November 24, 2000

Taleban may move museum pieces

The Taleban authorities in Afghanistan have said they are considering moving artifacts out of the National Museum of Afghanistan for their safe-keeping. They said it was because of the museum's dilapidated condition and isolated location. The Taleban culture minister Kudrutallah Jamal denied rumours that the Taleban were planning to destroy non-Islamic pieces left in the museum. These include ancient Buddhist artifacts which are known to have posed a problem for the ultra-orthodox Islamic movement; some individual comanders have called for their destruction.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1037000/1037059.stm

Petroglyph Theft Casts Agency in Bloodhound Role

By Layne Miller The Salt Lake Tribune Thursday, November 23, 2000
http://www.sltrib.com/11232000/utah/46587.htm
Officials from State Institutional Trust Lands are trying to figure out how to proceed with a case involving the theft of a boulder etched with prehistoric petroglyphs from state trust lands in southwest Utah County. The agency does not have a lot of experience investigating criminal cases and will need some legal guidance on how to proceed. "We're pursuing this matter diligently and vigorously, but we're not sure right now what we're going to do,'' Kenny Wintch, an archaeologist for State Institutional Trust Lands, said Wednesday. "We're going to do the right thing, but we're not sure what the right thing is." The theft was reported last summer by a person who apparently saw someone hauling the boulder in a trailer towed by an all-terrain vehicle from an area near Five Mile Pass. The witness notified the Bureau of Land Management, but upon learning that the boulder was on state trust land, the BLM handed the investigation over to SITLA. Jesse Warner, president of the Utah Rock Art Research Association in Salt Lake City, said the loss of the boulder means any valuable information the petroglyphs may have held is now lost. "Some petroglyphs can give us valuable information about the people who created them," said Warner, an amateur rock-art researcher. "We [URARA members] have been searching our photo files trying to determine what boulder it was that was taken, but we're not sure if it's one we have surveyed and documented or not.'' Warner said petroglyphs sometimes have an association with the landscape where they are found that provides information. "If we haven't documented the site, any information it contained is now gone," he said. "We have now lost that association and those meanings." Warner's group is offering a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest of the thief. The boulder is estimated to be 3 feet long and 2 feet wide and to weigh several hundred pounds. Five Mile Pass is in the middle of a sagebrush desert and could have been used for hundreds of years as a route by the prehistoric inhabitants of Utah. Warner and others believe the ancient petroglyphs were probably made by the Fremont culture, which inhabited Utah from about A.D. 500 to 1300. The Fremont culture is believed to have created many of the thousands of petroglyphs and pictograph panels gracing sandstone cliffs throughout the state. Some of the petroglyphs in the Utah County site are listed in the second volume of Kenneth Castletons' Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Utah. In the book, Castleton calls the area west of Utah Lake the Fairfield site. Many ancient rock art panels on Utah's public lands have been stolen or damaged in the past. Some of the thieves believe the panels marked the location of ancient gold mines. Panels were also taken to be included in home landscaping or as decorations.
The Salt Lake Tribune

Museum accused of bid-rigging

ALLEGATIONS: A city councilor said that the Taipei Astronomical Museum broke the law in the bidding process for a multi-million dollar construction contract
By Ko Shu-ling STAFF REPORTER
New Party City Councilor Chin Li-fang yesterday accused the Taipei Astronomical Museum and the Central Trust of China of bid rigging in the museum's NT$420 million construction project for a cosmic adventure facility. Despite the museum's denial, Chin requested the city's Department of Anti-Corruption conduct an investigation into whether the museum and the trust company had violated the Government Procurement Act. "We did everything according to the law and welcome any investigation." Yuan Kuo- chuan, director of Taipei's Astronomical Museum The Government Procurement Act, which went into effect in May last year, stipulates that co-bidding is allowed only under three circumstances: when the product is patented or requires special skills to manufacture, when the bidder lacks competitiveness and needs the other partner to strengthen it, and when the authorizing party gives its consent. Chin yesterday told reporters at a press conference at the City Council that there were three flaws in the bidding process. "First of all, both the museum and the Central Trust of China -- which coordinated the bidding commissioned by the museum -- violated the Government Procurement Act by allowing one of the co-bidders -- Ride & Show Engineering Inc -- to enter the tender as the partner of three different bidders," Chin said. The third and final tender of the project, which took place on Nov. 8 this year, attracted five groups of bidders. Ride & Show was a co- bidder to three of them -- the Taiwan-based Modern Design Group, the Malaysia-based Pico International, and the Netherlands-based Gielissen Interior & Exhibitions. "I'm curious to know why co- bidding was allowed, since the construction of the project doesn't require any special skills, nor is it patented," Chin said. She also questioned the dubious relationship between the designing company that outlined the contract for the project and the winning bidder. "I cannot help but suspect that the system was tailor-made by the designer -- the US-based KSA Design International -- to fit the bidder that won the contract -- Ride & Show -- because they're affiliated companies," Chin said. Finally, she questioned the identity of the bidding examiner and his relationship to the company that won the contract. Showing a photocopy of a business card, Chin pointed out that the vice president of the designing company -- John March -- was not only the examiner of the bidders but also the marketing and sales CEO of Ride & Show. The Government Procurement Act specifies that the system designer, tender document drafter and bidding examiner are not allowed to participate in the tendering process. Despite Chin's accusations, museum Director Yuan Kuo-chuan (阮國全) proclaimed the museum's innocence. "We didn't violate the Government Procurement Act, nor did we favor any particular bidder," Yuan said. "We did everything according to the law and welcome any investigation." According to Yuan, the museum had obtained approval from the Bureau of Education, regarding the co- bidders. In addition, Yuan said they were not aware of the relationship between the designing company and the company that won the contract until last Saturday, when one of the Taiwanese bidders who participated in the second bidding complained about it to Chin.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2000/11/23/story/0000062615

Russia "Owes Nothing" to Germany Regarding Art Trophies

MOSCOW, Nov 23, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Russia suffered irreparable cultural damage at the hands of the Nazis, and so owes Germany nothing regarding its seizure of art trophies at the end of World War II, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov argues in an interview published by Die Welt newspaper Thursday. The interview coincides with a four-day visit to Germany that the minister begins Thursday. Russian-German relations received a boost this year with the coming to power of President Vladimir Putin, who has developed warm personal relations with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. But the mass of art works that the Soviet Red Army seized from Germany at the close of World War II has been an issue between Berlin and Moscow for years. The German authorities have asked for their return, but the Russian view is that they constitute reparation for what the Nazis wrought on Russia. "Russian cultural heritage suffered irreparable damage through Hitler's aggression: libraries were looted, thousands of Russian monuments were destroyed. Therefore the resolution of this problem can only be through even-handedness and gestures of goodwill," Ivanov said in the interview. "There can be no one-way street. Russia owes nobody anything in this respect." Asked in the same interview about the possible fears of Germany's neighbors about a new "special relationship" between Berlin and Moscow, the Russian minister replied: "I have honestly not heard of such a thing before. Any fears of this kind are completely baseless. "We are open to close cooperation with other European countries, including France and Britain. We are undertaking energetic steps in this direction both in bilateral relations and at the multilateral level."
2000 Agence France Presse

Mexican Archaeologists Trapped in Tourism Catch-22

Thursday, November 23, 2000
BY RICARDO SANDOVAL KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
CANCUN, Mexico -- Enrique Terrones' work as a government archaeologist is going to the iguanas. He has long fought to preserve El Rey, a small cluster of temples built 600 years ago as a Mayan fish market. Today, it is surrounded by a golf course and resort hotels, and visitors seem more drawn to El Rey for its extroverted iguanas than its archaeology. Terrones wouldn't mind if it were just a few -- after all, the Mayans considered iguanas good- luck sentinels. But hundreds of the critters are thriving since the golf course and Cancun's hotels killed off or drove away predatory crocodiles and ospreys. Now they're digging a network of tunnels that are undermining El Rey's limestone temples. "Do we treat . . . [El Rey] as an important historical site or turn it into a zoo?" asked Terrones, one of three archaeologists who oversees dozens of Mayan Indian temples along Mexico's Quintana Roo state on the Caribbean Sea.
More: http://www.sltrib.com/11232000/nation_w/46356.htm

Photo Exhibit Closed After Uproar

By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA, Associated Press writer WARSAW, Poland (AP) - A photographic exhibit of famous actors in Nazi uniforms they wore for films has been closed and cannot reopen until accurate context on the Nazi era is added, Poland's culture minister said Wednesday. ``The Nazis,'' an exhibit at Warsaw's prestigious Zacheta gallery by Polish-born artist Piotr Uklanski, has caused an uproar among many viewers who believe it portrays Nazism in a favorable light. Organizers suspended the show over the weekend after a prominent Polish actor, Daniel Olbrychski, slashed several pictures with a sword and removed a photograph of himself in a Nazi uniform.
More: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20001122/en/poland_nazi_exhibit_1.html