Dishonest Archeologists Thrown off Site

Daily Sabah, "Seljuk sultan's tomb project stopped after German archaeologists caught smuggling artifacts" 28 12 2016

The project to find the tomb of Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan, carried out under the sponsorship of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) in Turkmenistan has been paused after it was discovered that the German archaeology team participating in the project was smuggling historical artifacts. According to reports, excavations in Turkmenistan's historic city of Merv were stopped in 2015 after German archaeologists were caught smuggling artifacts at the airport. The excavation team told the media that they had excavated 47 locations and dug as much as 12 meters down, taking them very close to finding the sultan's tomb. TİKA reportedly said that the excavation, jointly carried out with Turkmenistan's Ministry of Culture, will continue when the necessary legal and bureaucratic conditions are favorable.

More evidence that archaeological workers should be paid a living wage, to stop this kind of thing happening.

No Truth to Claim that ISIS is Funded by Illicit US Art Sales

There is no Truth to Claim that ISIS is Funded by Illicit US Art Sales ('US Files Court Case Against Images on an ISIS Computer' CCP 26 Dec 2016) 

Yet this year, the Antiquities Coalition and other anti-art trade interest groups pummeled Congress for months with allegations that looted art provided billions of dollars to fund terrorists across the Middle East, in order to pass H.R. 1493/S.1887, The Protect and Preserve International Cultural Property Act, in April 2016. Any money at all contributed to ISIS is a bad thing, of course, but so far, there is no evidence that any money at all has comes from sales of ISIS looted art in the US. It appears that the lawsuit, like the Congressional initiatives to tie the art trade to terrorism, is another example of how misleading information is used – at great cost – to influence the unsuspecting American public.

Stuck in the SWAMP

Great piece in Coins Weekly by the tireless Peter Tompa discussing concerns with a new MOU with Egypt's authoritarian government:

Restrictions drafted with administrative convenience in mind rather than fidelity to the law cause considerable collateral damage. Due to their wording, small businesses of the numismatic trade and collectors risk detention, seizure and forfeiture of designated Egyptian coin types legally exported from Europe. Many historical coins on the market and in collections abroad simply can’t meet the law’s stringent provenance requirements for legal import.

American collectors should only purchase their coins from reputable dealers. Before importing coins from abroad, confirm that the seller abroad is able to provide the necessary paperwork for a legal import. Going forward, the author hopes the new Administration will take a hard look at current State Department and Customs practices. Efforts to protect cultural patrimony cannot be allowed to justify the taking of private property without due process of law.

Why should democracies that value private property rights and due process follow the lead of a military dicatorship?  Let's draiun that swamp.

Egypt Seeks Change in Law to Disadvantage Collectors

The repressive military dictatorship of the banana republic of Egypt seeks changes in laws which will affect collectors. They claim credit for the new restrictive German law and presse for the reversal of burden of proof policy over Antiquities (George Mikhail, "How Egypt intends to stop sale of its relics around the world").

According to Shaaban Abdel-Gawad, the director general of the Department of Recovered Antiquities within the Ministry of Antiquities [...] the ministry is taking necessary steps to stop the selling of Egypt’s relics in international auctions by following up on the auctions that are being held around the world and checking if the missing artifacts at home are being displayed in any of the exhibitions and auctions.” “In case it was proven that some of the missing relics were put up for auction somewhere in the world, the ministry would get in touch with the auction house or the host country to seize back the archaeological pieces by virtue of ownership documents showing that they belong to the Egyptian state,” Abdel-Gawad added. “If there were no documents to this effect, due to many illegal excavation works and thefts of relics in Egyptian museums and archaeological stores especially after 2011, we deal with the matter in our capacity as the country of origin of such relics, and we require the concerned auction house to provide documents proving its ownership of the archaeological pieces.” Commenting on other obstacles preventing Egypt from recovering relics from international auctions, Abdel-Gawad said, “The local governing laws in the countries where such auctions are being held are the biggest challenge for us. We are dealing with about a hundred countries and most of them allow the antiquities trade, while other countries did not sign the 1970 UNESCO convention, whereby the antiquities trade is criminalized.”

Except that it is not. This is overreach by the Middle Eastern state ruled by a military dictator

He noted, “Egypt has been demanding the amendment of the UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property to include all relics that had been looted and stolen before that date. It is also demanding that the auction houses be responsible for providing proof of ownership of any relics they are displaying instead of the concerned country of origin.” He also said that many countries whose relics have been smuggled and stolen, such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia and China, among others, want to cooperate with Egypt to pressure UNESCO to amend the convention’s articles in this regard. For his part, Bassam al-Chammah, a historian and Egyptologist, told Al-Monitor that he is calling for a mass petition, whereby the signatures of Egyptians are collected to pressure UNESCO to amend the convention and stand by Egypt to recover its missing artifacts by facilitating legal proceedings and pressuring other countries to return related relics and pieces.

Read more: here

Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act (HEAR) Act

The House of Representatives passed the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act (HEAR) Act yesterday to spur more Nazi art restitutions. HEAR Act will ensure claims to Nazi-confiscated art aren't unfairly barred by statues of limitations and instead are resolved on their merits.