Business as Usual at the Cultural Heritage Center

Despite the Trump Administration’s often painful “disruption” of the State Department and its workforce in support of its “America First” agenda, two bits of news suggest that it’s still “business as usual” at the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and its Cultural Heritage Center. Moreover, instead of merely completing Biden Administration initiatives, the Trump State Department has instead doubled down on furthering the anti-collector status quo as a "soft power" measure. 

First, the Greek City Times has reported that the State Department has repatriated coins and other artifacts to Greece as a "sweetener" to promote a renewal of the current Cultural Property Agreement CPA)  with the country.  Once again, though the narrative is that these repatriated items were “stolen,” they instead appear to have been seized from American collectors solely due to “missing legal documentation,” i.e., the lack of proof that they were out of Greece for at least ten years.  Even worse, once again it also appears that at least one of the items— a gold stater from Lampsacus in present day Turkey- isn’t even on the “designated list” for Greece, a mere detail for the State Department and the archaeological advocacy groups celebrating yet another round of repatriations.  

Second, today’s Federal Register announced an extension  of highly controversial “emergency import restrictions” on behalf of Taliban Afghanistan.  Presumably, the extension will be again be billed as necessary to help “save” Afghan cultural heritage from “terrorists” even though the governing statute mandates repatriation back to the same Taliban warlords responsible for blowing up the Bamiyan Buddhas and allowing Chinese mining interests to bulldoze the important Buddhist site of Mes Aynak in search of copper ore. 

How is this possible?  Blame the State Department’s addiction to using CPAs as “soft power” measures in the hopes that even “failed states” “will like us more” as well as the continued influence of politically connected archaeological advocacy groups that also receive significant State Department funding.  Moreover, as the latest repatriation to Greece and the extension of Afghan emergency restrictions demonstrate, these efforts depend on pushing the false narrative that CPAs are only focused on keeping "stolen" materials off the market so they can be returned to their "rightful" owners.  Of course, left unsaid is that import restrictions treat all "undocumented" artifacts as "stolen" although many such artifacts legitimately bought and sold in open and legal markets abroad have been traded over and over again without such documentation or that the "rightful" owners as far as the State Department is concerned include authoritarian regimes that declare anything "old" state property. 

So, what’s the solution?  At this point, sanity can only be restored with reform legislation to place guardrails on the system to ensure that the private property and due process rights of American collectors and the trade receive at least as much consideration as foreign governments and their partner archaeological advocacy groups.  Of course, some of this can also be accomplished administratively, but only if the Trump State Department is willing to put American collectors first.