Abstract
Forty years have passed since the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. In spite of this there have been major scandals relating to the acquisition of recently-surfaced antiquities by public museums and private individuals. The Italian government has obtained the return of over 100 antiquities from North American collections and these have been displayed in a series of high profile exhibitions. Greece and Egypt have made successful claims on other material. Some dealers appear to be willing to handle material that surfaced along similar routes in spite of this increased awareness of the problem of looting, North American museums have now adjusted their acquisition policies to align them with the 1970 Convention.
Highlights
Forty years have passed since the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property
It was possible to appreciate that some 85% of the corpus of figures had no recorded find-spot. If such a small percentage of figures came from known archaeological contexts, was it possible to work out if the figures were placed in graves with either women or men? Were there regional styles? Was it possible to attribute the figures to anonymous ‘sculptors’ (Getz-Preziosi 1987; Getz-Gentle 2001)? How do you interpret male figures? What was the purpose of the almost life-sized figures? How could the hundreds of fragmentary figures from the ‘Keros haul’ be explained (Sotirakopoulou 2005; Gill 2007; Renfrew et al 2008)? Had the corpus of Cycladic figures been corrupted by the insertion of modern forgeries?
The substantial, high profile returns to Italy and to Greece have been a reminder that public museums, and even private collectors, can be expected to adopt an ethical acquisition policy
Summary
Forty years have passed since the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. A study of the antiquities returned to Italy has revealed a list of recurring names for dealers and auction houses (Gill and Chippindale 2006; Gill and Chippindale 2007a) Such recently-looted antiquities continue to appear on the market; several were seized at a New York auction-house in 2009 (Gill 2009a, 65). Has been generous with its loans of archaeological material to North American museums, in part to fill gaps left by returns (see de Montebello 2009, 61). First is that Italian authorities are more likely to prosecute; second, that dealers and auction-houses are less willing to handle recently-surfaced objects; and third, museums and private collectors are wanting to avoid any unfavourable publicity that could follow any legal challenge from Italy. The MOU with Italy will be the subject of further revision at a meeting in the spring of 2010
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