British Museum wants to "change the temperature of the debate"

31 July 2022

Over a month after George Osborne declared on LBC Radio there’s a “deal to be done” by sharing the Marbles, a Sunday Times article reports the British Museum “has opened the door to returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece”. This latest call for a “Parthenon partnership” is based on an interview with Jonathan Williams, the BM’s deputy director. Williams claims the Museum wants "to change the temperature of the debate,” and went on to say, “we want to do something qualitatively different”. It's curious that only last May, while attending a UNESCO meeting in Paris of the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property, Williams spoke dismissively of Greece’s right to recover the sculptures removed by Lord Elgin’s agents from the Acropolis. Three months ago he was defending the BM’s rights of ownership by claiming he “firmly believes” that most of the sculptures in the Museum’s collection were recovered from the ancient rubble around the temple site and were not hacked off the temple’s walls. It’s hard to understand how this latest interview indicates a genuine shift in the Museum’s position – unless the new Chairman of the Trustees really is pointing the Museum’s executive in a new direction.

British Geologist freed from Iraqi Jail

29 July 2022

Jim Fitton, the retired British geologist sentenced to 15 years in an Iraqi jail for attempting to smuggle antiquities out of the country, has been freed following a successful appeal. In May we reported that Fitton, along with German tourist Volker Waldmann, another member of an archaeological tour group visiting the ancient Sumerian city of Eridu in southern Iraq, collected a small number of waste pottery and stone fragments from the site. The items were discovered in the baggage of both men by customs officials at Baghdad airport in March. Both were kept in custody at the airport for the next three months. At a second hearing in June where Waldmann was acquitted, Fitton was convicted under a 2002 law introduced in the Saddam era of smuggling antiquities and was immediately transferred to a Baghdad jail. At an appeal hearing, Fitton’s defence lawyer convinced the court the shards he collected were valueless and were collected without knowledge of any illegality. He also showed there was no intention to profit from his actions (a crime which bears a penalty of 15 years in jail and, in extreme cases, the death sentence). Fitton was released on 29 July and has returned to his family. His ordeal illustrates the danger tourists face today when removing objects - no matter how insignificant - from Iraqi archaeological sites.

Canadian Indigenous groups call on Vatican to return their cultural heritage

21 July 2022

Before Pope Francis’s arrived in Canada for a Papal visit on 24 July, First Nations and Indigenous leaders were calling for the return of their cultural heritage held in the Vatican’s Anima Mundi Museum. Many of these objects were collected for Pope Pius XI’s vast 1925 Pontifical Missionary Exposition and were never returned. Starting from the late 19^th century, Indigenous people in Canada had a tortured history with the Catholic Church. This includes the forcible assimilation of Indigenous children and communities into White culture at Catholic-run residential schools. One of the objects Indigenous leaders are seeking to recover is a wood and sealskin kayak from the Inuvialuit people of norther Canada, sent to the Vatican in 1924 but never returned.

Manhattan District Attorney returns further looted antiquities to Italy

20 July 2022

Another large haul of looted antiquities has been returned by Manhattan District Attorney’s office, this time to Rome’s new Museo dell’Arte Salvata (Museum of Rescued Art). 142 Italian antiquities, including a fresco formerly buried under volcanic ash at Herculaneum, were handed over to Italy’s consul general in New York, Fabrizio Di Michele, at a repatriation ceremony in the New York on 13 July. All items had been seized by Manhattan investigators. The fresco, known as the Ercolano Fresco, was one of 48 recovered from the collection of hedge fund millionaire Michael H. Steinhardt who had bought the fresco from the antiquities dealer Robert Hecht. Hecht has been accused of illicit trafficking. Another 60 items returned to Italy were recovered from the leading dealer in Greco-Roman artefacts Royal-Athena Galleries. Italian and Manhattan investigators determined that all 142 items had been stolen and placed illegally on the art market.

Yale University relinquishes artefacts smuggled by Subhash Kapoor

July 2022

Yale University Art Gallery has handed over twelve South Asian antiquities, believed to be smuggled, following an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. The DA’s office received assistance from India Pride Project, the volunteer group of activists that makes use of social media to track down stolen Indian artefacts. Nine of the twelve objects had been sold to the non-profit Rubin-Ladd Foundation by Subhash Kapoor, the Manhattan-based dealer in South Asian art who faces charges for theft and smuggling in both India and the USA. Kapoor is presently awaiting trial in India, before extradition to the USA to face further smuggling charges. All nine objects were donated to the Yale University Art Gallery by the Rubin-Ladd Foundation. Two other Yale objects investigated by the DA’s office and relinquished by Yale were sold to them by Doris and Nancy Wiener, New York-based antiquities dealers with close ties to Kapoor. After Doris Wiener died in 2011, her daughter Nancy pleaded guilty in 2021 to charges of conspiracy and possessing stolen property.

London’s Natural History Museum repatriates Moriori ancestral remains

08 July 2022

Te Papa, New Zealand’s national museum celebrating the country’s culturally diverse society, welcomed the return of 111 Koimi T’chakat Moriori (Moriori skeletal remains) and 2 Maori ancestral remains from London’s Natural History Museum. Described as the “first” of its kind from the Natural History Museum, the repatriation includes human skulls, mandibles, other parts of the body and a small number of complete skeletons, all had been removed by the British for collection, trade or research purposes from Rekohu (Chatham Islands). Te Papa’s co-leader Dr Arapata Hakiwai went out of his way to acknowledge the team at the Natural History Museum, “who have been assisting with this repatriation for many years and treated our discussions with sensitivity and care.” At the same time, further Moriori ancestral remains were transferred from other New Zealand institutions.