Archaeologists and Acquisitionists

15 Pages·2011·0.08 MB·English

by  Wolfgang Haase

Archaeologists and Acquisitionists
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Robin F. Rhodes (ed.), The Acquisition and Exhibition of Classical Antiquities: Pro-
fessional, Legal, and Ethical Perspectives (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of
Notre Dame Press,2007), XIII + 192 pp.
Herein are published the papers presented at a symposium held at the Uni-
versity of Notre Dame on February 24, 2007, organized by Robin F. Rhodes ,
Professor of Art History, and Charles R. Loving, Director of the Snite Museum
of Art, both at Notre Dame University. There are eight articles, each followed
by a short response. The contributors are seven archaeologists (two of whom
are also curators), two lawyers, three art historians, and one architect; three are
museum directors. Eight of the speakers are on the faculty of Notre Dame.1
The symposium was open to the general public, not confined to academics
and museum personnel, a good and even necessary idea.2
In the “Preface” (pp. XI-XII) and “Introduction” (pp. 1-8) Rhodes informs
us of the topics the contributors were asked to address, the looting of antiq-
uities and subsequent sales and exhibition problems, all given equal oppor-
tunity to express their views. One of the symposium’s aims was “to move
beyond the rather clear-cut moral response to looting, and on to … the more
subtle[italics mine] implications of buying, selling, and exhibiting antiquities”
1. One of the archaeologists is described in the Participants identification section
(p.175) as “the foremost American excavator in Greece of the later twentieth cen-
tury.” I find this embarrassingly obsequious (did Rhodes write this because he
works on the archaeologist’s excavation?).
2. I was once invited to give a lecture on forgeries at the Hartford Museum in Con-
necticut. When I arrived I discovered that I was to speak before a closed, invited
audience of lawyers, and that the public was excluded. My complaint to the di-
rector that I was not informed of the public’s exclusion was not appreciated.
International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 18, No. 2, September 2011, pp. 449-463.
450 International Journal of the Classical Tradition / September 2011
(p. xi). Until I read this (attempt to be sophisticated) sentence I did not know
that the buying, selling and exhibition of plundered antiquities was more sub-
tle than the looting (and destruction) of ancient cultural sites. A second aim
was to discuss the consequences of looting and repatriation and to determine
if there is/could be a consensus among archaeologists and museum directors.
Avoided here, up front, is an explanation why (in most cases) they are ideo-
logically on opposite sides: thus, we are being asked if there can be agreement
between the excavators and preservers of sites and their artifacts and those
who support the plundering of sites by their purchase of “antiquities” (see
the papers by M. Bell: one of the few to note that the word antiquity signifies
a plundered object; S. Vassallo and N. Bookidis). Rhodes explains the gene-
sis of the symposium as “a growing concern” about acquisitions of classical
antiquities, which concern became enhanced by the “glamorous prosecution”
of Robert Hecht, “a notorious antiquities dealer” (who sold the Euphronios
krater to the billionaire trustees of the Metropolitan Museum), and Marion
True, curator at the Getty Museum—who, for some unrevealed reason, is not
labeled “a notorious purchaser of antiquities.”
Rhodes offers as an example of the acquisition of antiquities and the re-
sulting loss of information of a “traceable provenance” (but without men-
tioning the cultural destruction involved at that “provenance”) the
Metropolitan Museum’s trustees’ purchase of the Euphronios krater. After
many refusals, the trustees “agreed to return” the krater to Italy in 2006 (p. 6).3
And soothed by the return agreement with Italy, Rhodes instructs us on the
positive role of such “new initiatives for culturalexchange” (italics mine; p. 8),
ignoring that the exchange word is a transparent euphemism for the ransom
Italy paid to the museum’s director and trustees: annual “loans” of excavated
artifacts deriving from the nation whence the krater was plundered.4 The
meticulously researched and important cultural chronicle by Peter Watson
and Cecilia Todeschini, The Medici Conspiracy,about, among other things, the
crimes involving the krater’s purchase, is not cited here. (For rare references
to newspaper dissimulations on such “cultural exchange” see Geismar 2008:
110-11 and Muscarella 2009: 399-400).
1) James Cuno (President and Director of the Art Institute of Chicago): “Art
Museums, Archaeology, and Antiquities in an Age of Sectarian Violence and
Nationalist Politics” (pp. 9-26), parallelling his on-going lectures and writings,
presenting here basically a condensed version of his book Who Owns Antiq-
uity? Hedeclares as a matter of course that cultural property within any na-
tion is “self-proclaimed cultural property,” followed by the deconstructionist
cliché “Cultural property is a political construct,” “a political invention” (pp.
10-11, 21-2). A response shouts itself loudly: Cuno’s museum-culture ideology
3. Scholars who should know better sometimes use the deceptive “good faith’’ term
(Rhodes does not here) to describe purchases by dealers and museums as if those
were innocent of the objects’ plunder history: viz. Brodie, 2008: 65 (see Muscarella
2007: 610).
4. The ransom paid is formally equivalent mutatis mutandisto that of a kidnapper-
rapist forced to return his female captive to her source family, provided he gets a
couple of females (virgins of course), sent to him in exchange each year; and also
no jail time.
Review Articles 451
is a museum-culture construct, his invention. Further he uses the term he has
coined, “encyclopedic museum”, to define those museums that seek to pur-
chase antiquities plundered from all ancient cultures: this cliché idiom is
echoed by several of the Symposium’s speakers. Cuno always labels muse-
ums collecting antiquities as Art Museums.
From this Manifesto he proceeds to denounce all attempts by anyone any-
where to stop the plunder and destruction of sites all over the world. To dis-
agree, to refer to the nation word as a realistic cultural condition/tradition, as
does the UNESCO convention of 1970 (see the Appendix on pp. 160-168; also
Mackenzie 2005), is to risk being labeled “possibly racist” (p. 11), than which
there is no stronger denunciation. Cuno presents himself as a disinterested
citizen, a philosopher who is opposed to anti-plunder reactionaries, those who
support “nationalist retentionist cultural property laws” (p. 24). He anoints
John Henry Merryman as “dean of cultural property law in the United States”
(p. 10; accorded the same honor by O’Connell, below), thereby officially in-
forming the public that Patty Gerstenblith, Lyndel V. Prott, and S.R.M. Mac-
kenzie are somehow junior legal experts. Cuno cites Merryman positively
because he too, as Mackenzie (2005: 9) defines him, is “something of a free-
market proponent for the movement of antiquities.”5 Merryman argues that
“source nations” (another term coined by Cuno) “hoard cultural objects”
(2005: 32) unlike encyclopedic museums and collectors who share their cul-
tural objects. And archaeologists, unlike museums and collectors, “are an in-
terest group pursuing their own interest” (1996).
The thrust of Cuno’s museum-cultural-construct ideology pronounced
from his museum-director, non interest-group pulpit is that Near Eastern na-
tions have nothing to do culturally or ethnically (racially!) with the ancient
peoples who lived in their land before them, or their material creations: exca-
vated artifacts or, needless to say, the plundered antiquities. “Culture is per-
sonal. It is not national. People make culture. Nations don’t.” (p. 11). It mani-
festly follows that nations have no natural or moral right to protect or retain
theirculture (compare Geismar 2008: 118; also Vassallo on Italy, below). Cuno
wants the public to believe what he knowsis a lie: that antiquities were inno-
cently “found in the ground” (p. 10; for the synonym “chance find” see
Mackenzie 2005: 55-60, 213-216, 229). As he succinctly (and to him, cleverly)
announced elsewhere (see Muscarella 2007: 612): “It’s out of the ground. It’s
out of the country. It’s on the market.” Unmentioned here is that it’s in Cuno’s
museums (Harvard, The Art Institute of Chicago). Intentionally, he does not
disclose that this “ground” is where cemeteries, cities, temples, writings, etc.
etc. once existed, but no more.
Cuno dismisses a nation’s cultural heritage protectors: “In the politics of
cultural property, national governments assume the authority to decide what
is and what is not a nation’s cultural property. Typically, archaeologists de-
fend this authority against the cultural property internationalists like myself
… ” (p.18): echoing terminology used by his colleague John Merryman (1996,
2005). Cuno’s “internationalists” also include many Mafiosi families (see Vas-
sallo below) as well as terrorist groups (Bogdanos 2008a: 57, 60). As Macken-
5. Mackenzie’s book is one of the best, most extensive and intelligent discussions I
know on the plunder culture, its citizens, and their allies, practices and deceits.
452 International Journal of the Classical Tradition / September 2011
zie stated (2005: 222-26), Cuno demands an entitlement “to antiquities in one
way or another.”6Another deconstructionist history Cuno crafts is that sub-
jectively all archaeologists serve the source nation’s nationalists (pp. 13-14;
see also Merryman 1996, and 2005: 29).7
Some of Cuno’s defense of plunder is directed toward Iraq (pp. 16-19),
which he thinks is another source nation, and fair game for the saving of an-
tiquities by him, the museum director, and his allies; recent plunder there is a
veritable boom for them. The wealthy harvesters of source-nation antiquities
have a natural, non-political-construct right to sponsor local looters to find
antiquities in the ground of Iraq, and then smuggle them to the sponsors. It is
gratuitous to add that no documentation of date or venue is provided for the
historical meeting at which nations divided themselves into the source and
market categories. Cuno’s nationalist nations “make their own self-interested
decisions” about protecting cultural property, which laws must be ignored by
integrationist-encyclopedic museums and collectors—who do not make self-
interested decisions. The western world has not encountered a more blatant,
archaicexultation of Colonialism in the last half-century (Geismar 2008: 112,
recognized this).
To Cuno’s question Who Owns Antiquity? the answer is transparent: the
antiquity owners are private collectors and museums, to Cuno both honor-
able entities. The latter’s trustees consist of the richest and most powerful men
and women in the internationalist scene, and include government officials
functioning in conflict-of-interest roles. Collectors of antiquities are equally
among the richest citizens. It is they who finance, sponsor, and underwrite the
activities preached as the good deeds by Cuno and his allies (who include a
growing number of archaeologists; see Muscarella 2009: 398-405; also Brodie
2008: 68). The connections between these wealthy forces and the plunder and
destruction across the world and the acquisition of antiquities are unswerv-
ingly related: absent the former, absent the latter. For the record, my claims are
not biased political statements; they are the reality Cuno and his allies tend to
suppress.
6. Years ago the antiquity dealer André Emmerich said on television: “If nations do
not share with us their antiquities, we will get them our way.”
7. Unfortunately, here Cuno’s indictment has some truth. In the aftermath of the
Iraq war, several archaeologists who neveronce in their careers ever condemned
looting and cultural destruction anywherein the world, including in Iraq, protested
onlywhen looting was reported as a direct result of the present war. A recent ex-
ample of this post-Iraq war anguish is Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of
Iraq’s Past, eds. G. Emberling and K. Hanson, Oriental Institute Museum Publica-
tions 28, Chicago: Oriental Institute Museum of the Unviersity of Chicago, 2008.
The writers in the volume under review here are of course right in their condem-
nation of plunder: but they are quite late in developing archaeological concerns
about plunder catastrophes. And never once are the causes of the plunder–collec-
tor and museum sponsorship–mentioned. See also Bogdanos 2005: 487, note 33,
for his assessment of a petition by archaeologists opposing the 2003 war, none of
whom had ever protested Saddam Hussein’s desecration of Babylon, or an earlier
plundering of five provincial Iraqi museums by Iraqis, not Coalition forces (Mus-
carella 2007: 603-604; see also footnote 11 below).
Review Articles 453
From this perspective it follows that antiquities found in the ground are
owned and to be curated by encyclopedic museums, which are “a humanist
enterprise and part of the humanist critique of politicized culture” (p. 22).
Cuno has no idea that he has opened the proverbial Pandora’s Box, which
blows up in his face, for the concept of an encyclopedic museum is not his in-
novation. It has a history, which Cuno hides. Napoleon created such a mu-
seum in the Louvre, stocking it with art he “found” on his trips to source-
nationalist nations. Later another such museum, to be established in Linz
(Austria), was conceived by the internationalist Adolf Hitler, who divided the
world into source nations and market nations, an internationalist enterprise of
the National Socialist Party. The “Führer” of the “Third Reich” was rivaled by
the Privatsammler Hermann Göring, who created his manor, Carinhall, into an
encyclopedic museum. Each made acquisitions from all the nations they vis-
ited—from “source nations” cleansed of politically constructed nationalist as-
sertions. At least one can say here of Cuno and his allies that they evoke an
important historical background.
Cuno’s rhetoric shows no awareness of the extended significance and im-
plication for property rights at large: for example, plunder of his own per-
sonal property, the property of the museum he directs and curates, and United
States archaeological sites. His writings can so easily be turned back on him.
Charles Rosenberg (Professor of Art History, Notre Dame), responds
calmly and accurately (pp. 27-30) by dealing neatly and evenly with the mis-
representations of Cuno, that in all areas of human activity some nations and
individuals do misbehave politically or otherwise, that the archaeological
crimes Cuno alleges nations commit are not the fault of the archaeologists,
that the latter have a legitimate claim to protect cultural context, and “that po-
litical manipulations and distortions are not their fault: One cannot blame the
victim for the crime” (p.28), etc. The question “who owns” antiquities is not
the primary issue, but historical context and knowledge are (p. 29).
2) Malcolm M. Bell III (Professor of Greek Art and Archaeology, University
of Virginia): “Dealing with Looted Antiquities: Existing Collections and the
Market” (pp. 31-42), discusses plundering and historical destruction—one of
the few at the Symposium to do so. His focus is Italy. A major problem singled
out is what to do with the objects purchased since the UNESCO rulings of
1970, the non-provenienced antiquities now housed in museums and collec-
tions (and dealers’ shops). Some examples are presented, as cases of repatri-
ation by the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston are
noted. Bell mentions the “substantial legal and administrative expenses” in-
curred by these museums in fighting the Italians: but in fact it is United States
taxpayers who finance itall, a fully hidden secret in this country (Bogdanos
2008a: 59). And neither museum has suffered damage to its reputation: the
local press in these cities does not engage in full reporting and discussion.
Bell suggests that museums notify the countries of origin about the “major,
recently acquired unprovenanced antiquities” housed in their collections (p.
39). Questions immediately surface: what is a “major antiquity”—a strange
term for an archaeologist to use, and not only in the present context. How
does one define a minor antiquity/artifact—anything not a statue, or a silver
plate? Are fibulae, arrowheads, sherds, coins, non-Athenian vases, etc., minor
antiquities, and are they not unearthed by the same destructive process em-
454 International Journal of the Classical Tradition / September 2011
ployed to acquire “major” pieces? Bell offers suggestions to museums on how
to behave legitimately, but he seems to know little of museums (he has else-
where defended the Getty museum’s antiquity curator/purchaser Marion
True as an innocent, maligned citizen!). He does not discuss that museum
staffs often lie, arguing in public and in the courts that their unprovenanced
antiquities cannot be provenanced (and provenienced) by anyone, anymore,
because innocent, poor farmers found them somewhere in their fields, pre-
cisely what the Italians and he himself learned in their negotiations with the
Metropolitan Museum, which involved years of fighting. Further, he posi-
tively cites (p. 32) the International Council of Museums’ good-guy promise
to behave: yes, but which they have ignored and will ignore.
In a passing and innocent response, Dennis P. Doordan, Professor of Art
History and of Architecture at Notre Dame, deals with repatriation by sup-
porting museum obfuscations, and he does not deign to inform his audience
that museums often know, when they purchase an antiquity, that it was plun-
dered. Using a transparent rhetorical question ploy he challenges our concern
about plunder in a country that he claims shows “no imperative to protect” its
antiquities (p. 44 f.)—a classic blame the victim defense. The only legitimate
topic Doordan raises, but again solely in defense of museum sponsorship of
plundering (excuse me, acquisitions), is whether we can return an artifact to
a civilly disturbed country of origin (p. 45)? One answer may be: no, not now,
but certainly later.
3) Patty Gerstenblith (Professor of Law, DePaul University): “The Acquisition
and Exhibition of Classical Antiquities” (pp. 47-60), reiterates her typically
meaningful reviews of questions involved in the laws of the United States,
their problems with preventing museum practices of purchasing plundered
antiquities (some of which is recycled from earlier articles of hers). She dis-
cusses the UNESCO convention, the Cultural Property Advisory Committee,
and collecting policies of U. S. museums. United States laws grant protection
only to material stolen from museums or religious or public institutions (i.e.,
from above ground, and documented objects and materials). The laws grant
some protection from archaeological plunder only if a nation applies for and
joins in a bi-lateral convention. But this is allowed only if things are really
bad, or the nation can prove that a crisis exists (i.e., more plundering and de-
struction than usual, or a catastrophe). In other words, our country allows
some plunder as normal business, nothing necessarily wrong or illegal. Mean-
while a source nation must spend much time negotiating with us, while the
plundering may continue unabated, legally by United States law. This is not
something to be proud of. Moynihan’s Law (as I appropriately call it; not dis-
cussed here) was planned, in fact, to sabotage any substantive attempt to stop
plunder (Muscarella 2007: 604-5). As for the (Affirmative-Action-Equal-
Opportunity-For-All) Cultural Property Advisory Committee (p. 48), see Mus-
carella ibid.
Discussed also are legal problems related to specific state laws regarding
illegally obtained objects. Cases concerning antiquities torn from the ground
are difficult to prosecute unless a false import declaration is discovered, as in
the now well-known McClain and Schultz cases. Gerstenblith has continu-
ously been aware of United States museums with their lies, rationalizations,
and perfidies and she reviews those issues here. A silver rhyton “from Iran”
Review Articles 455
is mentioned (p. 55) as having been confiscated (from its purchaser) because
it was declared by the dealer at U.S. Customs to have been imported from
Syria, but Customs officials believed it had its real origin in Iran. Two im-
portant details are not mentioned here: it had been purchased as an Iranian
antiquity by the Metropolitan Museum of Art multi-millionaire trustee Paula
Cussi in 2004 for ca. one million dollars; and in fact it is a (crudely made) for-
gery, said to be ancient “Iranian.” But yes, it probably did derive from pres-
ent day Iran (Muscarella 2008: 14-5, Fig. 9).8
In his response (pp. 61-63), Douglas E. Bradley (curator at the Notre Dame
Museum of Art) wants us to believe that museum acquisitions form only a
“highly visable but small part of the art market” (italics mine), ignoring that
Gerstenblith actually discussed plundered antiquities generated by destruc-
tion. Further he cannot prove his museum-estimate claims about quantities
of plundered material because museums hide purchased plundered objects
for years (as Gerstenblith correctly noted). Bradley tells us that looting is im-
moral, but, alas, it is with us so long as (irresponsible) rich private collectors
exist; as a loyal curator he doesn’t mention museums. Bradley offers sugges-
tions on how collectors can donate their goodies to museums but avoids any
critical comments on the existence of stolen, plundered material donated, or
on the tax deductions the collectors get—for which his audience and all citi-
zens pay (Bogdanos 2008a: 59).9
4) Kimberly Rorschach (Director, Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University):
“Scylla or Charybdis: Antiquities Collecting by University Art Museums” (pp.
65-73), incorrectly suggests that there are differences between university-
owned and private museums regarding attitudes on collecting. She raises the
important issue of university museums accepting gifts of “antiquities,” and
the legal problems they face. Two university museums, where she has held
positions (Chicago, Duke), accepted such gifts, but did not purchase any an-
tiquities. Rorschach avoids mentioning that many university museums in fact
are actively engaged in purchasing plundered antiquities, viz. Harvard (by
its recent director and symposium speaker James Cuno) and Princeton (see
Muscarella 2007: 611-13, ibid. 2009: 398-99 403-5) .
Rorschach raises the problems involved in accepting gifts of antiquities
and researching their acquisition dates. She disagrees with the Association
of American Museum Directors’ “ten-year rule” that allows the purchase of
any possibly plundered antiquity as long as it is said-to-have arrived within
the last 10 years, as that rule does not take into account international or United
States laws. Add to this that any antiquity can be, and usually is, “docu-
mented” by the dealer with forged letters or records pertaining to the said-to-
be provenance (the most recent prominent example being the forged letter
conveniently provided with the sale of a kouros to the Getty museum). Con-
8. The United States Customs Office/Homeland Security refused to furnish infor-
mation on the confiscation, thus in fact covering up the forgery.
9. For James Cuno’s vagueness about collectors’ tax deductions for donations to mu-
seums and Roger Atwood’s response see the letters of both in Archaeology, Sep-
tember/October 2008: 8. Anyone who has worked in an art museum for two days
knows–as most certainly does Cuno–about such transactions and the gentlemanly
negotiations that precede them.
456 International Journal of the Classical Tradition / September 2011
cerning such provenances proffered by dealers, auction houses, collectors, or
museums, see the investigative report of Mackenzie 2005 (pp. 25-60: one of
the best examples of research on this matter yet published). Candidly,
Rorschach discusses, and documents by three photographs, a large (250-piece)
gift to Duke University in 2005 from a collector (name not revealed) that she
now says might not be accepted by the university’s 2008 standards.10
Rorschach asserts that United States involvement in Iraq has “led to large-
scale uncontrolled looting there, which the United States has done little to pre-
vent” (p. 73); was she there to verify her assertion? Indeed, three days of
fighting occurred near the Museum before American forces were able to in-
tervene (Bogdanos 2005: 503-506; Muscarella 2007: 609-610). She ignores that
looting had existed in Iraq for decades (apparently unknown to this museum
director). After the invasion it increased but has abated: because of United
States protective involvement (Bogdanos 2005: 501-514, passim; George 2008:
101-103). For detailed listing and documented reports and reactions to the
world’s media accusations that the United States forces were reckless de-
stroyers, many reports written by individuals, including scholars, who were
not in Iraq at the time, see Bogdanos 2005: 477-483, 438 and footnotes 1-4, 15-
17, 22, 26, 37.11 For data regarding United States plunder-prevention practices
10. A relatively recent similar example of a University museum accepting a gift of an-
tiquities from a collector is that of Fordham University (internet: Looting Matters,
December 6, 2007). But more important for the discipline of archaeology is that
Richard Hodges, an archaeologist, Director of the University Museum of the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania, here blithely rebukes Fordham: “The message that it
sends [by Fordham accepting the gift] is there is nothing wrong with looting and
buying illegal objects.” This self-righteous message is delivered by one who–be-
forehe was selected to be Director–had written over the years fifteen articles for the
antiquity dealer-owned, effectively plunder-supporting magazine Minerva, filled
with dealers’ advertisements; and two other archaeologist staff members of his
museum have also written for Minerva. There is more: Hodgeshas also served
this dealer-owner magazine as an Advisor, still after his selection as Director (Mus-
carella 2009: 403, note 38). In each of these activities he has more or less openly
sent the very same“message” that “there is nothing wrong with looting and buy-
ing illegal objects,” i.e. antiquities.
11. Many false and frenzied reports were published in leftist, “Progressive” publica-
tions such as The Guardian,Counterpunch, andThe Nation. Their political bias must
be understood when reading articles that Zeinab Bahrani published there. Her
articles are filled with errors (viz. that the United States bombed Baghdad’s 13th
century university), exaggerations and dissimulations about horrors caused by
the Coalition forces. But nota benethat never before 2003 had Bahrani, neither in
public discussions nor in her writings, ever condemned on-going looting any-
where in the world, including Iraq. She has never discussed or written about the
looting in 1991 of five museums in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq by armed Iraqis, an
event ignored by Iraqi troops; nor, in the same year, Hussein’s looting of the
Kuwait Museum. She has never criticized Hussein’s rebuilding of the palace at
Babylon using bricks bearing his name in Arabic and cuneiform as “son of Neb-
uchadnezzar.” But she has claimed that the United States forces “transformed” Ur
“into a military base”–for the reality here, see Curtis 2008: 210: there was in fact
“no significant damage.” For Curtis’ on-site report on the significant damage by
Coalition forces at Babylon, see ibid: 207-8; also Muscarella 2007: 609. To Bahrani,
Review Articles 457
see B. Rose in this volume, and the writings of M. Bogdanos (his 2005 article
is not cited by Rorschach) as well as others who have been to Iraq and re-
ported on United States anti-plunder actions (George 2005:100- 03).
Where Rorschach is correct, a matter she and others should focus on, is
that the United States has done very little to eliminate Moynihan’s Law, a rul-
ing that allows plunder from all areas of the world to legally enter into and be
sold in our country (for the late senator Moynihan’s friendship with antiquity
collectors see Muscarella 2007: 604-5; for other nations’ similar plunder sup-
porting behavior see Mackenzie 2005: 33, 69-73; George 2008: 97). In her final
sentence she politely asks museums to “ponder the adverse implications of
advocating such collecting in the present global environment.” One should
not speak and write about important matters about which one knows little or
nothing.
Charles R. Loving, a Notre Dame Museum Director, responds (pp. 74-76)
that archaeologists and museum directors both agree (of course in good faith)
that plundered antiquities should not be purchased except within the guide-
lines of the 1970 rule. The problem that does concern them both is how to han-
dle “orphan objects,” those on the art market without viable provenances
(and, not mentioned, many recently plundered). Surely, Loving argues, they
must go to museums, not to private collectors. This is a maxim employed by
many museum directors, for the more they “acquire” the more important they
become in the encyclopedic museum world. Unmentioned is that directors
refrain from revealing that most private collections are eventually donated to
museums (Mackenzie 2005: 159-162; Geismar 2008: 110, 112), and that the tax
deductions are covered by taxes from all working Americans.
Robin Rhodes (pp. 77-80) adds a description of a Corinth temple exhibi-
tion held at Notre Dame, presenting it as an example for museums to follow.
His report consists of photos and modern-made copies of architecture.
5) Stefano Vassallo (Head Archaeologist, Service of the Cultural Heritage and
Environment of Palermo): “Antiquities without Provenance: The Original Sin
in the Field” (pp. 81-91), gives an intelligent background to what plunder ac-
tually is, and what results from the plunder – neatly labeled “the original sin.”
He makes quite clear the simple and obvious fact that (pace Cuno) plunder-
ing damages the “archaeological heritage of the nation to which the object be-
longs ….” (pp. 82, 86). He mentions two plunders and destructions of sites in
Sicily, among “hundreds” of others throughout Italy. He notes the false prove-
niences (meaning: provenances) provided by plunderers and dealers and the
large number of forgeries of Italian antiquities they sell (a matter still not fully
recognized by archaeologists, nor most of the Symposium speakers), and also
the chain of events that brings the plundered objects to collections abroad,
with the mafia playing a big role. So long as collecting occurs, plundering will
occur, a fact still denied by many museums and collectors. Vassallo concludes
by citing the gold phiale purchased by Michael Steinberg (but for some reason
Bogdanos is a bad guy, an individual not to be believed, for the United States is his
country, and ipso factobiased: unlike Bahrani or the journals in which she pub-
lishes, of course.
458 International Journal of the Classical Tradition / September 2011
does not mention his name), and its return to Sicily, because that’s where it
was plundered.
The short response (pp. 92-94) by Michael Lykoudis, a Professor of ar-
chitecture at Notre Dame, recounts past thefts or removals from other lands
with antiquities to demonstrate the problems involved in achieving the repa-
triation of all such removals. He deals with major works, for example, the
Elgin Marbles (see also O’Connell, below), and defends not returning them
to Greece at present, primarily because the planned Athens museum locus is
not attractive and they are better viewed in England. (I see the question of
repatriation or not in this case to be a political, not an archaeological issue.) But
he intentionally avoids the main issue raised by Vassallo, regarding plundered
artifacts, throwing out a Cuno-like pro plunder cliché: “It is the transfer [sic]
of antiquities around the world that has provided one source for the making
and fusion of new cultures.” The transfer word thus becomes another eu-
phemism/lie regarding the realities of the plunder/destruction it entails.
6) Mary Ellen O’Connell (Professor of Law, Notre Dame), with Maria Al-
veras-Chen: “Rethinking the Remedy of Return in International Law” (pp. 95-
113), is concerned with demands to return (plundered) artifacts to their
country of origin. She is manifestly an internationalist Cuno ally. She docu-
ments the growth and decline of the repatriation or “return principle” leading
to the weaker “principle of protection” (p.96). Her mentor here is Merryman,
to her also “the dean of international law scholars” (Cuno’s award), the in-
ternationalist, he who virtually endorses plunder and acquisitions of antiqui-
ties. She records the development of international law’s concern for saving
art in times of war over the centuries down to recent times, including the 1970
UNESCO convention. To her the situation in Iraq has changed things, solely
because of the United States “invading on the cheap and dismissing legal ob-
ligations,” an a priori politically determined outburst. This is followed by a to-
tally erroneous attack: United States officials “dismissed the outcry over the
looting of the Iraqi National Museum ….” (p. 104) and were thus indifferent
to plunder there, which thus causedthe plundering. Concerning the Museum
looting, O’Connell does not report that many thousands of the looted artifacts
were cylinder seals, beads, vessels—and, yes, were looted by Iraqi Museum
staff—and that thousands of these and other artifacts have been returned to
the Museum. Thus the quantity of stated losses, either 170,000 or 13,400 (p.
104), has been significantly reduced because of retrievals and, important, also
recounting (Bogdanos 2005: 477, 488-494, 507-515523-24; idem 2008b: 118-121;
George 2008: 102, 104; Curtis 2008: 210; Muscarella 2007: 610, 616). To give
but one example of media conscious bias, The Guardian,“without citing a sin-
gle source,” reported that there were 270,000 artifacts stolen from the Baghdad
museum (Bogdanos 2005: 491, footnote 50).12
O’Connell does not cite Bogdanos’ publications concerning the United
States’ attempts to stop thefts following the three-day looting by local Iraqis
12. Fortunately for the world, Hugh Eakin’s figures for the quantity of plundered ar-
tifacts in Iraq since 2003–“tens of thousands of cylinder seals and cuneiform
tablets” (in “The Devastation of Iraq’s Past,” in The New York Review of Books, Au-
gust 14, 2008: 1)–are grossly inflated: why? Was he ever in Baghdad? Who gave
him the figures?