Blog Subscription via Follow.it

Showing posts with label antiquities looting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label antiquities looting. Show all posts

November 16, 2023

The Ephebes of Pedro Abad are on exhibition at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía



After a complex period of study and years of delicate restoration to repair their fragile bodies, the Ephebes of Pedro Abad went on display this week at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. There, for the first time, the statues can be viewed as they were meant to be seen, standing on their own two feet, vertically.  Each of the recovered bronzes constitute a milestone in the study of ancient art originating during the Early Roman Empire from ancient Hispania.

Beautiful, as well as extremely rare, the journey of their recovery began in January 2012, when rumours began to circulate regarding the extraordinary discovery of two bronze statues representing pubescent male atheletes.  The sore spot being, the finders of the bronzes apparently had no intention of turning the ancient artefacts over to Spain's cultural authorities, as is required by law.  Instead, their handlers  were shopping the statues around, looking for potential buyers, preferably someone with deep pockets. 

Over the following months, officers in Spain assigned to the Jaén Provincial Judicial Police Brigade, the Policía Nacional, and the Guardia Civil, worked to trace the statues' handlers.  In an operation investigators code named Operación Bronce, law enforcement agents sifted through dead ends and leads, and were eventually able to trace the handler's occupation to that of a transporter.  That in turn lead to finding where he lived in the country.

Through tapped phones detectives were next able to identify and geolocate several other Spanish intermediaries, men who resided in Jaén and Lora del Rio, who spoke with the possessors and who had the contacts necessary to fence material farther up the ancient art supply chain.  Officers learned of a plot to sell the statues for €3million a piece, to an Italian buyer who was believed to have the money, the means, and the black market network necessary to launder illicit antiquities, both big and small, through upscale channels within the lucrative ancient art market.  

When the Italian began preparing to come to Spain, the police knew they needed to act quickly.  When enough evidence of a crime had been established, agents made a requests to the ruling judge to search three properties, two, a home in Cordoba and a home in Pedro Abad for evidence, and a third, where they suspected the bronze statues were likely stored.  

On March 21, 2012 agents from the Specialised and Violent Crime Unit ( UDEV ) of the Jaén Provincial Judicial Police Brigade conducted  a strategically arranged raid on a property located on the El Palancar farm, located in the municipality of Pedro Abad (Córdoba).  There, the Apollonian and the Dionysian ephebes were located, stored in a bodega, carelessly wrapped, like Egyptian mummies in simple white paper.  


But the two ancient boys had seen much better days.  Unwrapped by police, the ephebe were a torturous mess of mangled and missing body parts.  One had his head and genitals lopped off, and both had violently suffered amputated arms and broken hands.  Like victims of some terrible accident, in addition to the decapitation, when spread out on the ground, officers could see a gaping gash on one of the statue's legs and a deep and penetrating wound to one of the boy's abdomen.  

But even in their wreaked and plundered state, still caked in soil and encrustations, it was easy to see that the bronzes were important, depicting beautiful sculpted nudes which reflected idealised body proportions and athleticism.  Based on their decorative characteristics and postures, the bronzes appeared to be "silent servants," or what Homer and Lucretius called golden boys, decorative statues designed by their creators to be a representation of an actual servant, whose primary purpose was to carry lamps or trays on their outstretched arms.  Symbolic as well as decorative, statues such as these have been found in triclinium, the banquet rooms of important Roman villas.  

Functional as well as beautiful, these types of bronzes are thought to have provided ancient diners with fanciful attendants who tended to their needs, but who never tired.  For Spain, the recovered pair have incalculable historical, archaeological and artistic value.  Aside from these two, there is only one other known ephebe recorded as having been found in Spain.  All three originate in Andalusia in the southernmost tip of the country.  And all three come from sites located within a radius of about 100 kilometres" from one another (he third being found in Antequera).  Each ephebe comes from archaeological sites which dot the Roman Bética route in ancient Hispania. 

How rare is rare?

In total, the number of bronze statues representing ephebe which have survived through history, can be counted on less than ten fingers. To understand their rarity, it's enough to consider were some of the other bronze "servants" are housed.  The Apollo of Lillebonne is located in the Musée du Louvre, while the Young Man of Magdalensberg resides in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the Statue of an ephebe from the Bay of Marathon is at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.  

The Idolino is on display at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze and farther south in Italy, another bronze of this type was recovered during excavations at the House of the Citharist in Pompeii.  That one became part of the collection of the Museo Nazionale Archeologico in Naples and seventy-five years after his discovery, in 1925, Amedeo Maiuri excavated another, less than two blocks away on the Via dell’Abbondanza.

But what happened to the would-be smugglers?

On 19 September 2018 at the Juzgado de Primera Instancia nº 1, the Court of First Instance, in Córdoba, the defence and the prosecution reached an agreement resulting in the two brothers from Pedro Abad first charged with the alleged commission of an attempted smuggling, pleading guilty to the misappropriation of historical heritage assets.  The pair received a a lighter prison sentence of six months, instead of the potential two years and two months requested earlier by the prosecutors, had their case gone to trial.  By pleading out to the lessor charge, the pair also avoided potentially high fines, in the millions. 


And the statues?

After their recovery, the Apolíneo and Dionisíaco ephebes were carefully studied. Archaeologists determined that the Roman bronze sculptures were ascribable to the High Imperial era (1st-2nd century CE), and were copies of Greek originals from the 5th century BC or works inspired by these.  In May 2019 the ephebes were each approved to register in the General Catalog of Andalusian Historical Heritage (CGPHA) as an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC), declared BIC by the Governing Council.  Humorously, they are listed in the category of Furniture. 


Following information obtained from the investigation, it was determined that the statues were found together, which is unique in and of itself, near a bend in the Guadalquivir river (the ancient Baetis).  There they would have been part of the decoration of a Roman villa located near the ancient Roman city of Sacili Martialium, identified within the zone of Alcurrucén near the Via Augusta in the municipality of Pedro Abad. 

Due to their extensive damage, the Ephebes of Pedro Abad underwent two and a half years of delicate and lengthy conservation at the Andalusian Institute of Historical Heritage (IAPH) to ensure their formal integrity.  

Gammographic studies were carried out which provided information about the condition of the statues allowing conservators to understand and observe key aspects that are not visible in direct observation, without the need to manipulate or take samples. This played an important role in pre-intervention studies as it made it  possible to detect cracks, fissures, welds, and reinforcement plates.  Afterwards, the bronzes were fitted with internal structures and the bases needed to allow them to be displayed as they were always meant to be seen, vertically. 


Given the amount of work involved ARCA would like to congratulate everyone who have made this reality possible: from the detectives, to the conservators, to the archaeologists, to the curators, and the careful transporters.  Without them, these pieces might never have been returned to the people of Spain.  

The Ephebes of Pedro Abad will remain on exhibition at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía through March 4, 2024 within the framework of the official program of the Picasso Celebration 1973-2023.   Go see them for yourself if you get the chance.   

October 25, 2023

All that glitters, isn't licit: Ukraine's unethical collectors incentivise black archaeology


As various art historians confirm, or negate, the authenticity of the recently-seized Scythian gold recovered by Spanish and Ukrainian law enforcement authorities, I thought I would circle back with a follow up article on what the origin of this collection can tell us about Ukraine's history, and the illicit trade of artefacts coming from this location. 

As was announced in an article earlier this week, detectives with the Bureau of Economic Security, together with employees of the Security Service of Ukraine, in cooperation with the Office of the Prosecutor General, conducted an international special operation with law enforcement partners at the Policía Nacional in Spain.  This resulted in the seizure of a large grouping of gold pieces incirculation in Spain which are believed to be of Scythian origin, and which are thought to date to the VIII-IVth century BCE.

As those who read our earlier article this week have seen, ARCA matched several of the recovered jewellery pieces to exhibitions which displayed 21 pieces of jewellery owned by LLC Rodovid Museum.  This relatively new company is controlled by Ukrainian businessman Igor Didkovsky, who, during the presidency of now deposed Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko, was once the director of the Art Arsenal from 2007 to 2010.  

From August 2007 to June 2009, Didkovsky also headed the Viche political party, which has since changed its name to Aktsent (in 2018).  Didkovsky has described himself as the president of the RODOVID group of companies as well as the Chairman of the supervisory board of ВАТ КУА ІСІ "МИР", which appears to be a closed-end venture investment fund.  

Interviewed in 2012, Didkovsky boasted that he was the owner of the largest collection of Scythian gold in the world. At the time of these statements, it was reported that his collection included 4 pectorals as well as the only belt of a Scythian queen.  All of which the collector claimed to have purchased for "a small amount of money."   

Igor Didkovsky and the belt of a Scythian queen

Didkovsky's collection has been displayed in 2009 in an Art Arsenal exhibition titled “From the Depths”. In 2010 it popped up briefly at a meeting of the "Club of Successful Women", in Kyiv.  And lastly, over three days, the gold was displayed at the International Forum of Investment and Innovation held at the Fairmont Grand Hotel Kyiv from May 15 -17, 2013.  

As has been stated in the Policia Nacional press release, the joint Spanish - Ukrainian investigation was kickstarted in 2021 with the private sale of what was described as a Scythian "gold belt with ram heads that was deposited in a safe in Madrid."   If the object identified in the Spain case is the same belt of a Scythian queen mentioned by Didkovsky, we now have a Facebook social media photo identifying that specific artefact, when it was listed as part of the exhibition held at the Kyiv hotel.


Black Archaeology + wealth + unethical collecting + confllict excavations

At its peak in the Middle Ages, the Slavic kingdom of the Kyivan Rus, as Ukraine was then known, extended north from the Black Sea to encompass most of what is now western Russia.  Rich in history, Ukraine's movable cultural heritage includes material from Paleolithic and Neolithic settlements, the settlements of the Trypillian people, and the rare, but glittery, gold-filled Scythian and Sarmatian burial sites.

During his lifetime, (490/480-425 BCE) Greek historian Herodotus, in Book IV, chapter 71 of his History of the Persian Wars, described the lives of the Scythians and other nomadic groups with whom the Greeks interacted.  Illegally
excavated Scythian artefacts come often come from Ukraine's treasure-rich burial mounds which are concentrated along the lower Dnieper River area.  

Other Scythian sites can be found on either side of the Kerch Straits between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, as well as in the Caucasus Mountains primarily along the Kuban River and in the contested area of Crimea.  

Unfortunately, privately collecting by the country's elite who too often have an odious lack of concern for an object's origins, is all too prevalent.  Following its independence, Ukraine has seen the rise of several private archaeological collections, of which only a few have any footprint in the public domain.  

In addition to Didkovsky's we also have the Feldman collection, which was started by Oleksandr Feldman, and is now part of the Feldman Family Museum project in Kharkiv, the Platar and the Yushchenko collections.

Kateryna Yushchenko is known to have worn a burgundy dress, adorned with a striking ancient Greek fibula, as well as ancient Sarmatian bracelets with garnet inserts and a ring during her husband’s inauguration ceremony as president of Ukraine in January 2005.  Those pieces had purportedly been borrowed from the late Serhiy Platonov's controversial Platar collection, another privately funded museum initiative based in Kyiv.  

Sergei Platonov died in 2005, leaving his ancient art collection, the Platar, to his heirs and business partners.  While living, he often indicated that he and his colleague, politician Sergey Taruta, bought material specifically to protect Ukraine's heritage from avaricious foreigners.  Like Didkovsky, Platonov didn't shy away from acknowledging to have purchased artefacts sourced via black archaeology -- the looting of archaeological sites, rather than through the ethical purchase of artefacts already in circulation from legitimate sources. 

It is this level of nonchalant buying power which serves to incentivise illegal excavations in some of Ukraine's most vulnerable areas.  And it is this increased demand for high value finds which contributes to the destruction of the country's archaeological heritage as well as what we can learn about the country's past through more methodical exploration and documentation. 

As private museums, step up and step in to provide valuable venue spaces where state run institutions may not exist or may be underfunded, we would like to encourage philanthropists to step away from their collecting nihilism and to abide by the Code of Museum Ethics of ICOM, developed by the International Council of Museums specifically to address the need for ethical collecting. 

According to the ICOM code:

2.3 Provenance and Due Diligence 
"Every effort must be made before acquisition to ensure that any object or specimen offered for purchase, gift, loan, bequest, or exchange has not been illegally obtained in, or exported from its country of origin or any intermediate country in which it might have been owned legally (including the museum’s own country). Due diligence in this regard should establish the full history of the item since discovery or production."

4.5 Display of Unprovenanced Material:
"Museums should avoid displaying or otherwise using material of questionable origin or lacking provenance. They should be aware that such displays or usage can be seen to condone and contribute to the illicit trade in cultural property."

But not all historic artefacts smuggled out of the Ukraine, originate from within the territory.  And not all trafficked material, removed in contravention of the country's laws and international instruments, has been removed trafficking networks like the one revealed to be operating in Spain.  

Recently, in May 2023 Censor.NET journalist Tetyana Nikolayenko published a copy of the letter in which the Security Service of Ukraine confirmed the opening of an investigation after State Customs at the border in the Lviv region detained Chinese objects from the same Platar collection mentioned earlier.  According to statements by this collection's patrons, Sergei Platonov's son Mykola Platonov and Sergey Taruta, the items were being exported to Prague for an exhibition at the Galerie Gema s.r.o, a rather oddly selected venue for historic pieces of that calibre. 

Other artefact rich locations in Ukraine which have been subject to predation, include the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Chersonesus, founded by Dorian Greeks in the 5th century BCE, and sometimes referred to as the Ukrainian Pompeii.  This expansive site sits just three miles west, as the crow flies, of modern-day Sevastopol. 

In 2021, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation issued a permit for archaeological work in occupied Crimea specifically at the site of Chersonesus.  Working in an area covering some 400,000 square meters, the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Archaeology of Crimea of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Sevastopol State University began excavating, in some cases using heavy equipment and improper scientific methods as trenches were cleared.

This exploration is openly reported on the Hermitage website, despite the fact that it  violates the 1954 Hague Convention,

According to this report published by the State Hermatage Museumexcavations by their researchers uncovered 70 objects which were then transferred to the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia in contravention of Ukraine's cultural heritage laws.   

These objects included:

"a set of dishes for a funeral meal (jugs, bowls, drinking vessels), clay lamps, glass balsamaria, bone and bronze pyxides, small household items made of non-ferrous and precious metals, jewelry and clothing decorative elements, agate and carnelian beads, pendants from Egyptian faience. Gold eyecups and mouthpieces were discovered in the urns - details of the funeral rites of noble citizens of Roman times."

It should be underscored that the provisions of the Second Protocol to the Hague Convention of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict states as follows:

Article 9 - Protection of cultural property in occupied territory 

1. Without prejudice to the provisions of Articles 4 and 5 of the Convention, a Party in occupation of the whole or part of the territory of another Party shall prohibit and prevent in relation to the occupied territory: 

(a) any illicit export, other removal or transfer of ownership of cultural property; 

(b) any archaeological excavation, save where this is strictly required to safeguard, record or preserve cultural property; 

(c) any alteration to, or change of use of, cultural property which is intended to conceal or destroy cultural, historical or scientific evidence. 

2. Any archaeological excavation of, alteration to, or change of use of, cultural property in occupied territory shall, unless circumstances do not permit, be carried out in close cooperation with the competent national authorities of the occupied territory.

Just my way of saying to those in a position of wealth and/or power the axe forgets, but the tree remembers.

By:  Lynda Albertson


September 18, 2023

Monday, September 18, 2023 - ,, No comments

Looters imperil unknown people's past, 37 years ago and still today.

"Looters imperil unknown people's past."  That was the title of an article written by Barbara Crossette, the Bangkok bureau chief of The New York Times on September 9th 1986.  Her report described the destruction to archeological sites caused by grave diggers operating in the densely forested mountains of western Thailand.  There, subsistence looters had been systematically plundering a wide variety of antiquities, hauling away various grave goods, including high-quality ceramics, some found at  hilltop ring-ditch burial sites that belonged to a then-unknown group of people that defied cataloguing.

Crossette told the New York Time's readership that the area's inhabitants, probably ethnic minorities, like the Karen and other minority groups, shared their remote terrain with smugglers, poachers and opium growers.  She also wrote that looters working the region sold the antiquities they found to foreign dealers who spirited them out of the country, selling the pieces onward to private collectors, including those in Japan. 

See Reference at the
end of this article
Like so many other plundered cultural sites in at-risk and remote locations, circular earthworks in and around Tak Maesot were scarred by extensively pitting. Sketched out on maps, some of the impacted burial sites had the appearance of buttons sewed onto the hillside.

But the damage done by plunderers didn't just strip away treasures.  In addition to the grave goods they stole, looters took with them many of the geological and cultural clues that could have lead us to better understand who left these graves here in the first place.  

What remained in their wake, was only a series of useless pits, scattered with broken and discarded ceramic fragments and the outline of the the graves themselves.  Archaeologists who later explored the sites have since documented that the inhabitants of the past had a vibrant trade in ceramics,  identifying pieces coming from Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese and Chinese production centres.

Unfortunately, so little remained after the thefts, that researchers still remained puzzled as to who the peoples were, who cremated their dead, placing their ashes in urns and interring them in the mountains, accompanied with valuable objects.   All that was known was that this population were likely not Burmese or Chinese, nor Khmer or Thai.  Perhaps even a transitional culture which eventually died out or merged with others from the area.

At the heart of the plunder in this area of Thailand were some 100 burial sites dating from the 12th or 13th century, up through the 16th century CE, scattered along a 60-mile swath of western Thailand between Umphang, on the Myanmar, (then-Burma) border south of Mae Sot, and north to Chiang Mai which contained the inexplicable mixture of Chinese, Thai, Burmese and Vietnamese ceramics, as well as other pottery never documented previously. 

Barbara Crossette, speaking with John Shaw MBE, an expert on Southeast Asian ceramics who lived in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, quoted British-born collector and Honorary Consul to Chiang Ma, John Shaw, who described the area of the new finds as ''beyond the writ of the law' who stated ''It would take the whole Thai Army to protect those hills.'' 

Illegal digging at Som Poi Burial Site, 1984.

Shaw's family website, which highlights artefacts from the region in his collection as well as photographs of local looters, mentions that by September 1984 thousands of ceramic wares believed to have been plundered from this area of Thailand, which then appeared in the antique shops of Bangkok, Sukothai and Chiang Mai.   Shaw recorded Chinese, Lan Na, Sawankalok, Mon and even Vietnamese ceramic objects as the type of material which flowed out of the region.  In an interview with Ray Hern, Shaw mentioned that many pristine examples of superb quality, went directly from the diggers into private hands, only to then be dispersed, largely undocumented, onward. 

This despite Thai antiquities legislation passed in 1961 and a government decree passed in July 1972 making it illegal to buy, sell or export bronze age Ban Chiang pottery.

In February 1985 Shaw states that another batch of freshly looted ceramics surged into the antique market, this time coming from the Mae Tun - Om Goi area further north, showing that as long as there was a demand, there would be regional people to supply the market. 

But why bring a pattern of looting and subsequent fossicking in Thailand that happened 37 years ago?

Earlier this September, Thailand's Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) reported on a collaborative investigation with the country's Department of Fine Arts, which apprehended three individuals involved in present-day illegal excavation and trade of antiquities. The suspects were identified after having advertised their plunder on Facebook.  In a multi-province operation, authorities eventually seized 11 metal detectors, excavation equipment, and nearly 970 items believed to be ancient artefacts during searches conducted this month at nine seperate sites, including, again, one of which was in Chiang Mai.  


Like almost 4 decades ago, authorities have seen a spate of robbery at archeological sites across Northern Thailand, from Sukhothai to Lampang, and from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai, this time also sold digitally. 

And while these recovered examples of ancient jewellery, coins, and tiny ornaments suitable for someone's mantelpiece may seem relatively harmless when compared to some of the higher profile Thai sculptures being returned from various museums, the cumulative process to seek, loot, and put these materials on the market for consumers is significantly more destructive towards our knowledge of the past than what individuals, and collectors, often perceive.

The times, they are (not) a-changin. 

By Lynda Albertson



--------------------

References

Grave, Peter, The ring-ditch burials of Northwestern Thailand and the archaeology of resistance - Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, 3: 61-166, 1997.

Hearn, Ray,  Thai Ceramics, Lao Na and Sawankalok: An Interview with John Shaw, 2000/03.

The Shaw Collection. ‘Tak Hilltop Burial Sites Introduction’. Accessed 18 September 2023. http://www.shawcollection.com/item.php?cid=221.



October 20, 2022

Reconceiving Restitutions - A look at the work (and one worker) behind the sensational restitutions accomplished by the New York District Attorney's office in Manhattan

Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdonos and four of the ATU's analysts

Trigger Warning:  This is probably going to be the longest article ever written on ARCA's Art Crime blog.  

Stolen cultural objects should be returned to their owners.  

This concept seems straightforwardly simple, and certainly isn't novel.  The duty to prosecute criminals and return stolen property, obtained in violation of the law, goes far back in time.  In some cases, even farther back in history than the very artefacts we passionately advocate for the restitution of.

The concept of punishments for thieves was already written into law...in the 20th century BCE.  

The earliest artefacts known to us outlining a compilation of legal rules and punishments is written in Akkadian.   Unearthed in 1945 and 1947, at Tell Abū Harmal in the outskirts of Baghdad, the two parallel copies of the Eshnunna Law Code outline a historic structure to everyday legal matters and the nature and treatment of criminals, as well as the application of sanctions in the Old-Babylonian kingdom of Eshnunna.  These inscribed cuneiform tablets detail the type of punishments to be meted out for criminal offenses in the second millennium BCE.  

Get caught stealing in broad daylight?  The penalty for the offender was pecuniary (5 siqlu of silver) and one hopes at least a few scathing looks from members of the community.  But stealing something under the cloak of darkness or the selling of stolen goods was considered a serious crime (grand larceny) and this level of wrongdoing could cost the pilferer his, or her, life. 

Nowadays, in the United States and in most of Europe, individuals convicted of cultural property thievery receive only "daylight" sentences.  Regularly, they amount to probation, or probation with fines of varying sizes.

It's only been quite recently where we have seen a divergence of this rule, with New Yorker Michael Steinhardt's first-of-its-kind, lifetime ban on the further acquisition of antiquities.  More often than not, antiquities plunderers die of old age before an aggrieved society gets to see them face justice in the courts.  Still others deftly zig and zag past numerous discrepancies in national laws, or statutes of limitations, and avoid convictions altogether, as slippery as a sizzling pat of butter sliding in a cultural property legislation frying pan.  

Regularly, the criminal handlers that are formally charged for dealing in purloined antiquities, plead out, and never face a jury of their peers.  Instead, their courtroom presentations before judges follow closely on years-long discussions, between defence counsel and prosecutor, where both sides hammer out cooperation agreements whereby the indicted individual coughs up sufficient intelligence to convince the prosecutor to make a recommendation to the judge for a lighter sentence when the value of their cooperation is considered “substantial.” 

When folks like these appear before the court and enter their guilty pleas, their carefully worded, public-facing, contrite confessions are not an extemporary admission of wrongdoing.  And although written up in newspapers as seemingly so, these admissions (seldom) carry with them any genuine or profound sense of remorse toward the aggrieved societies their businesses robbed.  

Instead, their guilty plea confessions are well-scripted lines in a passion play, crafted by counsel and designed to relay to the judge that the indicted individual is admitting their guilt voluntarily.  In making their plea, the defendant has consulted with their attorney and acknowledges that they willingly give up important constitutional rights, including their right to a trial by jury, the right to testify or not testify, and the privilege against self-incrimination (meaning the right to not reveal information about criminal acts that they may have committed).

In “accepting responsibility” for their actions these formerly upstanding members of the art market, are banking on leniency, based on earlier assistance agreements, while acknowledging that they are prepared to accept the recommendation of the prosecutor (or in Federal cases the judge) as to the sentence or other disposition of the case.

The formulaic style of ARCA's restitution articles (which hold true for the majority of newspapers as well).

Usually, when stolen or plundered cultural property returns home, ARCA writes an article on said restitution in what can be seen as a fairly predictable format.  One that repeats itself, more or less, regardless of where the object was stolen from, when or where it was recovered, and detailing its send-off back to whence it came. 

In drafting our articles, we comfort ourselves that justice in the form of restitution, has, at least in some way, been served.  Then we move on to creating a headline that specifies exactly what is going home and to whom.  

We generally open our story with a photo of the object, or objects, and as best we can, move quickly on to giving credit to the prosecutor or prosecutors, law-enforcement agents, governmental officials, non-governmental organisations, legal experts, academic professionals, and citizen activists whose efforts were involved, naming those directly involved by name when we can and by the agency when for investigative reasons we can't.  

We also take some time to thank the ministry workers, politicians, and law enforcement agencies who represent the receiving source country, as well as their own stakeholder institutions.  These are the people who work on the other side of the seizure equation, and their involvement is often just as critical. 

After thanking the "good guys" and adding a few photos of the pomp and circumstance which inevitably accompanies a handover ceremony, we move on to the artwork's storytelling, being sure not to interfere with any additional ongoing investigations, but hopefully illustrating why it's important for these historical objects to go home. 

We then spend some time connecting the places the object originated from, when the artefact was likely uprooted from its find-spot, and as best we can, illustrating whose hands we have confirmed that the artefact has passed through.  This story-weaving serves twofold. It helps, we hope, bring the artefact, and the people who made it, to life, and to perhaps illustrate the circuitous routes these pieces take as they are laundered over and over again to make them appear reasonably legitimate to buyers.  In crafting this part of our article, we try where we can, to emphasise the loss to  aggrieved societies, and to illustrate that in some cases these are not simply beautiful sculptures, but also sacred idols to some religious groups or grave goods from someone's grandfather's grandfather's grandfather's grandfather whose burial place shouldn't be plundered.

Lastly, we usually close our articles with a bit of scolding, a reminder if you will, to collectors and dealers about the necessity of conducting and not overlooking due diligence.  We hope that in doing so, we as writers apply subtle pressure on art market actors to try and do better.  We also hope that our articles leave a connect-the-dots trail of negative publicity breadcrumbs of who knowingly did what and during what time period, so that lessor-informed buyers and researchers might find these missives when googling some of the art market's problem children. 

But on to the real point of this blog post...it takes a village, no really.

While restitution articles regularly lament the loss of moveable culture to the source country or society, and spend time focusing on the artefact's cultural significance, we don't often drill down into giving anything beyond cursory credit to the people who make recovery their life's work.  If names get mentioned, it's because they are the ones handed out to journalists via formal press releases, and listed as the important actors and agencies involved.  And it is this very naming, which does not necessarily weigh who did what or over how many hours, named or unnamed, that hardly ever gets expressed in the cultural diplomacy restitution equation. 

Some of the people who work on antiquities trafficking evidence are underpaid, relative their talents, and some are not paid at all.  Both work to sift through the "noise" of available data to find sufficient evidence which meets the threshold of the legal framework of the country where the suspect artwork or antiquity has been identified.  Many of these dedicated folks are truly not in it for the glory of having their names up in lights, but because they have a deep and abiding belief that these artefacts can, and should, go home.

To emphasise this, I have chosen to focus the rest of this article on just one of these team players, whose job it is to sift through both the chaff and the grain of all the available information surrounding a suspect object.  One of the people who assists in determining what constitutes direct or circumstantial evidence in proving a crime. 

In doing so I want to emphasise that what these individuals accomplish is every bit as important, and in some cases more so, that just visualising a match between a looter photo and a matching object in circulation on the art market or in a museum or private collection.  Identifications are absolutely critical and necessary, but they are just one single part of each investigation. And while such IDs are persuasive evidence, one would be remiss to think that the identification alone is sufficient when building a case for seizure and, one hopes, eventual restitution. 

So, let's talk about just one of those people who deserves our thanks.

Apsara Iyer, Yale class of '16 onsite at Machu Picchu

I met Apsara Iyer, for the first time in September 2012, at University College London's Archaeology and Economic Development conference. Back then, long before she joined the Manhattan DA's Antiquities Trafficking Unit, she was a surprisingly enthusiastic and well-informed freshman at Yale University working on her Bachelors, and already thinking more expansively about the right to culture than most undergrads her age. 

As one of the conference's early career panelists, I was taken in by her enthusiasm for preservation, as well as her sincerity.  I listened with interest, as she knowledgeably spoke of spending time the previous summer in the Andes Mountains, above the Urubamba River valley and the impact of archaeological tourism on the indigenous Machiguenga communities in Peru.

Over a coffee during a break in the conference, we talked about folklore and the ancient traditions Señor de Tetecaca, Ullantaytampu and Machu Pikchu in the Valle Sagrado de los Incas and I laughed when I learned that she had successfully managed, at just 17 years of age, to get interviews from people in one of the most biodiverse places in the world.  Interviews which ultimately would shape the backbone of her presentation. 

Admiring her chutzpah, I'd later learn that her interest in historic preservation extended even farther back.  In high school Apsara had helped bury two time capsules on the grounds R.S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology, stuffing them with snippets from life in 2010, some whimsical and some bitter.  Two selected "artefacts" that struck me particularly were the BP gift card which served as a bitter reminder of the devastation caused by the Deepwater Horizon spill.  Equally poignant, were the two opposing news editorials on New York City's proposed Cordoba House, back then referred to by Islamophobes as the “Ground Zero Mosque.”

By her sophomore year at Yale, Ms. Iyer had already been bitten by the art market research bug, and I had to smile when she dropped me an email telling me that she was exploring the local valuations of heritage in Cusco, Peru, and Udaipur, India in comparison to auction data and that she planned to spend the following summer doing independent research on antiquities trafficking.  Although we didn't stay in close touch, I wasn't surprised to learn that after her MPhil, she had joined Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdano's team as an Antiquities Trafficking Unit analyst. 

And as glorious as that sounds, more often than not it isn't.  

Forensic analysts at the Manhattan ATU work long hours and they have to be adept fact and hypothesis sifters.  For every single artefact brought to the attention of their office as suspect, it's folks on the team like Ms. Ayer that ensure that an object's case file has sufficiently concretised evidence which can allow for its seizure under New York law.  And the amount of time it takes to make that happen should not be underestimated.   Sometimes though, when analysts dig deep enough, their labours pull together an enormous quantity of disparate threads and intel, helping the Manhattan office to identify other tainted pieces, and that's how complex, multinational, networks are eventually dismantled and that's why the DA's office is good at what they do.

Why do DANY press releases lead with numbers and price tags? 


Because investigations like these cost money, full stop.  It's important for prosecutorial offices, ministries, and law enforcement agencies to substantiate the fruits of their labour in terms of the number of objects returned, relative their value and demonstrating impact to communities.  Those higher up in the accounting of who-spends-how-much-and-doing-what food chain want stats which can justify the person-hours allocated in pursuit of these investigations. Press announcements have neither the space for, or an interest in drilling down into how many hours, or how many hands, took part in the process to achieve said results.

With pressing deadlines to be the first to report on a seizure or a restitution, heritage journalists also neglect that effort, and hours consumed by researchers, both inside and outside of law enforcement agencies.  Instead, we favour the stories of the objects themselves and the people they belong to, in our efforts to demonstrate that heritage crime is not as "victimless" as some would like one to assume.  At best, and somewhat haphazardly, we make room in our articles for a cursory outline of the steadfast researchers who combed through evidence in order to help combat this type of criminal enterprise. 

So, given that this week Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., has announced the return of 307 (more) antiquities valued at nearly $4 million to the people of India I'd like to do a little speculative math.  Bearing in mind that my calculations here are just my own working hypothesis, based upon the minimum amount of time I would estimate an antiquities analyst at the ATU may have put in when working on a single suspect object. 

Let's assume, conservatively, Apsara Iyer, or any of the another of the New York District Attorney's Office's ATU analysts has worked the following hours on one of the objects listed in Alvin Bragg's recent press release on their office's restitutions to India. 

1 day to coordinate identifications and communications with external experts;
2 days to track down and fact check all known provenance relating to when this piece appeared for the first time in circulation;
1/2 day to analyse the visual and or digital content/meta data of looter photos; 
1/2 day to analyse written correspondence between the handlers related to this object;
4 days to sift through all the direct and circumstantial evidence on this piece and organise a case file;
2 days to confer with lead counsel to work out strategies and to answer any additional unanswered questions;
1 day to write up and document all credible evidence, applicable under New York law, which can be used to request seizure or towards bringing criminal charges.

Total = 10 days x 8 hours per day or 80 hours per object. 
80 hours per object x 307 objects = 24,560 work hours 

Effort estimations like this can never satisfactorily be conveyed in a one page press release celebrating the return of stolen property.  Though they can, and should be thought about, discussed, conveyed and appreciated when digesting these grand success stories.   As it is this proven time and effort expenditure, which is every bit as critical to these restitutions as having the legal instruments in place which are favourable in a specific jurisdiction. 

So, while the formulaic nature of art restitution articles will hardly ever drill down to any level of who contributed what and over how many hours, this unspoken reality is still worth everyone being cognisant of.  Obviously, we still need evidentiary photos which demonstrate an artefact it its plundered state, but we also need dedication and analyses if these pieces are to become the success stories we all want them to be.  

I hope in the future, in reading ARCA's blog posts on who owns the past, instead of only focusing on the criminal actors, the opportunists, the bona fide owners and the higher ups that head the restitution teams, we also spend a bit more time acknowledging the work of the rank and file.  Sure, they sometimes get their picture taken at that all important restitution ceremony, but it's important for us to remember that they often have a more personal relationship with the artefact that is going home than most of the folks shaking congratulatory hands and smiling. 

To close, I'd like you to look at just some of the objects Apsara Iyer has worked on during her time with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, not in terms of their quantity, but individually as each has its own story to tell.  Perhaps, as you pause over each photo thinking about the quantity of plunder these countries have been subjected to, you will also reconceive restitutions, recognising the roles and contributions of everyone who plays a part in the massive effort to analyse, investigate and combat this type of cultural property crime.  

























































































































































































































































 By:  Lynda Albertson