by ADA | Sep 18, 2025 | Uncategorized, Views |
In 2001, the Taliban took 25 days to blow up the extraordinary and important Bamiyan Buddhas – two ancient monumental cliff carvings in Afghanistan that were the largest standing statues of their type in the world.
It was as much a political as religious act of cultural vandalism by iconoclastic extremists who were demanding recognition and the acknowledgement of Islam’s pre-eminence in a country with a Buddhist tradition.
Who would have thought that less than a quarter of a century later, it would become official policy for the United States to repatriate Afghan cultural property to the Taliban, now the oppressive government of a people it subjects to innumerable human rights abuses on top of the cultural nihilism?
But that is exactly what is happening now in the name of U.S. citizens, and it is far from an isolated case.
This state of affairs is all part of a wider move by authorities in the U.S. and elsewhere to harness cultural heritage as a low-cost and highly useful soft power diplomacy tool. Help other countries recover artefacts that were either stolen or sold off legally before passing beyond their borders and it can assist power brokers such as the U.S. to boost their geopolitical influence in trouble spots where unwelcome rivals such as China and Russia may be gaining a foothold.
It may be a cheap and effective political tool, but where are the ethics and morals of such a policy, and who loses in the process?
A recent case involving the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit sheds light on this.
Chinese or Tibetan?
As reported in March 2025, the unit, under the command of Assistant D.A. Matthew Bogdanos, handed over 41 artefacts to China on March 3. The problem is that the artefacts were not Chinese but Tibetan.
“The transfer was conducted as part of an agreement between the two countries to protect cultural heritage and identity and prevent Chinese cultural relics from illegally entering the U.S.,” reported Radio Free Asia. “Since the pact was first agreed to on Jan. 14, 2009, the U.S. has sent 594 pieces or sets of cultural relics and artworks to China.”
Returning cultural property to the oppressors of those to whom they should actually belong rightly raises concerns: “…sending Tibetan artifacts to China has raised concern that Beijing will use them to justify its rule in Tibet, which the country annexed in 1950,” RFA argues.
This view was echoed by Vijay Kranti, director of the Center for Himalayan Asia Studies and Engagement, based in New Delhi, who told the RFA: “The Chinese government will certainly misuse these returned artifacts and will use them to further promote their false historical narrative that Tibet has always been a part of China.”
Kate Fitz Gibbon, executive director of the Committee for Cultural Policy, the U.S. think tank established in 2011 to strengthen the public dialogue on arts policy, was equally critical.
“It is an outrageous act to return Tibetan objects in the diaspora to the People’s Republic of China, which is deliberately destroying Tibetan cultural heritage,” she said.
“Since China occupied Tibet, U.S. authorities have accepted that Tibetan artifacts belong to the Tibetan people, not China’s government,” Fitz Gibbon said in an email. “The turnover by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit directly challenges that policy.”
It is certainly an odd move when the D.A.’s office and ADA Bogdanos spend so much time declaring their dedication to righting historic wrongs.
What Memoranda of Understanding mean
If the Manhattan D.A. uses New York State law relating to theft to pursue its seizures and returns, the U.S. State department and Customs service take advantage of an ever-expanding system of bilateral agreements, also known as Memoranda of Understanding.
These allow law enforcement to bypass international conventions and human rights laws and conventions, giving them the authority to seize almost anything historic that originated in the country of an MoU partner, before handing it over to them. No evidence of the item in question being illicit is required. This is hardly in the spirit or terms of the United States Constitution.
As an example, consider the MoU with Turkey, which is up for renewal. Article 1 of the MoU restricts the import to the U.S. of a comprehensive list of archaeological material ranging in date from 1.2 million years BC to 1770 AD, and a similarly extensive list of ethnological material ranging in date from the 1st century AD until 1923.
Essentially, anything that falls into either of these categories – pretty much everything – will be seized at the U.S. border as it is imported and returned to Turkey unless it already has a valid export license from Turkey or Turkey agrees to issue it with a licence saying that its original export from Turkey did not violate local laws.
Effectively, then, the U.S. has handed a veto to a third country over legally held property that allows for its confiscation without proof of wrongdoing. Under such circumstances, this interference with an individual’s right to enjoy their property can easily be assessed as arbitrary – and therefore a direct breach of Article 17.2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The problem is that the UDHR is not a binding treaty, but the United Nations does consider that its member states, which include the U.S., have a moral obligation to respect the fundamental human rights in the Declaration. However, as this issue shows, they don’t. Constitutional rights also appear to have been cast aside here.
Turkey or Armenia?
The MoU with Turkey is highly relevant now as the Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC), which officially advises Congress, considers its renewal and update.
Objections to its standing terms have come from the Armenian Bar Association and the International Association of professional Numismatists (IAPN).
The Armenian Bar Association is concerned that without its proposed amendments to the MoU, Turkey may lay claim to Armenian cultural artefacts that predate the arrival of Turks in the Armenian homeland which is now part of modern Turkey. “Equally perverse, Turkey may argue that Armenian cultural property currently located in the United States, which originated on the land mass of current-day Turkey, belongs to Turkey as well and, therefore, must be repatriated,” it argues.
Likewise, the International Association of Professional Numismatists (IAPN) has raised objections to the renewal of MoUs with Afghanistan and Turkey. IAPN Executive Director Peter Tompa set out the association’s detailed objections in his Cultural Property Observer blog, arguing that for both countries, “renewals raise fundamental contradictions that cannot possibly be reconciled”.
In tune with the Armenian Bar Association, Tompa also objects to a renewal of the Turkey MoU on the grounds of Turkey laying claim to the cultural heritage of minority groups within its borders: “Erdogan’s aggressive repatriation efforts abroad must be contrasted with his government’s active promotion of ‘treasure hunting’ at former Jewish and Christian sites at home. This is just another provocation directed at minority religious groups like the conversion of Hagia Sophia and the Cathedral at Ani into mosques,” he writes.
Tompa had previously raised concerns about Jewish artefacts being returned to the Libyan government that had expelled the Jews.
Libya or the Jews?
“Jewish groups are outraged and say the MoU legitimizes the confiscation of Jewish property seized by Libya’s government when they were forced from the country,” Tompa wrote in 2018. “Others in the cultural policy world are wondering why the US government would put faith in Libya to act responsibly to safeguard the heritage of minority and exiled peoples.”
Add to all this the fact that many of those regimes with whom the U.S. establishes these bilateral agreements are not only lacking in democratic principle, but actively hostile to the U.S., and the injustice burns all the brighter.
Tompa has also written in-depth in Cultural Property News on how MoUs work and what they mean.
How aware are U.S. citizens that their own State department and Customs service are acting like this in their name or that they might find their own property subject to such confiscation? And how would they feel about it, particularly if their own legally held property was seized in this way? Will CPAC do the right thing in advising Congress?
Image caption: US Ambassador to Turkey David Satterfield and Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Ersoy sign an MOU on cultural heritage, effectively acknowledging Turkish government control of minority religious communities’ heritage. Photo Credit: US Embassy in Turkey
by ADA | Mar 31, 2025 | News, Uncategorized |
Despite myriad figures for illicit trade worth billions or even tens of billions of dollars, no one can point to any reliable source for claims
A survey of a dozen of the world’s top law enforcement agencies and government departments has revealed that none of them appears to have any accurate data regarding the value of cultural goods trafficking globally.
This is despite multiple claims going back years of an illicit trade worth tens of billions of dollars.
Indeed, in at least one case – Interpol – the only reference to the size of the problem comes in a ten-year-old video still prominent on its website, in which former Secretary General Jürgen Stock makes the claim that the black market in art is as lucrative as the illicit markets in drugs, weapons and counterfeit goods – a claim long since exposed as untrue.
Carried out on behalf of several art market trade associations, the survey sought responses from the European Commission, the EU Directorate for Culture, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the US State Department, Interpol, Europol, the FBI, Homeland Security, the Financial Action Task Force, the UK’s National Crime Agency, the World Customs Organisation and UNESCO.
Care was made to approach the correct source for such information in each case, and follow-up requests were made when advised by the relevant authority of a different source.
The aim was to get a clear picture of trafficking levels
The aim of the survey was to establish a clear picture of global trafficking data for cultural property.
“It is important to establish credible data to defeat the extensive misinformation and disinformation surrounding this subject, which plays a significant part in hampering effective policy making,” the authorities were told.
Each was asked the following: “Do you have any independently verifiable figures relating to the value of trafficking of cultural property, especially any global figures for the annual value of this risk area?”
And each was asked to supply the data and its sources if it was available. Not one did. More than one admitted that it didn’t have the information or that it simply did not exist. These included organisations producing extensive reports claiming cultural goods trafficking is a huge problem.
Others either did not respond or directed the request to another source. In one case, the UK’s National Crime Agency, the request was met with refusal to respond on the grounds that it was not a public body.
No relevant data from Interpol or Europol
Despite mass data being made available for associated issues and other categories of risk via the World Customs Organisation annual Illicit Trade Reports, together with arrests and seizure data from Interpol and Europol via Operations such Pandora, not one authority was able to provide any credible data on the size of cultural goods trafficking.
Having previously stated on its website that it had no data showing the size of the problem and adding that it never expected to have any reliable data on global trafficking in cultural property, Interpol says it is a “lucrative black market” and introduces its Cultural Heritage Crime section as follows: “Trafficking in cultural property is a low-risk, high-profit business for criminals with links to organized crime. From stolen artwork to historical artefacts, this crime can affect all countries, either as origin, transit or destinations.”
Requests to both Europol and the World Customs Organisation have proved equally fruitless.
Europol directed the request to its website, which gives no such data. However, it had responded to an earlier request, stating: “We do not have these figures. Europol is not a statistical organisation – Europol’s priority is to support cross-border investigations and the information available is solely based on investigations supported by Europol.”
Europol has since confirmed that it does not have the relevant data.
When emailed in February, asking why it no longer included any relevant data in its annual Illicit Trade Report on Cultural Goods, The WCO explained that global data on illicit trade “does not exist”.
When emailed again in March, it did not respond.
No relevant data available from Eurostat
The European Commission’s information service directed the request to Eurostat, but that does not have any relevant data.
The Financial Action Task Force directed the request to its 2023 report: Money Laundering and terrorist Financing in the Art and Antiquities Market. However, much of that report is based on historically inaccurate data and provides no credible figures for global trafficking at all. It also acknowledges that it does not have the data, stating on page 28: “The lack of reliable statistics concerning looting activities, especially from conflict zones, makes it difficult to assess the scale of the phenomenon. However, taking into account the volume of looted archaeological goods seized in certain international or national police operations, it appears that this is a large-scale activity.” This view does not tally with the global data published by the World Customs Organisation.
The US State Department directed the request to the Office of Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, providing two phone numbers. One had a voicemail, so a request was left for an email address, with no result; the other number did not work. The weblink provided by the State department gave no information on the ‘Office’. Extensive web searching came up with no contact details. No further response came.
A March 12 response from the FBI referred the request to an online request form, which was filled in the same day. To date, no further response has arisen.
No relevant data from the European Anti-Fraud Office
A follow-up request elicited a response from the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). It welcomed the attempt to gather credible data but said its work did not relate directly to doing so itself.
No responses came at all from the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (DG EAC) (Cultural Heritage Unit); UNESCO’s Information Service (for all UNESCO data); or Homeland Security.
Readers will have their own views as to what this means, but the complete lack of any reliable data – or any data at all in most cases – raises the question as to what the unending slew of claims over global trafficking in cultural property are really based on.
A more detailed summary of individual responses is available.
- This article will be updated by any further responses of note.
by ADA | Sep 9, 2024 | Uncategorized, Views
If you want to get an idea of how enforcement might work under the European Union’s new import licensing regulation after June 28, 2025, here is a cautionary tale.
Earlier this year, a dealer in Paris bought two fairly inexpensive canopic jars from their California-based owner, whose great grandfather – a friend of the celebrated Egyptologist and finder of the tomb of Tutankhamun, Howard Carter – had had them in his possession for many years.
The jars were despatched to the dealer in Paris at the beginning of May. The dealer was soon notified of their arrival in Paris, but they never made it as far as the gallery.
It turned out that they had been held by Customs for inspection, and the dealer duly offered Customs all the paperwork they had for them. The Customs officials did not require the paperwork, wanting only proof of purchase, which was duly supplied. They continued their inspection and checks, which included contacting the Egyptian authorities to see whether the jars had been listed as stolen or illegally exported.
After two months, satisfied that jars had been legally sold and imported to France, Customs released them back to the courier service, but again they never arrived.
Having heard nothing, at the end of July the dealer contacted the courier service to find out what was going on, only to be told that they would soon be delivered but that delays were due to the shipping agent being on holiday.
Knowing that they were about to leave on holiday, the dealer advised the courier service that they should ensure the packages be delivered no later than August 4. Although reassured that this would happen, they did not arrive by the deadline.
Service proves ‘undeliverable’
When the dealer checked again with the courier service, they said that they had attempted to deliver them but the address was wrong. The dealer then confirmed the delivery address but asked for the packages to be held until their arrival back from holiday at the end of August, a request registered with the tracking service. Despite this, three further attempts were made to deliver the packages without any effort to try to contact the dealer, and the packages ended up back in storage. On August 20, the shipping company deemed the packages ‘undeliverable’ and decided to send them back to the USA.
By coincidence, a shipping agent at the airport in Paris who had been involved in the earlier Customs checks had spotted the packages being returned and stopped them, contacting the dealer by email on September 2 to let them know, and confirming that they would be returned to the courier service once more for delivery the following day.
Again, the dealer heard no more and the packages never arrived.
Contacting the courier service once more, they learned that the packages had been dispatched to the airport again for return to the USA.
This time the dealer emailed the same shipping agent, who said that they would try to get them off the plane, later confirming that they had managed to do so. Refusing to leave anything further to chance, the dealer then went to the airport to pick up the packages in person but found that one was missing. They were told it had probably already been sent back to the USA. On inspecting the other package, they found that Customs had not repacked it properly and its contents were broken.
So despite clearance from Customs after inspection and contact with the Egyptian authorities, one package has now been returned to the USA where, according to the US Memorandum of Understanding with Egypt, it risks being seized at Customs and sent back to Egypt, while the other has been mishandled and, far from being protected under the Customs process, has instead been destroyed.
This is just one example of the problems faced by art market professionals when importing to the European Union. What will it be like after June 28, 2025, when Customs will have to check a vast number of additional packages it has not had to deal with before?
by ADA | Jan 30, 2024 | Uncategorized, Views
Sources quoted by authorities to clamp down on the art market rarely stand up to scrutiny
How does false data come to influence policy and even law making on such a widespread basis when it comes to cultural property?
One reason is confirmation bias: if the results of your research match what you hope to find, you are less likely to check their validity – a point made by statistics guru Dr Tim Harford when discussing claims made about antiquities and crime.
Another can be the authority of the source. This is very common in the cultural heritage sphere.
This two-part article analyses two studies from what should be an impeccable single source, showing how false data can spread from one official report to another to gain traction, and ultimately become an unchallenged authority among those who should know better.
They also demonstrate that many apparently learned pieces of research published by acknowledged authorities simply can’t be trusted, because it is clear that these professionals are not checking their sources adequately.
Both reports were published by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
One was titled PRACTICAL ASSISTANCE TOOL to assist in the implementation of the International Guidelines for Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Responses with Respect to Trafficking in Cultural Property and Other Related Offences. It was published in 2016.
The two relevant claims it included were as follows:
• The Museums Association has estimated that profits from the illicit antiquities trade range for $225 million and $3 billion per year.
AND
• The Organized Crime Group of the United Kingdom Metropolitan Police and INTERPOL has calculated that profits from the illicit antiquities trade amounted to between $300 million and $6 billion per year.
Footnotes indicated the source for each of these statements.
For the first it was “See Neil Brodie, Jenny Doole and Peter Watson, Stealing History: The Illicit Trade in Cultural Material (Cambridge, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2000); and Simon Mackenzie, “Trafficking antiquities” in International Crime and Justice, Mangai Nataajan, ed. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011).”
For the second it was “United Kingdom, House of Commons, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, Cultural Property: Return and Illicit Trade, seventh report, vols. 1, 2 and 3 (London, 2000).”
These were very precise references, if rather out of date for a 2016 report by the UNODC.
The problem is that whoever researched the UNODC report failed to check where its quoted sources got their data from. If they had, they would have found the following:
– The Brodie, Doole and Watson report from 2000 did not refer to the Museums Association $225 million and $3 billion per year claim at all. Instead, on page 23 in the introduction to section 1.9, The Financial value of the illicit trade, it stated: “Geraldine Norman has estimated that the illicit trade in antiquities, world-wide, may be as much as $2 billion a year.” The footnote for this statement identified the source as journalist Geraldine Norman’s November 24, 1990, Independent article Great sale of the century. However, apart from the fact that the article was actually titled Great sale of the centuries, it included no such claim or figure.
The Simon Mackenzie chapter on Trafficking Antiquities is not open source data, but is available on subscription to CUP.
– In fact, the Museums Association did give estimated figures as part of its evidence to the UK House of Commons, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, Cultural Property: Return and Illicit Trade, seventh report, vols. 1, 2 and 3 (London, 2000) – the same source as the second claim quoted by the UNODC. In the Seventh Report, Chapter II The problem of illicit trade, The nature and scale of illicit trade, paragraph 9 reads: “The scale of the illicit trade taken is said to be very considerable. According to the Museums Association, as an underground, secretive activity, it is impossible to attach a firm financial value to the illicit trade in cultural material. Estimates of its worldwide extent vary from £150 million up to £2 billion per year.” The Museums Association gave as its source the Brodie, Doole and Watson 2000 report, quoted above, which in turn gave the Geraldine Norman article as the source, when, in fact, it provided no such figures.
So, the Museums Association’s actual claim was that “it is impossible to attach a firm financial value to the illicit trade in cultural material”, but that estimates worldwide [by others] varied greatly between £150 million and £2 billion.
This was rather different from the UNODC claim based on this source: “The Museums Association has estimated that profits from the illicit antiquities trade range for $225 million and $3 billion per year.”
To summarise, then, the £150 million to £2 billion claim ultimately came from nowhere. Its claimed primary source, the Geraldine Norman article from 1990, quoted no such figures. The secondary source which mistakenly quoted them was the Brodie, Doole & Watson report from ten years later in 2000, leading to the tertiary source of the Museums Association. In turn, this was quoted by the UNODC in 2016 – 26 years after the Norman article which gave no figures anyway. The UNODC report then became a new ‘primary’ source, with the figures quoted as UNODC estimates, which they weren’t at all.
See Part 2
by ADA | Oct 27, 2023 | Uncategorized, Views
Three developments in recent weeks have raised questions once again about the activities of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and its antiquities unit. Separately they are of concern; together they demand some clear answers.
The first involves the claim that 19 items returned to Italy as “illicit” were worth $19 million. The figures simply didn’t add up according to expert valuers from the Antiquities Dealers’ Association, who noted that the South Italian plate included was worth up to about $7,000 at auction, but “only if it were to have a good provenance”.
When asked by Antiques Trade Gazette how the unit had arrived at the valuation, the D.A.’s office replied: “We have experts assess the objects at the time of each repatriation based on the legal definition of value under the law.”
Who these experts are and how they arrived at such an overblown valuation remains a mystery.
This matters because:
- What appears to be a gross exaggeration of value feeds into the inaccurate narrative of a huge international illicit trade in artefacts.
- It also boosts the public standing of the antiquities unit, which in turn makes its unquestioned position all the more unassailable at a time when serious questions regarding its activities need to be asked.
- The unit’s activities are funded from the public purse, so the public is entitled to accurate reporting and transparency.
If the above is an accurate assessment of the situation, it raises a raft of new questions.
One of those questions involves the second development: the D.A.’s publishing of a media release that led to inaccurate reporting on the criminal status of individuals.
Having unequivocally labelled a number of named individuals as “major antiquities traffickers” in the opening paragraph, an unheralded footnote states: “The charges referenced within are merely allegations, and the individuals are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.”
The failure to annotate the body of the release with a reference to the footnote inevitably risks misreporting, especially by those who fail to read to the end of the release. An internet search has revealed at least two examples of this happening in this case. Why is this not of serious concern to the Manhattan D.A.?
Cleveland Museum of Arts sues the D.A. over statue seizure
One of the most significant developments has come at the hands of the Cleveland Museum of Arts, which is now suing the D.A.’s office over its seizure of a headless ancient bronze statue valued at $20 million.
The D.A.’s office argues that it is of Marcus Aurelius and was looted from Turkey. The museum, which acquired the statue in 1986, says that is not the case.
As the court papers reveal, Turkey made vague and unsubstantiated claims regarding the statue around 15 years ago but did not respond when asked for evidence to support its case and did not pursue the matter further until now.
As the statue had been widely exhibited and written about over the years, Turkey had had a long time to press its case but did not do so. This was also the case when Turkey failed in its claim over the Guennol Stargazer in the New York courts. Among other comments in 2021, U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan noted that Turkey had known of the piece for years and had had ample opportunity to make a claim but had failed to do so in a timely manner.
The Cleveland Museum of Art’s court papers highlight the controversial approach of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in seizing objects and returning them to source countries: “For more than ten years, the New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney has conducted numerous investigations of antiquities allegedly stolen from foreign nations, returning many of them to those nations. Proof that these items are “stolen” typically is established using the laws of such nations (“patrimony laws”), which, among other things, declare that items of a certain age or type belong to the nation. If a covered object is then illegally exported after the effective date of the patrimony law, the argument is made that it is stolen property.
“Unlike typical criminal investigations, the New York District Attorney’s primary purpose appears to be to return antiquities to their countries of origin or modern discovery, assuming the office can verify the appropriate country.”
The court papers also note that when such returns are made, the media report the returns as involving “looted antiquities” – evidence of any such looting, if it exists, is rarely made clear.
As ADA chairman Joanna van der Lande wrote to ATG in the wake of the $19 million claim: “It’s time that the media challenged official bodies, from the Manhattan D.A.’s office to UNESCO, the European Commission, Europol and others, and subject them to the same level of scrutiny that they apply to the market rather than just accepting what they put out in statements. Let’s have the same transparency and due diligence when it comes to ‘facts’ that these bodies so readily demand of dealers and auction houses in relation to objects.”
by ADA | Aug 29, 2023 | Uncategorized, Views
Even when an antiquities dealer proves to be the hero of the hour, the media and others try to blame the market instead of those responsible
Much of the past ten days has been taken up with the thefts scandal at the British Museum. A senior curator sacked, the director of the museum quitting early, and the deputy director stepping back from duties pending an investigation.
Covered in disgrace, senior executives made their position worse by attempting to divert blame to the man who had blown the whistle in the first place, even though he had spent several years trying to get them to take him seriously.
Why did they think they might get away with it? Perhaps because Dr Ittai Gradel, an academic and collector of antiquities, is also a dealer. And perhaps, too, because history shows us that the media are all too ready to believe the worst of the trade even when confronted by evidence to the contrary.
BM director Dr Hartwig Fischer was quoted as follows: “When allegations were brought to us in 2021, we took them incredibly seriously, and immediately set up an investigation.
“Concerns were only raised about a small number of items, and our investigation concluded that those items were all accounted for.
“We now have reason to believe that the individual who raised concerns had many more items in his possession, and it’s frustrating that that was not revealed to us as it would have aided our investigations.”
Dismissing these claims as “lies”, Dr Gradel accused the director of “shooting the messenger”: “They never even contacted me. I was waiting the whole time for them to ask me to give testimony. Why can’t they just own up to their responsibility?”
Excoriating censure by the Telegraph
Fortunately The Telegraph, which had secured the scoop on the story, had conducted a thorough investigation of the email trail between Dr Gradel and the BM, so it knew who was telling the truth. It went so far as to publish a leader article on August 25 censuring the BM management: “Although the British Museum ostensibly opened an investigation, it reached a swift conclusion that nothing untoward had happened. Now we know that was not the case… the whistleblower gave the British Museum the opportunity to stem the disappearances without publicity. For it to supposedly take no action was a dereliction of duty and has made it harder to argue against demands for the repatriation of important parts of the collection such as the Elgin Marbles.”
Most damningly, the Telegraph concluded: “Why are those accused of ignoring warnings still in post? If they refuse to resign then George Osborne, the UK’s former chief finance minister and now museum’s chairman, should dismiss them for tarnishing the reputation of a great institution.”
While Dr Fischer’s crisis management proved a disaster for him and the museum, as one of the two most senior government ministers in the land during the David Cameron premiership, Mr Osborne is a seasoned politician with a much more authoritative grasp on the playbook of public opinion and reacted accordingly to limit the damage. He revealed that some items had been recovered, calling it “a silver lining to a dark cloud”.
In a BBC interview, Mr Osborne also revealed what he thought had gone wrong in the failure to address Dr Gradel’s concerns promptly: “…was there some potential groupthink in the museum at the time, at the very top of the museum, that just couldn’t believe that an insider was stealing things, couldn’t believe that one of the members of staff were doing this? Yes, that’s very possible.”
IADAA and ADA adviser Ivan Macquisten was quoted in The Times, explaining the importance of the trade’s role in crime prevention, as the media turned its attention to the unwelcome challenges that the possible sale of so many stolen items might pose.
It became clear that many of the missing items had never been properly catalogued or photographed, meaning they will probably never be identified or restored to the British Museum’s collection. Nonetheless, the most strenuous efforts must be made to recover as much as possible.
Trade associations launch media campaign over crisis
Both IADAA and the ADA launched a media campaign on August 25 calling on the British Museum to publish a full list of the missing objects, together with photographs, prominently on its website as a matter of urgency so that the trade and others can help in their safe recovery. Mr Osborne has said that only the police can publish a list on the Interpol website and that the BM is working with the Art Loss Register, adding that simply publishing the list itself might not bring the best response. This was unconvincing. The Art Loss Register is unlikely to focus on less important items among those stolen, and regardless of what other measures the BM is taking, it should also publish the list prominently on its website to ensure the greatest public awareness in the quest for recovery. If that is too much to ask, the least it could do is to provide the correct information to dealers and auction houses for enhanced due diligence.
Despite it being a member of the antiquities trade who devoted four years to uncovering the scandal and reporting it, some commentators have used the scandal to attack the trade.
Foremost of these is anti-trade campaigner Morgan Belzic, doctor in archaeology at the French Archaeological Mission in Libya, who reportedly told classicist Daisy Dunn, also writing for The Telegraph: “The London art market is one of the most involved in antiquities theft and looting… It can move objects very easily and quickly out of the country. It’s one of the least controlled markets in the world. There’s a lot of complacency, a lot of negligence and, of course, some dealers are directly involved with the illegal trade.”
Belzic stuck the knife in further with bogus statistics: “I’d estimate the legal art and antiquities market is only 20 per cent of the total trade,” he said. “It’s impossible to give an accurate number, so little research has been done in the field, but the illegal trade is certainly in the billions [of pounds].”
If it is impossible to give an accurate number, how can he estimate that the legal market is only 20 per cent of the total trade?
He is clearly also unaware of the recently published Cambridge University paper by Dr Neil Brodie and Assistant Professor Donna Yates, The illicit trade in antiquities is not the world’s third largest illicit trade: a critical evaluation of a factoid, or the 2020 RAND report, the latter of which demonstrates convincingly why any illicit trade in antiquities could not be worth billions of dollars – a logical point earlier noted by the ADA’s and IADAA’s own analysis.
Hypocritical approach of trade’s critics
Belzic follows the pattern of many critics of the trade by demanding unquestionable documented provenance for their claims over artefacts, while considering himself free to make wild, inaccurate and damaging claims about the trade without offering any provenance to support what he has to say. He makes a very serious allegation, accusing London dealers of criminal activity. If he has proof of this, why does he not name them? His careless approach is irresponsible.
The additional problem with this is that it is such critics, spreading the bogus claims over an illicit trade worth billions of pounds, who themselves risk encouraging further looting by those who think they are going to make a fortune from such thefts when the reality is otherwise.
One of the more important aspects of this whole sorry saga is the spotlight it has thrown on the politicisation of the museum sector and how it is run. In a letter to The Times on August 25, the former curator of Salisbury Museum, Peter Saunders, agreed with an earlier comment piece decrying the way that museums were losing their way: “…museums have too long felt pressured by funders and politicians to focus on flavour-of-the-month matters such as decolonisation, equality, diversity, restitution and climate change, to the detriment of basic, old-fashioned curatorship. Cataloguing and security are unglamorous activities. Yet might a national scheme to mark all collections with DNA identifiers to deter theft and aid police recovery of stolen artefacts not prove attractive to sponsors? It would surely help prevent the sort of ‘plundering’ suffered by the British Museum.”
The scandal has also led to other issues coming to light. In an August 18 article, Thefts by staff a common problem in UK museums, say experts, The Guardian reported on claims from a former London Museum employee that the sector was :”institutionally corrupt”, with the theft of items being considered “fair game”.
Even after all this, with Dr Gradel doing everyone the greatest of favours by his hard work and determination – and the museum world exposed as having a very serious institutionalised problem – elements of the media exploited the crisis to attack the trade once more.
Article full of unwarranted smears
In an article that didn’t even bother to consult anyone in the trade, on August 28 The Guardian fired a series of unprofessional and unsubstantiated smears against the market, starting with: “Close observers of the antiquities market tend to be a cynical bunch, having witnessed any number of scams, dubious practices and illicit trading.”
In what appeared to approach a defamatory line, it went on to ignore all the reasons Dr Gradel had given to explain why he had kept in contact and continued to buy from the BM thief – building a case, keeping him on the hook etc. Instead it questioned his probity: “After all, the only reason the story about the British Museum has come to light is because a Danish antiques dealer, Ittai Gradel, says he became suspicious about a dealer with whom he continued trading for several years.”
It then added to the insult with the following:
“According to Gradel, he alerted George Osborne, the museum’s chairman, after being “fobbed off” by its managers for two years. Apparently he first had doubts about one seller back in 2016, when he recognised an item he’d seen many years before at the British Museum. When he asked the seller, whom he’d been dealing with since 2014, where he came by his objects, he was told that the man’s grandfather had owned a junk shop in York between the wars.
“That’s the kind of cover story that allows both parties involved to continue with business without having to explore any more awkward questions or pay an expert to establish provenance, even though it is a dealer’s legal responsibility to do just that.
“It took Gradel a further four years before he says he realised that he had been inadvertently handling the seller’s stolen goods. And that’s when, he says, the British Museum started dragging its feet.”
Journalist did not even speak to Gradel or trade as he attacked them
This is an extensive and unfair criticism of the whistleblower by a journalist who has not even had the courtesy to speak to him – even at a time when Dr Gradel was conducting a major round of media interviews. Why not?
The article then questions whether a dealer buying from someone from the British Museum would have a duty to conduct due diligence, as though that did not happen. It is the fact that Dr Gradel did conduct such checks that led to his discovery, a fact that The Guardian ignores.
What it does do is talk extensively to the trade’s arch critic, Dr Christos Tsirogiannis, who says: “It’s a huge red flag,” agrees Tsirogiannis, “but on the other hand, how many dealers of antiquities out there are not dealing with unprovenanced objects? I don’t know anyone.”
As usual, in launching this attack on the trade, Dr Tsirogiannis ignores the reality of provenance surrounding ancient objects: that few, if any, have comprehensive documentation dating back to the point of creation or discovery because of the fact that they are so old and that either such paperwork never existed or has not survived.
If the journalist involved, Andrew Anthony, had dug a little deeper, spoken to someone from the Antiquities Dealers’ Association, or at least bothered to check the ADA website, he would have found all the illuminating answers he needed, from the association’s position on responsible collecting, through its mass of independently verifiable data to its analysis of ethics, due diligence, provenance and provenance research.
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