From time immemorial, humans have buried their deceased loved ones with objects they might need for their passage and wellbeing for a spiritual journey or existence on another plane of reality. Dates for the earliest forms of interment of human remains associated with grave goods now go back as far as 100,000 years.1 In addition, people have buried valued objects for all kinds of reasons: to protect them from invading forces, to hide them, and sometimes maybe even just for fun. In northern New York, archaeologists discovered a series of caches of toys and collections buried by a small boy in the farmyard where he grew up prior to the land being taken by the United States Army in the Second World War. On a larger scale, ancient cities have been abandoned in a multitude of ways: through collapse, abandonment, climate change, fire or conquest. Whether these cities are now located in the midst of desert dunes or on a hilltop grazed by sheep, the one thing they all have in common is the treasures of their ancient people, hidden beneath the surface. It is reasonable to expect that as soon as people began to bury their valued objects, others came along to steal the same. We now find that, sadly, digging for buried objects left behind has become a global industry on an unprecedented scale.
Egypt offers an excellent example of the competition between those who would see their loved ones amply provided for in the next life and those who wished to enrich themselves in this one. It is clear from the complex construction of the pyramids from Giza south along the west bank of the Nile and the tombs in the Valley of the Kings that the ancient architects went to tremendous trouble to attempt to foil the would-be thieves of the dynasties. More than one archaeologist of the nineteenth century experienced the bitter disappointment of discovering and opening an ancient tomb in Egypt only to discover that robbers had been there hundreds of years before. Thanks to the work of scholars like T. Eric Peet, who studied and interpreted collections of ancient papyrus manuscripts in the early decades of the twentieth century,2 we even have an understanding of criminal organisations that were robbing tombs, and how these individuals were caught and punished – at least for the twentieth Egyptian dynasty.
Sometimes the distinctions between looting and professional archaeology can become blurred. Archaeological methods have changed dramatically over the years, from a profession of the wealthy largely devoted to the gathering of amazing objects for inclusion in collections belonging to individuals, institutions of higher learning, and museums to a painstaking science that now focuses on extremely careful excavation and detailed analysis designed to provide extensive contextual information with a goal of a sophisticated and nuanced understanding of the lives of the people of the past. This shift in focus from objects for art and objects’ sake to the understanding that objects in context can help us develop research and scholarship has resulted in incredible tension between the collecting and academic communities. The solution to the current epidemic of looting will require a paradigm shift in belief and behaviour among collectors and collecting institutions.
A bit of historical perspective may be useful when attempting to understand current attitudes among collectors of looted objects. In the nineteenth century, especially during the colonial period, indigenous people were often considered to be less than human. One of the most egregious examples of this attitude would be the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century European practice of collecting tattooed and preserved heads or Toi moko (as discussed elsewhere in this volume3). Originally, Toi moko were preserved heads of Māori tribal leaders kept in elaborate boxes by extended family members. When colonials discovered the existence of these remarkable objects, indigenous Māori were offered items of great value in exchange, and the supply of original pre-existing Toi moko quickly ran out. To satisfy the market, Māori offered living slaves and captured prisoners to colonial collectors who would select living individuals to be tattooed and then sacrificed for addition to their collection.4 When one considers this form of collecting, the purchase of inanimate stolen and/or excavated objects does not seem so bad. However, when we consider this example, it also becomes easier to see why even in the twenty-first century, the Western world has inherited a failure to respect ownership rights among indigenous people and foreign nationals, let alone respect for their attachment to their ancestors and ancient places. Given the fact that proactively collecting human heads is now unthinkable, perhaps this change offers optimism that it is possible for values and collecting practices to change over time.
However, it is not unusual to encounter attempts to rationalise the acquisition of looted objects, even in academic discourse. In a presentation to the New York State Archaeological Association in 2013, a representative of an Ivy League University, Laura Johnson-Kelly, offered a provocative list:
The flaws in this type of approach to the issue are clear, beginning with the complete ignorance of the critical importance of the relationships of modern communities with their heritage. This relationship is further illustrated by the numerous examples of individuals and communities who have risked their lives to protect their heritage in places like Mali, Syria, Iraq and Egypt. How many advocates of the ‘universal museum’ philosophy would be willing to put their own life or the lives of their loved ones on the line to save objects, sacred places and collections? It is true that there have been cases where repatriated objects have been stolen. For example, the Museum Director of the Archaeological Museum in Uşak, Turkey, was complicit in a theft where objects from the Lydian Hoard which had been repatriated from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1993 were stolen and replaced with duplicates.6 The theft was discovered and the objects returned. This example would be more accurately characterised as the exception that proves the rule rather than a demonstration of a phenomenon where repatriated objects enter an endless cycle of theft and resale. It is also important to remember that objects and works of art are stolen from museums every day, and most of the newly stolen objects have not been subjects of repatriation. The question of who should be the ‘rightful’ recipients of repatriated objects is another spurious argument. Johnson-Kelly offered the example of the Euphronios Krater originating in Greece. She questioned whether the object should have been repatriated to the home of the artist rather than to Italy, the country from which it was stolen. This argument, of course, conveniently ignores the fact that the ancient Etruscans most probably imported and paid for the object prior to placing it in a tomb with its owners.
Tracking a looted object from its source through the market to the collector and back again offers an opportunity to see how the black market in antiquities works. The Greeks founded the colony of Himera, located on the north coast of Sicily, in 648 BCE and settled in the region, controlling river access to the interior of the island. The Greek immigrants brought their religion and traditions with them including the offering of libations to the gods using solid gold bowls called phiale. The phiale now on exhibition in the Museum at Himera represents approximately 1.1 kilograms (2.5 pounds) of gold and is decorated with delicate embossed designs and images. Himera existed as an agricultural and trade centre until the Carthaginians destroyed it in 409 BCE. The city was never entirely abandoned, but it was never rebuilt as a city. During the times of conflict and conquest after 409, the phiale was forgotten and left behind for centuries. The object was not seen again until 1989 when a scholar described it after having seen it in a private collection in Sicily.7 Five years later, during the course of investigating a theft from the museum of Termini Imerese, the local prosecutor was told that the phiale had been discovered in 1980 by workers in the area of Monte Riparato just south of Himera. They had been installing electrical pylons for a power line in 1980, sold the phiale to a local collector for 30 million lire who then sold it to a dealer in Zurich for 140 million lire, and it was smuggled to Switzerland in 1991 at the request of a US-based antiquities dealer. It is also possible that the phiale was looted directly from the site of the ancient city where archaeologists have discovered a niche in the foundation wall of the Temple of Athena that fits the phiale perfectly.
When thinking about the life story of a looted object and its odyssey from its home in the ground, it is also important to consider the life stories of the individuals who actually do the looting. Looters come in many shapes and sizes and are driven by a variety of motives. Some looters will claim to be obsessed with a love of the objects.8 Some are born into the ‘profession’ of looting. In some areas of Italy, tomb raiding or becoming a ‘tombarolo’ was part of tradition in some families where elders passed on knowledge of site locations and excavation methods to subsequent generations. Some of these looters even specialise, like the tombaroli who focused on Etruscan tombs and taught selected others how to search for the voids that might yield a tomb filled with treasure by testing the earth using a long iron rod similar to a tile probe. In Egypt, some of the citizens of the village of Gurna, located in the Valley of the Kings, supported their families by digging beneath their homes into hidden tombs. The Egyptian government even tried to stop their looting activity by building a new village and evicting them. The emotionally compelling cases though are the individuals who in situations of conflict or disaster find that looting is the only way to feed their families. Veterans of the Italian Carabinieri deployment to Iraq described the anguish they felt upon interdicting some of the looters in the south of the country. Some were children, so frightened at being caught that they could not stop shivering and were in danger of going into shock. Others were educated individuals who understood the greater implications of their activities. One was a teacher, who had lost his income when the schools were closed and who was so ashamed he sobbed in the presence of his Italian captors. The doubly tragic component of situations like these is that the criminal and organised middlemen paid the desperate looters minimal amounts of money for objects they were turning over for hundreds and thousands of dollars.
Returning to the phiale, once in Switzerland, it entered the realm of Robert Haber & Associates, Ancient Art, New York. Smugglers and illicit dealers use the warehouses of Switzerland for storing stolen property because Switzerland offers free port locations. A free port is a designated area of warehouses that offer storage for valuable objects with minimal government oversight. The owners of the objects do not pay any import or export taxes on the objects when they move in and out of the free port, nor do they pay tax on any transaction that takes place within the free port. Tax is only paid in the country that is the ultimate destination of the object. During the subsequent investigation into the phiale case, it became clear that Haber had examined the object in Sicily prior to smuggling it to Switzerland, so there was no question that he had provided false information concerning the provenance when he stated that the object had been in a Swiss collection for decades. From the Swiss warehouse, the dealer took responsibility for bringing the object into the United States with falsified documentation and assisted in preparation of a customs declaration characterising the object as being worth far less than its actual value. The dealer, Haber, was acting on behalf of Michael Steinhardt, a benefactor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, who wished to add the phiale to his personal collection. It is also important to note that curatorial staff of the Metropolitan Museum may have assisted in authentication of the object. Steinhardt had possession of the phiale from 1991 until 1995 when the issue came to the attention of the prosecutor from Termini Imerese and the Italian art police, the Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (TPC).
When the Italians brought their request for repatriation to the United States, Steinhardt took his case for ownership all the way to the US Supreme Court. It is extremely interesting to note how major US cultural institutions became involved in the case, with the American Association of Museums (AAM – now the American Alliance of Museums) and the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) filing briefs on behalf of Steinhardt, and the Archaeological Institute of America along with a series of major academic organisations of archaeologists supporting the Italian request for repatriation. The Italians prevailed, with the key issue ultimately being the fact that the importer had lied about the value and origin of the object on the customs form as it entered the US. When Major Giuseppe Marseglia described the case, he took great pride in the fact that ultimately law enforcement prevailed using a very similar approach to that used in the conviction of the notorious American mobster Al Capone.9
When you have institutions and organisations like AAM and AAMD supporting the idea of a wealthy individual keeping an object that clearly has been looted and brought into the United States under false pretences, it illustrates the current challenge of societal responsibility in these matters. It is also important to note that Steinhardt was probably aware that there could be issues with the origin of the object because a clause in the purchase contract clearly stated that he would be reimbursed if any problem with the object were to emerge, specifically stating if ‘the object is confiscated or impounded by customs agents or a claim is made by any country or governmental agency whatsoever, full compensation will be made immediately to the purchaser’.10 When the US Supreme Court refused to hear Steinhardt’s appeal of the judicial decision requiring him to forfeit the phiale, it was possible for law enforcement officials to repatriate the object to Italy. It is currently exhibited with tremendous pride at the museum located at the site of Himera.
Warehouses like the Geneva Freeport offer looters, smugglers and dealers the opportunity to hang on to objects until the right buyer or the right circumstances provide opportunities for maximum profit. A good example is the sculpture of the head of Domatilla Minor, stolen from Sabratha, Libya in 1990 and reported to international authorities at that time. When the Gaddafi government fell in Libya in 2011, the ‘owners’ who had stored the object in a warehouse in the Geneva Freeport decided it would be a good time to attempt to sell. They put the object up for auction at Christie’s along with a false provenance that placed the object in a Swiss collection dating back to 1975, with an additional statement claiming that the object had been owned by the current seller since 1988. The seller’s strategy was that without an effective or recognised government in Libya, there would be no one to pursue the theft via the international justice system. Fortunately, the greater community of archaeologists took notice and the sale took place in view of the global media and under protest of archaeologists and scholars. An Italian philanthropist purchased Domatilla Minor, and General Pasquale Muggeo of the Carabinieri TPC returned her to the Museum in Libya from which she had been stolen decades before.
The art of forging antiquities is at least as old as the tourist industry. In a 1912 book on forged Egyptian antiquities, T.G. Wakeling (2006) vividly describes a sophisticated ploy where a young Egyptian will approach a tourist offering modern souvenirs.11 If the tourist fails to show an interest, then the intrepid entrepreneur will pull out an object wrapped in an old rag cautioning the tourist not to draw the attention of a policeman conveniently patrolling nearby and offer the object as a looted antiquity. If the tourist is fooled and pays generously, the policeman shares in the profit. Souvenirs and fakes have evolved from simply attempting to cheat tourists during one-on-one transactions to massive organised industries. One common method for selling and smuggling authentic antiquities is to mix them into shipments of inexpensive tourist items and obvious forgeries.
On a visit to the famous market at Porta Portese, Rome, a Carabinieri officer pointed out a small number of vendors where antiquities and forgeries were offered together, all labelled for the public eye as modern replicas of actual artefacts.12 Some smugglers have even been known to encase authentic antiquities inside of objects that appear to be inexpensive souvenirs. A British citizen named Jonathan Tokeley-Parry smuggled over three thousand objects out of Egypt for sale to the United States and United Kingdom for hundreds of thousands of dollars using this method. One of his most outrageous efforts involved hiding a sculpture of Amenhotep III inside a coating of clear liquid plastic which he then painted with gold leaf and black stripes to look like the least expensive possible King Tut replica.13 Tokeley-Parry was finally caught, convicted, and served his prison sentence from 1997 to 2001.
When skilled artisans use original materials and ancient methods, forged antiquities can be extremely difficult to identify. Scholars often argue about whether a specific object is authentic. Methods for detecting forgery can include chemical analysis of paints and materials, taking a sample of a tiny section of the object and subjecting it to radio carbon or magnetic dating techniques, and analysing the designs and manufacturing methods for historical accuracy.
The oceans also conceal vast amounts of treasure, and stewardship of sunken cities and shipwrecks is a formidable challenge. In addition to the complex legal framework governing ownership of sunken vessels and their cargo, just the physical challenge of identifying and protecting underwater archaeological deposits is an enormous task. There are examples of underwater exploration companies, salvers, sport divers and enthusiasts from all over the world who find themselves in trouble with the law when they begin to help themselves to objects they find under the sea or in freshwater lakes and rivers. In addition, individuals who do not have the necessary expertise or the conservation support to care for objects recovered from the ocean can do tremendous damage, if not total destruction to objects and features that had previously been preserved under water.
The Carabinieri TPC combined with the Carabinieri diving unit and the archaeological superintendency of Sardinia offer a model for comprehensive underwater site protection. In this case, the Carabinieri have extensively photographed the known wrecks with artefacts in situ, so if wrecks have been disturbed or artefacts stolen, the documentation can be immediate. In addition, the archaeological superintendent of Sardinia has enlisted the support of the pleasure-boating community, educating them on the importance of site preservation and encouraging them to play their part by contacting authorities if they witness illegal and inappropriate behaviour in and around the wrecks. Law enforcement along the Sardinian coast has increased to the point where stolen, ancient amphorae have actually been recovered floating along on the surface of the ocean after being jettisoned by thieves when they realised they were about to be caught. Another good example is offered by the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum of Vergennes, Vermont. In this case, with the blessing of the State Office of Historic Preservation, the museum community partnered with sport diving enthusiasts to preserve the shipwrecks on the bottom of the adjacent lake. These vessels represent all phases of European exploration, warfare and settlement of the region. The museum has even successfully established an underwater self-guided tour for scuba divers.
Tragically, in the second decade of the new millennium, heritage, antiquities and artefacts have emerged as victims and hostages in modern warfare. In situations when an area is rich in archaeology and torn by civil strife, as discussed above, even ordinary citizens may turn to looting in order to support their families, with Iraq as a case in point, since the first Gulf War of 1990–91. After the West imposed sanctions on Iraq, the economy began to fail and one by-product of the economic restrictions was that it was extremely difficult for many of the foreign archaeological teams to travel to Iraq for their annual excavation seasons. It is important to remember that the business model for excavation in the ancient world includes hiring local labourers to do much of the manual earth removal required for exposure of the earliest cities and features. In addition, a dig house filled with academics and students also provides financial stimulus via purchase of supplies, food and additional services. In some local situations, the absence of foreigners left extremely well-trained archaeological field technicians without any other means of supporting their families. Having worked with professional archaeologists for generations, these individuals were very knowledgeable when it came to targeting their efforts toward portions of major archaeological sites that would be the most likely to yield the most marketable artefacts, like cuneiform tablet libraries and necropolises. As archaeologist Geoff Emberling pointed out in a paper delivered at the Society for American Archaeology in 2007 and published in 2008, ‘We trained the looters.’14 The importance of the economic factors related to looting and preservation at the local level can also be seen in situations like Uruk, where the German Archaeological Institute made every effort to insure that the Altubi family continued to be paid to protect the site even when it was impossible for archaeologists to gain access. The Germans delivered funds via the Dutch and US military, and the site has remained protected while others in the region were ravaged.
The situation in Iraq developed into looting on an industrial scale with dangerous middlemen and dealers becoming involved in smuggling and selling the undocumented, stolen objects. It is very rare for an actual looter on the ground to make very much money. Generally, the middlemen and dealers who either pay or buy objects from local citizens are part of organised criminal networks, and there is no question the smuggling routes that carry antiquities also carry drugs and guns. Early in the course of the conflict in Syria, it appeared that syndicates actively looting in Iraq had simply expanded their illegal enterprises. For example the early satellite photos of the looting patterns in Apamea were tragically reminiscent of the American writer, filmmaker and photographer Micah Garen’s ‘moonscape’ photos taken in southern Iraq in the early 2000s. However, once Daesh came on the scene, the looting and performance destruction of heritage sites emerged on a scale beyond the worst fears any members of the global community could ever have imagined. It is very difficult to ascertain accurate information in real time from war zones. As of the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century, there is no reliable information on how many millions of dollars flow to terrorist groups via the sale of antiquities and how that market may be organised. In early 2015, images of Daesh antiquities looting permits briefly circulated across the internet, offering a glimpse into their taxation approach to theft. One challenge in terms of the issue of the role of looting in funding terrorism is that antiquities are neither a reliable nor a renewable source of income.
Every aspect of modern life is subject to the influences of globalisation, and the internet and looted antiquities are no exception. Just as internet marketplaces like eBay have expanded the opportunities for criminals to reach interested customers from around the world and to increase sales and profits, powerful databases of looted objects and law enforcement information can also be shared in the space of an instant. Every morning, officers of the Carabinieri TPC go to work, log into their computers, and look for looted objects available for sale. Some of them have favourite galleries and websites they check first every morning because the chronic offenders tend not to change their behaviour. Some of the prominent galleries and auction houses factor in repatriation as a cost of doing business. For every valuable object they have to return, they are probably selling ten more at great profit. The persistence and success of the Italian art police has shifted the market away from stolen Italian materials, but looted objects from Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Greece, Eastern Europe and Asia are bought and sold every day.
Criminals attempt to evade the database tracking systems in a variety of ways. One of the challenges for law enforcement is that an object that has been recently looted will not appear in a stolen objects database, because an object emerging from the soil will have no documentation or record that it ever existed. When organisations like the Art Loss Register emerged, unscrupulous dealers would put a looted object up for sale and point out that it was not listed as stolen in the Register to support the idea that any future transaction involving the object could be absolutely legal.
When members of the academic community work in partnership with law enforcement, knowledge can be a powerful force for good. Many objects of antiquity have such specific attributes that knowledgeable art historians and archaeologists identify, often very accurately, the precise origin of the object. For example, regions of Apulia have distinguishing styles of pottery that also date to discrete time periods and represent distinctive cultures of the past. One of these groups, the Daunians, Illyrians who migrated across the Adriatic to Italy, dating from approximately 600 to 450 BCE, are mentioned in the ancient texts. Artefacts related to their culture feature very distinctive funerary stelae and pottery with geometric patterns. Should one of these objects show up on the market, there would be no question concerning its place of origin when examined by an expert on the subject.
Globalisation is affecting looting and the market in other ways. As economies grow around the world, new markets for stolen objects emerge. Collecting antiquities is no longer limited to traditional Western colonial powers. Free ports are being established and are expanding. Luxembourg has recently built a 20,000-square-metre (215,000-square-foot) Freeport warehouse at its airport, while Beijing is establishing a free port specifically for art called the Beijing Freeport of Culture. There is discussion of doubling the free port in Shanghai that offers services to many Asian collectors.15 The Freezone in Dubai offers opportunities for antiquities dealing as well. When the opportunity arose to visit the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi in 2009, the Barakat Gallery had antiquities from all over the world openly for sale in display cases on the mezzanine surrounding the main lobby. While not limited to looted antiquities, there are estimates that transactions in the global art market represent on average in excess of US$60 billion per year.
First, the major collecting institutions need to come clean. Curatorial staff members need to stop recommending purchase of objects that come on to the market with provenances that are obviously false. They need to encourage restraint not just by the administrations and trustees of the museums they work for but also by the wealthy collectors who support their institutions and seek their advice. The major institutions need to take responsibility for past behaviour and they need to be public about these decisions. If major collecting institutions were to set an example, the private collectors would quickly follow.
In the United States, greater awareness and enforcement of rules governing tax-deductible donations to cultural institutions would help. Let us consider a hypothetical collection of cuneiform tablets. A collector purchases a collection of tablets looted from Iraq for $10,000. The collector loans the collection to a prominent university and possibly even donates funds, let us say $50,000, for conservation and translation of the writing on the tablets. What if the collection turns out to include a version of Hammurabi’s code or even the Epic of Gilgamesh? Even if the tablets represent the daily activities of a Mesopotamian royal court, once they are translated, their value continues to increase. So after the loan, conservation and translation, the collector could choose to donate the collection for an assessed value of $250,000. If the collector is in a 50 per cent tax bracket, he or she would gain $125,000 for a $60,000 investment, $50,000 of which was also deductible.
As of the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century, the market in looted antiquities is shifting to the venue of global politics, security and patriotism. It is no longer an issue of academics making intellectual arguments over who owns history or who should be ‘allowed’ to implement preservation. The issue is participation in global networks where the funds are ultimately supporting unthinkable crimes against humanity. Recognition of this tragic reality would be a first step in addressing the challenge of looted antiquities.
The views expressed in this chapter are personal, and do not represent the views of the United States’ Army, the Department of Defence, or the United States’ Government
Dr Laurie Rush is a US Army archaeologist working in support of the 10th Mountain Division. She is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and her latest book is The Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Property: Saving the World’s Heritage (co-authored with Luisa Benedettini Millington, Boydell Press, 2015)..