Rock and roll Etruscan style

That's one way to play the lyre... Rock and roll Etruscan style

Selling precious artefacts could top up Egypt’s coffers

Financial expert Patrick Werr has a brilliant idea ("Selling precious artefacts could top up Egypt’s coffers" The National March 29, 2017). Since the storerooms are flooded with millions of surplus artefacts,

Why not package up some of these artefacts and organise their sale to foreigners or Egyptians, complete with documents telling the buyer where the item was found and why it is significant? The government could add tens of millions of dollars to its coffers each year. It’s not like Egypt isn’t selling antiquities now. The problem is that the sellers are not the government, but rather organised looters who have been plundering the country’s archaeological sites. In the process they have been destroying important historical information that proper archaeology would glean from the objects’ physical contexts. The pillaging has been going on full force since the 2011 uprising, with digging and looting in sites from Alexandria to Aswan. [....] Egypt has been getting little benefit from many of the artefacts. When an archaeological site is excavated, typically the archaeologists are required to place all the objects they find in warehouses. The public is not allowed to visit and view them, and they usually are not accessible for study. Even the archaeologists working on the project often can’t get back to study them once they have delivered them to the magazine. By now, the number of such pieces hidden away in countless magazines probably runs into the hundreds of thousands. The objects are often moved with corresponding loss of information and occasionally stolen.

There are so many of these objects that most no longer have use in research, museums or academia. Until the 1970s the Egyptian Museum in Cairo had a sale room for surplus antiquities, and until the ‘80s foreign archaeologists excavating a site were given a proportion of the finds (partage).

One important effect of again legalising the export of artefacts would be to direct at least a part of the current illicit trade into official channels. Instead of smugglers reaping the gains, the revenue would go to the state treasury. This is particularly urgent. Since the collapse of tourism after the 2011 uprising and subsequent political turmoil, ticket sales have plummeted and antiquities have been starved of funds. Egypt needs more revenue to operate its museums, restore more important artefacts and preserve and protect its main archaeological sites. The objects could be given official registration with papers, which would make them more valuable on the international market since their provenance would be documented, making them legally tradable. They could be digitally scanned before the sale, and conditions could be put that the buyer will make the object available to researchers if necessary.

Egypt Roared as Mubarak Fell. It’s Mute as He’s Freed.

The corrupt military dictatorship of Egypt, true to form (Declan Walsh, "Egypt Roared as Mubarak Fell. It’s Mute as He’s Freed", New York Times, March 24, 2017 ):

Six years after roaring crowds ousted him at the peak of the Arab Spring, former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was freed early Friday from the Cairo hospital where he had been detained, capping a long and largely fruitless effort to hold him accountable for human rights abuses and endemic corruption during his three decades of rule. [...] Although Mr. Mubarak faced a wide range of charges, he was ultimately convicted on a single relatively minor corruption charge. [...] Some of the criminal counts against him carried the death penalty. He was accused of having conspired with the police to kill 239 protesters in Tahrir Square; of having siphoned tens of millions of dollars from state coffers; and of having cut off the country’s internet access during the 2011 uprising, among other crimes. [...]  it was becoming clear to many Egyptians that while Mr. Mubarak had gone, the system he controlled — with the military, security agencies and courts in the background — remained firmly in place and would not cede power easily to restless young protesters. The first democratic election, in 2012, brought to power a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Morsi. But he lasted only a year, making a series of political blunders that cost him the support of the military, crucial parts of the security apparatus and millions of Egyptians, who gathered in the streets in June 2013 to call for his removal [...] The military obliged on July 3 and installed General Sisi, its top commander, who cleared Brotherhood protesters from central Cairo with a massacre of at least 800 people by the security forces in August 2013. [...]  In speeches, Mr. Sisi pays lip service to the 2011 uprising. But in practice, he has crushed dissent, imprisoned tens of thousands of opponents and sought to consolidate his grip in Parliament, business and the security services — including many Mubarak-era officials and supporters. He has also allowed Mr. Mubarak’s closest allies, many fabulously wealthy through nepotism and corruption, to return to civilian life. The release of Mr. Mubarak, the last person of his government still in detention, ends that process. 

The archeology lobby, in order to get the excavation permits they desire, is hand-in-hand with this corrupt regime, and the anti-collecting cabal intends to repatriate items seized from honest collectors to this dishonest farcical pseudo-state.

Italy's 'Art Squad' charges Collector of Roman coins

Italy's 'Art Squad', the police force tasked with protecting the country's priceless cultural heritage, has confiscated Roman coins and other historical artefacts from a private residence (Catherine Edwards, "Italy's 'Art Squad' charges hoarder of rare Roman coins", The Local 24 March 2017)

The rarest of the coins is one of just five in existence, police said on Thursday. It dates back to the time of Emperor Constantino II, who was in power between 337 and 340. In total, the Cultural Heritage police in Perugia, central Italy, confiscated 13 coins and various other "archaeological artefacts of interest" which dated back to the fourth century AD. The owner has been charged with illegal possession of cultural objects and violation of the laws surrounding excavations. Police also confiscated two portable metal detectors which they believed had been used to track down the artefacts in agricultural areas across the Umbria region.

The article explains: "art crime is a huge problem in Italy, where artworks are stolen from unguarded churches and even from secure museums, and illegal excavations can uncover valuable historical treasures.  Over one million artworks are currently listed as missing or stolen". Yet the police cannot do any better than persecute some innocent collector, the coins shown in the photo are not what would really classify as "rare" and all could be bought for a few bucks from any dealer. These coins were minted in their millions and widely traded in the ancient world! Italy neds to get its "heritage protection" priorities right and instead of opposing collectors they need to go after the real thieves. Until they do, the Trump administration needs to suspend repatriation to countries like this that cannot look after the world heritage.

Artemis in Mexico

The heritage of the classical past is around us: a stunning sculpture in Mexico of the ancient Greek goddess, Artemis....her Roman counterpart, La Diana Cazadora (Photo: Ray Fujiok)

Noah's Flood in Cuneiform

Cuneiform tablet from Nineveh first translated in 1872  contains a story similar to Noah in the Old Testament...

‘Syria Cultural Property Protection Policy Failure

‘Syria and its Regional Neighbors: A Case of Cultural Property Protection Policy Failure?', by Neil Brodie

Archeologists Fake News on Looting

In reply to a further reiteration of the claims by Owen Jarus that: "$100 Million in Artifacts Shipped from Egypt and Turkey to US in 2016" (Live Science March 21, 2017), the cultural property expert Peter Tompa explains that this information is "merely the latest iteration of what is essentially the same article that has been published three times in the last year":

Each time, the author has been apprised of serious concerns about his methodology.  I also emailed his publication in the past, but received no response.  Both the author and the internet publication, “Live Science” have instead ignored these concerns in favor of lurid headlines.  In brief, my concerns are as follows.

1.      The author’s methodology is flawed.  I have spoken to several Customs experts.  They have confirmed that one cannot assume the trade data accurately reflects direct exports from either Turkey or Egypt.  Rather, it is quite likely the figures also take into count objects made in Egypt and Turkey and exported from third countries.  These items could have been out of Turkey or Egypt for years.

2.     The article focuses on exports of gold coins from Turkey and Egypt.   The author implies that the large outflows of gold coins are due to looting.  In fact, the figures relate to antique gold coins (over 100 years old) that exist in the millions.  Such coins—mainly 19^th c. issues—have been used as stores of wealth in the Middle East, Europe and the United States for decades. 

3.     It is likely the outflow can be explained in one of two ways.  Large shipments of 19^th c. gold coins from Egyptian or Turkish mints coming from third countries or large shipments of such coins coming from either Turkey or Egypt.  If the former, they are likely part of the normal trade in such items between investors.  (It is my understanding that bullion sellers make large bulk shipments periodically—one such shipment could impact the trade numbers greatly.)  If the latter, the outflows are likely explained by wealthy Turks and Egyptians shipping out hard assets for safe keeping given political instability at home.  In neither circumstance would the shipments likely have anything to do with ISIS or looting.

Here is my past blog post on the matter:  http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2016/09/more-junk-science-from-live-science.html

Thank you for your consideration.

Peter Tompa

Monkey business

Terracotta of Monkey playing harp Cyrenaica 2nd - 1st cent BCE.

Diving Robbers Are Looting Underwater Treasures, Archeologists Wail

Diving robbers looting underwater sites are the bane of marine archaeologists. The items stolen from the sea floor, ranging from coins to amphorae to a life-sized bronze statue of Apollo to scrap metal from World War II warships, are usually sold on the black market. Worse, stopping the ravage of the ancient sites is all but impossible, the authorities admit: they can hardly post underwater guards. The problem of maritime looting is especially acute in Israel, say experts. The narrow Levantine coast has been inhabited throughout human history and traces of long-vanished civilizations remain on land and under water, observable to intrepid divers. A least if they dive soon, before thieves steal the lot and ruin the rest. 

Philippe Bohstrom, "Diving Robbers Are Looting Underwater Treasures, Archaeologists Wail" Haaretz Mar 15, 2017
The problem is that they cannot possibly investigate all these sites given the resources available. Would it not be better to work with the treasure seekers rather than try to fight them and "wailing" about their successes? This has worked well in other countries, such as Britain, why not here??

Where is the "Gaza Apollo" Now?

Picture taken in Gaza on September 19, 2013 shows a
2,500-year-old life-size bronze statue of the Greek god Apollo
 discovered by Palestinian fishermen Jawdat Abu Ghrab
(Gaza Ministry of Tourism, AFP) .

Many of the intact ancient bronze statues that have survived from antiquity come from the sea, since those on land were melted down for reuse.(Philippe Bohstrom, "Diving Robbers Are Looting Underwater Treasures, Archaeologists Wail" Haaratz Mar 15, 201)

sometimes wonderful treasures still resurface. One day in 2013, a local fisherman, Jawdat Abu Ghrab, discovered a rare bronze statue of the Greek god Apollo in the sea outside the town of Deir Al-Balah, Gaza. The 1.7-meter-tall work weighed about 300 kilograms. With some help, Abu Ghrab extracted it from the water and put into his family's home, with the statue's male parts covered up. After some weeks, rumors of the statue spread and the Palestinian authorities confiscated it, promising to pay Abu Ghrab some fraction of the statue's value as compensation. The Palestinian Antiquities Authority for one says it's worth around $340 million, according to al-Jazeera, which could help explain why the fisherman reportedly hasn't received the promised compensation. In any case, the statue mysteriously vanished from the public eye in April 2014, though it had been in the possession of the police. Possibly looting isn't confined to thieves 

Greek Art "Sent Back" to Italy

This is Greek, anyone can see

New York prosecutors "returned" in an elaborate ceremony "an ancient Etruscan vessel to the Italian Republic". Min. Plen. Francesco Genuardi, Consul General of Italy in New York, said:

 “Today, a marvelous Etruscan vessel, dated around 470 B.C. and stolen from Italy in the nineties, finally returns to Italy and I am very proud to accept it as part of our cultural and artistic heritage [...] This repatriation ceremony represents a tremendous result in the framework of the significant strengthening of the collaboration between Italy and the United States

So this is yet another expression of the effete "soft power" vision of the Obama government hoping to win friends by pandering to the nationalist sentiments of foreign governments. The object was seized back in February by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office from a dealer's gallery in Midtown Manhattan together with an ancient marble sarcophagus fragment which was earlier repatriated to the Hellenic Republic which they claimed had been taken from Greece in the early 1990s. As for the pot:

The dual-handled vessel dates back to approximately 470 B.C. and was stolen in the mid-1990s from Cerveteri, a present-day municipality located to the north of Rome, Italy, and the historic site of an ancient Etruscan necropolis. The value of the vessel, which depicts a nude satyr and draped youth, is estimated at more than $250,000. Once presented with evidence of theft, the item was forfeited willingly by the Manhattan-based art gallery where it was advertised and displayed. [...]

The problem is, the pot was not made in Italy at all, merely found there. It is an Attic red-figured amphora, attributed to the Harrow painter (Tom Mashberg, "Stolen Etruscan Vessel to Be Returned to Italy", New York Times March 16, 2017), so for the archeological false news peddlars to describe it as "Etruscan' in order to justify "sending it back to Italy" is a political sleight of hand having nothing to do with truth and justice. Hopefully the Trump administration will now put an end to such abuses.

Trump Administration Shifts Focus in Fight Against Collectors

The State Department's Cultural Heritage Center (CHC) along with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) faces severe cuts in the Trump Administration's Budget proposal (Peter Tompa, "Cultural Heritage Center Faces Budget Cuts" CPO Friday, March 17, 2017) That proposal, "Reduces funding for the Department of State's Educational and Cultural Exchange (ECE) Programs. ECE resources would focus on sustaining the flagship Fulbright Program, which forges lasting connections between Americans and emerging leaders around the globe.” While the CHC's programs have been characterized as "soft power" diplomatic efforts, as Peter Tompa rightly notes:

its MOUs have devolved into special interest programs that only benefit small numbers of archaeologists and foreign cultural bureaucracies that offer them excavation permits. Meanwhile, associated embargoes on cultural goods have thoroughly alienated large numbers of legitimate dealers and collectors both here and abroad. So, any supposed "soft power" benefits may in reality be deficits as far as the most of the general public is actually concerned. It may be too much to hope for, but going forward the Trump State Department CHC should consider retooling to promote people to people cultural exchange that sees collecting as an asset and not an enemy. Such an inclusive vision would increase CHC's popularity dramatically and help stave off any budget cuts going forward.

This makes it clear that it would make sound financial sense for the Cultural Heritage Center to quit discriminating against collectors.

Blocking Sales of Artifacts from Belize, Guatemala and Mali

Mayan artefacts from the villiage of Chajul, Guatemala, property of a Florida collector.

A telling symptom of the declining influence of the State Department's Cultural Heritage Center (CHC) and Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) seems to be the Short comment period for proposed MOUs with Belize, Guatemala and Mali. Readers might like to express their views on this by turning to the Regulations.gov website and entering a public comment for the Cultural Property Advisory Committee's review of proposed renewals of these existing MOUs.
Both Guatemala and Belize produce artifacts for the collector of the Mayan culture which emerged in the lowland area of the Yucatán Peninsula and the highlands to the south, in what is now southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, western Honduras, and Belize.

Italian Archeomafia Faces Day of Reckoning

Naples' top archaeology official and ex-mayor of Pompeii were arrested in an anti-mafia raid in Italy  

Police in Naples have arrested 69 people, including political figures and businessmen, in raids targeting Naples' notorious Casalesi cartel. The operation was focused on bribery and rigging of contracts in the crematorium and archaeology business in favour of the Zagaria clan. One of those arrested was Naples' top archaeology official while another was an ex-mayor of Pompeii, reports said. A construction entrepreneur was alleged to head the corruption network. The Casalesi cartel is seen as the strongest branch of the Camorra, the formidable organised crime syndicate in the Naples area. [...] Italy's financial crime police spread their net wide in Wednesday's operation to include local officials, civil servants, accountants and university professors, local media said. Adele Campanelli, the head of Naples' architecture and fine arts department, was placed under house arrest, according to several reports. Police are investigating 18 contracts awarded since 2013, such as the construction of a museum close to the Roman amphitheatre at Alife and a new crematorium in modern Pompeii.

Syria and its Neighbours: A Case of Cultural Property Protection Policy Failure

Despite the best efforts of the anti-collecting cabal to repress honorable and ethical dealers and collectors, the archeologists admit failure to stop the looting, the blame for which they laid at the door of collectors: "Syria and its Neighbours: A Case of Cultural Property Protection Policy Failure" (by Dr Neil Brodie). The  ethically bankrupt propaganda of the cabal is increasingly, mercifully, and inexorably, being exposed as such.


 

"Guilty Until Proven Innocent"? No Way!

Cultural treasures stolen from conflict zones continue to pop up for sale in the United States and elsewhere says antiquities' Coalition Tess Davis  (Buyer Beware: US Market for Ancient Asian Art Still the Wild, Wild East by Tess Davis March 14, 2017)

 Given the country’s bloody history, absent evidence to the contrary, its ancient art should be considered guilty until proven innocent.

emotive language aside, these are double standards, absent evidence that there is any guilt cannot be treated as proof - defensible in court - that it is in any way a blameworthy activity to preserve these items safely outside the conflict zone where there is a threat they will be destroyed.

Collected Ancent Sculptures and Humanism

Federico Zuccaro (1542-1609) drawing his brother Taddeo Zuccaro copying the Laocoon and other ancient statues of Rome...

Dealers Denied Civil Rights

The anti-collecting lobbyists of the Antiquities Coalition reveal their true colours with a candid tweet from their Chief of Staff suggesting: "Dealers Don't Have Civil Rights!"

FROM TWITTER: Katie A. Paul‏ @AnthroPaulicy Katie A. Paul Retweeted Peter Tompa 

What a shameful accusation to compare the plight of antiquities dealers to those fighting for civil rights. Dealers don't have civil rights!

No wonder why the Antiquities Coalition apparently thinks the burden of proof should be shifted away from the government and onto collectors and dealers to prove their collections are "licit" under obscure foreign laws, many of which are the products of dictatorships like that of Egypt.

It cannot be tolerated that law enforcement use civil law to take, keep and ultimately benefit from assets seized before a case is judged, or even against citizens who have yet to be accused of anything. Based on current law, people not committing a crime can be negatively impacted. Forfeiture is a critical tool to take resources away from criminals, but that's what we expect these people to be: criminals. There needs to be a healthy restructuring of our asset forfeiture laws.

Mosul Museum Smashed, not 'Looted'

Moslem attitudes to culture, Mosul Museum March 2017

As Peter Tompa expertly notes:

"Destruction of Mosul Artifacts Further Undercuts Archaeological Lobby's Narrative"

Confirmation that ISIS appears to have destroyed the contents of the Mosul Museum  should be a cause for sadness rather than an excuse for yet another sound bite condemning the purchase of "blood antiquities."  If anything, the destruction of portable antiquities like cuneiform tablets contradicts the archaeological lobby's narrative that ISIS loots rather than destroys for ideological reasons.

Obviously, the objects that were held in the museum and not evacuated would have been safer in the collections of private citizens abroad. Sad that the Iraq authorities could not see that but insisted on trying to look after it all themselves. Now we can see to what that led.

The antiquities museum in the Iraqi city of Mosul is in ruins. Piles of rubble fill exhibition halls and a massive fire in the building’s basement has reduced hundreds of rare books and manuscripts to ankle-deep drifts of ash. [...] many of the artifacts destroyed by ISIS were the original ancient stone statues dating back thousands of years, rather than replicas as some Iraqi officials and experts previously claimed. ISIS captured Mosul in 2014 and released a video the following year showing fighters smashing artifacts in the museum with sledgehammers and power tools. The voice narrating the ISIS video justified the acts with verses from the Quran referencing the Prophet Muhammad’s destruction of idols in the Kaaba. “These statues and idols, these artifacts, if God has ordered its removal, they became worthless to us even if they are worth billions of dollars,” the narration said.  [...] Inside the Mosul museum’s main exhibition hall, the floor was littered with the jagged remains of an ancient Assyrian bull statue and fragments from cuneiform tablets. 

The latter could have been sold, but they werre instead smashed by the ignorant ragheads.

The "Grimani Vitellius" and Humanism

The "Grimani Vitellius", Roman marble bust of Vitellius, 69 AD - sent by Cardinal Domenico Grimani from Rome to Venice in 1523. It became a significant subject for Italian Renaissance artists. Two 16th century studies by Tintoretto.

Archeological Bloggers

Erdogan Accuses

Turkey is not only trying to persecute and intimidate law-abiding collectors interested in preserving and displaying antiquities from the region of Anatolia, but also intent on smashing the democratic process in Europe too. Because the Dutch stood up to him, he is calling them Nazis. Here is what real Nazis look like:

Meanwhile Turkish immigrants in Holland spread unrest as the wave of Erdogan sympathisers and Wahhabis spread across the country.

Moslem demonstrations in European streets

Cacaxtla Catastrophe

In Mexico, just across the border, once vibrant murals in Cacaxtla in Tlaxcala state in the east central part of the country have lost 70% of their original colour. Mexico is clearly not doing enough to save them.

 Mexico cannot look after its own heritage, stop it deteriorating or being stolen. The role of collectors in helping to protect this heritage is clear.

Prosecutor with a Crusade Against Art World is Dismissed

Enemy of the free market in antiquities

‘Crusader prosecutor’ Attorney Preetinder Singh ("Preet") Bharara has been removed from office by the the President in part of a cleanup of the judiciary and the mess left behind by the Obama administration. It was an abrupt end to Bharara’s nearly-eight-year tenure prosecuting powerful people in finance and politics. But the Indian born official was engaged in a campaign to police the art and antiquities trade ("Top US prosecutor has art market in his sights")

Bharara’s office has overseen at least 15 high-profile art-related forfeiture cases—as the office refers to them—in the past five years. The cases include the return to Brazil last year of a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Hannibal (1981), which Edemar Cid Ferreira, the founder and former president of Banco Santos, had used in a money-laundering scheme; the repatriation in 2014 of a Cambodian statue that had been scheduled to be sold at Sotheby’s in 2011; and the prosecution of the New York-based art dealer Helly Nahmad for his involvement in an illegal sports gambling operation. Since Bharara took the job in 2009, almost every major case involving art has either passed through his office or been initiated by it. [...] The Southern District’s influence is disproportionately large because it deals with business conducted in New York, the largest city in the US.

According to the Art Newspaper, Bharara has been involved in a number of antiquities cases:

March 2015, An Iraqi Assyrian head.  This was returned to Iraq after being looted following the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003

February 2015, An Etruscan bronze statuette (†fth/sixth century BC).  The statuette was taken from the Oliveriano Archaeological Museum, Pesaro, in 1964. It was returned to the Italian government.

December 2013, The Duryodhana Cambodian sandstone sculpture (tenth century), valued at around $2m to $3m. Allegedly stolen from the Prasat Chen sanctuary at Koh Ker in Cambodia, the sculpture had been scheduled for sale at Sotheby’s in 2011 before it was returned to Cambodia..

 July 2012, Peruvian art (around 1700).  A Spanish colonial silver-gilt and enamel monstrance, originally from Cusco, Peru, was repatriated along with other plundered artefacts. 

The Manhattan DA’s office has seized and sent abroad several other ancient artifacts since that article was written:

In August 2014, five coins dating as far back as 515 B.C. were returned to Greece after coin collector Arnold Peter Weiss was charged with and later convicted of attempted criminal prosecution of stolen property, the DA’s office said. He had several coins he believed had been stolen dekadrachma and tetradrachma from the Sicilian cities of Agrigento and Catania.

In April 2016, a 2nd century Buddhist sculpture worth more than $1 million was returned to Pakistan after the investigation and prosecution of Tatsuzo Kaku, who had been selling stolen antiquities smuggled from South Asia.

In May and June 2016, two bronze statues and four carved artifacts dating to the 10th and 11th centuries A.D., valued at several million dollars, were returned to India as part of a series of seizures of stolen antiquities.

 More recent is the case of a fragment of an ancient marble sarcophagus fragment which was seized from a dealer and then sent to Greece.Hopefully the new appointee will have less of a missionary zeal to do the bidding of archeologists and foreign governments when it comes to the property of collectors of ancient art and culture.

A full-length mummy shroud from Roman period Egypt was found after 80 years in Scottish museum collection.

Treasure unrecognized in museum for 80 years

A full-length mummy shroud from Roman period Egypt was found after 80 years in Scottish museum collection. It dates from ca. 9 B.C. (Full-length mummy shroud found after 80 years in Scottish museum collection).

The shroud, which dates to about 9BC, was found during "an in-depth assessment" of Egyptian collections. [...]  Dr Margaret Maitland, senior curator of ancient Mediterranean collections, found the folded shroud wrapped in brown parcel paper, with a note written by a past curator in a World War Two service envelope identifying the contents as having come from an ancient Egyptian tomb.The package had been stored since the mid-1940s.  Conservators gently humidified it so that the fibres became less dry and brittle. This allowed them to carefully unfold the shroud, a process which took almost 24 hours. A hieroglyphic inscription on the shroud revealed the identity of the owner to be the previously unknown son of the Roman-era high-official Montsuef and his wife Tanuat. Dr Maitland said: "To discover an object of this importance in our collections, and in such good condition, is a curator's dream. "Before we were able to unfold the textile, tantalising glimpses of colourful painted details suggested that it might be a mummy shroud, but none of us could have imagined the remarkable figure that would greet us when we were finally able to unroll it. "The shroud is a very rare object in superb condition and is executed in a highly-unusual artistic style, suggestive of Roman period Egyptian art, yet still very distinctive."

One wonders how many other objects are mouldeing unrecognixczed in crowdwd museum stores. Far better would be to release such duplicate material onto the market to allow collectors to look after and study this sort of material.

The Acropolis in the Nineteenth century

Carl Anton Jos. Rottmann's lovely painting of the world's most famous citadel, the Acropolis and the Temple of Olympian Zeus (1836)

 Vasily Polenov's painting of the  Erechtheum, a.ka. 'Porch of the Maidens'.

How Samian Pottery is Made

Many collectors have come across this type of pottery, here is how it was made:


Awesome.

Asia Week Again

Vishnu in His Cosmic Sleep. Central India, MP or UP, 11th–12th Century.
Beige Sandstone. 11 x 21 5/8 in (28 x 55 cm).

Asia week 2017:

It’s New York’s salute to the vibrant arts of Asia, a 10-day festival where visitors admire or acquire ancient treasures and contemporary masterworks displayed in lustrous galleries, auction houses and museums. Now in its eighth year, Asia Week New York, which begins on Thursday, has blossomed into a kind of high-culture pub crawl where international and local exhibitors showcase fine art from all corners of Asia, and museums and others stage special events. This year more than 50 vendors are participating — the most ever — but organizers are still mindful that a year ago, federal officials and the Manhattan district attorney’s office raided several dealers during a crackdown on antiquities smuggling. They seized eight items and later charged one of the Asian art market’s leading figures with trafficking in stolen goods. The vast majority of dealers and auction houses were not implicated, however, and they are looking forward to displaying a cornucopia of traditional and modern works, including porcelain, jewelry, textiles, paintings, ceramics, sculpture, bronzes, prints, photographs and jades.

Lion Gate in 1880s

Heinrich Schliemann (top r.) in the 1880s standing on the Lion Gate, the most prominent landmark of Mycenaean Greece.

Theban Ostracon from Rogers Collection

On an ostrakon (580-640 CE), a monk writes a letter asking for goatskins to make a book Thebes, Byzantine Egypt. From the Rogers collection, 1914. Once again showing the importance of private collections for preserving material and making it available for study.