- Non-heritage crime in museums
- 220 subscribers
- Dead Sea Scrolls Still Disputed
- aboriginal art australia
- $33m worth of artifacts bound for trafficking recovered in Iran
 
 
Date sent: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 17:31:38 +0000
From: "A. Wright" <jp37@dial.pipex.com>
To: securma@xs4all.nl
Subject: Non-heritage crime - Museums
 
As part of a post-graduate course I am researching non-heritage crime (ie
crime not involving collection material) in Museums & Galleries in the
UK.
Has anyone knowledge of similar or comparative research / information?
Thank you.
Alan Wright
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220 subscribers
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Dead Sea Scrolls Still Disputed
By NICOLAS B. TATRO
Associated Press Writer
 
JERUSALEM (AP) Fifty years after a Bedouin shepherd unearthed a cache of ancient manuscripts in a desert cave, the Dead Sea Scrolls are still buried in disputes, both political and scholarly.
At the opening of an international conference on the scrolls Sunday, a key issue was ownership.
The head of the Israel Antiquities Authority said Israel would keep the 2,000-year-old documents because they were legally inherited and an inseparable part of Jewish tradition. His Palestinian counterpart, however, insisted Israel's capture of the scrolls in the 1967 Mideast War amounted to "theft."
From 1947-56, scrolls were found in 11 caves dotting the hills above Qumran on the Dead Sea 800 documents in all, written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. The scrolls contain Old Testament texts, psalms, commentaries and other works, some of them written in code.
Israel bought some of the parchments soon after they were unearthed. These scrolls are kept at the Israel Museum in west Jerusalem.
Others were acquired in 1967 when Israel captured east Jerusalem, where the Rockefeller Museum that houses many of the scrolls is located.
At a news conference kicking off the weeklong gathering of 300 scroll scholars, Israeli antiquities chief Amir Drori flatly rejected Palestinian claims to ownership.
"The bottom line is that ... no one is going to take them away from us and let that be clear," said Drori, a retired army general whose agency oversees archaeological digs and the care of artifacts.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasized Israeli claims to the scrolls in his remarks to the scholars, adding that the parchments marked "the greatest archeological discovery of all time...(which) reminds the world of the depth and quality of Jewish roots in this country."
Hamdan Taha, head of the Palestinian Archaeology Department, said the scrolls should be given to the Palestinians.
"The scrolls have been moved from east Jerusalem, from the Palestinian archaeological museum, which is viewed as a theft," he said, referring to the Rockefeller Museum.
Ownership should be determined by where the scrolls were found in this case, the West Bank where Palestinians hope to establish a state, Taha said.
The issue of the scrolls has been left to final status talks aimed at reaching an overall political settlement, but Taha said that contacts with Israeli academics and even some officials suggested more flexibility than Drori's statements indicated.
Taha urged international scholars not to cooperate with Israel in studying the scrolls. He referred to a 60-member team of experts, which is trying to piece together thousands of scroll fragments and publish a complete text perhaps by 2001 or 2002.
At a ceremony for the conference Sunday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasized the Israeli claim to the scrolls and said they marked "the greatest archeological discovery of all time...(which) reminds the world of the depth and quality of Jewish roots in this country."
Beyond political quarrels over the scrolls, academic debates abound.
Conventional wisdom holds that the scrolls were written at Qumran by a secretive sect of Essenes, a breakaway Jewish sect that stashed them in the caves for safe keeping.
Dissenters like Norman Golb, professor of Jewish history at the University of Chicago, argue that the scrolls came from the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. They were spirited away by priests to remote Qumran for protection when the Romans, who destroyed the temple in 70, were preparing to lay siege to Jerusalem, he contended.
Golb said at least 500 different scribes wrote the scrolls that survived, and many more parchments may have perished.
"This doesn't fit with a small site in the Judean wilderness inhabited by peace-loving Essenes, which anyway is negated by the military nature of the location," he said.
Stephen Pfann of Cupertino, Calif., a member of the official scroll team, disputed the idea that the scrolls came from the ancient Temple, noting that the Temple priests were at odds with the Essenes.
Pfann said the idea that Qumran was a military camp was contradicted by the large number of Jewish ritual immersion pools and by the lack of military weaponry found in the ruins.
 
Continued:
(Times of London)
Scholars dispute ownership of Dead Sea Scrolls
BY CHRISTOPHER WALKER
 
THE opening of the largest academic conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls, called to mark their discovery 50 years ago, was marred by an Israeli-Palestinian dispute over ownership of the documents.
As 350 participants from 25 countries gathered at the Israel Museum to hear 120 lectures on the scrolls, Amir Drori, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said that the Jewish state would keep the 2,000-year-old documents because they were legally inherited and an inseparable part of Jewish tradition. His Palestinian counterpart, Hamdan Taha, responded that Israel's capture of the works in the 1967 Six Day War was theft "which should be recitified now".
Between 1947 and 1956, 800 scrolls were found in 11 caves in the hills above Qumran. The works, in Hebrew, Aramaic ­ the language of Jesus ­ and Greek, include Old Testament texts and psalms.
Israel purchased some of the parchments soon after they were unearthed by a Bedu shepherd. These are kept at the Israel Museum in Jewish west Jerusalem. Others were acquired in 1967 when Israel captured east Jerusalem, where the Rockefeller Museum, which houses many of the scrolls, is located.
At a news conference starting the week-long gathering, Mr Drori said: "The bottom line is that ... no one is going to take them away from us."
Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister, said that the scrolls "the greatest archaeological discovery of all time ... remind the world of the depth and quality of Jewish roots in this country".
Mr Taha, head of the Palestinian Archaeology Department, argued that ownership of the scrolls should be determined by where they were found. He urged international scholars not to co-operate with Israel in studying the scrolls.
The issue is part of final status talks on an overall Israeli-Palestinian settlement, but these have been stalled since Mr Netanyahu was elected.
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Date sent: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 12:26:04 -0700
From: Rosemary van den Berg <rvandenb@alpha2.curtin.edu.au>
Organization: Phd. Student
To: securma@xs4all.nl
Subject: aboriginal art australia
 
as an Aboriginal Elder from western australia I would like to know what
has been done to prevent the stealing of our culture and our copy rights
all over the world.
 
Rosemary van den berg
Aboriginal Elder
Noongah people Western australia
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$33m worth of artifacts bound for trafficking recovered in Iran
Tehran (IRNA/ArtDaily)
 
A total of 1,784 artifacts, some dating back to pre-Islamic periods, were confiscated over the last few months from art-traffickers in the Iranian province of Jorasán, informed the Italian news agency IRNA. The general of the brigade that led the investigation Bahrain Nowruzi, head of the security departments in the north-eastern province of Iran, said the artifacts will need to be appraised by experts. He further said that the value of just three of the stone engraved items has been initially calculated to be at $33 million dollars.
More than one hundred gold coins with inscriptions in kufican letters, and others in silver engraved with the Greek hero Hercules, were also recovered. Several other metal items dating back to 312 B.C. were also found among the confiscated heist.
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