November 14, 2000
CONTENTS:
- Looted Art Recovered by the Civil Guard and the Mossos d´Esquadra
- Emergency Archaeology; Antiquities Saved in Turkey as Waters Rise
- Shanghai aims to seek cultural superiority
- Lawyers Give Plan to Split Auction-Case Settlement
- Call for help on the song of "Save Our Heritage"
- Query: Film Policy
Looted Art Recovered by the Civil Guard and the Mossos d´Esquadra
CATALONIA, SPAIN.- More than a hundred artworks have been recovered by the Civil Guard and the Mossos d´Esquadra in different sections of Catalonia and Huesca. Most of the artworks belong to the 17th and 18th centuries. For now seven art dealers have been charged with buying these plundered works to other dealers because they knew their origin of precedence. The looted works add up to $520,000 dollars, although some of the works carry more of a sentimental value because they passed from generation to generation.
http://www.artdaily.com/001114/13.htm
Emergency Archaeology; Antiquities Saved in Turkey as Waters Rise
By Molly Moore Washington Post Service
ZEUGMA, Turkey - Inch by inch, the rising waters of the newly dammed Euphrates River have been swallowing this ancient city of the Roman Empire: the 2,000-year-old public piazzas, the lavish villas with their exquisite mosaic tile floors, the still-undiscovered buildings with unknown treasures. For four months, nearly 200 archaeologists worked frenetically to record and save artifacts from one of the best-preserved Roman cities ever uncovered. Last month, the race ended, with the waters of an artificial lake lapping at the last visible remnants of ancient stonework.
The archaeologists rescued 10 complete mosaics depicting scenes from mythology and literature, the largest collection of Roman government seals - more than 50,000 - ever found at a single site, bronze statues of Venus and nearly 2,000 other antiquities.
''The degree of preservation and quality of the artifacts we're uncovering could be compared to Pompeii,'' said Robert Early, senior project manager for the British-based Oxford Archaeological Unit, which specializes in salvaging endangered ancient sites.
Now the water has submerged a third of Zeugma, including buildings and artifacts archaeologists simply ran out of time to explore and others that they preserved in mortar and sand in case the dam is ever taken out of service.
The race to explore and preserve Zeugma - once a wealthy trading city and military post on the Silk Road, ancient Rome's route to China - is part of a broader struggle between Turkey's drive to modernize its economy and scholars' efforts to save rare treasures from 10,000 years of history here in the ancient region of Mesopotamia.
To provide electricity to its energy-starved cities and irrigate a broad swath of the arid, impoverished Southeast, the Turkish government is building a network of 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric plants and canals, at a cost of about $34 billion, across the Euphrates and Tigris river valleys. But the dams of the Southeast Anatolia Project will inundate hundreds of ancient archaeological sites, only a few dozen of which researchers say they have any hope of salvaging from the reservoir waters. In the areas that will be submerged by just the next two dams built, archaeologists say they have identified 250 significant sites.
Of all the threatened historical sites, none has attracted more international attention than Zeugma, a city that disappeared 800 years ago. Archaeologists say the intact mosaics found here, which adorned the floors of reception rooms and hallways in the city's most opulent villas, are some of the best finds of their kind from Roman days.
Although archaeologists, and thieves, chipped away at Zeugma's mysteries for nearly four decades, it was not until June that scientists began racing the rise of a 45-square-kilometer (17-square-mile) lake behind the Birecik dam, about a kilometer mile away. With only four months remaining before the lake would claim Zeugma, the California-based Packard Humanities Institute offered $5 million for an emergency rescue effort.
Archaeologists estimate they accomplished in four months here what usually would take about 10 years. Even so, they excavated only the one-third of Zeugma to be submerged. No funds are available to explore the rest of the city.
Archaeologists used satellite imagery, ground-piercing radar and computer enhancements to divide the threatened portion of the city into zones for triage excavations by international teams.
''The days of an archaeologist scraping and brushing things to see what you can find are over,'' Mr. Early said.
Archaeologists were amazed by what they discovered under 5 meters (15 feet) of soil. ''This site is special because of the level of preservation'' and the scale of the find, Mr. Early said. ''This was about an entire city, not rooms in a house. We have a representative sample of the city of Zeugma from evolution to decline.''
Whether it was destroyed by earthquake or invasion - archaeologists and historians cannot yet say - Zeugma remained relatively untouched by later civilizations. The last of its estimated 50,000 inhabitants disappeared so quickly that archaeologists have discovered expertly crafted figurines of copper alloys, coin-filled leather purses and a gold ring for sealing official documents - all items that normally would have been pilfered from such a site centuries ago.
Those artifacts will give historians extraordinarily detailed insights into the way the early Romans lived, worked and played. Already, archaeologists have examined the remains of what they ate - olive pits, lentils and wheat grains - and glimpsed the lifestyles of the wealthy traders and military commanders who resided in the city's poshest suburbs.
Last month, with the waters encroaching, Mr. Early's teams filled in their excavation trenches, coating pillars and stonework in lime-based mortar and stuffing archways and town houses with layers of sand and pebbles to preserve them underwater. Previous excavations by other teams remain open, their pillars now barely visible above the water line.
http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/TUE/IN/turkey.2.html
Shanghai aims to seek cultural superiority
ASIA LETTER/ by Conor O'Clery
I am standing looking at a couple of chairs and a bed on Saturday afternoon and the uniformed guard near me is watching warily as if I might make off with them. As well he might, because the horseshoe armchairs and the three-sided bed on display in the Shanghai Museum are examples of rare 17th century Ming furniture.
The four-poster canopy bed would fetch half a million dollars in a New York auction house; indeed not long ago bidders paid $11 million at Christie's in New York for a collection of Ming furniture pieces. Over the years many of China's historic treasures like the Ming chairs found their way to the West, but the Shanghai Museum is now steadily buying back artefacts from international dealers and has mounted the first permanent display in communist China of the elegant and sophisticated hardwood Ming furniture.
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2000/1113/wor15.htm
Lawyers Give Plan to Split Auction-Case Settlement
By CAROL VOGEL
The lead lawyers representing the more than 100,000 buyers and sellers in a recently settled class-action lawsuit against the Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses have detailed for the first time how they propose to divide the $512 million settlement.
In court papers that were filed on Friday and made available yesterday, the lawyers, from the firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, proposed that the buyers and sellers, who say they were victims of a scheme to fix commissions on the part of the two houses, receive proportionate amounts of money based on their purchases and sales.
Using a formula developed by Jeffrey Leitzinger, a pricing and markets analyst retained by the firm, sellers would receive about 1 percent of the sales price of their offerings. Buyers would receive 5 percent of the sales price on each purchase of $50,000 or less and a flat $2,500 for each purchase above $50,000. The figures represent the increases in the buyer's premiums that Sotheby's and Christie's instituted in 1993. Increases in seller's commissions, which were more variable, were computed through the use of economic models.
The papers, submitted in a motion for preliminary approval of the $512 million settlement filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, did not disclose the amount set aside for legal fees, which were arrived at in a proposal the firm filed months ago with Judge Lewis A. Kaplan.
The class-action suit stemmed from a far-ranging federal investigation of the two auction giants that moved into high gear when a former chief executive of Christie's delivered papers that documented years of collusion between two companies. Christie's received conditional amnesty from prosecution in exchange for cooperating. Last month, Sotheby's pleaded guilty to violating antitrust laws as did Diana D. Brooks, its former president and chief executive. In September, Sotheby's and Christie's agreed to pay $512 million - $412 million in cash and an additional $100 million in coupons - to settle the claims by the customers represented in the class action.
The documents filed on Friday state that the settlement is 1.79 times the amount buyers and sellers were overcharged, which was estimated at $286 million by Mr. Leitzinger. He estimated that the auction houses overcharged buyers $201.2 million during the period from Jan. 1, 1993, through December 1999. Of the $201.2 million, $89.2 million is from Christie's and $111.9 million from Sotheby's. Mr. Leitzinger also estimated that the auction houses overcharged sellers $85.3 million, with $49.7 million of that from Sotheby's and $35.5 million from Christie's.
Within 30 days of preliminary approval by the court, Sotheby's and Christie's would each deposit in an escrow account $100 million in cash. An additional $106 million in cash would be deposited within 30 days of the final approval by the court. Each house would also deposit another $50 million either in cash or discount certificates within 30 days of the final court approval. Boies, Schiller & Flexner is to submit a plan of allocation on Nov. 27 that will provide more details of the distribution.
Also on Nov. 27, Sotheby's and Christie's will present to Judge Kaplan further details about the payment of the $100 million worth of certificates to clients wishing to use them as credit against seller's commissions and certain consignment- related charges.
No hearings have been set on the motion for preliminary approval or on final approval of the settlement.
As is typical of most class-action cases, members will have a certain number of days, still to be specified by the court, to opt out of the class. A separate class-action suit filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan by the law firms of Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll of Washington and Milberg, Weiss, Bershad, Hynes & Lorach of New York seeks to represent foreign buyers and sellers although no class has been certified by the judge.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/14/business/14SOTH.html
From: "wyxhsz" hsuzhong@public2.east.cn.net
To: "Ton" securma@xs4all.nl
Subject: Call for help on the song of "Save Our Heritage"
Date sent: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 19:59:59 +0800
Dear Ton,
I will be very appreciated if Culturalheritagewatch.org can get the help by your Mailinglist service. Popular song is a good way to draw the attention of people to the protection of cultural heritage. So CHW composed a song several years ago and now is trying to put it on line in order to be heard on the web site of CHW. The core idea of the song is: a mother tells her child that they will be soulless if they lose their cultural heritage. The song is in English. We need it be corrected, sung and recorded.
All the best and many thanks.
Yours,
He Shuzhong
(Museum-L)
From: "Kraetzig, Michele ERM" Michele.Kraetzig.erm@GOVMAIL.GOV.SK.CA
Subject: Query: Film Policy
Hello Listers,
We are looking to create a film policy to meet the demand of the ever increasing requests from production company's, to film in our Historic parks. I have done some phoneing around to see what others are doing, and so far most are handling on a case by case basis. Does anyone out there have an established written policy that they would be willing to forward? Any advice?
Thanks in advance
Michele Kraetzig
Parks and Special Places
Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management
3211 Albert Street
Regina, SK Canada S4S 5W6
Phone: (306)787-9572
Fax: (306)787-7000
Email: Michele.Kraetzig.erm@govmail.gov.sk.ca