"Rethinking Antiquities: Restitution and Collecting in the Time of ISIS"

An important meeting will be taking place on March 1, 2016  in New York City, sponsored by the  Committee for Cultural Policy and the Cardozo School of Law. This will be a panel discussion under the title "Rethinking Antiquities: Restitution and Collecting in the Time of ISIS". It is a sad commentary on the times we live in that there should even have to be such a discussion, the so-called Islamic State cannot be even considered a legitimate country. How can anyone consider repatriating antiquities to it when we have seen what they will do with them? The objects are far better off and safer in the hands of collectors and museums in the free western world than among the bigoted ideological vandals of such a dystopic absurdity.

Here is a reaction of one of the panellists, noted cultural property lawyer Bill Pearlstein to a recent New York Times article entitled Islamic State Destruction Renews Debate Over Repatriation of Antiquities:

The New York Times is correct to observe that the widespread destruction of cultural heritage in failed or failing states has lead to a quiet reevaluation in senior museum circles of the current policy bias in favor of national retention and reflexive restitution. Western archeologists insist that antiquities remain in the nation where they are found to keep them off the market and reduce site looting. This misses the point where the threat to cultural heritage is iconoclastic; that is, ideologically driven destruction of cultural objects viewed as apostate. We need to rethink the bias towards national retention by taking into account the quality of national stewardship, especially where there is a clear and present danger to cultural heritage (including excavated sites, objects ex situ, objects in situ and related stratigraphic context). When cultural heritage is demonstrably at risk of domestic iconoclasm, the issue is whether objects ex situ must remain in country and at risk because of inflexible adherence to the principle of universal national retention. For example, it would make sense in principal to let international organizations rescue endangered objects and hold them in trust for safekeeping pending restoration of stability. Ricardo Elia, an archeologist at Boston University, misses the mark badly by stating that “It was only a matter of time before some in the art-collecting community tried to turn this cultural nightmare to their own advantage.” Elia’s reflexive hostility towards any form of antiquities collecting causes him to blame Western collectors, who favor preservation of objects, rather than the iconoclasts, who favor their destruction. Similarly, Allison E. Cuneo, a doctoral candidate in archaeology at Boston University, appears to believe that solutions favoring preservation over retention are “neocolonialist.” This is sloganeering and fails to address the issue. Archeologists are right to protest when unrestricted market demand drives looting and destruction of stratigraphic context. They are wrong to insist on universal national retention when to do so ensures the destruction of heritage sites and objects already out of context. Rescuing cultural heritage from the iconoclasts will require flexible thinking. I do not see that coming from the archeological community which seems content to blame old enemies instead of coming to grips with new ones.