Forfeiture Claim on Ka Nefer Nefer Mask Dismissed

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This is like a bad dream. Peter Tompa is gleefully reporting (no link given, Google search at present fails to locate the document he quotes - where does this come from?) that a US District Court has dismissed the forfeiture claim brought by the United States on behalf of Egypt for the Ka Nefer Nefer mummy mask in the St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM). This is part of what Lobboblogger Tompa gleefully reports the court says: 

The verified complaint does not provide a factual statement of theft, smuggling, or clandestine importation. [...] The Government's legal conclusion, in paragraph 22 of the verified complaint, that "[b]ecause the Mask was stolen, it could not have been lawfully exported from Egypt or lawfully imported into the United States," misses a number of factual and logical steps, namely: (1) an assertion that the Mask was actually stolen; (2) factual circumstances relating to when the Government believes the Mask was stolen; (3) facts relating to the location from which the Mask was stolen; (4) facts regarding who the Government believes stole the Mask; and (5) a statement or identification of the law which the Government believes applies under which the Mask could be considered stolen and/or illegally exported.

Nobody was seen stealing it, so it is not stolen? Nobody saw that jerk stealing coins from the ANS collection, nor was able to provide any more details about exactly when and whether they were actually stolen, than the Egyptians can. But the ANS thief was found guilty by a US court. This sets an awful precedent. Shame on St Louis, Shame on SLAM, shame on the American government's lawyers who it seems cannot even put together a proper case. 

UPDATE: Monday, April 2, 2012
Rick St Hilaire can be relied on to have more details than Lobboblogger  ('District Court Dismisses Government’s Case to Forfeit SLAM Mummy Mask'): 

The U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Missouri, today published orders dismissing the government's’ forfeiture complaint against the Ka Nefer Nefer mummy mask. [...] The government filed a claim in March 2011 to forfeit the 19th Dynasty Egyptian mummy mask of a noblewoman, alleging that it was stolen from Egypt. Judge Henry Autrey brought the government’s case to a halt after concluding this past Saturday that the government failed to articulate its claim that the mask was stolen or that it was illegally brought into the United States.  Excerpts of the court’s nine page opinion follows with citations omitted:

The Government bases its claim for forfeiture on Section 1595a of Title 19. Section 1595a(c) provides in relevant part:[....]

Judge Henry Autrey see here and here. There is no mention of whether he collects ancient coins or not...

UPDATE Tuesday, April 3, 2012
A slim hope that the struggle to see right done in America is not over yet, Rick St Hilaire  reminds us that there is another case SLAM v. U.S. which remains alive ... for the moment: 'The Other SLAM Mummy Mask Case Quietly Remains Alive for Now'. Peter Tompa calls for the SLAM director, Brent Benjamin to be (re-) appointed to the CPAC to "represent museum interests" - the question is whether all museums actually want such a guy "representing" them?

Former Minister Zahi Hawass Faces Charges Over US Museum Loans

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In Egypt, Zahi Hawass, the former minister of state for antiquities reportedly now faces charges of "breaking Egypt's [1983] antiquities law" when he agreed to display Egyptian objects in Australia and the US (Anon. 'Egypt's 'Indiana Jones' faces charges', Ahram Online, Monday 2 Apr 2012). Nour El-Din Abdul-Samad, Director of Archeological Sites, has filed the accusations against Hawass, and requested that the objects in question be returned to the Egyptian Museum. Hawass is accused of "sealing a deal with the American Geographical Society to display rare Egyptian antiquities in exhibitions across the United States and Australia, violating the law of protecting antiquities".

General Prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud on Monday referred charges of wasting public money and stealing Egyptian antiquities against Zahi Hawass, former minister of state for antiquities to the Public Fund Prosecution office. [...] The Public Funds Prosecution office also received other charges accusing Hawass of wasting public money and exposing Egyptian antiquities to stealing in collaboration with former regime members. [...] The charges relate to Hawass agreeing to transfer and display 143 objects from the Egyptian Museum to Washington DC in 2003. The antiquities have yet to be returned to the museum. These exhibitions violate the antiquities law that prohibits renting Egypt's heritage.

Loans of antiquities to museums and foreign exhibitions violate antiquities laws? The money received for the Tutankhamun exhibition was to raise donations for a hospital patronised by Suzanne Mubarak which was (is?) "a private association not a state body, and as such Hawass was not legally allowed to use his position as a state minister to raise funds for it". Probably the law says the money should have gone to the Mubarak budget to buy more rubber bullets and tear gas.

We have heard from Nour el din Abdel Samad before, he's the one who thinks the National Geographic is a "Zionist" organization and on those grounds the Americans should never have been allowed on Egyptian soil ("What he is saying that the Israelis are involved in trying to change the history of Egypt to suit their needs, so that in the future they can get public opinion (worldwide) on their side when they decide to take back their promised land").  I suspect he is one of those who Hawass referred to previously as a "son of Seth". We will see how these charges hold up.

So, here we have another reason why one should avoid loaning objects to US museums.

UPDATE 3rd April 2012:
An odd, and significant, footnote: 'Judiciary denies probing Mubarak over Hawass charges' (note also both Al-Ahram articles are unsigned, though most can guess the name of the person who was charged with writing them):

On Monday the prosecution opened an investigation into Hawass, who faces seven charges filed against him by a number of archaeologists, including the editor-in-chief of a literary magazine. In a Monday meeting with Ali El-Hawari, a lawyer from the Public Funds Prosecution Office, Hawass presented a number of documents outlining the inaccuracy of the charges filed against him, reported the Al-Ahram Arabic website. El-Hawari ordered the formation of a committee made up of a number of experts from the judiciary and the antiquities field to study all the documents presented both by Hawass and the regulatory authorities.

Vignette: Poland lent this painting to the London Leonardo exhibition, sadly, conservators report when it came back, it has some new micro-cracks in it. But nobody is going to jail.

Focus on Metal Detecting: Site-Wrecker Depth Detectors, Shh, Pretend You're not Interested

A while ago the metal detecting forums were all agog with details of the tests of the Blisstool LTC64 V3 and how powerful it seems to be. It apparently reaches depths that other machines cannot, while being cheaper than the equivalent Minelab GPX 5000 machines. Nowadays when most of the more accessible "productive" sites have been "hammered" depth has become even more of an obsession amongst detectorists, the easiest way to accumulate a personal collection or artefacts now is to get them from deeper and deeper layers of the searched site (Readers may remember that this is an issue that both this writer and heritage action have been urging that the PAS raise with policy makers, there is no sign that they actually have so). Anyhow Heritage Action have again raised the alarm about the proliferation of cheaper "depth advantage" machines ('A second open letter to the Heritage Forum'). No reaction from the heritage "professionals" but an interesting one from the metal detectorists. Over on the Detecting Wales forum the thread “Blisstool LTC64 V3 The Worlds Deepest Detector?” suddenly disappeared. It turns out that the thread had been  hidden by the site administrator and details can only be exchanged through the forum's private mail system. Just in case somebody's looking eh? Just in case somebody's looking and reach a conclusion about the way artefact hunting is going these days which detectorists would rather keep unsaid. 

Statues Seized in Spain

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Police in Jaen in Spain say that on a finca (estate) in Pedro Abad near Cordoba, owned by two brothers, they have recovered a pair of first century AD bronze statues about to be sold on the black market. The Roman figures, 1.50m and 1.30m in size, depict two naked males, with each piece weighing about 30 kilos and in a good state of conservation (although one has lost part of his chest and the other his genitals). They have been shown to have been taken from the ancient Roman site of Sacilis Marcialis (modern Adamuz) and are believed to form part of a Castor and Pollux sculpture in Cordoba. The statues will now be taken to the Cordoba Museum to be conserved.

The two brothers who own the estate were planning to sell the statues. Although they have been valued at six million euros each, according to police commissioner Daniel Salgado they were about to be sold on the black market for about half their market value to an Italian buyer via an intermediary. Interpol are now hunting for the buyer. One of the brothers has also been arrested and two other people charged with a crime against heritage and the attempted smuggling of historic property.

R. Castro, 'Recuperan dos estatuas de bronce valoradas en 12 millones', Europa Press, March 23, 2012 
'Roman statues rescued in Spain', The Olive Press March 28, 2012

Photos: Europe Press.

Eighty Seized Artefacts Return to Egypt from Brussels

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This does not look like an April Fool, but note the date. Osama El-Nahas (Director General of the 'Returned Antiquities Section' at the Antiquities Ministry), told Ahram Online that the more artefacts would be returning to Egypt "within days" (Nevine El-Aref, 'Egypt smuggler caught in Brussels, 80 artefacts to return home' Al-Ahram, 1 Apr 2012 ). A Belgian court of appeal reportedly ordered the return to Egypt on Sunday(?) of 80 artefacts stolen and smuggled out of the country in April 2010. They were allegedly seized when customs officials at Brussels airport caught an Egyptian woman trying to smuggle the small objects inside two large wooden replica statues.

The collection includes 11 small wooden and limestone statuettes, 11 amulets, 27 scarabs from the ancient Egyptian era, Islamic cylindrical seals, a Coptic child's garb, a small decorated piece of textile, a lion-shaped Ptolemaic pot and a prehistoric clay pot.

The objects were seized. After officials from the national museum pronounced them authentic, the case was sent to court.

In collaboration with the Egyptian embassy in Brussels, Egypt claimed possession of the confiscated collection and won a court verdict to recover them, said Antiquities Minister Mohamed Ibrahim.

The fate and identity of the smuggler were not revealed.

UPDATE 6th May 2012

 MENA, 'Belgium returns 80 smuggled artifacts to Egypt', Egypt Independent Sun, 06/05/2012

Portable Antiquity April Fooling Around

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A blog is a means of personal expression, I have chosen to blog here on an issue I personally think very important and generally take seriously, though choose various means to communicate that concern. These include some posts which are less serious in tone.

At the bottom of each post are a series of 'tags' (labels) which are supposed to be to help order posts thematically. I see little evidence that they are used by readers in that way, but I'd like to draw attention to one of them, the one called 'fiction'. There are a dozen or so posts here written as fiction (as 'parables') trying to make a point through analogy, whether successfully or not is another matter, but I enjoy writing them. There are also a few attempts at humour, not always entirely frivolous. Among them are the ones I made on the First of April. This seems to be becoming a bit of an archaeoblogging mini-tradition, the most regular expression is on David Gill's and Peter Tompa's blogs, but they can be found elsewhere too. I thought I'd look back at my own.

The first one (1st April 2008) was entirely pedestrian, it took what was a joke post from Percy Flarge's incomparable Artnose  and just set it in another one, it was about the repatriation of "Van Gogh's Ear"  ('Another repatriation row brewing?'). I am not sure it really makes a point, I'd not really paid too much attention to "repatriation" issues back in 2009.

The next one, 1st April 2010 is my personal favourite. This was a time when the Dark Side was trying desperately to compromise me through personal attacks (there was a nasty anti-barford blog, a fictional Wikipedia page etc). To achieve their aim, the Black Hat Guys needed to find out more about me, they were not getting very far, and on the grounds of their inability to find information were suggesting I was not in some way "authentic". So I thought I'd have some fun with this ('PAS Announcement: This blog now closing') but in the process hint at what I was already perceiving as one of the effects of this blog. I was a bit unprepared for the effect that there actually was discussion in collecting circles: "Is it true that Paul Barford is a fictional person created by the PAS in Britain?". I enjoyed that. The PAS were not, I gather, too amused by the prank, but since by that time they'd stopped acknowledging my existence, that did not give me any sleepless nights.


I put a lot of work into the next one (Friday, 1 April 2011, 'A Warning From Beyond the Grave for Looters') which was a shame because it flopped dreadfully. Total silence. Despite the double-entendre names and the "curse" starting with the Tut-fictional "death will come on swift wings" my readers either were not sure it was a joke (?) or thought it was in bad taste. The hieroglyphics were translated for me as a favour by an eminent scholar (who'd not want me to name him I suspect) and it all hangs together - there had been another inscription on the mask which a previous "owner" removed, and the good people of St Louis should be clamouring that the mask should go back. More disturbingly, the 'curse' speaks of the "City of the Gates" (St Louis, "Gateway to the West") being destroyed and a few (three?) days after the publication of my text, the airport there was devastated by a freak hurricane. This was no opportunity to carry on the joke however, as several people sadly lost their lives in the event. The mask, however, still carries, I say, a very real curse for the black Hat Guys. It should indeed be returned before it does any more damage.

I was going to do an 'Egypt-based' one this year too, and had put a bit of serious planning into it back in January (I'm not saying what it was, as maybe I'll use it in future if it is still topical). Unfortunately the joke did not look quite so funny with the revelation a few weeks back that the serious looting in Egypt was not over, despite the low media coverage of the issue in the past few months. So I decided not to use it.

Thus yesterday's "Elutherius I bulla" post (Historic Discovery by the PAS, An Unknown Pope).  The joke was in part a dig at the two "amateur historians" and their metal detecting sidekick in Wales who decided to have an especially nasty go at me last year over my discussion of their claims to have sorted out the King Arthur Mystery (as well as finding Camelot, the Holy Grail, Ark of the Covernant and all sorts of assorted things). It has however a series of subtexts, there is for example a 'parable' there about the claims made by certain uncritical  pro-artefact-hunting advocates that single decontextualised artefacts can "(re) write history". It is a spoof on the Domitian coin ripping yarn and the Ardecanute coin hoo-ha as well as of course PAS-outreach of the type of the "Britain's Secret Treasures" farce. It is also a spoof on the perils of treating  too seriously finds made under uncontrolled conditions (look again at the reverse inscription and think about it, also note the date after which the Apostolic Curia was using leaden bullae). It also talks of the perils of patting detectorists on the head whatever, which I - not without reason - personally perceive as a problem in the way the PAS operates (the walled area of Caerleon is of course a scheduled site, and any fictional metal detecting there would be illegal). The joke though is too long, required too much explanation. I'll try to do better if I am still blogging next year.

It seems that again the Portable Antiquities Scheme saw nothing amusing, let alone thought-provoking, in the "Eleutherius I bulla" post. "Trolling" the portableant@ Twitter account calls it; "there's (sic) other motives to his attempt to befunny". Too flipping right there are. Even if the fourteen-million pound Scheme ignores the questions raised about what it is doing, does not mean these problems do not exist and nor that they do not deserve wider public discussion. And if they are not going to talk about it, they can't complain when they are the butt of jokes about it.

Historic Discovery by the PAS, An Unknown Pope

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In their search for objects made of more precious metal, most treasure hunters tend to ignore archaeological artefacts made of lead discovered. Metal detectorist Alun Tussle from Gaer Diffymawr, Gwent was only prevented from putting a small disc of lead in his scrap pouch when he saw two faces peering out of the mud while metal detecting a Roman site in Caerleon near his home. When he got it home and washed it, he realised that it had writing on it and to find out whether he had found something valuable, he took it to his good friends, amateur historians Baran Blackheart and Callan Titwit (world-famous authors of "Britain's True History from Authentic Documents" and discoverers of the Holy Grail, grave of King Arthur and the Ark of the Covenant all within walking distance of their little town in South Wales). Realising at once the true significance of the object and where it was found, the two instructed him to take it to the Potable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) to claim his reward.

 The region's Finds Liaison Officer Fionella Sloan-Squarre says "when Mr Tussle showed me what he'd got in his trouser pocket, I was flabbergasted. It is not every day that you see such a valuable item - historically, that is. I immediately phoned my bosses in London to inform them". Mr Tussle was disappointed to learn that despite the value of the find, which is purely historical, because the find is not gold or silver nor a hoard, he is not entitled to a reward. "It's not a about the money", he smiled wryly.

What Mr Tussle had found metal detecting in the southwest corner of the walled Roman town at Caerleon is what is known as a "papal bull". It is a lead seal that was placed on documents issued by the Papal Chancellery in and sent to dignitaries of the early Church. The representations on one side of two saints show St Paul and St Peter with the inscription SPA[ul] SPE[eter]. The reverse bearing the name of the issuer is what excited Blackheart and Titwit . It bears the name of ELEVTHERIVS, followed by the numeral "I" and the title PP [pontifex].

 As Ms Sloan-Squarre explained, reliable historians such as Geoffrey of Monmouth make reference to an early mission to England sent by a Pope Eleutherus to King Lucius of Britain. William of Malmesbury records that he sent SS. Fugatius and Damianus (rather Dumianus or Duvianus) over to Britain. These missionaries baptized King Lucius and many others, and "the Britons enjoyed the light of faith in peace till the reign of Diocletian". Lucius therefore was the first Christian king in Europe.

 The problem is Bede (Hist. l. 1. c. 4) dates the mission to 167 when there was no Pope Eleutherus in Rome. The pontif in that year was Anicetus (150-167) and foreign historians say he was followed by Soter whose short pontificate was followed by that of Saint Eleuterus (Greek: Ελευθέριος), much later than the historical date of the conversion of Lucius. On these grounds, professional historians have attacked the validity of these earliest records of The True British History. Now, this new discovery rewrites history. It seems there were in fact two Popes called Eleutherius, the first of which was the one to whom Lucius had sent his embassy in 167, but he had later been written out of history in an effort to hide The True British History which made Britain the earliest Christian nation in Europe.

What is more, Blackheart and Titwit explain, the findspot shows that the Pope was sending letters to the bishops of Lucius in Caerleon, not London - so probably during the Roman occupation of the eastern parts of the Island, this small town now in Wales was the capital of all of Britain at the time.

Ms Sloan Squarre stresses that it seems once again, in partnership with the PAS, the discovery of an amateur proves the so-called "experts" totally wrong. "In a year when we’re all celebrating what it means to be British, finds like this made by amateur searchers show how they can reveal the hidden events that have shaped our past and made our great nation what we are today".

It is interesting to note that coins or medals of King Lucius were recorded by early collectors, such as one mentioned by Archbishop Usher (Antiq. Britain, c. 3, p. 22. Guthrie, Hist. of England, b. 1. ), and one by the French connoisseur Bouterue. They had been disregarded as fakes by professional historians but the discovery of the Caerleon Eletherius I bull suggests we should look at the issue of their authenticity again. The problem is nobody knows what has happened to these privately-owned items, they never made it down the ages to a public collection. No bulls of (Saint) Eleutherius II have so far been discovered, Mr Tussle is out in the fields of South Wales looking for them now.

UPDATE:
to better understand the context of this text, note that it was posted on April 1st (April Fool's Day). OK, too long and involved to be funny - better luck next year.

Photo: Potable Antiquities Scheme