The Finder / Thief / Metal Detector

Finders and Metal Detectors

The first person we must consider is the finder of antiquities. In England this is often a metal detector, ⁹ who seeks base metal objects buried beneath the soil. The detector is often affiliated to a detecting club, and these people are responsible for finding some spectacular items buried in the earth. A recent example was an early Celtic gold stater, ¹⁰ found in Cambridgeshire, ¹¹ of which only 17 are known worldwide - with 14 of those being in museums. Metal detecting is an academic and social hobby, leading to research and interest in archaeological property.

Figure 2: Example of an Iron Age stater, found in Gloustershire. Unusual because this is not their usual place of origin.

However, certain metal detectors have created a reputation as 'nighthawks,' operating late at night, scanning archaeological excavations and other land without permission. They conceal finds and sell their discoveries through a network of dealers or interested collectors - the 'Salisbury Hoard' was found this way.

Nighthawks give a bad name to the metal detecting fraternity, using finds for financial gain and employing underhand techniques, such as scattering metal filings ¹² (thus confusing a metal detector) across rich sites, to prevent others from finding their discovery and reporting it to the district coroner. They also ruin any chance of understanding the context and history of a discovery, thus making their findings aesthetic objects, appreciated for their artistic qualities, but having no academic value. Their greed for profit overlays any conscience to act illegally, but they are only supported by the people who buy from them.

Due to the old law of Treasure Trove, which governed such finds, there had been a traditional animosity between finders and authority because of the burden of proving that an item had been lost or deliberately hidden. This contributed towards finders leaving objects unrecorded, quietly selling them to avoid the complications of the law. However, the new Treasure Act ¹³does not require such a duty, therefore giving a reason for metal detectorists to declare their finds ¹⁴ and give archaeologists a chance to record the property before it is sold.

Thieves

Beyond the lone finder we find groups of people who deliberately set out to loot from graves, tombs, archaeological sites, collections and museums. In Italy, for example, there are the tombaroli. Tombaroli are small teams of people or individuals who search the grounds of known grave-sites, using a long rod (spillo) to probe the earth and feel for the stone tops of ancient graves. This will prompt them to dig down to the stone, smash through it, loot the items inside and leave. The scale of these operations can be assessed by the fact that in Italy over 40,000 graves have been looted ¹⁵ and in Peru many looted graves exist for archaeologists to wonder about their former contents whilst local huaqueros ¹⁶scrape a living from the results of their 'excavations.' They earn as little as $10 - $20 for a fine Peruvian necklace or vase.

This could account for a large amount of Greek, Roman and Third World antiquities reaching the market because they would have been extracted or taken on commission and sold to dealers who would wait until they found the right kind of buyer. The illicit trade in antiquities originates in many developing nations, for example, India or Peru and is a source of income for poor families. Some collectors advocate that they aid the local economy ¹⁷ by purchasing these antiquities, ¹⁸ but the low price that grave robbers get from a dealer makes it obvious who will gain the most profit from these goods.

Museum Robberies

The numbers of museum robberies are not great, but when they do occur they can be well organized and very public. A good example of such organized crime happened in July 1994,

when $1.6m of Bibelot jewellery was stolen by thieves. ¹⁹ They entered the museum by disabling security alarms, breaking locks and operating between regular watch checks. The robbery was obviously premeditated because the security was well assessed and quickly bypassed. This is like the robbery at the British Museum ²⁰ when Roman jewellery and coins, valued at £¼ million, were taken. (The two could be even be related because the modus operandi were very similar.) However, stealing from a museum means a thief takes items that are well documented and this makes them difficult to sell unless they have a specific buyer or handler who is willing to purchase the objects.

Therefore, these high profile thefts are done for one of two possible reasons: (1) the standard 10% ransom payment by insurance companies or (2) acquired to order for a private collector or dealer. The idea of a single collector having goods stolen to order is a much debated topic on the Museum Security Network ²¹and whilst no definite conclusion has been reached as to the existence of a singular entity, it arose that items are taken to order and appear to have a life cycle of 20 - 30 years before they reappear upon the market - often after the death of an important collector.

However, planned robbery is not always necessary. For example, in April 1990, the Corinth Archaeological Museum, Greece, ²² was broken in to and nearly 300 archaeological artifacts, with a multi-million pound value were stolen - nothing was recovered. There were no security guards or alarms and access was easily gained through the roof. It is difficult to understand why this museum was so badly protected, but we must acknowledge that Greece is saturated in antiquities and being a relatively poor country must look towards independent resources for assistance in the protection of their cultural property.

In times of conflict, museums are often plundered for their valuable property. In Afghanistan, Mujahidin fighters 'relieved' countless treasures from the Museum of Kabul, selling them to unscrupulous dealers for a fraction of their value. A reporter of The Times visited Kabul and met with Yusaf Ali, an antiquities dealer and smuggler, who proudly showed him his stock. Several items still withheld their museum numbers, but Ali was not worried of their origin. He stated, to the reporter,

'I have the head of a Buddha. Very special. Made of stucco, perfect condition, it still has traces of paint and gold left. And big.' He nodded in the direction of a Toyota Land Cruiser, 'About the size of that car.' The price was '$1 million if you buy it here in Pakistan, $2 million delivered anywhere in the world.' ²³

Ali confirmed that his items left Afghanistan for Japan because they liked Buddhist imagery, a fine example of the beginnings of the illicit trade in antiquities.

The Dealer

The dealer is most likely to be the first contact for any finder. For example, the Sham brothers, India, took consignments of antiquities from local thieves and then sold them by auction. ²⁴ Antiquities dealers are discreet, - not inquiring too deeply of an objects provenance - highly knowledgeable and in a position to appraise and purchase goods offered to them.

In the UK there is a network of dealers linked by the Antiquities Dealers Association (ADA). This organization, formed in 1982, has about 80 members (30 overseas) that include collectors, dealers and auction houses and is associated with the Council for British Archaeology. They follow a code of conduct which provides a form of protection for both purchaser and seller. ²⁵ The code centres around a duty of good faith and states that members will try to establish the origin of every item purchased. ²⁶

Figure 3: St. Bartholomew, mosaic from the Kanakaria Church. 6th century AD

However, as is often the case, codes of conduct, ethics and the law are not adhered to and a classic example of this is the case of Kanakaria Mosaics,²⁷ a set of rare, 6th century, Byzantine mosaics that originally decorated the apse of the Kanakaria Church, Cyprus. They were looted in the 1970's when Turkey invaded Northern Cyprus and were lost for many years. In 1989, they resurfaced with American dealer, Peg Goldberg, but were recognized by the Getty Museum who she had offered the mosaics for $20,000,000. The Cypriot government sued for their return and the Judge at the trial, James E. Noland, ruled that Goldberg had never held a legal title to the mosaics and that she did not exercise due care in researching their provenance. This was an important decision because it imposed a level of diligence on dealers in antiquities because they would be suable if found not to have properly researched the items they are offering. This also gave academics the chance to reiterate the importance of recording and preserving cultural property, again highlighting the tension between commercial and academic value of antiquities.

Goldberg had bought the mosaics from Aydin Dikman, who used Michael van Rijn²⁸ (author of Hot Art, Cold Cash, a self-confessed art fraud) as intermediary. Dikman also happened to be an archaeologist from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus - the area Cyprus lost to the Turks and the location of the Kanakaria Church. I believe that Goldberg knew exactly what she had acquired, the price at least a testament to their illicit value, and proceeded to see if others had a like mind to purchase them. Fortunately she took them to the Getty, who are now wary of the provenance of antiquities,²⁹ and before laying out the money they researched the origins of the mosaics as Goldberg should have done. This is another case of someone in the chain of antiquities dealing actually questioning the provenance of an item and then unravelling the truth behind its origin. Until someone in the chain does question an antiquities' status then it will be traded quite freely by those amongst it.

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Another participant of the trade, who might be associated with the dealer, is a conservator. The conservator will be presented with all kinds of property from dealers and archaeological excavations. It can be very difficult for them to conserve an item only to find out that it has been illegally excavated or recently stolen and they have just removed all traces of its origin - thus losing any chance of tracing the items history. Conservators try to do 'as little work as possible' on objects, but strive to protect their integrity and form. If an object has already been illicitly excavated then they are already dealing with a damaged item that has lost its history after being stolen from the ground.

I received a very interesting communication from a pair of independent archaeological conservators, Richard and Helena Jaeschke, who have created a niche market where they, 'made the decision to work on artefacts that come from excavations (either from the excavating unit or when it is lodged in a museum) or items that have been in the museum's collection from several decades (and certainly prior to any legislation being passed in the country of origin).'³⁰

Therefore, as conservators, they are protected from breaking any laws by working on items that are preserved in academic situations - the recent archaeological excavation or a museum archive. They suggested that this was not favourable to some dealers and curators, who wanted them to work on more recent acquisitions, by commenting that they,

'are displeased that we will not work on their material - improving its financial value for sale and increasing its chances of survival. Conservators who do work on such material may (intentionally or inadvertently) remove evidence of the origin of the item and lay themselves open to lawsuits from the country of origin if ownership is proved.'³¹

It is interesting that the Jaeschke's mention that conserving an item increases its financial value because they operate in an academic environment that disapproves of placing a monetary value on antiquities. This offers an opportunity for lessening the tension between academics and dealers because the academic can oversee the preservation and recording of an antiquity and the dealer gets an object that is worth more on the open market.

In 1996 the trade in fine art and antiques was valued at £2.2 billion.³² In order to feed the commercial hunger of our materialistic society today, dealers may be less inquisitive as to the source of their stock. They will be unconcerned if traces of origin are removed in conserving an item because that merely distances them from an illicit source through lack of evidence. The majority of purchasers of antiques buy them for their decorative or aesthetic qualities and are uninterested by their origins or provenance.

In the defence of antiquity dealers, James Ede³³ writes:

'Aesthetic considerations weigh more heavily with us than contextual information. If contextual information is the only important consideration as has been stated again and again by archaeologists, once established and recorded why should not all objects come to the market? ...We do care deeply about the subject and spend a great deal of time conserving and researching the pieces.'³⁴

I am inclined to agree with Mr. Ede because this is the most practicable solution to a difficult problem. As long as an archaeologist can record and examine the context of an object then why keep it? Our museums have galleries filled with precious antiquities and archive collections that house an abundance of property. Duplicate objects or items that have been within a museum (un-displayed or in archives) for a long period of time could be made available to the market as an extra source of revenue. Not only would the museum be able to guarantee the authenticity of an antiquity, but can give valuable provenance to an object because it would have come 'from the collection of the Museum of...'

There is no harm in releasing an item on to the open market because if it was important enough, its export would be prevented by the Heritage committee and an elite dealer, such as Lord McAlpine, would offer a museum the chance to purchase the item first. If an antiquity was rare and important enough then institutions such as the British Museum will strive to purchase the object, as they have just done so with a silver Roman loving cup, depicting homosexual scenes.³⁵ This rarity is singular in its conception and the Museum approached private individuals and heritage grant councils to secure it for all to behold.

The Collector

The collector is probably easiest to understand in this group of participants because he aims to collect and will do what he will to better his collection. However, collecting can become obsessive and I have already mentioned the debated topic of stealing antiquities to order. Hitler, Himmler and Goering all arranged to have works taken for them, however this was by force during conflict, rather than through the use of clever thieves. (Many pieces of Nazi war art are being recovered by the Commission for Art Recovery³⁶ who are mainly concerned with returning property to Holocaust victims.)

The antiquity collector is driven by a desire to own the past, possibly reflecting on an idealistic age of learning and culture. One collector described a,

'...Powerful emotional experience of owning an object that was cherished a millennium ago, by an appreciative Sicillian or Roman citizen. It serves as evidence of continuity and symbolic communication with a distant past.'³⁷

Indeed, Petrarch, a Florentine Renaissance collector stated that his own collection of antiquities that,

"...grandsons will be able to walk back in the radiance of the past..."³⁸

The history of collecting antiquities has always been associated with intellectualism, especially because the academic interpretation of fragmentary objects was always a subject for debate. The vast collection of Cosimo d'Medici, (b. 1389) Rome, is a source of some of the finest antiquities, for example, the Apollo Belvedere. Such a collection was a necessary stop for young gentlemen on their 'Grand Tour' in the eighteenth century. ³⁹The Tour was aimed to complete the classical education of the young gentry before they were released into society and many bought back souvenirs of their journey - including vast amounts of antiquities. The view of such activities was greatly different in this era, antiquities were as much a commodity as any other goods - the example of Lord Elgin and the Parthenon Marbles showing how perceptions have changed towards the sale of cultural property.

The collector is the most likely person to accept illicit antiquities because of their psychological nature which drives them to keep filling their collection with the next best item. The mania of Sir Thomas Phillips, Britain's most avid book and manuscript collector should be remembered:

"I am buying printed books because I wish to have ONE COPY OF EVERY BOOK IN THE WORLD!" ⁴⁰

The Auction House

The auction house has the unique position of not owning the goods it trades in, but acting as an agent ⁴¹ on behalf of a principal to sell those goods to the best of his ability. They are the source for some of the finest collections of antiquities on offer today, such as items from the George Oritz collection or Lord McAlpine's 'cabinet of curiosities.' However, on examination of their catalogues it is fascinating to see that many items do not have provenance and this creates an interesting debate as to the liability auction houses have towards researching the goods they are selling on behalf of somebody else. Should provenance / proof of legality be provided by the owner or the auction house?

Figure 4: Lot 51, A limestone cosmetic palette in the form of a trussed gazelle. Christie's Antiquities Sale, 23rd September 1998. The property of a Swiss private collector, Exhibited at Le Don Nu Nil.

Research by Drs. Gill and Chippendale ⁴² shows that three of the major auction houses recorded 86% of works without provenance ⁴³ (I have conducted my own examination of a sale when describing the market for antiquities). I believe that their research is valid, but their perception of the provenance of an item (the complete ownership history, tracing an item back to its creator) could be rather idealized. In writing this thesis I had to adjust my own perceptions on the provenance of antiquities because I too had an unrealistic demand of wanting to trace every item back to the earth it came from.

Provenance is important, but you would be incredibly lucky to buy an object with a complete record of every owner and the exact location of its origins. Auction houses try to give some provenance to an article, such as 'the property of an important Swiss collector' (figure 4) and this is often considered to be enough. Important pieces, especially with a high monetary value, will be well researched in a catalogue, for example, 'The Castle Ashby Boxer Vase' (lot 182, Chrisities Antiquities, 23rd September 1998) had provenance back to the 1820's.

The investigations by Peter Watson into the misconduct of auction houses, particularly Sotheby's in 1996, was a reminder of how their position as agents could be abused. After the allegation Sotheby's introduced a control whereby they required consignors of unprovenanced antiquities to sign a warranty, declaring no laws had been broken in bringing the item to auction. They closed down their UK department due to pressure from the media, but retain their New York operation, which they stated is where the market has moved to. ⁴⁴ As Diana D. Brooks, director of Sotheby's Holdings Inc., says:

'This company is so far-flung, in so many places, that we can't police every single country and every single person.' ⁴⁵

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Together, the above four shape the relationship that essentially constitutes the market participants competing for antiquities. When dealing in ancient artefacts, it is only the person who questions the status of an object that can bring to light underhand dealing or illicit trading. Each section in the market seems to distance themselves from illegal activities through vague descriptions and a failing desire to learn the origin of the items that create their trade. I will be examining the physical market in antiquities to understand further how these groups fit together and try to solve the tensions that arise between academics wanting to record / preserve these objects and dealers wishing to trade in them.