September 2, 2000
CONTENTS:
- Director De Falla says that the museum just wants the items back, and no questions will be asked (are thieves invited by museum director?)
- Yuanmingyuan Is Still Being Robbed
- Japanese back North Korean bid to list ancient tombs (Continued Japanese support for the conservation of the Koguryo era monuments may signal a rapprochement between the two countries)
Museum Thieves Target Native Artifacts
Maryhill Art Museum Cites Rash Of Break-Ins In West
A recent break-in at a museum in the Columbia River Gorge may be linked to a West Coast theft ring that deals in Indian artifacts. Sometime Tuesday night, robbers found a weak link in the security system of the isolated Maryhill Museum of Art, KOIN 6 News reports. Staffers arrived at work Wednesday morning to find nearly two-dozen Indian artifacts missing: things like moccasins, ornate beaded bags, and a bone breast-piece.
"These kinds of artifacts are very popular and collectors are very, very interested in them," museum director Josie De Falla says. "Over the last couple of years, there's been a rash of museum break-in and thefts, most of them in the West. What makes it difficult for police is that many of these thefts go unreported."
What especially angers museum workers is that someone would be so selfish as to deprive the public of its shared heritage.
Maryhill is in the midst of a $3.5 million fundraising effort to improve the museums security system. De Falla says that the museum just wants the items back, and no questions will be asked.
They refuse to say how they've beefed up security, only to say that it will be much more difficult for burglars to hit the museum.
From: "wyxhsz" hsuzhong@public2.east.cn.net
To: "Mr.Ton" securma@xs4all.nl
Subject: Yuanmingyuan Is Still Being Robbed
Date sent: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 23:38:39 +0800
Culturalheritagewatch reports on 01-09-2000:
Yuanmingyuan Is Still Being Robbed
Yuanmingyuan, one of the most famous royal gardens in ancient China, was destroyed and robbed by the eight countries joined army 140 years ago. While the Chinese authorities focus on the 'rational utilization' of cultural heritage (see CHW reports on August 27), 140 years later, we find that the burned Yuanmingyuan is being robbed by home thieves. Resent years at least two rob groups which reside 5 kilometers away from Yuanmingyuan have been stealing many carved stones from the site. The stones were sold to dealers in very cheap price and then sold to foreign travelers or smugglers in five to ten times higher price. Yuanmingyuan is a cultural heritage site protected at the national level treated as one of the most important education base of patriotism by the government. However, after an investigation, we realize that the protection situation is far from satisfied: the thieves could take away the stones from the site by truck!
Japanese back North Korean bid to list ancient tombs
Continued Japanese support for the conservation of the Koguryo era monuments may signal a rapprochement between the two countries
The Artsnewspaper:
http://www.allemandi.com/TAN/news/article.asp?idart=2993 By Fiona Wilson
TOKYO. Japanese private foundations, which may have the tacit backing of government, are supporting North Korea's bid to have a group of ancient tombs of the Koguryo era placed on the World Heritage List compiled by UNESCO, the United Nations' cultural watchdog.
Continued Japanese support for the preservation of the North Korean tombs and for North Korea's UNESCO listing request coincides with the resumption this year of intergovernmental talks between the two countries after eight years of stalemate.
This August UNESCO secretary-general Koichiro Matsuura paid an official visit to North Korea, the first by a director of UNESCO for eight years.
Mr Matsuura attended the opening of an exhibition of photographs of the Koguryo tombs at the Korean Central History Museum in Pyongyang.
The ancient tombs date from the Koguryo era (37 BC to 668 AD), are decorated with painted murals, and are situated near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.
Mr Matsuura's visit followed several by UNESCO goodwill ambassador, Japanese painter Ikuo Hirayama, and those of other members of the Koguri-kai group (literally Koguryo Party) mostly made up of Japanese scholars.
This April, Mr Hirayama visited North Korea with a group of Japanese experts and the director of the UNESCO Beijing Office to install equipment to monitor and record the moisture and temperature inside and outside three of the Koguryo tombs.
Mr Hisamitsu Tani, executive director of the privately-funded Foundation for Cultural Heritage which supports restoration programmes at home and abroad and offers scholarships to conservators from outside Japan, has also visited the tombs. He became involved after Koguri-kai approached his organisation.
"The tombs are undoubtedly suitable for World Heritage listing. The North Koreans have been protecting the murals behind glass, but there is a problem with condensation and a generally low level of conservation. We can offer the North Koreans technical expertise and they have welcomed our help. We hope we can be a conduit for good relations between Japan and North Korea," said Mr Tani.
While Japan has yet to comply with North Korea's continued requests for compensation for alleged damage to the North Korean cultural heritage during Japan's colonial occupation of the Korean peninsula in 1910-45 (see article), its readiness to send conservators to the Koguryo tombs and its pledge of support for the UNESCO listing request is almost certainly a diplomatic gesture aimed at normalising relations between the two countries.
When delegates from Japan and North Korea met this April and August, Japan argued that wartime compensation would be inappropriate since the two countries were not at war at the time of Japan's colonial rule.
China, Japan, and South Korea are all on the World Heritage map, but at present North Korea has no monuments listed by UNESCO. The isolated Communist State signed the World Heritage Convention in 1998, a mandatory step towards the nomination of a cultural or natural site for heritage status.
After compiling a preliminary list of monuments, the formal submission to UNESCO is scheduled for July 2001.