June 18, 2003
CONTENTS:
- Egypt: SCA gears up to face antiquity theft
- L.A. judge sends Picasso painting case to Cook County
- Looted Dutch art sold
- Peru: Trafficking religious art
- USA: In Dalí Theft at Rikers Island, the 4 Suspects Aren't Inmates
- Swiss arts world split over proposed illegal goods law
- USA: Reward offered for stolen artifacts
- ‘Iranian national real culprit’
IRAQ
- Iraqi artefacts find easy route via Switzerland
- Reach of Iraq's cultural theft crisis extends far beyond Baghdad Museum
Egypt: SCA gears up to face antiquity theft
“The Supreme Council for Antiquity (SCA) has adopted several decisive procedures to face the theft of Antiquities as well as to retrieve stolen pieces from abroad.
Past faults and short-sightedness have been cured by establishing grassroots solutions to the problem” SCA Secretary-General Zahi Hawas made this statement on Saturday night, at a symposium entitled "Egypt in the face of the theft of Antiquities", which was held in the gardens of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The theft of antiquities has raised public concern in Egypt and the whole world, not only because it’s an issue concerned with the culture of humanity, but also because it concerns national security, ”he said” Hawas referred to the international UNESCO agreement adopted in 1972, which incremented the theft and smuggling of antiquities worldwide, stating that “Each country has the right to demand the return of its stolen antiquities stolen prior to 1972 . In his statement , Hawas referred to the procedures taken to limit the lost antiquities “several antiquity storage depots have been built in 15 different places , using the most modern and scientific system “he said”
“More importantly, all antiquities are currently being regesterd. “he added”
http://www.uk.sis.gov.eg/
L.A. judge sends Picasso painting case to Cook County
June 17, 2003 — A Los Angeles judge has ruled that the legal battle over ownership of a $10 million Pablo Picasso painting should be fought in Cook County. The ruling upholds a tentative ruling made in March.
The "Femme en Blanc" (Woman in White) oil painting was stolen by Nazis during World War Two. Marilynn Alsdorf of Chicago later bought the artwork from a New York art dealer in 1975.
University of California, Berkeley law student Thomas Bennigson filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles last December to regain control of the 1922 oil. Bennigson is a descendant of the painting's original owners. He sued after the Picasso was put up for sale in Los Angeles and a prospective buyer determined the artwork was stolen by the Third Reich.
http://abclocal.go.com/
Looted Dutch art sold
Rachel Levy
JUNE 16, 2003
Amsterdam
The heirs of a Dutch Jewish art collector who was murdered by the Nazis and whose collection was later confiscated by Dutch authorities are slowly selling it off -- but a larger cache of looted World War II artworks remains in Holland's hands.
Three Renaissance silver pieces from the famous Fritz and Eugen Gutmann art collection were sold June 10 at Christie's in London for $3.35 million, more than double what auction house officials had expected. One piece, a 17th-century German ewer of a nude woman on a triton blowing a conch shell, was bought by Amsterdam's renowned Rijksmuseum, which has held the piece since it was confiscated from the Nazis. "The three pieces of silver gilt from the Gutmann collection are, quite simply, superlative," said Anthony Phillips, international head of Christie's silver department. "Each piece is the work of a highly significant maker and is of the greatest artistic importance." Mr. Phillips called last week's sale "extremely successful." The Gutmann family regained 233 works from the collection in April 2002, when the Dutch government handed over the art, which had been looted by the Nazis during World War II. Between 1945 and 2002, many of the Gutmann pieces had been exhibited in Holland's famous government-owned museums. The complete collection comprised a broad range of works, from Old Master pictures to European furniture, ceramics, glass, decorative objects and Asian works of art. The family sold some 90 pieces from the collection at Christie's in Amsterdam in mid-May, for a total of nearly $1 million. The Gutmann collection is only a small part of a larger stockpile of Nazi war booty. There currently are over 4,000 looted works of art in Dutch public collections. Allied forces returned the artworks to the Netherlands after the war for the purpose of restitution, but the works remain in state hands.
Fritz Gutmann, a Dutch Jew, was beaten to death in a Nazi concentration camp, and his wife was gassed at Auschwitz. Their son, Bernard Goodman, a British citizen, died in 1994 after years of pursuing the return of the collection. Bernard's sister Lili, a journalist who lives in the United States, was present at the May auction in Amsterdam. She told how she and her brother, after winning a lawsuit against the Dutch government in 1952, had received "permission" from the court to buy back a few pieces of their father's collection from authorities. The judge ruled the state could not simply give them to the family because Fritz Gutmann had sold them to the Nazis. The fact that the Nazis had forced Mr. Gutmann to sell them his whole collection -- and had never paid him for it -- apparently did not carry any weight in the judge's decision.
The state also didn't reveal at the time that it owned many more pieces from their father's collection, Lili Gutmann said. "At the time, it was up to us to prove these pieces had previously been stolen from our parents. The Dutch authorities did not have to prove they had acquired their art collection legally," Lili Gutmann said. That changed with the publication of the Ekkart report. In the late 1990s, the Dutch government assigned a special commission to investigate the complete Dutch national art collection and assess whether it contained pieces looted from Jews during World War II and later confiscated by the Dutch authorities. The Ekkart Commission's findings were published in 2000. It concluded that Holland owned 233 pieces from the Gutmann collection, among myriad others. Following the report, Bernard's son, Nick Goodman, approached the World Jewish Congress for help -- together with Marei von Saher, daughter-in-law of the Dutch Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, and Christine Koenigs, the daughter of Dutch art collector Franz Koenigs. Negotiations soon began with the Dutch authorities. The claim of the Goudstikker heirs ultimately was rejected; the Dutch court ruled that authorities did not have to return the vast art collection or any of the real estate formerly owned by Mr. Goudstikker. The reason was that everything officially had been sold by written contract to the Dutch state during World War II; this, despite the fact that the sale had been forced and the sum paid was merely symbolic.
The absence of a written sales contract between the Gutmann family and the Nazis or the Dutch authorities swayed to the Dutch government's decision in April 2002 to return the 233 pieces to Mr. Gutmann's heirs. The collection officially changed hands in September 2002.
http://www.jewishtimes.com/
Peru: Trafficking religious art
Jun 17, 2003
The Customs special operations team nipped a major smuggling operation in the bud on May 21 when it uncovered 42 religious treasures during an inspection of containers and other cargoes at the sea port of Callao.
Among the find were religious paintings with gold-plated frames, two canvases, carved wooden plinths, gold-plated cutlery, colonial furniture, a Eucharistic ciborium and an ivory crucifix. Experts calculated that the artifacts, which were bound for Montevideo, Uruguay, had a combined value of around US$1 million. The treasures are all originals dating back to the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries and were stolen from churches in Cusco and Puno, in southern Peru.
http://www.lapress.org/
In Dalí Theft at Rikers Island, the 4 Suspects Aren't Inmates
By ALAN FEUER
It was an inside job, officials said. That is, inside a Rikers Island jail.
As one supervisor cleared the jail under the pretense of a midnight fire drill, officials said, a second dispatched two guards as watchmen. One was sent to the front desk in the lobby, and the other was ordered to the nearby arsenal, another strategic post. When the coast was clear, officials said, the first guard was told to remove a painting by Salvador Dalí from its locked display case in the lobby. The second left behind a second-rate copy. The painting, a gouache and pen-and-ink rendering of Christ, was subsequently hustled out the door and into a waiting car, officials said. Although jail officials spotted the blatant forgery the next morning, the original, valued as much as $250,000 in some appraisals, has yet to be found. Such were the inner workings of an oddball art theft as described in indictments that were unsealed yesterday by the Bronx district attorney's office. Two assistant deputy wardens at the jail, Benny Nuzzo, 49, and Mitchell Hochhauser, 40, as well as two correction officers, Timothy Pina, 44, and Greg Sokol, 38, were charged with second-degree grand larceny in connection with the case.
When the painting vanished on March 1, investigators immediately suspected officials at the jail. After all, not many people knew that Dalí had donated the work to Rikers Island back in 1965. Besides, the illicit switch did not suggest the work of a professional art thief, officials said. For example, the forgery was simply stapled to the inside of the case. And the painting's original gilt wood frame was stolen and replaced with a shoddy likeness, officials said. Some time after the painting was removed, Mr. Sokol came forward, officials said, and gave a detailed insider's account of the theft. He had apparently made a tape recording of his colleagues discussing the job, although only after it was done, the officials said. Visibly shaken, Mr. Sokol appeared in State Supreme Court in the Bronx yesterday wearing sunglasses and a pair of handcuffs. He was released on $25,000 bail. Mr. Nuzzo, Mr. Hochhauser and Mr. Pina were also arraigned and were released on bail. All of the men denied the charges, and all have been suspended from the City Department of Correction. While officials have not yet said who created the forgery, they did describe Mr. Nuzzo, a 24-year veteran of the department, as the ringleader.
"Benny Nuzzo took the painting to the car," said Wanda Perez- Maldonado, an assistant district attorney in the Bronx. "He was the last person seen with the painting." It has been a difficult few months for Rikers Island, where 12,500 inmates are housed in 10 jails. In February, Anthony Serra, who had been a bureau chief in the Department of Correction, was indicted on charges of stealing supplies and using guards to plant trees and shrubs, cut the lawn and repair the driveway at his home in Mahopac, N.Y. He resigned last month, and the case against him is pending. And Robert T. Johnson, the Bronx district attorney, said his office was investigating allegations that a guard at Rikers Island had allowed drugs into the jail in exchange for money and the promise of sex with the girlfriends of several inmates.
"Are there problems?" asked Martin F. Horn, the city commissioner of correction. "Absolutely. But the press also misses the untold story of the day-in, day-out professionalism of the vast majority of our corrections officers."
http://www.nytimes.com/
Swiss arts world split over proposed illegal goods law
The move follows a reported increase in the illicit traffic of art objects in Switzerland, the world’s fourth largest art trading centre.
The proposal has enraged art dealers in the country, who say it is tantamount to imposing “cultural police” on the art world. David Cahn, president of the International Association for Dealers of Ancient Art, compared the proposed legislation to “carrying out surgery with an axe.” In contrast to other important art dealing nations, Switzerland currently has no federal regulations on trade and trafficking of cultural objects, which range from excavated archaeological items to modern art treasures Although no estimate of the value of the Swiss cultural goods trade is available, the cultural affairs office says it is likely to be high, given the size of the Swiss art market. Demand from countries asking for the return of stolen cultural goods has increased, authorities said. Sacred objects stolen In Europe alone, more than 60,000 cultural objects are officially reported stolen each year. This figure does not take into account the black market, which is likely to have a far higher value. For example, the theft of sacred objects from tribal communities or from ancient grave sites would be considered part of the black market.
“With the increase of art dealing in Switzerland, illicit traffic has unfortunately also increased, “ says Andrea Rascher, head of legal and international affairs at the federal culture office. He added that the lack of regulation made it “very interesting to launder illicit cultural goods in Switzerland.” Another factor is that cultural goods of unknown origin, bought in “good faith”, can legally come onto the market after a five-year delay, rather than after 30 years as in most other countries, he says. Dealers often chose to “launder” their stolen goods during this five-year period in Switzerland, says Rascher. However, Swiss art dealers argue that Switzerland is no more prey to illicit art transfer than other countries with important art markets.
“There is no denying that there is a problem with the theft, import and export of cultural goods - but this in an international problem and Switzerland is in no way the only country to be affected,” says Christoph Degen, a lawyer in Basel who specialises on the transfer of cultural goods. “There is nothing to prove that Switzerland is a particularly rife market for illegal cultural goods. It’s a very exaggerated claim.”
Proposed legislation
>From the end of October, the Cabinet will discuss whether to ratify the Unesco Convention of 1970, which sets guidelines for regulating the international transfer of cultural objects and fosters international cooperation. The Cabinet will discuss applying the convention to the Swiss legal framework through a proposed federal law.
The law would include further measures tightening restrictions on the movement of cultural goods in and out of Switzerland, and would raise the current five-year delay in the sale of cultural goods of unknown origin to 30 years.
Outrage in the art world
Many arts dealers and museums in Switzerland have expressed outrage at the proposed legislation and have responded by preparing a legislative counter-proposal. They argue that the new law would dramatically restrict and “criminalise” the arts market by allowing the state to intervene arbitrarily in the arts trade. “The legislation shows a total misconception of the art trade. It will change nothing. It will just make it very difficult and very bureaucratic for the official trade – which is already very open in Switzerland – to go on,” says Cahn. “It shows very little knowledge of the market and of the mechanisms of the arts trade.” Degen also argues that the legislation goes “way beyond its original target.
“Instead of being an action plan focusing on fighting specific malpractices, its measures will lead to the setting up of a cultural goods police and to the state control of the arts trade and its art dealers,” says Degen. Cahn says the idea of launching a counter proposal is “in the interest of the Swiss art trade, the collectors’ community and international museums to act and to propose counter legislation.”
The counter proposal is not expected to be ready until early in 2002.
by Vanessa Mock
http://www.swissinfo.org/
Reward offered for stolen artifacts
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
By Linda Lee King/Staff Writer (lking@freelancenews.com) The Plaza History Association of San Juan Bautista is offering a no-questions- asked reward of $1,000 for the return or information regarding two historic artifacts that were stolen from the tack room of the Castro- Breen Adobe at the end of April.
A pair of silver spurs and a rawhide headstall were stolen sometime around April 30 from the San Juan Bautista State Historic Park museum exhibit after an employee discovered the missing items. “We are hoping somebody out there will have some information and they will come forward,” said Curtis Price, superintendent of the Gavilan Sector for the California State Parks Department. “Somebody out there may know somebody who may know something. We are looking at all the leads and information we get.” Price hoped the artifacts were still in the area, and said he received one report about the items, but the person never called back.
“It didn’t happen,” he said.
Price said the theft of two artifacts from the San Juan Bautista State Historic Park museum exhibit was a rare occurrence and that the artifacts are not only important to the state park but the entire community. “It’s a personal thing to a lot of people in the community, not just relatives,” he said. “It is not like stealing tires from XYZ tire store. The collection’s importance to the community makes it more sentimental. This is an intrusion into the of the history of San Juan and the Breen family.” The rawhide headstall is approximately 15 inches long and 3 inches wide. The American-type spurs were made in Mexico and have distinguishable artwork of a silver person soldered onto each spur. Investigators are asking western memorabilia dealers and those dealing in antiquities to beware of the artifacts. The historic items are a part of the Breen family collection that has been on display since the early 1960s. The Breens settled in the San Juan Bautista area during the 1850s. Security measures at the historic state park include rangers patrolling the grounds during the day while an alarm is activated during the night.
According to the Plaza History Association, the artifacts are unique because members of the Patrick Breen family were California pioneers who were part of the Donner Party and survived the ill-fated journey.
If anyone has information about the artifact theft, contact Park Superintendent Curtis Price at 623-0610.
http://hollisterfreelance.com/
‘Iranian national real culprit’
LAHORE: Senior Superintendent of Police (Investigation) Chaudhry Shafqat Ahmed on Tuesday told Daily Times that an Iranian national, Dr Dervaish, was the real culprit in the Holy Parchment theft case in Lahore Museum.
He said Mr Dervaish worked at the Jinnah Hospital and had visited Lahore Museum on June 28, 2000. He hid behind a cupboard and waited for the museum to close. The SSP said that when the museum was opened for the public the next day, the Iranian national mixed with people and left the building without being noticed. The SSP said Mr Dervaish stole artefacts including the ‘Hamail Sharif’ which bore the serial number MSS-123. The Hamail Sharif is a piece of deerskin on which the Holy Prophet’s grandson, Imam Hussain, wrote Quranic verses. Among the other things he stole were old copies of the Holy Quran. He tied the artefacts to his abdomen under his clothes, the SSP added. The museum’s authorities found that the artefacts were missing the next day and registered a case with Old Anarkali Police. The SSP said the police had recovered all the artefacts except the Hamail Sharif from Mr Dervaish’s possession.
He said a man called Muhammad Naveed came to Lahore Museum on April 22, 2003, and tried to sell the Hamail Sharif to the management there but the artefact was identified by Security Incharge Khawar Warraich. They detained Mr Naveed and informed the police, who arrested the Iranian national after initial investigations. Both the accused told the police that an Afghan friend, Muhammad Yaqoob, had sent them the artefact in a parcel. Dr Dervaish said he told Mr Naveed to try and sell the Hamail Sharif to the museum. The Afghan national was found innocent in the case and released, SSP Shafqat said. He said Dr Dervaish had not been able to sell the artefact in Pakistan as the authorities had asked for proof that the parchment was original along with the receipts for the antiques. He denied rumours that the Iranian national was linked to international antique smugglers.
—Shahnawaz Khan
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/
IRAQ
Iraqi artefacts find easy route via Switzerland
Switzerland is one of the main transit countries for stolen artefacts from Iraq, whose archaeological sites contain some of the most important treasures of Antiquity. Experts say the trade in Iraqi artefacts took off during the Gulf War, when ancient treasures were plundered and sold illegally in international markets. “There’s been a lot of looting going on in Iraq [since 1991],” Neil Brodie, coordinator of the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre in Cambridge, Britain, told swissinfo.
“That’s when people first realised they could make a lot of money from selling archaeological objects and began [plundering] sites and museums.” Brodie says Switzerland’s location and important antiquities market means it’s a natural centre for illicit art. “We know a lot of Italian material passes through Switzerland, and it’s a pretty safe bet that material from Iraq is also passing through Switzerland,” he says. “The expertise and the financial resources are there.” But Brodie says the illicit nature of the trade makes it impossible to put a figure on its value.
There are an estimated 10,000 archaeological sites in Iraq, where some of the earliest cities in Mesopotamia were located. The Federal Culture Office says Switzerland - the world’s fourth largest art market - has gained a reputation as a “turntable for the illegal transfer of cultural goods”.
It has put forward a new law to tighten the trade.
On Tuesday the House of Representatives approved the law in principle - despite stiff opposition from art dealers - but tabled amendments to it. The Senate has yet to debate the draft. "It’s easier to import an ancient vase than a tomato." Andrea Raschèr, Federal Culture Office Unesco Switzerland is one of the few countries not to have joined the United Nation’s Unesco Convention of 1970, which regulates the transfer of cultural objects in 94 nations and encourages international cooperation.
According to Unesco and Interpol, stolen art is the third largest illegal market behind drugs and arms trading. The problem is particularly acute in Switzerland due to the lack of legislation.
“The fact that it hasn’t signed up to the Unesco convention is certainly linked to the fact that it’s a thriving centre for antiquities,” Brodie says.
Andrea Raschèr, who is in charge of law and international affairs at the Federal Culture Office, says the current Swiss laws are clearly insufficient.
“In effect, Swiss law treats cultural goods like ordinary merchandise,” he told swissinfo.
“That’s why the theft of a bicycle is treated in the same way as a the theft of a Poussin and it’s easier to import an ancient vase than a tomato.”
Long delays
Although the Unesco convention dates from 1970, it took until 1992 for the Swiss government to consider a new cultural objects law. It has taken a further ten years for a proposal to reach parliament. Raschèr said the delay was due to the fact that the extent of the problem had only come to light in recent years. “The scale of the problem only became apparent with the discovery of looted art from the Second World War,” he said.
Outcry
The proposed legislation has provoked outrage in the Swiss art world, which while agreeing the need for it, feels that the new law is too prescriptive and confusing. Several dealers, museums and art associations have teamed up to make a counter proposal. Art dealer and archaeologist, David Cahn, is president of the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art. He is worried that traders could unwittingly fall foul of the new law. “It’s not good enough to have a heavily administrative penalty system without telling people precisely what they have to do,” Cahn says. “This leads to confusion and because it leads to confusion, it also leads to scandals.”
Small target
But Cornelia Isler-Kerényj, an archaeologist and a representative for Unesco Switzerland, told swissinfo that the art world is worrying unnecessarily because the law would only affect a very specialised area of the market. “It will only affect the traders in archaeological and ethnological art and absolutely not traditional art or modern art,” she said. Raschèr says the draft law would increase the period after which cultural goods of unknown origin can legally come onto the Swiss market from five to 30 years. This will not only bring Switzerland into line with most other countries, but it will also help in the fight against the laundering of stolen goods, he says. But if passed by both houses of parliament, the earliest that the new law is likely to come into force is 2004.
swissinfo, Isobel Johnson and Vanessa Mock
http://www.swissinfo.org/
Reach of Iraq's cultural theft crisis extends far beyond Baghdad Museum
Maureen Clare Murphy, Electronic Iraq
17 June 2003
In mid-April, newspaper headlines around the world declared that as many as 170,000 antiquities were looted from Baghdad's National Museum. But current news reports give disparate figures that range from 1,000 to even as low as 28 missing items. Unesco estimates the loss to be between 2,000 and 3,000 objects. The truth is that we may never know exactly how many pieces were stolen, considering that many of the recently excavated pieces in storage had not been documented and inventoried. Despite this, it is worth examining how and why the numbers changed so drastically.
A Chronology
What the Financial Times described as "an orgy of looting" took place between April 8, when the museum staff had left the institution, and April 12, when the staff had returned. On April 16, U.S. Colonel Matthew Bogdanos stated at a May 16 press conference, "a tank platoon was positioned on the museum grounds to prevent any further damage." It is the period of U.S. military inaction from when the looting began and the tank showed up that has the international art, history, and archeology communities outraged.
A separate Financial Times article reported that Dr. Donny George, the museum's director of research, "said one of the museum's staff -- Raid Abdel-rida Mohammed, an archaeologist, who confirms the story -- approached U.S. tanks 50 or 60 metres from the museum and implored them to protect it from looters gathering outside. But he was told that the troops did not have orders for that, and the tanks did not move."
In the aforementioned press conference, Col. Bogdanos explained that intense fighting was happening in the area around the museum, delaying the U.S. forces from protecting the cultural institution. He said that after the staff left the museum on April 8, Iraqi fighters positioned themselves in the museum's second floor storage room: "It was in the second floor storage room or magazine that [U.S. military investigators] discovered evidence that one of the corners of the room was used as a firing position ... ." However, as The Economist points out, the fighting was "Not fierce enough, it would seem, to deter the dozens of journalists who greeted the tanks as they hove into view."
The U.S. military has also insinuated that the looting was partly an inside job, and, as The Economist adds, "that the museum handed the premises over to Iraqi troops ... ." Such accusations add insult to injury to museum staff that took great pains in the weeks leading up to the war to secure museum holdings in bank vaults and secret bomb shelter locations.
Perhaps in response to widespread criticism of what is perceived as the U.S. military's inaction, General Tommy Franks ordered Col. Bogdanos to organize a recovery team. Bogdanos, a Marine reservist who when not on duty is a homicide prosecutor in New York City, stated that the team of 13 consists of three military personnel, "one Air Force, one Army, one Marine -- and [that] 10 of those are from ... Immigration and Customs Enforcement."
Their investigations have revealed that of the 451 display cases in the museum's galleries, 28 were broken into. Bogdanos reported that "many artifacts were moved to other locations, while larger statutes and friezes were left on the gallery floor, either covered with foam padding or laid on their sides. Of these, 42 pieces or exhibits were stolen, most notably and lamentably the Sacred Vase of Warka, a Sumerian piece from about 3,000 B.C., and the Basetki statue from about 2,300 B.C." At the time of the press conference, of "these original 42 pieces or exhibits, nine have been recovered ... ."
The museum's Heritage Room, which housed scrolls, antique furniture, and porcelain, was also looted. As were three of the five storage rooms, which "contained thousands of clay pots, pottery shards, statuettes and the like, from both museum-sponsored and individually registered excavation sites ... ." Bogdanos reported that from the first and second level storage rooms "over 2,100 excavation site pieces, jars, vessels, pottery shards and the like, were stolen, of which almost 800 have been recovered so far. Several dozen clay pots were also broken and strewn about the floor and the aisles of the storage magazines. Another 150 smaller pottery pieces, again the vessels and the jars, were also stolen from boxes contained in temporary storage rooms; 12 of these have been recovered so far."
However, it is in the basement level storage room, which houses Greek, Roman, Hellenistic and Islamic gold and silver coins among other treasures, that it appears that the thieves knew what they were doing. More sophisticated than just random looters, the thieves had keys to the storage cabinets which hold the valuable coins, which would be much easier to transport and smuggle than cuneiform tablets or pieces of sculpture. By a stroke of luck, the thieves dropped the keys to the cases in the debris and were unable to make off with the coins.
Additionally, before the war began, "most of the gold and jewelry were removed from the museum and placed in the underground vault of the central bank of Iraq. Months before the war, the staff moved manuscripts and scrolls to the western Baghdad bomb shelter. Weeks before the war, the staff moved many smaller pieces from the public galleries to the restoration room, storage rooms, or the secret location." Museum staff have not disclosed to U.S. military investigators the secret location, and maintain that they will not do so until the military occupation ends and some stability returns to the country. They will provide the military with some information regarding the vault's inventory. Similarly, the bank vaults will not be opened in the immediate future, and, although the military is aware of their location, they do not have the authority to open them.
Beyond the Museum
Although the military investigative team has reported that over 900 items have been recovered by providing an amnesty, allowing Iraqis to return stolen antiquities without prosecution, and by conducting raids, countless treasures are being stolen from unguarded excavation sites all over Iraq. Perhaps still enjoying a PR boon thanks to the "recovery" of items stored by staff in locked vaults, the plundering of excavation sites has gone largely underreported by the U.S. media. The Independent's Robert Fisk reports this month that excavation site thieves dig through layers of soil to reach Sumerian antiquities, 5,500 years old, discarding artifacts found in the layers above. Fisk states, "the mass looting and destruction of the great Sumerian sites in the two months since the Americans 'liberated' Iraq is likely to prove one of the most terrible cultural crimes of recent history, far more shameful than the calculated acts of robbery and vandalism at Baghdad's Museum of Archaeology in April."
Fisk adds, "Joanne Farchakh, a Lebanese archaeologist who is conducting an exhaustive study of the mass post-war theft of Iraq's cultural history for the French magazine Archeologia ... believes that no archeological destruction on this scale has occurred for at least 1,000 years."
Stolen antiquities have already turned up in Tehran bazaars, Paris, and a U.S. airport. Iraqis, living in poverty largely because of UN sanctions, have created a "cottage market" of illicit trade of antiquities. Such trade violates the 1970 UNESCO convention which prohibits and prevents the "illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property ... which, on religious or secular grounds, is specifically designated ... as being of importance for archaeology, prehistory, history, literature, art or science ... ."
However, according to the Boston Globe, "Waleed Al-Fatiawi, a leading antiques dealer in Baghdad, said U.S. forces have failed to stem the growing trade in looted items moving on Baghdad's black market. In the back room of one shop, Fatiawi said, a well-known trader recently displayed two looted items: A gold ring with a ruby stone said to belong to a Babylonian king, selling for $5,000 (and bought for $400), and a piece of deer leather with a history of another king carved in Hebrew."
"'Iraqis, Kurds, Europeans, they all buy from him,' Fatwi said. 'They can show receipts and take the pieces out of the country,'" the Globe added.
Cultural heritage experts are not optimistic that many of these items will be recovered and, if found in another country, repatriated to Iraq. And the law in Europe, and especially the United States, favors so-called "good faith buyers" who unknowingly buy a stolen artifact after "a long time has elapsed since it was stolen or plundered, and that the victim was not advertising the loss of it," as The Financial Times states.
The Financial Times adds, "Lord Renfrew of the McDonald Institute says that even leading museums such as the Metropolitain Museum of Art in New York and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts still buy unprovenanced antiquities." Lord Renfew added, "'In my view, this indirectly but quite significantly supports the looting process.'"
Although the international press' attention has been directed towards the looting of the Baghdad National Museum, countless other institutions have been pillaged as well. Beit Al-Iraq, or House of Iraq, was "one of Baghdad's few and most vibrant cultural centers," the Atlanta Journal and Constitution reports. "Now, the house, with its ornately carved wooden columns and magnificent window frames, is a wreck, ransacked by looters after the war."
The National Library, which according to the International Herald Tribune, "founded in 1920, contained about 2 million volumes, all of which have been reduced to piles of ashes. However, ... a few of the most valuable manuscripts were held in the Saddam Center for Manuscripts and are believed to be safe." The article adds, "the entire contents of the National Library are lost beyond retrieval."
It wasn't just antiquities that were lost. Modern art was stolen from the Saddam Fine Arts Center in Baghdad. As of late May, over 1,500 works from the institution were missing and a mere 400 recovered.
Whatever the final numbers of stolen art and artifacts may be, generations of Iraqis and the rest of the world will remember the U.S. lack of regard to Iraq's historical and cultural sites, and the devastating results, longer than they will remember the name "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and perhaps longer than they will remember the names Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush.
Maureen Clare Murphy is a regular contributor to both Electronic Iraq and its sister site, The Electronic Intifada, which reports on Palestinian affairs. She is editor of F-News in Chicago.
http://electroniciraq.net/