FBI Warns Dealers and Collectors

A recent warning on the FBI web site alerts art collectors and dealers to be especially careful in the trading of antiquities from the Near East.  The Bureau is asking U.S. art and antiquities market leaders to spread the word that "preventing illegally obtained artifacts from reaching the market helps stem the transfer of funds to terrorists." The anti-collecting league have argued that the sale of looted antiquities is a primary funding vehicle for terrorist activity.  While that point is debatable, and certainly not true in the case of coins and other portable antiquities, the general point is well taken.  No responsible dealer nor collector would intentionally or knowingly sell nor purchase objects that are likely to have emerged from the strife in Syria and Iraq. 

Saving Antiquities for Everyone

Gary Vikan, the past Director of the Walters Art Gallery, has made a sensible and well thought-out  proposal to save artifacts that would otherwise be destroyed in Syria's civil war. If we really want to save antiquities as our global heritage, why not adopt such a proposal rather than condemn irreplaceable cultural artifacts to the sledgehammer of the ignorant vandals that would eradicate them?

Archeologists Wrong: Tut's Grave Contains more Chambers!

A scan of the wall in King Tutankhamun's tomb reveals faint lines, which could suggest two hidden doors - could King Tut's mother live behind them? 'King Tut's Tomb May Hide Nefertiti's Secret Grave'.

The burial chamber of King Tut has revealed many secrets over the years, but there may be a whopper yet to discover: the tomb of his mother, Queen Nefertiti. A scan of the wall texture in King Tutankhamun’s tomb reveals indentations or faint lines, which could suggest two hidden doors. Based on other aspects of the tomb’s geometry, it’s possible that Nefertiti is hiding behind the door, said Nicholas Reeves, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona who has proposed the theory of Queen Nefertiti’s secret tomb. If Nefertiti’s tomb indeed lies undisturbed behind the wall, that would be big news.

It would also show how inexact a science (if one can call it that) archeology is.

Collector Opens a Museum

The Green collection is one of the World's Largest Private Collections of Rare Biblical Texts and Artifacts, and it shows the public good that private collecting of antiquities can do. The collector has generously agreed to make his objects available to the public in a specially-built museum in the nation's capital. The Museum has a mission: "To bring to life the living Word of God, to tell its compelling story of preservation, and to inspire confidence in the absolute authority and reliability of the Bible." The museum is under construction in the former Design Center, an historically protected Renaissance Revival building close to the National Mall and the United States Capitol. The building is located two blocks from the National Mall at 300 D. Street SW, near the Federal Center SW Metro station.

The Roanoke Colonists: Lost, and Found?

We Finally Have Clues to How America's Lost Colony Vanished National Geographic

two independent teams say they have archaeological remains that suggest at least some of the abandoned colonists may have survived, possibly splitting into two camps that made their homes with Native Americans. "The evidence is that they assimilated with the Native Americans but kept their goods" says Mark Horton archaeologist. A collection of newly discovered European objects, including a sword hilt, broken English bowls, and a fragment of a slate writing tablet still inscribed with a letter, could point to the presence of the colonists on Hatteras Island, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of their settlement on Roanoke Island, as well as at a site on the mainland 50 miles to the northwest.

See also this The Roanoke Colonists: Lost, and Found? New York Times

Anti-Collecting Ideologists and Communism

Peter Tompa reveals that the anti-collecting organization UNESCO:

is run by a former Bulgarian Communist (now Socialist) and its pronouncements reflect a state ownership approach that ignores the rights of individuals, ethnic and religious groups.  Not surprisingly, UNESCO supports repatriation of artifacts to Assad in the midst of a civil war despite the Assad regime's poor stewardship and even purposeful destruction of cultural artfiacts.

There is a log, informed and thought provoking comment from England which raises an important point: " That the US State Department awarded a $600,000 contract to ASOR, an organization that takes a dim view of private collecting suggests that perhaps not all the former comrades are working inside UNESCO". This really should be investigated.

Turkey Funds ISIS

New Evidence Reveals Turkish Government Is Directly Funding ISIS The Guardian July 31, 2015

When US special forces raided the compound of an Islamic State leader in eastern Syria in May, they made sure not to tell the neighbours. The target of that raid, the first of its kind since US jets returned to the skies over Iraq last August, was an Isis official responsible for oil smuggling, named Abu Sayyaf. He was almost unheard of outside the upper echelons of the terror group, but he was well known to Turkey. From mid-2013, the Tunisian fighter had been responsible for smuggling oil from Syria’s eastern fields, which the group had by then commandeered. Black market oil quickly became the main driver of Isis revenues – and Turkish buyers were its main clients. As a result, the oil trade between the jihadis and the Turks was held up as evidence of an alliance between the two. It led to protests from Washington and Europe – both already wary of Turkey’s 900-mile border with Syria being used as a gateway by would-be jihadis from around the world. The estimated $1m-$4m per day in oil revenues that was thought to have flowed into Isis coffers over at least six months from late 2013 helped to transform an ambitious force with limited means into a juggernaut that has been steadily drawing western forces back to the region and increasingly testing state borders.

More evidence, if any were needed, that is is not US collectors who have been funding ISIS.

Palmyran Art Safe in Washington

The Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery is putting a magnificent portrait bust removed from a tomb in Palmyra on display to help raise awareness about danger to the site posed by ISIS.  This underscores the fact that cultural diffusion helps preserve artifacts while concentration through repatriation only puts them further at risk, at least where a  civil war is going on ('Palmyra Exhibit Poses Important Questions').