Last week’s official repatriation ceremony of a 1st century BC Egyptian gilded coffin, stolen from Egypt in 2011 and purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017, underlines the scale and reach of today’s market in looted antiquities. 

The Met based its purchase of the Ptolemaic-period coffin of Nedjemankh, a high-ranking priest of the ram-god Heryshef of Herakleopolis, on a provenance history and export licence dating back to 1971. Documentation appeared to confirm that its legal export pre-dated Egypt’s introduction in 1983 of strict new regulations banning the possession and export of ancient artefacts.

However, after seven years of investigation, New York’s district attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit revealed evidence to the contrary. The documentation about the coffin’s provenance proved to be fake and its export licence also a forgery. Law enforcement authorities in Egypt, France, Germany and the United States traced the coffin back to a theft which took place in the Minya region of Egypt at the end of the October 2011 revolution. Smuggled out of Egypt, they tracked its route through Dubai and Germany, before the coffin ended up in the gallery of a Paris-based dealer, Christophe Kunicki, who sold it to the Met in July 2017 for $3.5 million.  Kunicki claimed he had evidence the coffin came from "sound legit origins".

The centrepiece of an exhibition of new acquisitions at the Museum last summer, it was removed from display immediately the Museum learnt of its illicit journey into France. While authorities in the United States continue with their investigation, the Museum announced in February this year it will review and revise its acquisition procedures.

“We will learn from this event,” said Met Director Max Hollein. “Specifically, I will be leading a review of our acquisitions program – to understand what more can be done to prevent such events in the future.”

Are British and European collections any better protected from this form of art trafficking after the European Commission introduced a significant new Regulation about the import of cultural goods, which came into force on 27 June 2019? 

The Regulation on the Introduction and the Import of Cultural Goods (Regulation (EU) 2019/880) aims to ensure that European collections don’t end up inadvertently fuelling the global market in looted antiquities. The legislation introduces new rules and increased scrutiny on cultural items imported from third countries into the EU, and in particular, from countries affected by armed conflict.  For the first time, the rules will apply uniformly across all EU member states. 

Just how effective will they be? 

Current views are mixed. Inevitably, those in the business of importing antiquities and cultural goods believe the new rules are excessive and burdensome. However, although genuine shortcomings in the new Regulation exist, these should not be allowed to distract from the scale of the Commission’s ambition - ‘to ensure the effective protection against the loss of cultural goods, the preservation of humanity’s cultural heritage and the prevention of terrorist financing through the selling of looted cultural heritage to buyers in the Union’. 

The legislation is also the EU’s first attempt to tackle this very difficult issue of policing illicit cultural goods entering Europe’s customs territory from outside the EU (apart from the EU’s adoption of UN arrangements for Iraq and Syria). It doesn’t cover the trade in items created within the EU. But by making it a Europe-wide set of controls, the EU is removing previous inconsistencies that made Europe a soft target for art traffickers. Exploiting those countries that offer easier routes of access into the EU will now be more difficult. 

Who knows what the UK's position will be following Brexit!  Whether the UK removes itself from compliance with the new Regulation will depend on how closely the British government chooses to diverge or align from the 27 other European states going forward. 

Where the Regulation clearly has shortcomings is over the viability, scope and fairness of the licencing system proposed. 

Unlike the United States, which continues to insist the buyer is responsible for validating an item's provenance, the EU’s new Regulation shifts this responsibility onto the importer. 

By late 2020 the importer of any ‘archaeological’ artefact or discovery more than 250 years old, brought into Europe from outside the EU - irrespective of its value - will need to apply for an import licence from the member state where it enters. The importer will need to prove legal export and provide any additional supporting documentation requested by the member state before the licence can be issued. 

This test may be difficult to satisfy. Is an ‘export’ always illegal when no export licence is available (for example, where an original export licence has been lost)? How does an item acquired legitimately in the past meet this test if no licence was required or available at the time of export? 

For cultural goods more than 200 years old and worth €18,000 or more, the importer is now required to submit an ‘importer statement’. In these cases, the importer assumes full responsibility for the item’s lawful export from a third country. 

This rule may not be as effective as it intends as art traffickers are well practised in the creation of fictional provenances. Also, does every importer have full knowledge of an item’s provenance if they’ve held it for less than 5 years? 

By June 2025 the EU aim to have all this data stored on a centralised electronic system, enabling member states to exchange information on licences and statements.  This would certainly be a big win.

There are also some exemptions. The Commission claim the Regulation is not setting out to ‘impede legitimate trade unreasonably’, especially if the regulations of the country from where the item was created or discovered permit its legal export.  And there are concessions for dealers who attend temporary art fairs. 

Nevertheless, importers of cultural goods into the EU will be facing tough new challenges. 

The art trade has expressed its alarm at the inevitable likelihood of extra costs and administration, in particular on smaller businesses. There’s also concern at the EU’s new definition of ‘cultural goods’, which appears to encompass every kind of cultural or historical property. The definition is too broad in scope and not targeted enough on those artefacts most at risk of looting. For some, just meeting the cost of these new arrangements may not justify the value of the import transaction. 

The new Regulation is certainly a positive step towards containing the smuggling and trafficking of stolen artefacts into the EU - without eliminating the legitimate trade in antiquities altogether. However, implementation is likely to demonstrate there's a need for more targeting and greater flexibility. 

Will it prevent the acquisition of a looted Egyptian coffin inadvertently entering a European collection?  It still places too much responsibility on customs officials to distinguish between legitimate export documentation and clever forgeries.

After this was written......

Following an investigation by French authorities, the French dealer Christophe Kunicki, togther with his husband and associate Richard Sampaire, were both charged with a range of crimes, including gang fraud and money laundering, in Paris on Friday 26 June 2020.  Both men were released under judicial supervision. 

Kunicki has been instrumental in advising or selling other major antiquities to leading museums, including to the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, although these transactions have not formed part of the recent investigation.  The two dealers were arrested alongside three other unnamed men suspected of trafficking antiquities looted from the Near and Middle East worth tens of millions of euros, including a director of Paris-based auction house Pierre Berge & Associes, a former curator at the Louvre and another Parisian dealer.  All three men were released without facing the investigating judge.

Photo: Gilded coffin lid for the Priest Nedjemankh (detail). Late Ptolemaic Period (150-50 B.C.)

Courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York