Building Bridges: A Symposium on Global Cultural Heritage Preservation

This week I attended an interesting seminar put on by the State Department's new Cultural Heritage Coordinating Committee (CHCC) that took place at the Smithsonian Institution.   There were some really enjoyable programs about preservation work, and it was nice to have the opportunity to meet others with different perspectives.  However,  CPO still came away concerned that legitimate collecting is more at risk than ever by grossly over-broad application of cultural heritage laws which Congress originally intended to focus prospectively on specific looting problems in specific countries abroad.

I don't have time to summarize the entire symposium, but here are some of my takeaways:

1.  ISIS may have been defeated on the battlefield, but the terror group still looms large as the justification for all sorts of efforts that impinge on the due process and private property rights of collectors.  The latest claim is that while ISIS may have lost most, if not all, of its territory, it has been warehousing large numbers of valuable artifacts with which to fund its ongoing jihad.

2.  The State Department and law enforcement coordinate heavily with academics and related advocacy groups which are largely hostile to private collecting of antiquities.  Even though the statute that set up the CHCC calls for the committee to coordinate with the trade in addition to cultural heritage groups, there appears to be little evidence of consultations with the trade.  (CPO was happy to get invited, but he was not there for a dealer group.)  This should be particularly troubling because it has certainly contributed to  overboard application of cultural heritage laws in a matter hostile to even legitimate collecting.

3.  Enforcement will be ramped up in the next 18 months, which should be a major concern given the increasing number of cultural property agreements, how broad they have become and how broadly they are enforced.   Apparently, the State Department (with the help of the archaeological lobby)  is working on five new agreements with Middle Eastern countries (most, if not all, of which have authoritarian governments which claim title to anything and everything "old.")  Moreover, there still is no up-to-date guidance for the public in this area, though U.S. Customs at least realizes this is a problem. 

4.  FBI and Homeland Security Investigations are on board with archaeological advocacy groups' and certain compliance vendors' efforts to impose new anti-money laundering (AML) regulations specifically on the art trade because AML violations may be used to pile on charges and encourage guilty pleas.  Still, the evidence presented that money laundering is a real problem in the art trade remains very slim and largely depends on conflating money laundering with other financial crimes.

5.  The Smithsonian has done lots of good work on cultural heritage preservation and restoration projects, but has also joined the cultural property wars on the side of archaeological advocacy groups and has lobbied with them in their legislative efforts that have harmed the legitimate trade in cultural artifacts.  

Desperately Seeking Continued Funding?

On June 8, 2017, CPO attended a panel discussion entitled, "Preserving Northern Iraq's Cultural Heritage."   The major theme of the event was to document the good work the Smithsonian is doing stabilizing what is left of Nimrud after ISIS dynamited and bulldozed much of the site.

However, the continued hype about the supposed value of ISIS looted material ($80 million!) as well as surprising claims that cultural heritage preservation fights terrorism and fosters minority rights seem calculated to sway Trump Administration and Congressional budget officials as much as anything else.  Indeed, it probably was no coincidence that representatives of the House Foreign Relations Committee were in the audience.

If anything, the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) should be subject to serious scrutiny from appropriators given the $900,000 taxpayer costs of ASOR's cooperative agreement with the State Department, ASOR's efforts to lobby on issues related to that same contract, and the continuing efforts of ASOR members to hype the value of looting by ISIS long after other, more disinterested sources have questioned such hype.

Palmyra Exhibit Poses Important Questions

The Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery is putting a magnificent portrait bust removed from a tomb in Palmyra on display to help raise awareness about danger to the site posed by ISIS.  While the Smithsonian (a major proponent of HR 1493 and its creation of a new bureaucracy in the State Department), may hope the exhibit will jump start the bill which appears to have lost some momentum in the Senate, CPO wonders if it will all backfire.  After all, won't it all just help underscore the fact that cultural diffusion helps preserve artifacts while concentration through repatriation only puts them further at risk, at least where a  civil war is going on?

UNESCO Chief Condemns Mosaic Museum Attack; Archaeological Blogosphere Slow to Follow

UNESCO's Chief has rightly condemned the Assad regime's barrel bombing of the Maarrat al Numman Mosaic Museum.  Yet, in the Anti-American reaches of the archaeological blogosphere, it's just a case of "stuff happens" in war and yet another opportunity to take swipes at the antiquities trade. 

"Stuff" indeed "happens" in war, but in this particular case it's hard to stomach the claim that the bombing was done by "mistake" given the publicity efforts to protect the museum's mosaics from war damage have received in the international press.   Indeed, if anything, it's more likely Assad's forces attacked the museum BECAUSE a consortium of U.S. Institutions were involved in supporting the effort to shore up the museum's mosaics.  One can only hope those efforts succeeded, at least to some extent.

 It remains to be seen how more responsible archaeological blogs respond to this latest tragedy.

Update (6/23)-  It seems none of the other well known archaeological blogs thinks this story is worth comment on.  It's unclear why, but it does again suggest that there is a conscious effort to deemphasize any destruction and looting done on behalf of the Assad regime and instead focus entirely on ISIS.

Syria: Actually Doing Something Constructive

NPR reports on a small team of Syrian Museum professionals who are making a difference in very difficult circumstances, with training and material assistance from the Smithsonian and University of Pensylvania.

CPO wonders, however, what really can be done if ISIS takes over these areas.  There should also be real concern about Palmyra and other UNESCO world heritage sites.   ISIS seems determined to turn anything "worshiped" by local elites and/or Western art/history/archaeology lovers into dust.

Well Worth the Effort

As civil war grinds on in Syria and Iraq, American heritage professionals are doing what they can to help local museum curators preserve the artifacts in their care.  Of course, this won't stop the iconoclasts of ISIS from smashing historic artifacts and religious items for show, but it will provide some tools to those who care to help preserve what they can. At least the Western-leaning Syrian rebels and the Assad Regime are basically on the same page about the need to preserve Syria's magnificent cultural heritage.

Richard Doty, Smithsonian Curator and Collector, Passes Away

Coins Weekly has reported on the passing of Richard Doty, the senior numismatic curator at the Smithsonian Institution.  The well-deserved tributes will focus on Dr. Doty's scholarship, but I also think it's worth noting that Dr. Doty was also a fixture at coin shows in the Washington, D.C. area.  Like his predecessor, Elvira Clain-Stefanelli, Dr. Doty was both a scholar and a collector. I'm sure he will be much missed.

Roads of Arabia at the Sackler

Today, Saudi Arabia is known as the religious center for the world's Muslims and the World's major supplier of petroleum products.  In past times, however, the Arabian Peninsula was known for the trade in incense and copper.   The Sackler has organized  an excellent exhibit that focuses on Arabia's early cultures, but also touches on Saudi Arabia's more recent Islamic past.  Some of the more interesting objects include anthropomorphic steles and altars from the 4th C. B.C. as well as some classical Greek and Roman objects that were imported in trade.

Kudos to the Sackler, the Saudi Government, Exxon Mobile and Saudi Aramco for arranging this excellent exhibit of unusual artifacts from the Arabian Peninsula.  I'm only sorry that there were no early coins on display from the pre-Islamic period. 

Archaeological Lobby Sinks Sackler Exhibit

The archaeological lobby has succeeded in sinking an exhibit at the Sackler Gallery that would have given the American public an opportunity to learn something about early international trade routes in the Orient. See
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/sackler-gallery-cancels-controversial-exhibit-of-tang-dynasty-treasures-from-shipwreck/2011/12/15/gIQAnlyjwO_story.html?wprss=rss_style

The exhibit was supposedly sunk because the excavation work was not up to professional standards-- though one suspects that the real reason was to appease archaeologists who have little use for commercial salvers, whether contracted by a foreign government or not.

I've previously covered this dispute here:
http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2011/06/smithsonian-caves-on-shiprwreck-exhibit.html and http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2011/06/none-of-their-business-ii.html

For a thoughtful critique of the archaeological establishment's views on this topic, See http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/blog?mode=PostView&bmi=711550

Supposedly, the plan now is to "re-excavate the wreck" using AIA approved archaeologists no doubt. But money has to be raised first. Hopefully, taxpayer dollars won't be tapped for such project, but it will not surprise me if the US Government is ultimately expected to foot the bill for what probably is little more at this point than a vanity project.

Smithsonian Caves on Shiprwreck Exhibit

The New York Times reports that the Smithsonian Institution has indefinitely postponed its plans to mount an exhibition of Chinese artifacts salvaged from a shipwreck because of opposition from archaeologists who say the objects were collected by a commercial treasure hunter in a manner that violated professional standards. See http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/shipwreck-show-postponed/

The Smithsonian has a long history of caving into various interest groups so this is not a surprise. But it is an unfortunate decision nonetheless.

The public could have learned something useful about early international trade whether or not the exhibit met the stringent standards of some in the archaeological community.

If the material cannot be exhibited as a group, perhaps it should be sold off wholesale to collectors just to annoy these archaeological purists.

None of their Business II

The AIA has issued a manifesto condemning the Smtihsonian for planning to exhibit artifacts from the Belitung shipwreck. See http://www.archaeological.org/news/advocacy/5260

As stated previously on this blog, the archaeological community has been fond of saying at CPAC meetings and elsewhere that it is no business of others to lecture source countries on how to manage their cultural resources.

But, apparently, all that goes out the window when the AIA hierarchy issues pronouncements about public-private partneships to salvage wrecks.

For more, see http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/search/label/Indonesia and
http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2011/04/none-of-their-business.html

For the Smithsonian's view of the controversy, see
http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/SW-CulturalHeritage.asp

Smithsonian Magazine Now Under Attack

Archaeo-bloggers Gill and Barford now have Smithsonian Magazine in their sights for publishing pictures of undocumented Mayan artifacts. See
http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2011/06/publishing-recently-surfaced-mayan-pots.html
and http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2011/06/looted-pots-in-smithsonian-magazine.html

This is yet more overkill. The AIA's policy against publication of undocumented artifacts was originally meant to ensure that papers were properly documented from a scientific perspective. But Smithsonian Magazine is meant for a general audience. And, as a subscriber, I'm happy Smithsonian does not limit its illustrations only to artifacts from documented archaeological excavations.

Archaeologists Seek to Sink Indonesian Treasure Exhibit

For years, archaeologists have taken the position at CPAC hearings that Americans have no right to lecture foreign countries about how their legal systems treat cultural property. Apparently, however, this does not extend to places like Indonesia, which allows commercial treasure hunters to exploit wrecks as long as they also record their findings.
See
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/03/smithsonian-shipwreck-exhibit.html?ref=hp Archaeologists hope the exhibit will be cancelled because the Indonesian government partnered with commercial treasure hunters rather than funding some university to do the work.

The exhibit itself should be interesting. The artifacts provide a testament to the extensive international trade in Chinese goods during the Tang period. See
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/arts/08iht-singshow08.html?_r=1 I for one hope it makes it to the Smithsonian.

Cambodia and Cyprus at the Smithsonian

I recently had the opportunity to visit the new Cambodian and Cypriot exhibits at the Smithsonian. Though the accompanying literature does not mention it, Cambodia and Cyprus presumably sent their exhibits to the Smithsonian as part of their MOU's with the United States.

The Cambodian exhibit is entitled, Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the Cambodian National Museum. See: http://www.sixbid.com/nav.php?p=viewlot&sid=295&lot=67

The Cypriot exhibit is entitled, Cyprus: Crossroads of Civilization. See http://www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/cyprus/index.html

Both exhibits were well done, but I preferred the Cambodian exhibit over the Cypriot one because the quality of the artifacts. Perhaps, that is unfair. The focus of the Cypriot exhibit was on archaeology and history. The focus of the Cambodian exhibit was on art.

The Cambodian exhibit highlighted some magnificent bronzes found near Angkor Wat, some of which have only been recently conserved. I was particularly impressed by this effort. Nothing seemed over cleaned. Many of the bronzes had beautiful patinas.

The Cypriot exhibit was heavy on early pottery of more interest to the specialist, but there were also some magnificent icons. The coins from the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation were also top notch specimens, but they were poorly lighted. And what of coins from excavations, particularly given all the archaeological emphasis on context? My favorite artifacts, though were the two sphinxes at the door.

Though the Cambodian exhibit is superior, at least in my opinion, both exhibits are well worth visiting if you are in the Washington, DC area.

Smithsonian Exhibit Confirms Cypriot MOU Discriminates Against American Coin Collectors

I had an opportunity to visit the Smithsonian Exhibit entitled, Cyprus: Crossroads of Civilization. See http://www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/cyprus/index.html

The exhibit is well done and thankfully avoids modern day politics. See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2010/10/state-sets-secret-hearing-on-cyprus-mou.html

I hope to say more about it in another post, but for now let me just comment on the historical coins from ancient times to the Venetian period that were exhibited:

All were lent by the private Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation.

No provenance information was provided for the coins.

None listed a recorded find spot.

The Bank of Cyprus purchases coins on the open market from the same sources American collectors buy from.

Yet, the AIA, the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute, the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundations and Cypriot cultural bureaucracy successfully agitated for extending import restrictions to coins, claiming that unprovenanced coins should be treated as "stolen." Members of the AIA and CAARI have also argued that artifacts without a known provenance lose their value for study.

Is the MOU about protecting archaeology or giving the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation and Cypriot collectors a competitive advantage over American collectors who can no longer legally import undocumented coins?

Is there something wrong with this picture? Is this more of do what we say, not what we do?

Why does the Obama State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs countenance such discrimination against American collectors and the small businesses of the numismatic trade? And why are they also claiming that such discrimination is not subject to review by a court?

For more about the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation, see
http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2009/05/coins-of-cyprus-from-collection-of-bank.html

State Sets Secret Hearing on Cyprus MOU as Cypriot President Turns Smithsonian Opening into Anti-Turkish Propoganda Event

News of the upcoming public hearing on the proposed Greek MOU has overshadowed the fact that the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has also set a secret hearing to address an interim review of the MOU with Cyprus. See
http://exchanges.state.gov/media/office-of-policy-and-evaluation/chc/pdfs/2010frncpacmtg10.pdf

CPAC has conduced public hearings of interim reviews in the past (most recently on Italy), but it's no surprise that the State Department wanted to avoid any public comment here given the ongoing litigation about the controversial decision to extend import restrictions on coins. That's unfortunate. The public should be allowed to comment on whether Cyprus has been living up to its side of the MOU with the United States. It would also be an opportunity for the pubic to question the Cypriot claim that import restrictions are necessary because of the unfortunate division of the Island. See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2008/08/cyprus-caari-and-boccf-there-is-as.html

Further on that score, I was disappointed to see that the President of Cyprus used the opening of a new exhibit of Cypriot antiquities at the Smithsonian to simultaneously bash Turkey and try to justify the Cypriot MOU. See http://www.cyprus-mail.com/heritage/historic-cyprus-exhibition-opens-smithsonian/20100930

The division of Cyprus is indeed tragic. It is also true that Turkish forces have damaged or destroyed Greek Orthodox religious sites over the years. Still, Greek Cypriots are not blameless in all this, and indeed, many experts point to their intransigence as a reason the Island remains divided.

In any case, the Smithsonian presumably agreed to host the exhibit as a celebration of Cyprus' magnificent past rather than to provide a Cypriot politician with a platform on which to attack Turkey.

Shame on the Cypriot Government for using our national museum for such purposes.

Disappointing Smithsonian Numismatic Sequel

I had a chance to visit the Smithsonian today, but despite some rarities, the coins failed to impress. The new "Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian" sequel was a bit of a disappointment compared to the "original." So too is the "sequel" of the late, great numismatic display at the Smithsonian. The old display took up several rooms and featured coins from all eras, and many cultures. It inspired generations of youngsters (me included) to get interested in numismatics. Unfortunately, this old display closed before the museum was recently renovated.

Now, a new display has taken its place, but it has shrunk to a few panels, featuring mostly American coins. There are several quite historically important ones, including patterns for the Saint-Gaudens $20 gold piece and the never released $50 "Half Union." There are also some neat computer graphics, including a virtual "Ms. Liberty" who morphs into the Standing Liberty on the Saint-Gaudens gold piece. Still, this is pale reflection of the collection as a whole which holds over 1.6 million objects. See: http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/numismatics/

This, of course, is a blog about cultural property issues. From that perspective, I could not help but think how all this just underscores the utter fallacy of one of the claims of the archaeological community. There are many, many million historical coins around. Only a relative few can be publicly displayed in museums at any one time. Private collectors are thus essential to preserving and displaying historical coins, whatever one might hear otherwise that museum loans from source countries should somehow substitute for private collecting.

Unprovenanced Ancient Greek Coins on Exhibit at Smithsonian

"Classically Greek: Coins and Bank Notes from Antiquity to Today," is a travelling exhibit from Greece on display in the Smithsonian Castle until June 10, 2008. There are only a few ancient Greek bronze coins and modern Greek bank notes in the exhibit, but it is nice to see coins and bank notes of any sort on display at the Smithsonian. It has been some years since the Smithsonian closed its venerable numismatic display, and plans for a new exhibit will have to wait for the reopening of the American History Museum, which has been closed for renovations for several years.

In any event, I find it telling that the Greek institutions that organized the travelling exhibit did not include "provenance information" with their descriptions of the ancient Greek coins in the display. Perhaps, such information is not as critical for common artifacts like coins as some in the archaeological community would have us believe.