Today's Unfortunate Coincidence

In what must be an unfortunate coincidence, the Italian Embassy's March 23rd party to mark the 15th anniversary of a MOU with the United States and its unpopular measures against collectors is taking place on the 96th birthday of Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini's Fascist party.

Of course, Italy's cultural bureaucracy has never really broken from Il Duce's nationalistic views of archaeology as well as the assumptions in favor of state ownership and control found in Italy's 1939 cultural patrimony law that dates from the same era.

As CPO has already observed, perhaps there really is not that much to celebrate after all.

John Henry Merryman RIP

Noted law professor, John Henry Merryman, has passed away at the ripe old age of 95.  He was a powerful voice against cultural nationalism and its negative effects on collecting and the people to people contacts and appreciation of other cultures it brings.  He will be much missed.

Veterans Day

This Veterans Day let's especially remember all who died in the Great War on all sides. 

Unfortunately, that war also unleashed forces of nationalism that even today colors our views of antiquities which have become for some the exclusive "cultural property" of the nation state.

Who Burned the Museum?

The Conflict Antiquities blog is reporting on various theories on who burned a museum in a Kurdish area within Turkey.   It makes for interesting reading, but all the speculation glosses over an important point.  Museums and archaeological sites in places like Egypt, Iraq, Syria and now Turkey have become targets precisely because hated dictatorial or authoritarian governments have appropriated the past to help further their own agendas.   So, is the greatest threat to the preservation of the past in such countries Western collectors or the nationalistic regimes that use the past to lord it over the locals?

Two Sides of the Same Coin?

CPO can't but help wondering after reading Thomas Friedman's interesting opinion piece whether the "State Owns Everything" model favored by Arab Dictators inexorably leads to the "Trash the Past" model of Islamic Fundamentalists.

The former have mismanaged and exploited cultural heritage for their own ends for generations.  The latter recently ransacked the Malawi Museum in Egypt.  And now, they are even more menacingly being embodied by the iconoclasts of  ISIL.  Hammer in one hand and video camera in the other, they gleefully record their work to horrify Westerners and those in their own societies still rightfully proud of their pre-Islamic past.

Friedman suggests that the emergence of a model that respects individual liberties and rights is the only way forward in the Arab world.  So too with antiquities.   The "State Owns Everything" model only associates them with hated dictatorial regimes and devalues them so thoroughly that they are smuggled or even destroyed.   So, when fanatics move in, there is really little public sentiment to stop them from doing the worst.

In contrast, a model that allows the populace to own and trade in at least common antiquities can only stimulate interest in the past and the protection of more important artifacts and historical structures.

So why is the AIA and the archaeological blogosphere still so in favor of the "State Owns Everything" model?"  Is it the fear of offending cultural bureaucracies of the aforementioned dictatorships which control the issuance of excavation permits?  Or, monopolistic sensibilities?  Or, something else?  One thing is sure, though-- the current status quo in these countries has failed to save the past.  Good thing then that at least some of these artifacts, like this magnificent Man-Headed Winged Assyrian Bull, have been preserved in Western Museums, like the Louvre.

Maritime Archaeology or Imperialism?

The Wall Street Journal reports on China's use of maritime archaeology to help project its power over disputed waters.  More evidence, if any was needed, that the PRC-- like other authoritarian states through history-- mainly values archaeology as a means of justifying its own nationalistic claims.  Perhaps, the US State Department Cultural Heritage Center and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs should take into account this reality before renewing the MOU with China.  But will they? Or, will the farce that the MOU  with China just furthers archaeology and cultural exchange be allowed to continue?

Turkish Nationalism on Display

Nationalism is not all bad, but Turkish nationalism seems to have taken an extreme turn in the prosecution of an American who picked up some old stones on a beach and in protests regarding the sale of modern art.  How many Turks pick up such items without fear of prosecution?  And would the sale of modern art be as controversial if the sale could not be linked to American interests?   Those who support Turkey's nationalistic  demands for control of ancient art (much of which was created by Greeks) should take note of this slippery slope.

Rewriting the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act

It's no surprise that Dr. Nathan Elkins-- one of the AIA's chief proponents of import restrictions on common historical coins of the sort collected worldwide-- claims that any coin type that circulated "predominantly" in a given country should be placed on the "designated list" for restrictions when it's easy for him to generalize that coins circulate "predominantly" where they are made.

But the governing statute, the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, calls for much more.  Assuming other statutory criteria are also met, it only authorizes seizure and forfeiture of artifacts "first discovered within and...subject to export control by" a given country. 19 U.S.C. Section 2601(2)(c).

The ACCG has indicated that the Government could comply with the plain meaning of the CPIA in either one or two ways:  (1) establishing by undisputed scholarly evidence that the coins placed on the designated lists could only have been discovered in a given country for which import restrictions are granted and, hence, must be subject to their export controls; or (2) demonstrating by documentary evidence that any coins Customs seizes were in fact discovered in that country and, hence must be subject to that country's export controls.

The ACCG and others have offered scholarly evidence to suggest that ancient coins as a general rule circulated far from where they were minted.  The fact that some (local bronze coins) typically circulated closer to home than others (precious metal coins and Imperial bronze issues) does not excuse the State Department's and U.S. Customs' efforts to ban coin imports based on place of production rather than on find spot.

The overbroad import bans Elkins and the AIA support threaten to cut off collector access to the vast majority of ancient coins openly available on the international market.  In contrast, restrictions squarely linked to find spots are more narrowly tailored to deterring pillage of archaeological sites.  That, of course, is the primary goal of the CPIA; not the furthering of nationalistic impulses that lay claim to any unprovenanced coin as the presumptive state property of the AIA's allies in foreign cultural bureaucracies.

Egyptian Mob Torches Historic Structure Slated for Archaeology

In Mubarak's Egypt, archaeology served the state.  Perhaps then, it should not be surprising that a mob has destroyed a historic mansion slated to become a center for archaeology.   This follows last year's burning of a historic library.  For archaeology to survive and prosper, it must stay relevant to the people and not just serve as a nationalistic tool for the state.   Hopefully, Egypt's new government will disassociate archaeology from state power  and instead encourage appreciation for the past as an end in itself.

A Turkish Scholar's Critique of Turkey's Hardball Tactics

A renowned Turkish historian, Dr Edhem Eldem, has critiqued Turkey's recent nationalistic hardball tactics here.    Will any American archaeologists be brave enough to speak up?   And what of the archaeological blogosphere?  

Hirshhorn Presents “Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads”

The Smithsonian’s Hirshorn Museum is displaying Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei’s ironic take on the infamous “Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads,” said to have been looted by British imperialists from the Summer Palace.   I suppose AiWeiwei’s oversized heads say something about the oversized nationalistic rhetoric Chinese officials and their allies in the Western archaeological community have employed to demand the return of the originals.   The exhibit will remain on view until February 24, 2013.

James Cuno to Getty

The LA Times reports that James Cuno has been named as the President and CEO of the Getty Trust. See
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-getty-cuno-20110510,0,973976.story

Cuno, a seasoned museum professional, has criticised the cultural nationalism of source countries and their allies in the archaeological community in a series of lectures, articles and books. In return, archaeologists have criticised Cuno, alleging his views are neo-imperialist in nature.

When queried about the issue by the LA Times, Cuno was philosophical:

In terms of my criticism of cultural property laws, I think reasonable people can disagree on these matters, and I very much look forward to engaging in conversations with colleagues around the world. I think we are all seeking the same thing: to preserve the objects of antiquity and broaden public and scholarly access to them.

Though no change is expected in the Getty's stringent acquisition policies, Cuno's appointment may suggest a new determination to get tough with Italy, whose demands for repatriation have seemingly escalated despite the Getty's efforts to seek accomodation.

Is the Cyrus Cylinder Being Used by Iran's President to Buttress his Legitimacy?

The history of despotic regimes is replete with a history of using artifacts from the past to buttress their legitimacy. Saddam Hussein sought to link his government to the glories of ancient Babylon. Mussolini saw himself as a new Caesar who could restore Rome's Empire in North Africa and the Balkans. Recently, Venezuela's president exhumed the body of Simon Bolivar in an apparent effort to prove that imperialists schemed against him too.

Now, Iran's president is apparently using a loan of the Cyrus Cylinder from the BM to buttress his own authority. See http://guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/15/iran-cyrus-cylinderbritish-museum According to a recent Economist report, Iran's President has been trying to sideline the clergy that has long supported him with the help of a nationalistic appeal reminding the people of Iran's great imperial past . See http://www.economist.com/node/16994616?story-id=16946168CFID=1478938688CFID=147893688CFTOKEN=18843935

Ironically, the Shah also associated his government with that of the Persian Empire. But, it all backfired for him. Indeed, the Shah's lavish celebration of the 2500 anniversary of the Persian Empire is often cited as the swan song of the Iranian Monarchy. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,500_year_celebration_of_the_Persian_Empire

And the symbol of that celebration? Why the Cyrus Cylinder, of course, which was also loaned for the event.

Will the loan also backfire for Iran's President because it will stoke the fear that he also has imperial ambitions? Will he give back the Cyrus Cylinder to the BM? Stay tuned.

Pity Poor Bolivar

Hugo Chavez has decided Simon Bolivar's body must be exhumed to prove he was poisioned by early imperialist plotters.

See http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2010/07/venezuela

As the Economist notes,

FOR a president facing a weak economy and declining popularity, a centuries-old murder mystery could prove a useful distraction. Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez is not one to let the lack of any such mystery stand in his way. On July 15th, at the president’s order, a team of white-clad soldiers and forensic scientists opened the lead coffin holding the remains of Simón Bolívar, the Caracas-born South American independence hero. He was exhumed to see if he died of tuberculosis, as historians assert, or was poisoned by political rivals—“crucified like Christ,” as Mr Chávez insists.

The president has long idolised Bolívar, the nation’s secular saint. He even renamed the country the “Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.” Although Bolívar was in fact quite conservative, Mr Chávez sees him as a socialist, and advertises his own movement as the long-delayed realisation of the Liberator’s dream. In this scheme, the descendants of the “oligarchs” and “imperialists” who purportedly killed Bolívar are now plotting to assassinate his ideological heir.

In this Chavez has only followed the precedent of other dictators. Saddam wanted to associate his regime with the glories of ancient Babylon. Mussolini looked to ancient Rome. Hitler himself apparently was not all that interested, but Himmler's SS funded archaeological digs looking for the remains of ancient "Germania." And so it goes.

Jews Banned from Praying at Newly Restored Synagogue

The archaeological establishment in the United States and the United Kingdom have lionized Zahi Hawass because of his highly publicised efforts to repatriate Egyptian artifacts from abroad. They seem to be enamored of his confrontational style and his bigger than life personality.

One hopes they are less enamored of his latest anti-Semitic outburst in banning Jews from praying at a newly restored synagogue. For more, see Dorothy King's blog at http://phdiva.blogspot.com/2010/03/anti-semitism-and-madness-in-egypt.html

Source material can be found here http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3862449,00.html and here http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/136755

For Hawass' own blog on the restoration of the Synagogue of Moses Ben Maimon, see http://www.drhawass.com/blog/press-release-synagogue-moses-ben-maimon

I'd be surprised if anyone in the archaological establishment criticises Hawass for this decision, but we'll see.

James Cuno Lectures at George Washington University

On Jan. 21, 2010, Dr. James Cuno lectured about "Museums, Antiquities and the Politics of Cultural Property" to a packed house of mostly students at George Washington University.

Dr. Cuno recounted the themes expressed in his book, "Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage." See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2008/07/kudos-for-cuno.html

As in that book, Cuno explained how:

• Source country nationalism rather than a desire to protect archaeological sites motivates most efforts to seek repatriations or import restrictions.
• Source counties should return to the practice of allowing "partage" in return for help in excavating archaeological sites.
• Archaeologists are dependent on source countries for excavation permits. Self-interest or fear of offending their hosts has led to unqualified support for source country rights over cultural artifacts even when that results in the neglect or destruction of those same artifacts.
• Whoever made a cultural artifact, it certainly was not made for a modern nation state.
• Some source countries unashamedly assert rights over cultural artifacts of peoples and cultures they actively seek to subvert.
• Encyclopedic museums have become a target for source nations and archaeologists because they stand in opposition to the nationalization of culture.
• The trend of repatriations and import restrictions runs counter to the even more powerful trend of globalism.

Cuno illustrated his lecture with examples to drive home these points:

• Images of Italy's trophy art display at the Italian President's flag-draped residence made clear the nationalistic impulses behind Italy's repatriation efforts.
• Yale's trouble with Peru over Machu Picchu relics can be plotted against declining poll numbers for the Peruvian government-- there is no better way to divert attention from the troubles at home than to go after the most Yankee of institutions in court and the press.
• Chinese complaints about artifacts stolen by colonial powers must be judged against China's own treatment of its own minorities, i.e., the Tibetans and Uighurs.
• The cargo from an ancient Turkish shipwreck underscores that artifacts cannot easily be tied to a single culture.
• An image of a Chinese tea pot shaped in an Indian inspired form with English silver inlays demonstrates that artifacts are created from a mix of cultural elements.

As an antidote to cultural property nationalism, Cuno advocated:

• A rethink of national cultural property retention statutes to allow partage and licit markets.
• The creation of encyclopedic museums in countries like China and Greece.
• The recognition that encyclopedic museums help popularize the culture of countries like Italy, China, Peru and Greece and help keep immigrants visiting these museums attuned to the culture of their home.

Also of interest was Dr. Cuno's self-effacing style, complete with some humorous quotations from some of the more colorful reviews of his book.

For more about upcoming lectures in this series-- including ones by Patty Gerstenblith and Malcolm Bell, see http://www.gwu.edu/~csll/museums.html

China Hunts for Treasures in US Museums

The New York Times reports that a "Chinese Treasure Hunting Team" has descended on American Museums looking for stolen art. See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/world/asia/17china.html?_r=2&hp

China had previously announced this high profile effort to catalogue and repatriate artifacts from the Old Summer Palace as the 150th anniversary of its destruction approaches. See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2009/11/china-goes-treasure-hunting.html

The nationalistic impulses behind the project should be clear:

Emboldened by newfound wealth, China has been on a noisy campaign to reclaim relics that disappeared during its so-called century of humiliation, the period between 1842 and 1945 when foreign powers subjugated China through military incursions and onerous treaties.

But the quest, fueled by national pride, has been quixotic, provoking fear at institutions overseas but in the end amounting to little more than a public relations show aimed at audiences back home.

....

Stoked by populist sentiment but carefully managed by the Communist Party, the drive to reclaim lost cultural property has so far been halting. While officials privately acknowledge there is scant legal basis for repatriation, their public statements suggest that they would use lawsuits, diplomatic pressure and shame to bring home looted objects — not unlike Italy, Greece and Egypt, which have sought, with some success, to recover antiquities in European and American museums.
....

The United States scouting tour — visits to England, France and Japan will come early next year — quickly turned into a spectacle sponsored by a Chinese liquor company. As for the eight-member delegation, a closer look revealed that most either were employed by the Chinese media or were from the palace museum’s propaganda department.

American archaeologists have been broadly supportive of China's efforts to repatriate artifacts. However, this article again suggests the motivations for such efforts have very little to do with scholarship or the preservation of artifacts and their context:

Mr. Liu, the researcher who was part of the delegation, seemed to admit as much, complaining that politics had upstaged scholarship. Even if he stumbled upon a palace relic, he said, he would be reluctant to take it back to an institution whose unheated exhibition space resembled little more than a military barracks. “To be honest, if you leave a thermos in our office, it gets broken,” he said.

“Maybe it’s better these things stay where they are.”

Hawass Tut Price Tag too Dear for Aussies

Egypt's Tut Exhibit won't make it to Australia because the population of potential museum-goers "Downunder" can't support the $10 million price tag Zahi Hawass and the Egyptian Government are demanding. See http://www.smh.com.au/national/egypts-10m-tag-too-much-to-show-tuts-treasures-20091204-kb5s.html

Archaeologists have long claimed that market nations should restrict imports of cultural goods in favor of promoting long term loans of artifacts to museums, but Egypt has extacted top dollar for such displays.

Luckily, the Austrians have come to the Australian's rescue with their own exhibit of Egyptian art from the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. By contrast, this exhibit cost the Australian Museum about $1.5 million.

Treasures Reclaimed: The Economist Reports on Chinese Repatriaton Efforts

The Economist Magazine has reported on China's efforts to repatriate art from abroad. See http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14941165

As the Magazine notes, far more Chinese artifacts are now being repatriated from abroad than are leaving China:

Collecting Chinese fine art and ceramics was all the rage in the West in the second half of the 19th and the early 20th century. Heavy buying by treasure-hunters, as well as looting of imperial works by the Germans, Dutch, French and British, brought huge quantities of Chinese fine art into Western collections. But in the past decade the number of European and American buyers has dwindled.

...

From 1949, when the Communist Party defeated the Nationalists, and especially during the Cultural Revolution, from 1966, owning, inheriting or exchanging pre-communist works of art was banned in China. Thanks to shifts in policy that started under Deng Xiaoping and continued after him, the Chinese are now catching up in a big way, following on from the Japanese buyers who dominated the market in the 1970s and the Taiwanese and Hong Kong collectors who started buying seriously in the 1990s.

The mainland Chinese are beginning to dominate the salerooms. Prevented for so long from celebrating the achievements of their forebears, they have a thirst for their own history, and especially for anything that connects modern China with the glories of its imperial past. The newly wealthy-such as Xu Qiming, China's biggest exporter of eels from the port city of Ningbo; Lu Hanzhen, an industrialist from Zhejiang province who became rich by selling motorcycles and nylon fabric for car tyres; or indeed any businessman or civil servant who benefited from the recent flurry of privatisations-can afford to pay, and pay they will.

Nor are these buyers to be found only in the old political and commercial strongholds of Beijing and Shanghai. There are probably seven Chinese cities with populations of more than 5m, and demand for fine art is as strong in Guangdong, adjacent to Hong Kong, as it is in Sichuan in the west or in more far-flung areas. “It's what I call 'natural repatriation',” says Patti Wong, who as chairman of Sotheby's Asia has been watching the Chinese buying wave grow for a decade, "and it is happening everywhere."

Having made their money quickly, Chinese buyers are in a hurry to build their collections fast and are willing to pay a premium to achieve that. “Arriving at the buffet party a little too late,” says Mr Chow, "they are more aggressive than Europeans or Americans." Even though economic growth in China this year may be only 8%, after 9% last year, it is still far higher than in most of the rest of the world. China may be one of the few places where the number of dollar billionaires has actually increased in the past year, from 101 to 130, according to the recently published Hurun Rich List.

...

Dealers and auctioneers familiar with the Chinese market estimate that there are around 150 collectors in Hong Kong and Taiwan who spend at least $1m a year each on Chinese works of art, and that their number is relatively stable. The mainland has another 150 or so buyers in that category, and the numbers there are growing rapidly. More Chinese treasures are now sold at auction in Hong Kong than in New York, London and Paris. Whereas back in 2004 Sotheby's did $10m-worth of business with 70 clients from the mainland in its spring and autumn sales in Hong Kong, the figure for the same sales this year is seven times higher and its list of mainland Chinese buyers has grown to 195. Many more bid through established dealers in Hong Kong. “Mainland China has clearly become our main land,” says Kevin Ching, chief executive of Sotheby's Asia.

...

In 1886 Paul Durand-Ruel, a Paris dealer, packed his bags with 300 Impressionist paintings-including piles of Renoirs, Pissarros and Sisleys-to take to America. He was closely followed by a Briton, Joseph (later Lord) Duveen, who could see, like Durand-Ruel, that “Europe had the art and America had the money.”

Just as European Old Master and Impressionist paintings then began to move inexorably westwards across the Atlantic, now Chinese fine art and ceramics from America, Britain, France and the Netherlands are moving eastwards back to China. Not since the heyday of Duveen's and Durand-Ruel's exports to America has there been such vigorous redirecting of cultural artefacts from one part of the world to another as European and American collections are broken up and sold off to the newly wealthy Chinese. The traffic is almost all one way.

And that is not all. In addition to "repatriation by purchase," China is also aggressively pressing for ever more extensive legal restrictions on the trade of ancient Chinese artifacts abroad:

In addition, China has become increasingly vocal about restricting the trade in its treasures. After nearly five years of negotiation the Bush administration in its final days at last agreed to prohibit the import of a wide range of antiquities into America. The agreement was not as strong as China would have liked, and in recent weeks its government has said that it will tighten up on the movement of cultural relics out of the country. Its plan is to ban the export of anything made before 1911, the end of the Qing dynasty. No matter that China is now a member of the World Trade Organisation, it still seems to be uncomfortable with free trade-except when it suits it.

After all reading this, one wonders if the archaeologists that spoke so eloquently on behalf of China's request for import restrictions before CPAC should feel duped. Were the restrictions really about "protecting the archaeological record" as they claimed, or are they in fact designed to help ensure that ancient Chinese art stays out of the hands of "foreigners," and, in particular, American citizens? And further in this regard, given the prospect for even more extensive Chinese export controls, what of China's promise under the MOU that

The Government of the People’s Republic of China shall continue to license the sale and export of certain antiquities as provided by law and will explore ways to make more of these objects available licitly.

See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2009/01/dos-press-release-china-mou-new-york.html

Babylon Revisited

Melik Kaylan has elaborated further on his recent Wall Street Journal Opinion (see http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2009/11/myths-of-babylon.html ) in a Forbes article entitled, "Babylon Revisited." See http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/19/babylon-iraq-art-history-mideast-opinions-columnists-melik-kaylan.html

As I commented,

There needs to be a full accounting of the archaeological community's collaboration with Saddam Hussein's regime before the war, the extent to which archaeologists' self-interested relationships with their Baathist colleagues shaped their noisy campaign against US foreign policy of the Bush I, Clinton and Bush II Administrations, the degree to which looting of archaeological sites and the Iraq Museum was exaggerated to further both an anti-collecting ideology and to shame Western governments into spending millions to fund their work "to save Iraqi archaeology," and whether all this money has been wasted or wisely spent. There has been virtually no serious study of any of these issues other than Alex Joffe's 2004 "Museum Madness in Baghdad" and the Sandler article Kaylan mentions in his own piece. See http://www.meforum.org/609/museum-madness-in-baghdad