by ADA | Apr 15, 2026 | Views |
Academic and cultural institutions, as well as governments, continue to look down on the art market – it’s unfair and is in no one’s interest
Provenance and Due Diligence have become the critical factors in assessing cultural goods in recent years. Theft, trafficking, unethical acquisition in colonial times, suspected links to money laundering and terrorism financing have all been presented as arguments for tighter controls and reversing the burden of proof so that items and people are deemed ‘guilty’ unless they can demonstrate their innocence.
The ardent pursuit of this ‘solution’ has brought its own problems: an embarrassing dearth of reliable evidence – hence the reversal of the burden of proof (initially under UNIDROIT 1995) – false data and fake news, failure to check facts and sources, overreach that risks breaching human rights and brings other ethical issues. The exploitation of the cultural sphere for soft power diplomacy includes further exploitation by those who wish to harness it for financial gain or political influence. State-backed programmes and institutional interests are where the real power lies: funding and ‘capacity building’ the self-interests at its core.
This is the environment in which the international art market finds itself the useful whipping boy of those who wish to justify their actions and budgets.
For many on the institutional side of the argument, however, the market really is the problem; they see themselves as being in conflict with – and better than – the trade, while positive actions on the part of the market are deemed merely incidental.
A conversation on…Provenance Research and Due Diligence in the Art and Antiquities World: Distinctions, Connections, Synergies, Challenges, held online on April 8 as part of the International Art Market Studies Association Law & the Arts course 2025–2026, attracted more than 140 attendees.
It addressed the increasing relevance of provenance research and the reasons for this, from the social responsibility of institutions, via the Washington Principles relating to Nazi-looted art to a wider moral responsibility to society and history.
Defining the difference between due diligence and provenance research
Attempts to define the difference between provenance research and due diligence were most usefully summarised as the following: due diligence is the checking of provenance to the extent of what a reasonable person should be expected to carry out related to a specific event, such as a sale or acquisition, whereas provenance research is a wider, ongoing investigation into the history, origins and circumstances of an object.
A higher standard of diligence should be expected from art market professionals as they have more knowledge of objects, it was argued. Presumably such a standard would also apply to museum experts for the same reason, but this was not mentioned.
An overwhelming number of attendees to the session work in the public or academic sphere, as curators, provenance researchers attached to institutions or as officials linked to museum organisations. This resulted in a largely uniform perception and opinion.
Despite this being a course staged by the Art Market Studies Association, art market representatives were extremely thin on the ground. None were included as speakers.
This is a chronic issue with much of the debate over ethics, standards and the law relating to the market. A good example came early on, when Sofia Bollo of the Ethnographic museum at the University of Zurich, who also serves on the Chair of the ICOM Italian section, discussed the working group on provenance research at ICOM. Set up in 2023, it includes more than 100 members: anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, unemployed people, museum and research interest – but apparently no one from the international art market. This means that we have a body proposing a set of stringent rules for a market that it has not consulted and about which it has a limited understanding. While this may be fine for setting common standards among institutions such as museums, it is unfortunate when it is quite clear that for any measures to be effective in the market, they must address the market from a practical standpoint.
A useful summary of post Second World War initiatives addressing ethics and behaviour covered UNESCO (1970), UNIDROIT (1995), and various EU Directives. As market professionals have found, however, States Parties to the UNESCO Convention tend to cherry pick the articles that suit them, which means that most, if not all, have yet to submit essential lists of goods of national importance, and few are keen to offer the compensation they are committed to when reclaiming items from honest purchasers.
This trampling of a long-established moral right by a new and questionable ‘ethical’ standard is the whole cultural heritage debate in microcosm.
Bilateral agreements and the creeping recognition of domestic laws internationally (not all of them reasonable, notably US vs McClain – 1977) is increasingly creating a situation where honest owners are deprived of the valid title to their belongings. This trampling of a long-established moral right by a new and questionable ‘ethical’ standard is the whole cultural heritage debate in microcosm.
The Australian academic and specialist in cultural heritage law, Lyndel Prott, argued for ‘required diligence’ rather than ‘due diligence’, but that would also require very clear, globally adopted parameters that have yet to be defined. She took a realistic approach to historical norms, acknowledging that provenance standards today could not be applied retroactively to purchases of decades ago.
Alyssa Thiel, of the Penn Cultural Heritage Center, one of several attendees who have worked in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit (ATU), also considered historic norms. She noted the pressure on museums to acquire the best pieces at a time when their context was seen as more important than their history of ownership.
An enlightened approach, it is not shared by the head of the ATU, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, who has seized many such items.
Prott also argued that private sellers were now more of a problem than market professionals because the latter were subject to greater regulation, including anti-money laundering laws, and many have professional compliance departments.
It is almost as though anyone outside the market refuses to believe that market professionals can act with anything other than dishonest or dishonourable intent.
Absent from the debate, however, was any recognition that just as museums and other institutions don’t want to find themselves handling illicit material, neither do auction houses or dealers – and for the same reasons. It is almost as though anyone outside the market refuses to believe that market professionals can act with anything other than dishonest or dishonourable intent.
The webinar also set out the list of checks that should be undertaken when carrying out due diligence, from checking stolen art databases and ICOM red lists to requiring sellers to provide written evidence and supporting paperwork or, in their absence, a notarised statement. While much of this is already the norm, how much would it cost to pursue all the avenues set out and how long would it take? If such checks are essential for all transactions, how much of the market would survive for lesser, cheaper objects?
As Daniel Healey, a Provenance Research specialist at Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts (and another former ATU staffer) noted, the work of provenance research can become very expensive for museums – sometimes they have to travel to check sources. It is a challenge to museums to fund such provenance research and it requires ongoing support, he advised. They have to rely a lot on colleagues in other institutions.
Again, attendees seemed to apply a double standard here: while Healey complained of the lack of time and resources facing museum curators as they tried to assess items coming up for auction – and blamed auction houses for this – no one considered that auction house specialists themselves, and dealers, faced the same challenges. Why should special consideration be given to one set of professionals but not the other?
Export certificates were another consideration. Now vital under the EU import licensing regulations, the fact that they rarely survive in any useful form continues to be overlooked.
Despite this, the UNIDROIT working group on cultural objects with significant gaps in provenance (usually known as Orphan objects) has been able to make some sensible contributions. Due Diligence is not just about compliance, it’s also about reducing costly mistakes and sustaining public trust.
France is attempting to standardise provenance research
A move in France to nationalise how provenance research is carried out includes a mandatory eight-page provenance form for any public acquisition that is already in place. How would this apply to the market? Who would pay for the compliance? Again, no consideration of the practicalities. Nonetheless, as with every forum of this type, a common complaint was the lack of resources and funding to support their work. Yet no one considers that market professionals face identical issues.
Engaging with the art market is an oft-quoted objective to justify what are usually predictable anti-market outcomes of projects and research. In practice, however, such ‘engagement’ is ignored, ineffectual or simply a fig leaf to cover an ideological approach. Until those in the public sector, together with those in the private institutional sector, recognise that the market faces identical challenges to them, it will be hard to move forward. You cannot expect to apply impossible rules to others while giving a free pass to yourself in the same context.
by ADA | Mar 22, 2026 | Views |
Countless millions are spent investigating cultural property trafficking to little effect
Preventing trafficking in cultural goods is a major preoccupation of the European Union.
It is one of the key objectives of the constantly updating anti-money laundering regulations; it is the main plank of the import licensing regulation introduced last year; and it led to the creation of Germany’s highly restrictive Cultural Property Protection Act in 2016.
Fears of cultural property trafficking, especially within Europe, have resulted in an ongoing series of co-ordinated law enforcement crackdowns across more than 80 countries since 2014, namely: Operations Odysseus (2014), Aureus (2015) Pandoras I, II, III, IV, V and more (2017-), Sardica (2018), and Achei (2019). These all come under the umbrella of the EMPACT initiative (European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats).
Four current projects running for several years and funded by Europe’s Horizon Project to the tune of €18 million follow on from countless others of the same ilk as they investigate the scourge of trafficking. They are Anchise (€4m), Aurora (€3.5m), Enigma (€4m), and Rithms (€5m) plus another €1.5m being assigned.
Their various remits include:
– Developing methods and digital tools for the protection, identification and traceability of cultural goods.
– Protection, tracing, restitution and safeguarding, as well as provenance research.
– The production of evidence-based research to support the deployment of preventative measures against looting and illicit trade of cultural goods.
– Raising awareness, mobilising and further strengthening cooperation among citizens, stakeholders, experts, policy makers and all actors involved.
Plenty of research but nothing to show for it
In Germany from 2015 to 2019, the €1.2m ILLICID Project analysed over 6,100 ancient objects as it attempted to identify the level and patterns of crime and how they might support money laundering and terrorism financing. At no point did its concluding report identify any trafficked goods or any terrorism financing, the prime goal of the whole project.
Now, a project headlined Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society will enjoy another €5 million for ‘capacity building’, ‘evidence and intelligence gathering’, ‘cross domain co-operation’ and ‘consolidated tools and platforms’ – for which read more of the same.
So, with all this time and money spent on assessing the scope, methods and other characteristics of the trafficking of cultural goods in Europe and beyond, how big is the problem and what is this illicit trade worth?
The answer so far is that no one has a clue.
Organisations like UNESCO have tried to get round this in the past by quoting substantial figures (in UNESCO’s case $10 billion annually, first quoted in October 2020) that do not stand up to the slightest scrutiny, and which they have since stopped using, admitting that they had no basis in fact.
In March 2025, The European Commission published its final report under the title Study on measures to increase traceability of cultural goods in the fight against cultural goods trafficking at the Member State level and at the EU level.
It detailed the outcomes of Operations Odysseus, Aureus, Pandora and the rest (costs unknown but certainly in the tens of millions of euros based on minimal available data).
Arrest and seizures but no record of outcomes
Of the operations from 2015-2023, it reported: “These operations seized over 234,000 cultural objects (including small items such as coins), with at least 1,255 investigations initiated and 534 arrests made.”
However, despite these figures, no attempt has been made to measure the effectiveness of these operations. Europol, which helped co-ordinate the operations, has admitted to having no data on how many arrests have led to convictions, nor about how many seized items later had to be returned as licit.
The Commission report also reveals that in at least five of the operations, no data is available relating to the number of investigations launched as a result, and in at least three of them no record is available relating to the number of arrests.
The Commission’s publication of the report in March 2025 coincided with the Antiquities Forum’s launch of a survey of a dozen leading bodies concerned with the issue of cultural heritage crime across the world, from the European Commission itself to the FBI, UNESCO, Europol, Interpol and others. What independently verifiable data did any of them have to demonstrate the level and extent of trafficking, money laundering and terrorism financing using cultural property? Not all of them answered, but those that did provided no data at all.
After so many years of investigations and enforcement operations, what is the problem? Why are Europol and Interpol not tracking outcomes from their operations? With so little hard data to go on, one must ask what the point of these exercises are beyond propaganda and to justify the funding for law enforcement bodies.
Art market risk downgraded by the authorities
Art market representatives at the January 2026 meeting of experts with the European Commission to discuss progress with the import licensing regulation put the question again: what data does the European Union have to show the size and scope of trafficking, as well as the actual value of the illicit market in such objects? This is important bearing in mind the enormous level of resources – including public money – being spent on researching this issue. We await an answer.
At that same meeting, FISMA, the European Commission directorate overseeing financial crime, announced it was downgrading the risk level for the art market for terrorism financing and money laundering owing to a lack of evidence. So what does that tell us?
The European Union continues to fund multiple projects and initiatives to prevent the trafficking and looting of cultural property, primarily through Horizon Europe, the Internal Security Fund (ISF), and direct cooperation with UNESCO. While there is no single, isolated budget line for this, the EU Action Plan (2022–2025) provides a comprehensive framework, with millions allocated to specific research, technological, and law enforcement projects.
Among other recent and current initiatives in addition to those listed above are:
– Specific Horizon 2026 Call: A dedicated call in 2026 for ‘Preventing and fighting illicit trafficking of cultural goods’ – €5 million.
– ARTDETECT, which focuses on cutting-edge technologies like AI and blockchain to detect stolen items. Part of an EU-funded €7.5 million research project via the Horizon programme led by Global technology company Orfium called AIXpert, the ultimate objective is to improve transparency and accountability in artificial intelligence systems across sectors.
– PRISM (2025-2027), which aims to fight trafficking in museums. This is part of a multiple set of distinct EU-funded ‘PRISM’ initiatives, the most recent being a €7.6 million project (PEACEPLUS programme) for manufacturing innovation and another focusing on cultural heritage protection.
– The European Commission has co-delegated €2.8 million to UNESCO for a 36-month project (ending roughly 2025-2026) to fight illicit trafficking of cultural property in the Western Balkans.
In all, current projections account for a total of €22.9 million dedicated to future related initiatives. With the €18 million already accounted for, that’s a total of more than €40 million being funneled into multiple projects essentially doing the same thing. And yet, hard data showing the size, nature and scope of trafficking in cultural property, and its links to terrorism financing, remain all but non-existent.
What are these generous budgets really for?
Is it possible that the funds spent on research into cultural property looting and trafficking are actually greater than the value of the property looted and trafficked globally? Of course we cannot know because despite all the money spent, no one has any idea of what that figure is. What these budgets do ensure, however, is significant funding for academics, technocrats, civil servants and law enforcement as part of the incessant NGO/public policy forum gravy train, with the travelling circus of symposia and forums in plush hotels and conference centres around the globe. Enormous focus is put on process and projects, but precious little on effective outcomes and reliable intelligence. This extraordinarily lavish largesse seems unstoppable. Exactly who is holding those with the purse strings to account as the money disappears over the horizon?
by ADA | Mar 13, 2026 | Uncategorized, Views |
Academic archaeologists do not have a monopoly on ethics and rights when it comes to investigating the past, whatever they may think
Only academics, archaeologists, museums, NGOs and governments should be allowed to make money from ancient objects. Everyone else can – and should – fund their work, but must not be allowed to benefit in any way financially from the sector.
How does that sound?
Whatever your viewpoint, this is effectively what interested parties outside the art and antiques industry are demanding from dealers, auction houses and collectors.
The latest example to hit the headlines involves the consignment to auction of an important partial hoard uncovered in the East of England over the past few years. Recorded properly under the stringent rules of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, it has been identified as the largest known hoard of Iron Age gold coins deposited during the reign of Dubnovellaunos, ruler of the Trinovantes tribe from 25BC-10AD.
The find sheds light on this age of pre-history, while the 16 coins consigned have been released for auction after being assessed by the authorities.
With every box ticked, then, what is the problem?
In short, the individual who made the find and has consigned the coins to auction is an academic archaeologist, Tom Licence, Professor of Medieval History and Literature at the University of East Anglia.
Gamekeeper turned poacher
As far as his academic contemporaries are concerned, this is a case of gamekeeper turned poacher, as an article in the latest copy of The Spectator sets out. Titled How a set of gold coins divided British archaeologists, it explains: “Licence did everything right, but the thought of an Antiquaries fellow selling antiquities has led to a debate about the whole system of collecting and reporting finds.”
It also explains that Tessa Machling, an archaeologist and specialist in gold, recently made a Freedom of Information request and learnt that paying for the whole process of assessment, including salaries for museum curators and liaison officers, costs £8.7 million.
“The metal detecting community pays nothing towards that sum,” the article argues. “They do, however, occasionally get rewarded, and can keep – or sell – their finds. Detectorists gain but contribute nothing, Machling says, who told me [the article’s author] that until recently she’s ‘been shouting into the void’ about this.”
So, one-way traffic on the benefits front, then. Wrong.
As Machling’s own arguments set out, the people who are paid from the largesse raised by the government are the academics, curators, liaison officers and others involved in deciding whether finds constitute Treasure or not. Museums hoping to acquire the best finds need funds to do so. As often as not, these come from private individuals – dealers and collectors a lot of the time. Even the article notes that philanthropists play a big role in this.
As for the idea that detectorists simply enjoy a free ride, this simply illustrates the blinkered attitude of their critics. Detecting is an expensive business – equipment, travel, administration, accommodation etc – usually with no reward. Where they make a find, it is very often after years of disappointment and, as in the case of Tom Licence, it can involve a great deal of work, compliance measures and care to ensure the most vital aspect of this business: the accurate recording of finds in context.
‘Underfunded, overworked and lacking legislation’
“Finds liaison officers, says Machling, are ‘underfunded, overworked and lacking legislation’. She would like metal detectors to be licensed, with a small fee and a commitment to follow agreed standards.”
This is simply wrong. We have The Treasure Act (1996, and amended in 2003) and The Portable Antiquities Scheme, policed by the British Museum, which also oversees the Code of Practice for Responsible Metal Detecting in England and Wales (2017). Together they work more effectively than any other scheme known worldwide, and the resulting discoveries have added an enormous weight of knowledge to the national history and identity.
The problem with a licensing scheme is twofold: the tendency of such schemes to over regulate and be burdensome and punitive; and the risk of people faced with these burdens instead cutting corners by not recording and reporting finds properly.
“Licensing the detectorists would bring another layer of bureaucracy,” writes one commentator under the Spectator article. “A quango set up to administer the licences and before you know it detectorists will need to be DBS checked, have public liability insurance, proof of competency and goodness knows what else. This sounds like public sector overreach for a hobby that benefits historical understanding.”
The bad blood between academic archaeologists and metal detectorists, as well as the wider art and antiques market and collectors, is long standing and has worsened in recent years with the over-politicisation of culture. Museums and their curators, who used to work well and closely with dealers and collectors, now treat them as little more than criminals because that is how so many of the public bodies and campaigners treat them in the quest for control of the sector. This is shortsighted because dealers and collectors tend to handle a great number of items, allowing them to augment their knowledge and expertise regularly – and are often generous donors to public collections. Curators tend to handle fixed collections with little scope for expanding theirs.
It all began with the self-funding amateur collector
Those who rail against the trade and collectors forget that the traditions of preservation, conservation and scholarship, began with the self-funding amateur collector, and that many of the world’s greatest museum collections had their origins in the private holdings of individuals.
Soon to be published in English is The Demonized Collector, a memoir by Dutch dealer Karl Stimm, who contrasts decades of often unpaid effort in helping bring the past to the surface in a responsible manner with the brickbats thrown at him and other dedicated enthusiasts by well-paid academics shouting from the sidelines.
From the comments under The Spectator article, it seems that the public is more enlightened than the world of academia and archaeology, and possesses a more developed sense of natural justice.
Many seem well aware of the time, effort and money put into detecting by the detectorists. One goes as far as to suggest defunding archaeologists and academics and instead using the funds to buy the finds. Not the most helpful suggestion, it does, however, show that those currently pointing the finger at detectorists and the market might find themselves the target of mass criticism if they push too far.
by ADA | Jan 21, 2026 | Views |
Lack of data, high costs, poor resources and risks to human rights continue to blight the mission to trace trafficked cultural property
Study on measures to increase traceability of cultural goods in the fight against cultural goods trafficking at the Member State level and at the EU level (Final report)
This report into what the European Commission believes should be done next to tackle the blight of cultural property trafficking is an eye-opener. It is telling that initial publication should take place just three months before the final enforcement of the previous mass enforcement measure, Reg 2019/880 on import licensing.
Nonetheless, this new report is fascinating because of what it reveals: specifically, the ongoing lack of data despite decades of study and multi-million euro funding for research; and high levels of self-awareness indicating an overwhelming lack of confidence in the viability of what is being proposed here. A continent-wide system linking up all existing databases (and adding new ones where needed) after they have adapted to a single standard could be a very effective means of combatting crime. However, as this 320-page report makes abundantly clear, too many obstacles persist to render this ambition anything but a fantasy.
Essentially the objective of the report is to pave the way for the introduction of a compulsory EU-wide registration and standardised due diligence system for reporting cultural property transactions. The idea is that this would allow national databases to interact with each other to create an EU-wide safety net and monitoring system.
EU-wide standardised network of databases
A continent-wide system linking up all existing databases (and adding new ones where needed) after they have adapted to a single standard could be a very effective means of combatting crime. However, as this 320-page paper makes abundantly clear, too many obstacles persist to render this ambition anything but a fantasy. Here are a few of the issues it raises:
– What would an effective single standard look like?
– Who would decide on what should be included?
– How do you define the parameters of what should be included on the databases?
– How do you get all Member States to comply when only nine of the 27 currently have databases and they are incompatible?
– What value threshold would you introduce if, as stated, the intention is to focus on high value goods (a wise course)? Matching the AML standard, as mooted, would mean €10,000, but that is very low and would risk overwhelming business, customs and possibly the databases themselves.
– Who would have access to the databases bearing in mind the historic protectionism exercised by existing databases? The report acknowledges that they would be ineffective if not publicly accessible.
– How do you persuade Member States to proceed when they have been unwilling so far and would largely have to fund the project themselves and set up support and enforcement teams? Initial estimated costs are €36.8 million, with an extra €383 million to link up Member States effectively.
– Why do we need further regulation when the same objectives are covered by existing measures such as EU Reg 2019/880 on import licensing?
– The report repeatedly emphasises the need for EU standards and human rights to be honoured, yet acknowledges just as repeatedly that what is being proposed risks breaching them.
As revealing is what comes in the preamble, where we discover the following:
– Data is hard to find and reliable data is largely non-existent, but art and antiques are seen as relatively high risk because they can be traded.
– Compliance value thresholds and claims of crime levels rely largely on guesswork.
– Law enforcement and others mostly extrapolate international crime levels from a few individual cases.
– Many of those cases involve art and criminals but not the art market.
– Risk categorisation for Terrorism Financing and Money Laundering are guesswork, with nation states acting on wish lists from law enforcement bodies and the belief that the risk must be high because it involves goods that can be traded.
Art Market input
As explained on page 277 of the report, apart from a few unspecified targeted interviews, consultation on this study with the art market was as follows:
An online survey targeting art market participants was launched in April 2024 and data was exported in July 2024. The survey aimed at gathering information about perceptions of the prevalence of trafficking, transaction recording practices and administrative costs and compliance costs incurred. A total of 32 replies were received from art dealers, galleries, auction houses, antique dealers and gallerists from Austria (1), Belgium (1), Czechia (1), Germany (11), France (2), Portugal (1), Sweden (6), Switzerland (1), the Netherlands (4) and the United Kingdom (3).
by ADA | Jan 5, 2026 | Views |
No questions asked; no curiosity – how the media deals with attacks on the art market
One of the most concerning aspects surrounding fake news as it applies to the subject of cultural heritage is the widespread failure of the media to address the issue properly.
While a daily stream of reports chide the international art market as a haven for criminals involved in theft, smuggling and money laundering, vanishingly few journalists ever seem to check the validity of claims being put out by governments, law enforcement, NGOs and others.
In 2022 and 2023, it appeared that we had turned a corner when European Commissioners and senior officials at UNESCO finally accepted that massively inflated claims regarding the value of illicit material being trafficked across the world were simply untrue.
One of the most important papers on the matter at the time was the Cambridge University Press published The illicit trade in antiquities is not the world’s third-largest illicit trade: a critical evaluation of a factoid. Its authors, Drs Neil Brodie and Donna Yates had long been critics of the trade, but had come to agree with the evidence-based arguments promoted by the industry that the claims were false and actually harmed the interests of heritage and culture because they risked encouraging further thefts.
Regulation that has the potential to harm legitimate trade has come into force on the back of false data promoted by those who wish to prevent that trade – the European Union’s new import licensing law 2019/880 is a case in point.
The false impression created by bilateral agreements
The rise of bilateral agreements, particularly between the United States and other countries (at least 35 now relating to cultural heritage) spreads a false impression that countries of origin are able to reclaim artefacts because US law enforcement is doing a great job of finding looted and trafficked pieces. The reality is that these agreements bypass the usual property rights cited under the US Constitution, as well as dispensing with the need for evidence, both of which would protect citizens under normal circumstances. Instead, they effectively wave through a kleptocratic system that allows the state to seize its people’s possessions and use them for soft-power purposes. Then the media, on a global basis, simply parrot the claims of the authorities rather than asking for evidence that the items in question were, indeed, illicit.
This is all bad enough, but the failure of the media to highlight the scandal, even when presented with the evidence, effectively makes it complicit. It’s almost as though reporters are simply reprinting the media releases from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and the State Department. No questions asked; no curiosity.
The same unquestioning approach has made gospels out of official reports which simply do not stand up to scrutiny, such as the deeply flawed February 2023 Financial Action Task Force report into money laundering, trafficking and terrorism financing related to art, Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in the Art and Antiquities Market.
It would be easy to blame the lack of training and resources for the media’s failure to examine these issues more robustly or even carry out basic fact checking. However, as all this has gone on, many leading media outlets have indeed taken a robust approach, but only where articles support the market position and expose the untruths leveled at it.
Articles supporting the market are ‘lost’ on submission
Antiquities Forum knows of numerous instances where articles pitched with every fact supported by detailed footnotes and/or embedded links to primary sources have been ‘lost’ by the commissioning editor – sometimes two or three times – with renewed submissions ultimately ignored or refused without reason. These are articles from expert writers and journalists who have had no problem securing publication with those same titles on other subjects.
At the same time, stories that are patently untrue or unsupported by evidence are published without question – clearly without any fact checking going on.
Comments under articles have been equally ‘mislaid’, ignored or simply censored if they challenge market critics. It seems no one in the media is interested in the widespread abuse of citizens’ rights, including the reversal of the burden of proof – now commonplace – when it comes to ownership, so that your property is considered stolen unless you have the paperwork to prove that it is not. Surely the media should be interested in something as fundamental as the decision to treat people as guilty rather than innocent as a basic standard of civilised society. But apparently not.
As a former member of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) that briefs Congress, lawyer Peter Tompa is a noted authority on the law as it applies to cultural heritage. A prominent campaigner among the coin collecting community, senior official of the Global Heritage Alliance and author of the Cultural Property Observer blog, as well as numerous articles in Cultural Property News, he is exactly the sort of expert that the media should be falling over themselves to interview, especially as he is hugely concerned with the attack on citizens’ rights. Instead, as he has just explained, he appears to have been blacklisted.
Market commentator blacklisted
Following a recent article in influential Washington publication The Hill by cultural property lawyer Rick Mr. St. Hilaire – no friend of the market over the years – Tompa found his own comments on the issue barred.
“The Hill Newspaper refused to publish this comment, supposedly because it violates their ‘community standards’,” he explained.
“Also, Mr. St. Hilaire disallows comments on his posts, except for people he is already connected with. So, here it is.” What Tompa explains, but The Hill did not, was that St Hilaire “is associated with an archaeological advocacy group that has received substantial State Department funding as a ‘soft power measure’”.
Among Tompa’s disallowed expert critique of St Hilaire’s comments was the following: “The major issue with his punitive approach is that it seeks to enforce confiscatory foreign laws here and assumes that even common items like historic coins purchased from legitimate markets in Europe are ‘stolen’ if they don’t have a long document trails proving ‘licit’ origins. Due process for American citizens should be the utmost consideration. Not using criminal law to threaten collectors on behalf of foreign governments, particularly authoritarian regimes in the Middle East which declare anything old State property.” Tompa goes on to explain how he then tried another version, complete with citations, but The Hill wouldn’t publish it, either.
“On reflection, perhaps that’s not all that surprising because The Hill has rejected other opinion pieces from me in the past (including the one quoted at the end that was ultimately published by the American Bar Association) and others representing collector interests. Meanwhile, the Antiquities Coalition and others with similar views seem to get what they want published in The Hill Newspaper. In any event, judge for yourself if this post violates ‘community standards’ or if it’s just another case where the views of collectors and the trade are being suppressed by a ‘woke’ press.”
And in a final challenge to The Hill, he adds: “If you are really interested in a conversation you will publish this comment. As archaeologists claim, context is important.”
Whatever the media’s reason for failing this challenge, from a journalistic perspective it makes no sense to duck what is really a sensational story of widespread collusion and apparent corruption at the heart of the State. Does no one want a Pulitzer Prize anymore?
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