Archaeologists for Assad?

UNESCO's Bulgarian Ex-Communist Director-General has praised Syria's Director-General for Antiquities and Museums in glowing terms.

“'When history books teach children about those who contributed to conserving Syrian heritage during the devastating conflict in Syria, Dr Maamoun Abdulkarim will be at the top of the list, along with all others who have been so dedicated and deserving of the world’s respect for their relentless, humanist commitment', said UNESCO Director General, Irina Bokova."

What appears lost on UNESCO and members of the archaeological lobby who have also sung Abdukarim's praises is the fact that the Assad regime, which Abdulkarim serves, itself has been responsible not only for mass murder, but for the looting and the intentional destruction of Syrian cultural patrimony.  Indeed, Assad, like other Arab Strongmen, appears all too willing to use and abuse archaeology for his regime's own political purposes.  So, why should Abdulkarim be praised at all?

Ancient Coin Collectors Guild Files a Reply Brief

The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild has filed a reply brief in the long running forfeiture action related to the coins the Guild imported for purposes of a test case.  Due process requires the government to make out each element of its case before private property may be forfeited.  Simple, no?  For more, see here.

Eurocrats Find Little Evidence Terrorist Artifacts Entering Market, But that Does Not Stop Calls for Draconian Legislation

Ivan Maquisten writes that EU bureaucrats believe the absence of evidence that ISIS looted material is entering the market is reason for more draconian controls, not fewer.  The bureaucratic thinking is that vast amounts of looted material must be entering the market unnoticed under current customs regimes.  Of course, those who seek to justify draconian regulation will not consider the distinct possibility the extent of ISIS looting has been greatly overstated by Russian and Syrian propagandists and archaeological advocacy groups for their own purposes.  Moreover, it does not help that the EU cultural bureaucracy-- like its US counterpart-- only considers archaeologists and foreign governments legitimate stakeholders in the issue.  No wonder the cultural bureaucracy is so distrusted by collectors and the small businesses of the antiquities and numismatic trade. 

Just What One would Expect from a Military Dictatorship That Respects Neither Private Property Rights Nor Human Rights

Egyptian government officials have attacked an edict of a religious scholar approving of landowners keeping treasure found on their own land as long as part is given to charity.  Meanwhile, a member of the country's parliament seeks the death penalty for anyone caught with illicit antiquities.  Just what one would expect in a military dictatorship with a rump parliament that respects neither private property rights nor human rights.

A Repatriation Only the Most Ardent Repatriationist Could Love

One can only hope one of the few Trump political appointees at the State Department takes a close look at the Obama Administration deal to repatriate the Iraqi Jewish Archive.  Such a repatriation would seem to be against everything America stands for.  Some of the materials were originally confiscated from Iraqi Jews who were forced to leave their country under Saddam Hussein.  Others appear to be taken from schools and synagogues after they left. All the material was stored in the basement of Iraqi secret police headquarters, and became waterlogged after the building was bombed during the liberation of Iraq.  The US Government spent considerable time and money restoring and digitizing them.  This is yet another situation where UNESCO's repatriationist dogma has been allowed to take precedence over not only the facts, but what is right.  The archive should not be returned to sectarian Iraq.  Or, at a minimum, the entire contents of the archive should be publicized so that individual Iraqi Jews can make claims on what is rightly the property of their own families.

Preservationists Seek to Remove or Even Destroy Confederate Monuments

So-called "preservationists" have advocated for the removal or even destruction of Confederate war memorials as products of an inherently racist culture.  In contrast, CPO believes we should not erase history, but learn from it.

In a blog post on the subject, Obama Cultural Property Advisory Committee Appointee Prof. Rosemary Joyce justifies her views based on the assumption that

When you remove these statues to men who fought for slavery, you’re not destroying history – you’re making it.

Surprisingly, this 180 degree departure from archeology's mantra of preservation of objects in context appears to be based on little more than reductionist reasoning, i.e., the statues must be symbols of  "white supremacy" because they were produced in a racist South.  Indeed, efforts to draw attention to the fact that their iconography is virtually identical to monuments erected in the North at around the same time when the politically powerful Civil War generation was passing from the scene elicited little more than condenscending responses. It seems furthering "white supremacy" not commemoration of sacrifices on the battlefield must be the prime motivator in the South, but not the North (despite similar racist sentiments there at the time).

In any event, justifying the removal or even destruction of historical monuments by designating them as "racist" should be even more troubling given recent events in Iraq and Syria.   Indeed, there are distinct parallels between ISIS destroying "idolatrous" statues and monuments and efforts here to topple "racist" ones, not the least the motivation to deprive certain groups of artifacts deemed important to their culture (there Shia, Assyrian Christians and Yazhdis and here poor White people (who must be racist!)).  At least here, we have processes in place to allow localities and States to make the decision what to do with our Confederate monuments.  What must be avoided at all costs is another Durham, N.C., where a mob was allowed to take matters into its own hands.   

Collectors Contest Lawless Seizure

The art law firm of Pearlstein, McCullough & Lederman LLP has brought an action to contest the seizure of an artifact on loan to the Met.  The New York Times has covered the seizure here.   Lost on the Times, however, is the concern that the NY District Attorney has lawlessly used a search warrant to seize and repatriate an artifact purchased in good faith.  

The lawyers for the collectors describe their action to quite title as follows.  

Beierwaltes v. Directorate General of Antiquities of the Lebanese Republic and the District Attorney of New York County is an important test case for the art market in general and the antiquities market in particular.

Our clients, Bill and Lynda Beierwaltes, bought an Archaic Greek marble Bull’s Head in 1996 from a London dealer who made representations about its provenance. In 2006, the Bull’s Head was exhibited publicly in Paris at a major art fair and published in a dealer’s catalogue. In 2016 the Bull’s Head was loaned to and exhibited by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. From excavation records published in Switzerland in 2005, the Museum concluded that the Bull’s Head was excavated at the Temple of Eshmun in Lebanon in the 1960s.

After Lebanon demanded restitution, the Beierwaltes filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York seeking declaratory judgment to clear title to the Bull’s Head. Although the Department of Justice declined to pursue a claim for civil forfeiture, the District Attorney of New York County seized the Bull’s Head pursuant to a search warrant and is now seeking to turn the Bull’s Head over to Lebanon. We thereafter amended our complaint to include DANY as a defendant in the federal case.

The twin actions present a number of issues that have not previously been resolved.

First, we believe that DANY’s position is ill-founded and that New York law does not provide for in rem forfeiture. DANY disagrees and believes that it can first seize and then turn over property in the absence of a criminal case.

Second, the relationship between the Beierwaltes’ suit in federal court for declaratory judgment and DANY’s procedure in New York state court for turnover is unclear. Which decision governs if the Beierwaltes prevail in federal court and DANY prevails in state court?

Third, we believe that the Beierwaltes’ title claim is meritorious: even if the Bull’s Head was stolen from Lebanon, the statute of limitations under Lebanese law has expired; Lebanon has no claim under the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act; there are no grounds for seizure under federal law; and New York state law supports the Beierwaltes’ claim on several grounds, including statute of limitations and laches.

The Beierwaltes are bona fide purchasers with clean hands. By contrast, for more than 50 years, Lebanon has failed take any action domestically or internationally to report any theft of the Bull’s Head, file a claim for its return or list the Bull’s Head on any publicly-accessible, international database of stolen art.

Under these circumstances, DANY’s focus on restituting the Bull’s Head to Lebanon based solely on theft would be contrary to U.S. law and policy and New York civil law. It remains to be seen whether DANY’s expansive interpretation of New York’s search and seizure law will prevail