A Review of Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage (original) (raw)
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Thompson_Private Collections of Greek Antiquities: History and Consequences
2013
Social elites, from the Attalids to Roman emperors to Renaissance princes to modern oil barons, have long passionately collected classical artwork. Scholarship of this history of collecting tends to portray it as a progression towards the modern museum – away from selfish pre-modern collectors, gloating over their private beauties, and towards publically-minded modern collectors, acquiring works to be displayed in museums for the benefit of scholars and the public. This narrative overlooks the existence of modern private collections of antiquities. These collections vary in focus and scale, from the massive amounts of objects accumulated by George Ortiz, J. Paul Getty, or Leon Levy and Shelby White to the lone antiquity (or forgery) purchased on eBay by a curious layman. Some private collectors intend eventually to give their collections to a public institution, while others want them to remain private possessions. But despite these differences, my research, stemming from interviews and private collector’s writings, has shown that private collectors approach the act of acquiring antiquities in a fundamentally different manner than do the archeologists or curators who collect for public institutions. Private collectors, from Tiberius to Ortiz, fall in love with objects, prioritizing aesthetics and connoisseurship over anything as grubby and tedious as archaeological context. Accordingly, private collectors are willing to buy antiquities without provenances, which have often been looted and smuggled via the black market, with consequential destruction of the archaeological record. My paper will describe my research on the history of private collections, focusing on the similarities between the motivations of collectors through time, examine the effects of private collecting on the archeological record, and propose ways that a better understanding of private collectors’ motivations can help in efforts to popularize more responsible collecting practices.
The Antiquities Market We Deserve: 'Royal-Athena Galleries' (1942-2020)
Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia Vol. 32, no. 18 N.S. (2020):147-175, 2021
On September 13, 2020 a quarter of a century had elapsed since the Swiss and Italian authorities raid in the Free Port of Geneva, on the warehouses of Giacomo Medici, later convicted of involvement in cases of trafficked antiquities. Since then, many other raids followed on properties of other notorious antiquities traffickers, thousands of antiquities were confiscated from them and their invaluable archives were discovered and seized. The research on these archives resulted in hundreds of notable repatriations so far, but mainly in the enrichment of our knowledge about the criminal way in which the so-called 'reputable' members of the international antiquities market have been acting since the 1970 UNESCO Convention, which they completely ignored in practice. Despite the numerous occasions on which these 'reputable' members were identified as involved, even today they continue to act in the same way, some without any (or known) legal sanctions. This chapter reviews the illicit associations of one of these 'prominent' members of the international antiquities market, the 'Royal-Athena Galleries' in New York, a gallery run by the antiquities dealer Jerome Eisenberg, who has repeatedly been found selling looted, smuggled and stolen antiquities. I then present seven antiquities, most of them identified in October 2019, one in March 2020, soon before the retirement of Jerome Eisenberg and the closure of 'Royal-Athena Galleries' on October 31, 2020. This piece lays out all the relevant evidence from the confiscated archives and combines everyone involved to illustrate the network that 'circulated' these seven objects. This case study also highlights all the problems that are ongoing in this research field, proving that essentially nothing has changed since 1995, or even 1970, and we indeed deserve the (illicit) antiquities market we still have.
From Antiquities to Heritage, 2014
Eighteenth century antiquaries were searching for antiquities, and found them in barrows as well as among living peasants. What made the artifacts interesting was above all that they in some way related to the literary universe of sagas or other medieval texts, the classical canon or even the Bible. The historic monuments inventoried and preserved during nineteenth century, also included medieval buildings, seen as testimonies of national greatness of the past. Today, the concept of heritage dominates, and includes an extremely wide range of objects. Heritage work is about the construction of individual identities as well as "world heritage" and cultural goods of "outstanding universal value" – as UNESCO has chosen to describe it. The book explores this development through a number of case studies, reaching from the late eighteenth century to the present. The idea is that the changes in terminology – from antiquities via historic monument to heritage – not only reflect changes (or gradual extensions) in what kinds of old objects that are included, but more fundamentally express different ways of relating to the past, or different 'regimes of historicity'.
Controlling the International Market in Antiquities: Reducing the Harm, Preserving the Past
Chi. J. Int'l L., 2007
Howard Demsetz, To~vard a The09 ofPvope3 fights, 57 Am Econ Rev 347 (1967) (presenung the class~c statement of the effects of negattve externahues, focuslng on costs only In the monetary activity. In this Article, the term "cost" indicates any harmful effect imposed on an individual or on society as a whole. The loss of cultural value is a cost paid by society. In the field of cultural heritage law, "value" usually indicates the intangible worth and significance of original contests and rarely connotes monetary value."his Article addresses the unique aspects of the trade in antiquities, that is, archaeological objects that have, over time, been buried in the ground with an associated assemblage of other artifacts, architectural remains, and natural features. Because of its link to the looting of sites, the trade in undocumented antiquities raises legal, ethical, and societal concerns distinguishing it from the trade in other forms of artwork. In this Article, I will discuss three components. First, I will examine the harms that the looting of archaeological sites imposes on society. Second, I will discuss the responses to the problem, particularly in terms of the law that attempts to regulate this conduct, and some of the characteristics of the current legal regime and of the market in antiquities that prevent the law from achieving its full potential for deterrence. Third, this Article will examine and propose solutions to discourage site looting and encourage preservation of the remains of the past for the benefit of the future. I. UNDERSTANDING THE PAST There are several detrimental consequences of looting. First, the looting of archaeological sites imposes negative externalities on society by destroying our ability to fully understand and reconstruct the past. Humans have long been interested in the material remains of past cultures, and they have often collected artifacts as political symbols of domination5 or as a means of enjoying past artistic accotnplishments. The manner in which artifacts are recovered from the sense). Demsetz uses these concepts to lusufy the development of a system of prlvate property rlghts, reduclng transacuon costs and thereby ehmlnaung economlc lnefficlencles Id at 349. 4 The translauon of this type of value Into economlc terms IS difficult. One attempt is codlfied In the Cultural Hentage Resource Crlmes Sentencing Guldellne in whlch "archaeologlcal value" must be Included In the valuauon of a cultural hentage resource for sentencing purposes, 18 USC Appx ,2B15AppllcauonNote2(A)(1),and1sdefinedasthecostofretrievingthesclenuficInformattonfromthearchaeologcalresource,fromresearchdeslgntofinalpubhcauon,thatwasharmedthroughcommlsslonoftheculturalherite˜resourcecrlme.See18USCAppx, 2B1 5 Appllcauon Note 2(A)(1), and 1s defined as the cost of retrieving the sclenufic Informatton from the archaeologcal resource, from research deslgn to final pubhcauon, that was harmed through commlsslon of the cultural h e r i t~e resource crlme. See 18 USC Appx ,2B15AppllcauonNote2(A)(1),and1sdefinedasthecostofretrievingthesclenuficInformattonfromthearchaeologcalresource,fromresearchdeslgntofinalpubhcauon,thatwasharmedthroughcommlsslonoftheculturalherite˜resourcecrlme.See18USCAppx 2B1.5 Apphcauon Note 2(C)(1).
Exhibiting Archaeology: Archaeology and Museums
Annual Review of Anthropology, 2010
From their beginnings, archaeology museums have reflected a complex and dynamic balance between the demands of developing, documenting, and preserving objects on the one hand and sharing knowledge, access, and control on the other. This balance has informed and inflected the ways that museums present the past, including both practical aspects of pedagogy and exhibition design as well as more critical and contested issues of authority, authenticity, and reflexivity in interpretation. Meeting the complex requirements of curation, deliberate collections growth, management, and conservation, as well as the need to respond to continuing challenges to the museum's right and title to hold various forms of cultural property, archaeological museums play an active role in both preserving and shaping the public's view of the past and reflect the prospects and perils of being at once a temple to the muses and a forum for sometimes contentious public discourse.
The themes expressed in most chapters of this book are remarkably similar: the pillage of archaeological sites and cultural institutions continues, and the antiquities market thrives. On the ground, data from field surveys clearly point to a growing problem of plunder, and the type of material appearing on the open art market correlates to the regions, even sites, that are consistently targeted. Our authors tease out the differences between looting and subsistence digging; the roles of source, transit, and market countries in the trade; the impacts of war, political agendas, and tourist development on cultural heritage; and the effectiveness of legislation in thwarting pillage and the illicit traffic of archaeological material. What most authors have been reluctant to explore is the root cause of exactly why pillage occurs. It is now more than thirty years since the world-awakening 1970 UNESCO Convention, and still the problem persists, and even grows worse. As a concluding chapter, we turn to the why question in order to investigate some of the complex issues that are critical for understanding and resolving the problem. Our analysis concentrates in particular on the ways in which collectors use archaeological heritage as symbolic capital to gain social status and prestige.
Introduction: What Are New Antiquities?
International Journal for the Study of New Religions, 2018
The myriad and potent effects of Mediterranean antiquity in a diversity of cultural and social contexts constitutes a field of research which for some decades has been known as “(Classical) reception studies.” The two special issues of IJSNR introduced here (and the consolidated book volume which follows) contain the fruits of the 2014 workshop “New Antiquities”, which departed from this scholarly enterprise in examining what we have called “Transformations of Ancient Religion.”