The Antiquities Trade: Time for clear thinking, plain speaking and a constructive approach

by | Jun 7, 2016 | Uncategorized, Views | 0 comments

ADA media image

Ivan Macquisten, policy and media adviser to the Antiquities Dealers Association (ADA), speaks on behalf of the ADA at Destruction of Monuments and Memory in the Middle East, a seminar organised by the Iran Heritage Foundation, at Asia House in London on December 16, 2015 (video of speech)

Firstly, I would like to thank you very much indeed for inviting the Antiquities Dealers Association to speak today. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it, especially as it so rarely happens. In fact, apart from one other conference recently, I have not seen a single instance of a panel, symposium, debate or conference giving the trade a say, so what you have done is really important.

I’m not standing here today with a view to any special pleading for the trade. I am standing here to tell you that what is going on in Iraq and Syria, first from the human perspective and then also from the cultural and historical viewpoint, is as abhorrent to members of the Antiquities Dealers Association and other honest dealers and auctioneers as it is to you and everyone else.

That is why we want to bring our knowledge and expertise to bear in fighting this evil. All we ask of you is that you allow us to do so.

The perception of antiquities dealers as the devil’s disciples is a long misplaced view that even now rears its head as unfounded accusations of dealers funding Daesh appear in the media with depressing regularity – accusations we do not take lightly.

But before we examine what could be behind these ‘blood antiquities’ and billion-dollar headlines, I want to talk about not what separates us but what brings each and everyone one of us here today together.

Principally we share your desire to see Daesh defeated, the peoples of Syria and Iraq given hope, peace and safety, and to make sure that we neither wittingly nor unwittingly contribute to the funding of terrorist activities.

It has been very hard to keep up with the proliferation of conferences and seminars on this subject, as well as all the news stories and newly formed organisations aimed at highlighting real or perceived problems with the antiquities trade.

Nonetheless, we have been monitoring the many and varied claims in the media that looted Syrian and Iraqi antiquities are being traded in London, New York and Western Europe. Aside from the Hobby Lobby investigation now underway, centring on around 200 cuneiform tablets thought to have come out of Iraq illegally, we have yet to see any claim supported by hard evidence.

We all know and understand the vital importance of provenance when it comes to trading in antiquities, but it is also important to apply the same rigour to providing evidence to support claims of wrongdoing.

We need to deal in facts, not propaganda

We are not complacent about the need to be vigilant, nor the need to prevent what looting is taking place, nor how essential it is to prevent trading in trafficked antiquities. However, we need to deal in facts, not propaganda or emotive speculation.

We should be able to rely on what the authorities tell us, but it is difficult when even they do not agree.

Take, for instance, Col. Matthew Bogdanos, whose work protecting the Iraqi National Museum formed the basis of his book Thieves of Baghdad. At a conference held at the Asia Society, New York, on September 24, he told delegates that so much information was classified he had to clear what he said in advance. Giving no source or evidence, presumably as a result of these restrictions, he told the audience, “ISIS is making tens of millions, and I am telling you that this is a low figure that is not exaggerated”.

Just five days later at the Bureau of Educational Affairs Conflict Antiquities symposium, Andrew Keller, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, said: “The U.S. government assesses that ISIL has probably earned several million dollars from antiquity trafficking since mid-2014. But the actual amount is unknown.”

Meanwhile an October 28 article by Jed Lipinski on Nola.com, the website of the Times-Picayune of New Orleans, profiles Tess Davis, executive director of the Antiquities Coalition, a campaign and lobby organisation described in the article as “a Washington-based nonprofit that unites experts against global antiquities trafficking”. Lipinski writes: “The federal government estimates the group (Daesh) could be making as much as $100 million a year from smuggled artifacts, many of which may already be entering U.S. ports.”

So which is it? Bogdanos’s tens of millions? Keller’s several million since mid-2014 or Lipinski’s $100 million a year?

Maybe it’s none of these. An October 29 article on Washington website thehill.com quotes Senator Robert Casey Jr saying antiquities trafficking from Syria and Iraq is second only to illicit oil sales, which bring in up to $100m a month. He plans to introduce a new bill restricting trade in antiquities further on the strength of this.

Mauro Miedico, Chief of Section, of the Terrorism Prevention Branch of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime, followed Andrew Keller’s speech at the same symposium.

He told the gathering: “In 2011, my office, UNODC, estimated that the proceeds of transnational crime related to art and cultural property amounted to between $3.4 and $6.3 billion yearly.”

This was his office’s estimate, from four years ago, of crime related to the entire global art market, of which antiquities is a minute part. How does that translate to the $3 billion figure we have heard oft quoted as the value of the trade in illicit antiquities?

‘Cosy cabal of academics and others’

Later Col Bogdanos, when asked who is buying the trafficked antiquities, says: “It is a cozy cabal of academics, art historians, dealers, gallery owners, auction houses, museums and private collectors.” However, again he offers no evidence of this.

How many of these people has he prosecuted in his current role of Assistant District Attorney? Surely he could tell us a figure for that, at least? Certainly, the Hobby Lobby case aside, our monitoring of the media has yet to show up a single arrest, let alone a charge or conviction, for a US, British or Western European antiquities dealer on a charge of trading in antiquities looted from Syria or Iraq since Daesh invaded.

Perhaps Katie Paul could point the way. She is Research Director for the Antiquities Coalition and stated in her October 1 Huffington Post article: “…The American antiquities market is funding the very terror group the US government is seeking to eradicate.” I assume she has evidence of this, although, again, the article offers none.

Nor does Senator Casey, who, despite telling Washington’s thehill.com that the looted antiquities trade is second only to the up to $100m a month illicit oil trade, does not know of any specific cases of U.S. citizens who have bought stolen artifacts from ISIS, but, “wouldn’t be surprised if it is happening”.

I do not quote all of the above to be facetious, but to illustrate a fraction of the issue we are dealing with and why claims in the media need challenging if they are presented without source evidence.

If US Government representatives speaking at conferences within days of each other cannot agree on the figures, we have a serious problem.

Another US Government representative, Robert Hartung from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, also at the Conflict Antiquities symposium, announced the “Rewards for Justice” programme would offer up to $5 million for information leading to the disruption of antiquities sales that benefit Daesh. What he didn’t say was that the programme applies to oil smuggling as well and this accounts for hundreds of millions of dollars of Daesh revenue. Has the $5 million been awarded yet? (See page 9 of 17 of video transcript)

So far I have highlighted the lack of evidence put forward together with a series of conflicting statistics when it comes to the value of looted and trafficked antiquities.

Now let’s look at what evidence does exist and where it comes from.

The 2015 TEFAF Art Market Report, produced by Arts Economics, shows the entire 2014 global Art & Antiques market reached €51 billion. (See page 15, Key Findings)

Legitimate global Syrian antiquities market worth around €20m

Current research undertaken by IADAA (the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art) into the legitimate global trade in antiquities estimates its value at between €150 million and €200 million, so 0.4% of the global Art & Antiques market. How much of that is Syrian antiquities? Probably around 5-10%. That would be around €20 million at most. (See James Ede, ‘Dealers: Trade, Traffic and the Consequences of Demonisation’, IADAA, Articles of IADAA Members)

Commonsense tells us that the illicit trade will be smaller than this figure, so this is what we are likely to be dealing with in reality. Nothing to get complacent about but nowhere near the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars being quoted.

All sides in the debate agree that a very significant source of evidence resulted from a US Special Forces raid in Syria in May. Andrew Keller revealed this during his speech, referred to above.

The raid, at the home of Abu Sayyaf, a high-ranking Daesh officer, recovered receipts from his six-month tenure as head of Daesh’s antiquities division.

These showed that he collected at least $265,000 in taxes for antiquities – known to be charged at a rate of 20% – which would equate to an antiquities trade of about $1.3 million for a few months, perhaps amounting to $4 million over the course of a year.

Importantly, Neil Brodie, Senior Research Fellow in the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research at the University of Glasgow, and highly active for decades as a campaigner for more trade restrictions, has subjected these findings to analysis in his recent article for the European Union National Institutes for Culture.

Brodie analyses the receipts and confirms the $4 million figure, although there is some confusion as to whether the receipts also encompass minerals. Certainly, Brodie notes, this “would pay for a lot of antiquities, yet very few have been identified on the destination market”.

Ben Taub, a journalist, has dug a little deeper, having some of the Arabic on the receipts that had not been made public by the US State department translated by Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton and an expert on Daesh. He says its is unambiguous; these documents urge the excavation teams to extract not only antiquities but also metals and minerals. So, what does this
$4 million figure refer to?

Brodie also notes that the more “archaeologically-rich” western areas of Syria remain under the control of forces loyal to Assad, and points to a further source of evidence showing that antiquities provide just 0.8% of Daesh’s income, which “accords well with the US Department of the Treasury’s seemingly low estimation of the antiquities trade’s financial importance”.

‘Archaeology community’s strategy risks inappropriate response’

Brodie goes on to argue that “There is an opinion within the archaeological community that highlighting the financial importance to ISIL of the antiquities trade will make it an issue of national security and ensure a strong government response. The danger with this line of reasoning is that the response might be inappropriate.” The ADA endorses this view. But it suits the agenda of those who are keen on dismantling the antiquities trade.

He echoes Keller in calling for effective strategies to eliminate demand.

If he means demand for looted and trafficked antiquities, the ADA backs him all the way.

Objects may be appearing in countries bordering Syria, principally Turkey and the Lebanon, as well as on social media; in all probability ending up with those who are not part of the known and traditional market. Why do we suspect this? Because we are not seeing anything on the market here in London.

There is a great deal of work to be done to identify exactly where looted material is going, but it is clearly not going to the traditional and established market. The types of objects – beads, coins, pottery – that we have all seen photos of are generally of very poor quality or fake and are of a type that have been on the market for many decades and in any event wouldn’t go very far in funding the rent on a London flat let alone the world’s most notorious terrorist organisation.

Of course the repeated quoting of enormous and patently absurd values of looted antiquities apparently being sold in Europe and elsewhere is only going to fuel further illegal activity in the Middle East and for this reason, alone, the media – and those prompting journalists – need to behave responsibly.

So what are we in the trade doing to make sure we do not handle illicit antiquities?

Our trade associations have actively collaborated with Government in this country to address these issues and will continue to do so. The ADA, for instance, has completely rewritten its Code of Conduct, with mechanisms in place should a member be found in contravention of the Code.

We intend to encourage non-trade association members to embrace the tenets of our Code of conduct and will work hard to ensure that all those who deal in antiquities in this country remain vigilant. You will be able to read the Code in full when we relaunch our website in 2016, as well as much else to improve transparency, clarity and due diligence, such as the links to Red Lists.

And we are also working closely with Law Enforcement, including Scotland Yard’s Art & Antiques Squad, academics and Members of Parliament to ensure that we are part of the ongoing debate. Our involvement is absolutely essential.

Clear provenance carries a premium

No other area of the international art market now prizes provenance more than we do. Best of all, clear provenance now carries a premium at auction, encouraging all concerned to establish it as often as possible.

If objects are being offered well below market value, especially by people you do not know, alarm bells should ring.

However, we too rely on information and this is rarely forthcoming from source countries. This may be for a number of reasons but this cannot continue if we are to be effective.

The trade’s critics are a little too fond of using the Becchina and Medici archives to beat us over the head with. Give us access to them and we will happily ensure they form a major part of all due diligence.

What is needed is not breast-beating and demonisation of the trade, but new and accurate data that provides better grounds for response.

As Neil Brodie warns, the response to the Syrian crisis must not be inappropriate.

It is for governments and international organisations to source this information and to pass it on to those on the ground, including law enforcement, museums and the trade. But this information must be based on facts and not spin or speculation. Only then can we assess what is actually occurring and make sure we are able to halt or reduce smuggling on the borders of these countries.

So how can we in the trade help?

There is no doubt that amidst the destruction, illicit material is being squirrelled away, as has been suggested. This really worries us… as this material will necessarily surface on the open market sooner or later. This could be some years from now.

The challenge for us is to make sure we have the correct mechanisms in place to prevent the legitimate trade from handling illicit material and, where possible, identify it and return it if and when it does appear. It is clear that the help of the trade is going to be vital in confronting this problem and it will require a long-term collaboration.

We must find ways to protect archaeological sites.

In this country there must be an effective system of communication between all parties concerned. What we are finding is that there are press leaks to different individuals with different agendas. What we do need to recognise is that in order to make sure London remains ‘clean’, there is a clear alert system to all of us who are involved from law enforcement, Customs, counter terrorism and academia to the trade. Problems cannot be resolved via the media and press briefings.

We must also find a solution for those antiquities currently circulating in the market, a line drawn in the sand that gives those objects an amnesty so they can be traded freely. It will make managing the future of antiquities a more achievable goal. If you want to suppress the illicit market, it is imperative to support the legitimate market and to encourage transparency as opposed to fear.

Those critics of the trade who find themselves unable to work with us should perhaps ask themselves if this attitude is really in the greater interest. It should be clear to all who have been following recent events who your enemy really is… and it really isn’t us. We are part of the solution and not the problem.

 

Starting Collecting

by | May 9, 2016 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

The Basics

CLEARLY the major motivation for collecting antiquities is an interest in past civilisations*. As our own is derived from them, their study can help us put our own world into perspective and teach us that human nature has not changed as much as we might like to think. To be able actually to handle the material culture of our predecessors brings them to life in a way that reading and visiting museums cannot. In addition, many of the objects have highly attractive aesthetic qualities.

Collecting may also, of course, be seen as a form of investment, but in the case of antiquities caution is essential, because of the wide fluctuations of the market. Here it is best always to think long-term. While buying what you like, also spending prudently. Initially, it is very difficult to know what is a good buy and what is not. With antiquities there are perhaps more pitfalls than in most other fields and some will be discussed in this article. So do a considerable amount of homework before making a first purchase. Visit galleries, auctions, fairs and, naturally, museums. Build up contacts with members of the trade, such as those who advertise in the pages of ANCIENT and with local museums. Whenever possible handle objects so as to get a ‘feel’ for them.

I would suggest that the first step is to look at the background of antiquities’ collecting. The whole subject has become quite controversial in recent years and prospective collectors should familiarise themselves with the different aspects of the debate.

Some extremists even oppose the whole idea of private collecting. But humans are naturally acquisitive and collecting is as old as the objects themselves. Prehistoric flints and fossils have been discovered in Roman villas in Britain in contexts which suggest they were prized possessions. The Emperor Hadrian is known to have collected Greek marbles and Egyptian antiquities.

By the sixteenth century monarchs and rich aristocrats were building up fine collections. The taste developed later in England than in much of Europe. This was partly because the main cultural influence was Renaissance Italy and party from a puritanical aversions to acquiring images of heathen deities. A change first began under the Stuart kings. Prince Henry, eldest son of James I, laid the foundations of a coin collection, enlarged after his premature death by his brother Charles, later Charles I, who also acquired gems from the Dutch collector, Abraham Gorlaeus. In 1639, a catalogue prepared by Abraham Vanderdoort, Keeper of the Royal Collection in Whitehall, mentioned 169 statues at St James’s Palace and Somerset House and a further 230 in the Palace of Greenwich, although it is unlikely they were all ancient. During the Commonwealth most of Charles’ collection was sold, though Cromwell managed to hold on to a few of the sculptures.

At this time the leading sculpture collector was undoubtedly Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey. His considerable collection, though not always of the finest quality, was largely dispersed by his grandson, Henry Howard. However, through the wise intervention of a family friend, the diarist John Evelyn, the majority of pieces were donated to Oxford University.

As European travel increased in the seventeenth century so did interest in the riches of the past. By the eighteenth century the Grand Tour was taking the wealthy young particularly to France, Italy and Greece. From this era emerged the founders of many of today’s great collections—men like Sir William Hamilton, Charles Townley, Cardinal Albani and Henry Blundell. It was from the legacy of another great collector, Sir Hans Sloane, that the British Museum was found. A look at the list of benefactors of the British Museum demonstrates that this tradition continues to this day.

Joanna van der Lande is an Associate Director at Bonhams and the head of Bonhams Antiquities Department. She is also deputy chairman of the Antiquities Dealers Association

Useful Addresses:
The Antiquities Dealers Association (ADA) 1997-98 Directory available from the secretary: Susan Hadida, c/o Faustus Ancient Art and Jewellery, 41 Dover Street, London W1X 3RB, UK. The International Association of

Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA). Chairman: James Ede, Charles Ede Ltd., 20 Brook Street, London W1Y 1AD, UK.

Ethics; The Antiquities Trade & Archaeology

by | May 9, 2016 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

The art trade has faced increasing scrutiny in recent years. This has focused largely on the subject of ethics, and in particular the standards used by the trade when acquiring objects for which no firm provenance is available. Whilst this scrutiny has applied to the whole art market, the antiquities trade in particular has faced a barrage of criticism, some of it deserved, but for the most part based on prejudice, ill-will or simply ignorance. It has been particularly galling for scrupulous dealers to see the way in which misinformation quickly becomes accepted as fact; for example Lord Renfrew made an off-the-cuff pronouncement some years ago stating that the trade in illicitly excavated material amounted to some £3,000,000,000 per annum, and was second only to the trade in drugs. This is clearly nonsense, as even he now admits, but journalists have seized on this figure and so the myth is perpetuated. A recent article in the Guardian applied this figure of three billion pounds to annual thefts from Saqqara, a single site in Egypt! This would be laughable, were the implications of such attack not so serious; for what is at stake here is the whole foundation on which the art trade is based, namely that the private ownership of art and the connoisseurship which collecting inspires, are desirable in a cultured society. This tenet has been held by almost everyone for the last five hundred years. It has had an enormously important effect on the way in which the great museums of the world have developed, and this in turn has lead to a much wider appreciation of world cultural heritage. Dealers in antiquities are genuinely shocked therefore to find some academics so bitterly opposed to this process.

The International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA) was formed in 1993 and from the outset it was clear that one of our most urgent tasks was to address this apparent conundrum. We believe one of our prime functions as dealers is to participate actively in the preservation of the remains of man’s ancient past. For this reason we have decided to take as dispassionate a view as possible of the way things are, with a view to making sensible contributions towards improving the situation. This necessarily includes understanding our opponents’ position. In brief, some archaeologists (and it is important to stress the strong divergence of opinion within the academic community) regard a trade in antiquities as being wholly undesirable, since they believe that the vast majority of objects on the market have been illicitly excavated in recent times with a concomitant destruction of archaeological evidence. Furthermore, many of them believe that an object outside its context is valueless for the purposes of scholarship. The last point is not open to reasoned argument because one either accepts the importance of antiquities from an art historical perspective or not, but the first point is based on ignorance of the true situation, and therefore must be addressed.

Antiquities have been collected for thousands of years – for example the Romans were avid collectors of Greek sculpture – and in this time, the number of pieces coming on to the market ran to millions. Unfortunately their perceived importance has fluctuated down the ages (for example the Arab inhabitants of Egypt routinely used ancient wood sculptures to light fires) and for this reason provenance’s for the vast majority of these works have been lost. War, migration, economic development and sheer indifference have all taken their toll as well. The provenance of large numbers of objects has been discovered by chance, long after they have been sold. It is therefore unacceptable to suggest that lack of provenance means that a particular object has recently been stolen. Very often the source of pieces is deliberately obscured for perfectly legitimate reasons, where, for example, the inheritor of an object does not wish his family to know that he is selling. All these issues serve to muddy the water and to create an environment in which it is possible for those opposed to the trade to maintain the pretence that the majority of objects are on the market illicitly. For these reasons those on the inside know that this is not the case, but it would also be disingenuous of us to suggest that there is not a problem with illicitly excavated or exported material. In fact, these are two separate problems, and in order to address them, we need to understand the historical context.

Most source countries have some form of control over the export of archaeological material; these range from the pragmatic (the U.K, Germany, the Netherlands) to the draconian (Greece, Turkey, Egypt). The fiercest laws were passed at very different times, but are essentially chauvinistic, and it is interesting to note that in almost all cases they have been enacted at a time of nationalistic revival (in Italy under Mussolini, in Greece following the War of Independence from Turkey, in Egypt under Nasser). These laws have been designed to foster a belief in outside cultural imperialism, and are both a symptom and a source of a deep emotional feeling. Unfortunately emotion is a bad basis for legislation, and though these laws have proved remarkably ineffective, their emotional basis makes it very difficult for the relevant authorities to adjust them in a way which might make them work. These laws are also by no means uniform; for whereas some countries (Egypt, Turkey) have taken the drastic step of ‘nationalising’ all antiquities (even when privately owned for generations), others have allowed private ownership, and dealing, to continue. The latter case usually involves a strict embargo on export, and this has served to produce a false, two-tiered market. IADAA believes that ‘nationalisation’ of legitimately held objects amounts to State theft, and that the second case is also indefensible, especially in the context of the European Union: if Europe is to have any meaning as a single entity, surely its cultural heritage must be regarded as common property? Given that such privately owned objects were removed from their context years ago, and we have already seen that anti-trade academics regard such objects as worthless, there is no archaeological argument in favour of them being rigidly chained to their country of origin, any more than all Georgian candlesticks should remain within the United Kingdom. By encouraging smuggling, such laws are having a diametrically opposed effect to that which was intended. Adjustment to encourage the legitimate trade would go a long way towards restricting the smuggling routes on which illicit trade depends, and we hold that free trade need not only apply to privately owned pieces. Government storehouses and museums are bulging with objects which have no recorded provenance and which are extremely poorly conserved due to lack of funds. Surely many of these pieces could also be released to the market, since they are believed to have no archaeological value?

A third area, which deserves consideration, is the problem of chance finds. It is inevitable that a large proportion of excavated material will be found during the course of normal agricultural and economic activity. Draconian laws result in the destruction of the archaeological record unless a proper system of reward exists, since the finder will usually channel such objects into an illicit market. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the penalties for doing so are now so severe that finders are deliberately destroying pieces rather than run the risk of being caught with them. This is an absurd situation. In this respect the laws of the U.K, whilst far from perfect, offer a solution. There a finder has an inducement to declare his discovery. Either the state takes ownership and pays a reward equivalent to the market value, or, if the piece is not of particular importance, ownership is granted to the finder. Either way, the archaeological information is preserved, although it would be even better to formulate a system whereby the reward was greater for finds left in situ whilst the report was made.

One further point needs to be made perfectly clear: IADAA firmly believes that every country has a right (and indeed a duty) to preserve in public ownership the most important cultural objects, and should have a pre-emptive right over new finds. What we are referring to above are the vast majority of antiquities which have no particular importance and which are already more than amply represented in public collections.

There can and should be no doubt that a market for antiquities will continue to exist – man’s interest in his own past, not to mention the legitimate impulse to collect beautiful objects, will see to that – but there is a choice to be made. Either legitimate dealers may be driven out of business by a process of increasing red tape, in which case the illicit trade will flourish, or the legitimate trade may be allowed to exist in a controlled context which would help to strangle the illegitimate traffic. This is a choice, which can only be made by sovereign governments, and it will take immense courage and foresight to arrive at the correct solution, but it must be faced. IADAA is ready and willing to help in any way possible.