility for cultural property found in their territory. Instead they want the distribution of such material to be determined purely by market forces, in other words, they should be free to buy and sell such material untramelled by any cultural property or antiquity protection laws.

The no-questions-asked-trade lobby will therefor no doubt be rejoicing in a verdict delivered in Washington last week discussed on MSN (Maayana Miskin, "US to Russia: Give Back Jewish Books", Israel National News 6th August 2010).

Russia's refusal to release thousands of religious books and documents to the Jewish community is discriminatory, a United States federal judge has ruled. Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington Royce Lamberth said the religious materials are in the possession of the Russian state library and military archive “unlawfully”. Many of the documents were confiscated during the Bolshevik revolution. Another 25,000 pages of the writers of Jewish leaders were seized by the Nazis and later retrieved by the Russian army, which claimed the papers as state property and refused to return them to the Jewish community. [The] Agudas Chasidei Chabad of the Chabad-Lubavich community, an orthodox Jewish group, has filed suit to have the documents returned. Under US law, a foreign nation may be charged in America in cases where property was stolen in violation of international law. Many of the books and papers held in Russia were written by the Chabad movement's leaders.

Well, the obvious first thought on reading this is, just who do the Americans think they are dictating to foreign governments like this? The second is what "international laws" were in fact violated; none of the accounts (mostly in the Jewish press and blogs) of the "victory" specify this. This verdict cuts right to the core of the debate on whether states and governments control and have a responsibility for the cultural property found on their territory, or whether individuals and individual groups have a "right" to it which overrides that. This is a constant theme of these debates with antiquity dealers over cultural property and "collectors' rights", the split between so-called "internationalism" and their accustations of the "nationalism" of governments caring for their nation's cultural heritage.

Let us get this straight. The Agudas Chassidei Chabad (Association of Chabad Chassidim)of the Lubavitch Chabad is a Chassidic group (until 1994 led by Menachem Mendel Schneerson regarded by some of its members as the Messiah). The group is now based in the US, though originated in Russia in the town of Lubavitch just to the east of Smolensk (just by the Belorussian border in fact). The New York centre already has an extensive library of works removed at various times in the past from Russia (and Latvia and Poland), the history of which can be found online here. It will be seen that a large part of the group's collections was already removed from Russia with government permission. The books to which the article refers seem to be those deposited in Moscow warehouses and nationalised under Lenin and deposited in Moscow Public Library. It is the maintenance of this archive in public collections that is declared "illegal"?

It is not clear just how much the U.S. District Court in Washington knows of recent Russian history. One of the lawyers representing the Chassidic group, Attorney Seth Gerber, is quoted as saying: “This victory is a triumph for justice for the Jewish people and others who abhor the [...] immoral suppression of religious faith by the current Russian government”. Eh? Could Mr Gerber think that the Soviet Union still exists? What on earth is he talking about?

In recent years there has been an important revival of interest in Jewish studies right across eastern Europe, including Russia, where we see in Moscow State University a new institute being created for the purpose. The Avi Chai organization has similar aims. The New York based Jewish Theological Seminary runs a course in Moscow, and its "numerous alumni who have gone on to play key roles in the revival of Jewish life in Russia since the fall of the USSR as educators, journalists, professors, and directors of Jewish institutions". This is quite a significant webpage in this context for the photo I reproduce: "Students study in the Judaica library in Moscow". Is this the library the Washington court wants to dismember and haul part of overseas? Should not interested students and scholars in Russia be able to study the history and heritage of the Lubavitch Jews in the land where those Jews lived? Or does one group of US Jews want for some reason to have a monopoly in that? Should the study of Jewish life, culture, thought and religion and the protection of its historical monuments and physical cultural heritage be encouraged or discouraged in Russia?

More to the point, to now rule that the appropriation of cultural property by the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the October revolution is "unlawful" puts many US collections in a rather awkward situation. The Bolsheviks raised money for the civil war by selling precious items they had confiscated from the Tsar's family, the nobles and the rich landowners. In a programme publicised as "loot the looters" and "turn gold into bread", the Bolsheviks set up a state committee, called Gokhran, in 1920 to organize confiscations, to gain state control over a considerable part of Russia's wealth and cultural heritage. This has recently been described in Sean McMeekin 's book, the "History's Greatest Heist: The Looting of Russia by the Bolsheviks" (Yale University Press).

"... armed detachments fanned out across Russia ... breaking open safe deposit boxes in 'nationalized' banks, withdrawing hundreds of millions of tsarist rubles from other people's saving accounts, looting landed estates, churches and monasteries, and prying precious stones and other valuables from the bloodied bodies of anyone who dared resist Bolshevik confiscation".

Illegal? Well, it was done in accordance with the decrees the Bolsheviks themselves established between 1917 and 1922. Western industrialists did not really bother too much where the gold bullion (recast for the Bolsheviks in Sweden) came from. Not many questions were asked here it seems. Beers for example bought £1 million worth of diamonds for £365,000, one wonders whether among them were those taken from the bodies of the royal family executed in Yekaterinburg. Whether or not this was the case, these were blood diamonds anyway. Greedy western capitalists...

were directly responsible for funding the Red Terror and the Bolshevik's war against the peasants. Adapting Lenin's phrase, Western capitalists sold the Bolsheviks the rope not with which to hang them, but to hang millions of Russians.

Collections in the United States were a direct beneficiary of this looting and laundering of Russia's national patrimony. Right-wing American millionaires were the biggest buyers of the treasures prised from the hands of murdered Russian nobles: Armand Hammer's collection for example (now in UCLA) and even more significantly Andrew Mellon's haul of Old Masters from Russian collections bought from the Bolsheviks for a reported $6.6 million which became the nucleus of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. [There is a succinct Wikipedia summary of these sales here.] See also Mark Durney's post: Russian Nationalization of Art - Bolsheviks! on the issue of the precise origins of a painting now in Yale, but adding some of the background.

In the light of this recent verdict, we should also note that the material that found its way across the Atlantic from these sales by the Bolsheviks of their looted Russian cultural property is not restricted to artworks. Andrei Pliguzov and Abby Smith ('The Bolsheviks in Business The Russian Book Trade After the Revolution') describe how today a large part of the private library of the Romanov family is now housed in the Library of Congress's Rare Book and Special Collections Division, and other looted items ended up in Harvard University, New York Public Library, Columbia University and others. The law library of the Library of Congress has a large collection rare seventeenth and eighteenth century Russian legal materials which "has richly benefited the study of Russia in America".

If now the US courts have indeed decided that the appropriation of this material by the Bolsheviks from private owners in accordance with their own decrees was illegal, then the way is open for the Russian people and those families to claim all that material bought by American collectors from the Bolsheviks back. In the light of this ruling, this material had too been illegally acquired (indeed, also on the basis of "discrimination"). If the Agudas Chasidei Chabad of the Chabad-Lubavich community can claim back the books left behind in Russia by former members and leaders of the group, then the Library of Congress material should go back to Russia on the basis of the same judgement, as well as all those paintings bought by Mellon and the others in 1930-31, doing deals which financed the establishment of totalitarian rule in Russia and the creation of the Soviet Union. If Washington insists on upholding the verdict of its own courts, this material too was illegally acquired by the same "international laws".

How interesting it is that this verdict from a Washington court in favour of the "internationalists" has not yet been "observed" by Washington lawyer Peter Tompa's blog (he is currently more excited by the fact that an archaeologist was insulted in a German court).

.

Vignette: students at work in a library of Judaism in Moscow, and Sean McMeekin 's book, the "History's Greatest Heist: The Looting of Russia by the Bolsheviks" (Yale University Press).

Michael Müller-Karpe Still Fighting the Good Fight

.

As may easily be observed, portable antiquity collectors can get quite vitriolic about those they see and portray as their opponents. In the latest edition of the US-based "Coin News" is an (anonymous) and insulting article ["„Close to mental confusion“ – a German court on Michael Müller-Karpe’s private crusade"] which seems to be based on material sent by German dealers - from the Arbeitskreis Kunsthandel which jubilantly recounts how a Philistine (unnamed in the media) judge in the administrative court allowed himself ("IM NAMEN DES VOLKES") a few rude comments about archaeologist: "Dr. Michael Müller-Karpe self-appointed crusader in the name of cultural property protection". The court case went against the Hessian authorities who had seized as illicit antiquities some prehistoric bronze bowls apparently bought from an Armenian carpet dealer in Turkey by a holidaying couple and then sold to a Frankfurt art dealer. The Arbeitskreis Kunsthandel adds:

For years Michael Müller-Karpe has been accusing the antiquities trade of dealing in stolen and smuggled goods. Despite having been proved wrong on several occasions (as in the case above) he continues with his groundless attacks.[...] The German art trade and collectors hope that the irrational and resentment-based crusades of the archaeologist in Mainz against collecting and dealing in ancient art will now cease.

I bet they do. What is really odd though is the way they report the matter in dispute: "At the same time, the archaeologist claimed damages of 17 million Euros in total for himself and for the Zentralmuseum in Mainz for defamation". No, not for "defamation", perhaps US coineys, the ones that can read German, would like to read for themselves around the topic in the German media and see what the fuss really was (and still is ) about. They really should not allow themselves to be spoonfed misleading and incomplete reports by those whose interests are in no-questions-being-asked. The question is a by-now familiar one of archaeological and museum professional ethics.

They could start with Matthias Thieme, Rechtsbruch mit Räucherkesselchen" [Frankfurter Rundschau 07.08.2010], or Daniel Gerlach, "Eine gordische Affäre" [Zenithonline, n.d.]. By the way, the coin news version of the German antiquities' dealers press release concentrating on the verbal abuse misses out the most important part, in fact about half the original document, detailing the actual verdict. In fact it is the part of the document containing the rebuke, and makes clear the remarks refer to a letter of 10th May 2010 which went out under the letterhead of the RGZM and what the occasion for those remarks was. This is quite typical of the milieu, satisfied with a mere slanging match than any real discussion of the nitty-gritty.

On his blog of course Peter Tompa is typically vindictive ("German Cultural Property Crusader Gets Rebuked" ). Rebuke is about all the antiquities trade lobby can hand out these days instead of real arguments, that it's from a judge in an administrative court really need not excite us, I've had a few dealings with them in my own professional work and cannot say they are my favourite people. Echoing the German dealers, Tompa writes (note the terminology):

One wonders whether there will be any further ramifications for Müller-Karpe. Hopefully, the ruling will act at least some disincentive for his brand of cultural property vigilantism.

Obviously he's not read the Frankfurter Rundschau article. The question is whether the police will turn up in the German museum professional's office on Monday with cutting equipment.

Photos: Muller Karpe and three of the bowls, photos from Frankfurter Rundschau

.

Montreal Antiquities Seizure

The Sofia-based news agency Novinte is reporting that an antiquity smuggling attempt was foiled in a recent seizure by Canadian customs at Montreal 21,000 antiquities of an estimated worth of some 100 000 Euros, probably of Bulgarian origin,(Novinte: Canada Seizes Bulgarian Archaeology Items in Smuggling Attempt, August 5th; Bulgaria's Culture Minister Demands Archaeology Items from Canada, 5th August 2010; Bulgaria to Recover Smuggled Archaeology Finds from Canada Shortly, August 6th 2010). The seized objects primarily consist of Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Medieval Bulgarian and Ottoman coils, though ornaments and other metal and glass objects were also seized. The Bulgarian Minister of Culture Vezhdi Rashidov has sent a letter to the Ministry of Canadian Heritage to thank them for seizing and looking after the antiquities and to ask them to send them back to Bulgaria. Owen Jarus of Heritage key tried to obtain further details from the Royal Ontario Museum which had reportedly been asked for expert advice and the Canadian Department of Heritage, as well as the Bulgarian Embassy, but his questions did not receive clear answers, though an Embassy official did confirm that "there is a situation underway – but would not discuss details".

Prosecutor Kamen Mihov (head of the International Department for Legal Aid of the Bulgarian Supreme Prosecutor’s Office of Cassation) explained to journalists Friday that:

he expects no problems in the recovery of the archaeological items back to Bulgaria as this is not the first such case [...]. Mihov has disproved allegations that the Prosecutor’s Office has started to investigate Angel Borisov, brother of former Chief Prosecutor Nikola Filchev, for organizing the channel for the smuggling of the captured antiques. A trial for antiques contraband against Borisov, which started in 1995, has not been completed yet.

So these items, were they on the way directly to a Canadian dealer in ancient coins? Or a middleman in the North American coin trade who would then be a supplier for Canadian and US no-questions-asked dealers? Or were they going to just one very greedy collector of ancient coins? Will the public ever learn anything about the intended destination of the items seized, so people can make their own minds up about the no-questions-asked trade in antiquities?

The numbers of antiquities of declared, probable and presumed Bulgarian (and other Balkan) origins on the international market, including large quantities sold in the USA shows that this shipment is not an isolated occurrence. Neither has the flow of such material stopped since the shipment discussed earlier on this blog of a metric tonne of antiquities through Frankfurt airport in March 1994 (purchased a similar quantity a few years ago, probably (?) not the same shipment. Indeed it is clear that the current form of the antiquities market in the US at least owes a great deal to the sudden influx of bulk lots of metal detected antiquities coming from the Balkans and Bulgarian in particular in the wake of the social collapse and disorder and rise of criminal groups soon after 1989.
.