Antiquities and Artifacts
Use Caution, and Compassion, in Collecting
by
Cindy Ellen Hill, Esq. for Fine Art Registry™
For a person fascinated by history, few experiences surpass the feeling of touching an object hundreds or thousands of years old; to feel the weight of the stone, to be able to lift it and run your hands over it the way you can’t when it’s locked in a museum case; to speculate about the man or woman who created it so long ago, and wonder about their dreams, their images, their passions and their lives. The life of a private collector of antiquities is greatly enriched by living in an environment steeped in links with the past.
"Moral attitudes around the world have been changing regarding the private acquisition of cultural assets."
However, moral attitudes around the world have been changing regarding the appropriateness of private acquisition of cultural resources. While commercial archaelogists of the turn of the last century were applauded and economically rewarded for filling an insatiable market for jewelry from Egyptian tombs and ground-mummy paint pigments, today’s standards condemn such acts as wanton grave robbery.
In my small New England town, these changing attitudes have an interesting memorial: the cemetery contains a gravestone carved in the local vernacular style – except for the inclusion of an Egyptian cross. The grave contains the mummy of a small boy which had been purchased by an eccentric collector when such things were popular; after his death, the trustees of his collection were horrified by the presence of a dead child amidst shelves of art and oddities, and after an endearing but fruitless attempt to determine who the young boy was and where he should properly be laid to rest, they decided that giving him a 'proper Christian burial' was required by principles of decency.
Changing Sentiments
The current and growing school of thought amongst people from fields as diverse as history, art, sociology, and religion, is that cultural resources belong to the culture from which they arose. While a South American jaguar carving enriches the New York apartment of its collector-owner, modern ethical considerations hold that the same carving is of greater value to the descendants of its creators, who can place it on display or protect it as they see fit, so that succeeding generations can learn more substantively about their cultural heritage. This sentiment reflects an attempt to make up for the exploitations of the colonial eras, when more technologically advanced western civilizations walked off with millions of dollars of cultural resources from indigenous people. European churches lined with South American gold stand out as a glittering example of theft by conquest, but the exodus of countless small pipes, bowls, and icons are perhaps even a greater loss, depriving indigenous peoples of the substantive knowledge of their own past.
While world sentiment is changing, law is catching up only slowly, and in a haphazard manner that varies widely from country to country. In the United States, for example, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 declares that ownership of as-of-yet unrecovered artifacts reverts to the descendants of their creators upon excavation, although it allows brief periods of time for archaeologists to document and study the objects. The act also
requires the return of many Native American cultural items to the descendants of the respective peoples from which they came. Since the adoption of the statute, museums across the country have been carefully cataloguing and returning human remains, funerary objects, and other cultural items, or entering into maintenance and display agreements with Native American tribes.
Many other countries have passed artifact protection laws with varying terms. Many of these laws declare all items of cultural significance found within the country which are not already in claimed ownership to be the property of the government.
Law Enforcement Difficulties
According to international law enforcement personnel, trade in stolen and illegally acquired art and cultural antiquities and artifacts surpasses the international trade in endangered species; only the black market in drugs and weapons exceeds the art and artifacts market in scale, scope, and economic impact. One side-effect of the United State’s current armed conflicts has been to elevate global knowledge and concern about the growing disaster of antiquities and artifacts theft. In Afghanistan, information slowly leaked out into the media over the course of years describing both the destruction of cultural artifacts by the Taliban, bent on destroying emblems of other religious beliefs (such as the magnificent Budhha statues), and the sale of museum and governmental collections, both to finance the Taliban government as well as by private owners (and thieves) desperate for cash for life’s basic necessities. In Iraq, the looting of the Baghdad museum shortly after the U.S. troops entered that city raised a collective gasp of horror among those around the world who value history, art, and cultural heritage.
The antiquities stolen from these two nations are but the tip of the iceberg which has been exposed by media attention in recent years. The Balkans, Israel, Egypt, and China, are among the additional nations reporting large increases in the quantities of antiquities and artifacts being unlawfully removed from their country. Some of these artifacts are outright stolen from private owners or museums and educational institutions; others are removed straight from the ground, either stolen from legitimate archaeological digs or the product of rogue grave robbers.
Many of these stolen artifacts wind up in the hands of American collectors. The Jordan Times reported in 2004 that over 1000 of the stolen Iraqi artifacts have been recovered in the United States – about the same number as had been discovered at the Jordan border in the hands of smugglers trying to leave Iraq.
"Where the laws of the nation of origin are not clear, criminal prosecution is difficult."
Despite the growing patchwork of laws trying to stop artifact theft and smuggling, however, legal authority to stop it is elusive. The National Stolen Property Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 2314 and 2315, makes it a federal felony to possess or trade in any stolen item worth more than $5,000. Occasionally, prominent antiquities dealers such as Fred Schultz of New York are arrested and convicted for criminal violations of the National Stolen Property Act. Schultz’s conviction was upheld because the market value of the pieces he was charged with dealing in were able to be established through comparable sales, and more importantly, because Egypt’s statutes protecting
antiquities were clear and simple on the point that antiquities and artifacts not uncovered as of the time of the statute’s adoption were the property of the government. Where the laws of the nation of origin are not as clear, or in dealing with smaller, more common pieces which lesser, or less provable, market value, criminal prosecution is difficult.
Tips for Collectors
For the collector, this means that smaller pieces, pieces from less 'popular' cultures with hard-to-establish market values, and pieces from countries with less clear protections laws, are still lawful to acquire and maintain. However, caution, and compassion, are warranted in considering which pieces to purchase or keep.
First, be clear that you are confident of the location the object came from, and of its method of collection. If you purchase a piece while traveling in a foreign country, check with the U.S. embassy or that country’s customs authority regarding the rules for removing antiquities or artifacts from that country, and obtain any and all authentication and documentation necessary for the item’s legal removal. If you buy a piece which has been imported into the United States, check for a similar documentation of source and authenticity. In buying a piece which has been in private hands for some time, probably predating any regulations of the source country regarding artifacts, research the piece’s provenance as carefully as possible, until you are assured that the piece was legitimately collected prior to any prohibitions. And check the stolen art database at Fine Art Registry™ prior to purchase, as well as with other prominent stolen artifact databases such as http://www.saztv.com/page30.html. These online resources can be easily checked from nearly anywhere in the world with internet access.
If you are attracted to the pieces of a particular culture, consider seeking out contemporary artists from that culture, whose works reflect and build on their cultural past. Patronizing current artists will improve the economy of their local environment while still honoring and capturing part of the cultural past you admire. Encourage the artist to register their works with Fine Art Registry, and if they do not do so, be sure to register the piece upon your acquisition of it. Registration will help establish provenance for any and all future owners of your piece, and can help protect you and your collection from risk of liability for improperly collected items.
— Cindy Ellen Hill, Esq. | January 15, 2007
Comments:
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Fine Art News Feed
I find the premise of this article to be extremely interesting, but the presentation and arguments unfortunately one-sided. The statement that "The current and growing school of thought ... is that cultural resources belong to the culture from which they arose." reflects only one side of the argument (and indeed is the current politically correct and more stridently vocal side of the issue). However, a growing voice is now being heard from diverse groups such as museums, collectors, art dealers, professors, researchers, and historians, that art and antiquities belong not soley to the culture which originally created the items but equally to all of humanity. I would hope to see a follow-up article discussing this interpretation of who owns art and antiquities, as the pendulum begins to swing back from the extreme on one side to a balanced perspective in the middle.
Sincerely,
Thomas W. Jendrock
February 3, 2007