The effect of the conflict in Iraq and Syria on cultural heritage

The actions of IS have received a lot of media attention lately, the world watching in horror as hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Iraq and Syria are displaced or killed and their homes destroyed by the extremist Islamic group. In this post, I sum up recent events and address some of the issues relating to the protection of cultural heritage in the context of war.

Who are IS?

They are an extremist group, also known as ISIS or ISIL (which stands for ‘Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham’, the last word being the translation of the Arabic for ‘the Levant’ or ‘Syria’), originally an al-Qa’ida group in Iraq (called ‘al-Qa’ida in Iraq’, AQI, or ‘Islamic State in Iraq’, ISI). The group became involved in the Syrian civil war, and split from al-Qa’ida in February 2014 (1) over differences in ideology and strategy (2). IS, which follows hard-line Sunni Islamic teachings, aims to found a conservative Islamic state: a caliphate, ruled by a supposed descendent of the prophet Mohammad, the Iraqi Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In June 2014, IS captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-biggest city; IS’s wealth was estimated to have risen to $2 billion with this capture, which included banks and military supplies (3).

What damage has been caused?

Hundreds of thousands of people have had to flee their homes; thousands have been killed or injured, tortured or raped. In addition to the loss of life and cost to human welfare, the cultural heritage of Syria and Iraq has suffered irreparably. In some cases, this has been collateral damage, but in others, the destruction of cultural heritage was the specific aim of attacks.

Christopher Jones, author of the blog ‘Gates of Nineveh’, explains that ‘theologically, the interpretation of Islam followed by ISIS bans depictions of human beings [as] idolatry’ (4). Non-Sunni objects and sites of worship, and depictions of humans or deities are therefore at risk of destruction from IS. Christian churches have been destroyed, including a church in Maalula which claimed to be the oldest Christian church in the world, predating the 325 a.d. Council of Nicaea (4i). Sites that are considered religious by the Shia branch of Islam, which IS opposes, are also being targeted. The shrine containing the tomb of Jonah in Mosul, which had sections dated to the medieval period and had been built on top of remains of a Christian church, itself built on top of an Assyrian temple and palace, has been razed. Even some Sunni religious buildings have been targeted, where Sunnis were worshipping the tombs of Islamic holy men, a practice regarded as idolatrous by IS (5). 

[The shrine containing the tomb of Jonah, before and after. Image from: www.conflictantiquities.wordpress.com]

But theology is not their only motive for destruction: the 8^th century B.C. Arslan Tash lion in Raqqa, shattered into pieces, was not a religious statue. The medieval market of Al-Madina in Aleppo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been burnt down; the Museum of Mosul was also attacked by IS (6). The destruction is therefore also politically and ideologically motivated, representing a desire to erase the history and culture of their opponents, and to demonstrate supremacy over them by destroying their livelihood. IS have published images and videos of about 50% of the sites they have destroyed, on websites and social media (4). 

[The Raqqa lion being destroyed by IS. Images from: http//www.apsa2011.com/index.php/en/provinces/ar-raqqah/monuments/816-raqqa-lion-statues-destroyed]

Looting of archaeological sites has also been rife: Apamea in western Syria, once ‘one of the largest and best-preserved Roman and Byzantine sites in the world’ and boasting mosaics and a colonnaded street, has been looted so dramatically that aerial images of the site resemble photos of the surface of the moon (7).

 

[Aerial photos of Apamea in July 2011 and in April 2012. Images from www.chasingaphrodite.com]

Likewise, the Roman-era site at Dura-Europos has suffered irreparable damage by looting. Dura-Europos previously ‘stood out for its remarkable preservation’ and was a symbol ‘of the country's diverse, tolerant past’, where Christians, Jews and Romans had lived side by side (7b); now it has been destroyed as a result of the actions of an extremist group.

Damage to cultural heritage is a common occurrence in times of conflict, and one need only look back to the U.S. invasion of Iraq for a recent example of such damage: in 2003 the Baghdad Museum was looted, and a military base was built on the ancient archaeological site of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, archaeological fragments serving to fill sandbags (8). However, the damage taking place now is the most ‘sustained, extensive and methodical’ yet seen in the region.

What other sites are at risk?

The Kurdish capital, Erbil, which was previously thought so safe that US embassy personnel were moved there from Baghdad (9) and which has served as ‘an enclave for persecuted religious and ethnic groups’(10), is expected to be the next target of IS (11). Erbil also happens to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site as one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited sites, having first been settled about 8,000 years ago (10, 12). Archaeological excavations of the site are difficult due to its continuing habitation, but had started last year. If the site is destroyed by IS, the loss of knowledge would be disastrous. 

[The ancient citadel of Erbil. Image from: www.wikipedia.org]

Thousands of known archaeological sites (to say nothing of archaeological sites that have not been discovered and recorded by archaeologists) currently lie within the area that has been taken over by IS (10i, 10ii). Among these sites are Nineveh, Kalhu, Dur Sharrukin and Ashur, which each once served as the capital of the Assyrian empire. Already, relief sculptures from the 9^th century palace of king Ashurnasirpal at Kalhu (ancient name ‘Nimrud’) are reported to have been cut with chainsaws to be exported and sold (10ii).

Why should we care about the damage to cultural heritage when people are being killed?

Firstly, because the two crimes are linked.

IS is killing its opponents and destroying sites which conflict with its interpretation of Islam (13). IS is effectively attempting a genocide of the Shia branch of Islam, and to eradicate any trace of other faiths from Iraq and Syria: non-Sunni inhabitants of Iraq and Syria have been and are being treated with horrifying violence.

Raphael Lemkin, the lawyer who coined the term ‘genocide’, argued that it involves the ‘destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves’ (14). These ‘essential foundations’ include cultural sites, objects, and practices. The ‘destruction of human communities is incomplete without cultural violence’ (15). Without their cultural heritage, which represents their history, ‘social groups are atomised into disaffected, soulless individuals’ (15) without a connection to their past (16).

The genocide of Turkish Armenians is a recent example of the murder and deportation of an ethnic group and the destruction of its cultural heritage, in this instance at the hands of the Turkish government (note that IS have also destroyed an Armenian genocide memorial in Syria, 17).

By erasing ‘entire chapters of the country’s past’, IS can hope to ‘radically reshap[e] its future’ (16). The destruction of the cultural heritage of non-Sunni groups therefore goes hand in hand with the violence directed against people. The cultural heritage of Iraq and Syria ‘is not a casualty of war, but a direct target of the ongoing attacks’ by IS (18).

Secondly, because the sale of looted artefacts is funding IS.

Earlier this month, UNESCO confirmed that profits from artefacts looted from Syrian and Iraqi archaeological sites are serving to fund IS (6). ‘The most prized commodities on the black market include Roman mosaics, Palmyrene statues, ancient jewelry, medieval manuscripts and prehistoric religious artifacts, which are slowly making their way into private collections across the Middle East, Europe and North America’ (17).

Aerial images of ‘pockmarked’ archaeological sites demonstrate the occurrence of ‘organised, almost industrial-scale looting’: IS has been ‘allowing and indeed profiting directly from the looting and sale of antiquities’ (13). Though the income from this may not be as great as that from seizures of banks or sales of oil, it still amounts to millions of dollars per year.

The International Council of Museums has published a Red List of the sorts of artefacts that might be illegally exported from Syria and Iraq (20), in order to inform border control officers and anyone buying archaeological artefacts. Any objects in those categories that appear on the market without a provenance must be presumed looted: an archaeological artefact from a legal excavation would have accompanying paperwork stating its findspot and its export documentation.

The difficulty is the Roman artefacts being looted from Syrian and Iraqi sites such as Dura-Europos cannot easily be distinguished from Roman artefacts from anywhere else in the Roman Empire, and it is therefore possible to export them illegally without detection, especially by producing fake documentation regarding their origins (20i).

The link between the sale of looted artefacts and crimes against humanity provides an imperative for the study of the illicit trade in antiquities and the prosecution of those who engage in it (21).

Thirdly, because the destruction of cultural heritage represents an irreparable loss of knowledge for the whole world.

The area in which the conflict is taking place is referred to as the ‘cradle of civilisation’, where archaeologists have found the earliest evidence for features that continue to be vital aspects of modern life around the world: the domestication of plants and animals, the development of writing, and the building of cities.

The Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans, Palmyrenes, Sassanians, Umayyads, Ottomans and others all left traces of their culture in Iraq and/or Syria.

And there is so much still to discover about these cultures: many sites have only been surveyed, not excavated, and many remain to be discovered; moreover, the cultural heritage of Iraq and Syria ‘varies from region to region, period to period’ (10ii). Each hole in the ground dug by a looter represents irreparable loss of knowledge, whose significance can never be assessed.

After the shrine of Jonah was razed, looters are thought to have dug into the archaeological remains lying under it, which archaeologists had not been able to excavate and document due to the religious structure built on top (7c). Now they never will.

Fourthly, because the destruction of cultural heritage will have a lasting effect on the rebuilding of Syria and Iraq after the conflict.

Just today (4^th October), the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, emphasized the role of culture: ‘cultural vitality is synonymous with innovation and diversity. Culture creates jobs, generates revenues and stimulates creativity. It is a multifaceted vector of values and identity. Moreover, culture is a lever that promotes social inclusion and dialogue’ (22).

The loss of cultural heritage will be a lasting legacy of IS actions in Syria and Iraq.

Cultural heritage, and in particular the archaeological record, is ‘one of the few glues that hold [together] multi-ethnic societies’: in a post-conflict context, the conservation of archaeological sites and research into the past of the land will serve to unite the people (23).

Moreover, cultural heritage sites are an ‘economic asset’, and cultural tourism was a vital part of the economy of Syria and Iraq before the conflict (23i). Once the conflict is over (and based on the assumption that IS will be defeated), Iraq and Syria will want to rebuild their economy by encouraging tourists to visit its many beautiful and ancient secular and religious sites.

Even once peace and stability return, it will take a long time before tourists feel that it is safe to visit Syria and Iraq. As a result, those who rely on tourism, such as tour guides and restaurant owners, will continue to suffer from lowered incomes, and therefore looting is likely to carry on even once conflict has ended. Action needs to be taken to ensure that people are able to feed their families without destroying their cultural heritage. Several projects (23ii) are already under way: teaching women to knit, sew and weave so that they can produce and sell items such as clothing, carpets and blankets; educating women and training them to become teachers; and more.

In the words of World Monuments Fund President Bonnie Burnham: ‘People in places under siege care no less about their heritage than we do as we watch with concern from the outside. But conflict brings destruction, often on a massive scale, and people caught in these circumstances are both immediately affected and powerless to intervene’ (23iii). 

Archaeological sites and buildings of cultural significance must be protected in order to rebuild the economies of Syria and Iraq. ‘Saving Syria’s heritage is not just a nod to the past. It is about building the country’s future’ (23iv). 

How is Iraqi and Syrian cultural heritage currently being protected?

Firstly, legal frameworks are in place.

The cultural heritage of Syria and Iraq is protected by national and international laws, including the Hague Convention of 1954 (amended in 1999) and the UNESCO Convention of 1970 (20).

The Hague Convention ‘provides protection for cultural heritage in international law, prohibiting looting, theft, [and] vandalism’ of cultural heritage (24) both movable and immovable and calling on parties to undertake, “if necessary”, to “put a stop to” such acts and to refrain from using cultural property “for purposes which are likely to expose it to destruction or damage” during armed conflict and ‘from directing any act of hostility against such property’ (25). The Hague Convention prohibits the export of cultural property from occupied territories (24).

The art lawyer Patty Gerstenblith notes that the usefulness of the Hague Convention is limited by the fact that a waiver of these obligations is available where “military necessity imperatively requires such a waiver” (25). Nonetheless, the Hague Convention has already proved useful: in the aftermath of the Balkan Wars, Serb leaders were convicted by the International Criminal Court for targeting cultural monuments as part of their ethnic cleansing (25). The Hague Convention is considered customary international law and “will therefore bind not just states but non-state actors such as rebel factions or secessionist groups,” according to legal expert Zoe Howe (25i). IS can therefore be brought to justice.

However, the Hague Convention is not ratified by the United Kingdom, which is the most significant international power that has not yet signed it (the US having signed the accord in 2009). This failure has recently been decried, and it is hoped that the UK will ratify the convention soon (26).

The 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property states that “the export and transfer of ownership of cultural property under compulsion arising directly or indirectly from the occupation of a country by a foreign power shall be regarded as illicit”. Its 127 state parties, which include the United States, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland and Germany, ‘undertake, at the request of the State Party of origin, to take appropriate steps to recover and return any such imported cultural property’. However, ‘this important provision covers only stolen inventoried objects (objects issuing from an illicit excavation or stolen from a private home are excluded)’ (26i).

Objects from illicit excavations are protected under the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects, which specifies that ‘illegally excavated objects are considered to be stolen (and thus fall under the body of law dealing with stolen objects)’ (26ii). However, the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention has not been ratified by Syria and Iraq, leaving their archaeological sites at risk and jeopardizing the nations’ ability to recover archaeological artefacts from abroad after the conflict.

Secondly, archaeologists and others are doing what they can to help.

Foreign archaeologists, though unable to work on the ground (27), are documenting damage to cultural heritage sites from abroad using satellite images and have set up a website where damage to cultural heritage sites can be reported anonymously (28). Keeping track of the damage gives hope that ‘artefacts that are lost or damaged may someday be found again or repaired and restored’ (4), will enable conservation work to start promptly when it is safe to do so and will help settle any legal issues that are likely to arise in the future (13).

In addition, ‘organizations including the University of Pennsylvania's Cultural Heritage Center, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), and Heritage for Peace, a network of volunteers and activists based in Spain, have been holding workshops [in Turkey] to train Syrian archaeologists, curators, and activists in first aid for objects and sites’ (27i).

Mosaics can be protected by hiding them under plastic sheets that are then covered in sand and then with concrete. During the Lebanese civil war (1975-1991), employees of the Beirut National Museum protected a Roman sarcophagus in its central hall by building a concrete box around it (27ii). In Aleppo, work is taking place to protect the city’s Umayyad mosque: ‘locals have dismantled and moved the 12th-century mihrab to safety; dragged stones from the fallen minaret to a safe site, so that it may one day be reconstructed; bricked up the shrine to Zachariah; and sandbagged, cemented and bricked up the 14th-century sundial’ (27iii).

Such work is hugely dangerous: “We're talking about how you secure objects and collections when things are falling apart around you. It's kind of a grim business” (27iv).

Further steps

In August this year, the UK adopted a resolution prohibiting the import of artefacts from Syria (29). This is a laudable act, and one which must be imitated throughout the world.

In 2003, the Museum of Baghdad was looted. In the aftermath, unprovenienced Mesopotamian antiquities of precisely the type that was kept in the Museum of Baghdad began to appear on the antiquities market, including at reputable auction houses. The UN subsequently banned the trade in unprovenienced Iraqi artefacts.

Doing the same for Syrian artefacts would make it harder to sell stolen artefacts, put an end to IS sales of artefacts for cash and weapons, and may protect archaeological sites from looting. You can sign a petition for UN to ban the trade in Syrian antiquities here: www.thesyriacampaign.org

Human lives are the priority in this conflict, but the cultural heritage of Syria and Iraq must also be protected.

Footnotes

1. http://www.vox.com/cards/things-about-isis-you-need-to-know/what-is-isis

2. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/11/isis-too-extreme-al-qaida-terror-jihadi

3. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/16/isis-islamic-state-iraq-levant-q-and-a

4. http://gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com/

4i. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/10/regnery-the-destruction-of-syrias-christian-treasu/

5. http://news.artnet.com/art-world/isis-destroying-iraqs-cultural-heritage-one-site-at-a-time-58790

6. http://news.artnet.com/in-brief/unesco-confirms-isis-funding-terrorism-by-selling-artifacts-119588

7. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/arts/design/in-syria-and-iraq-trying-to-protect-a-heritage-at-risk.html?_r=3

7b. Simon James of the University of Leicester. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140903-syria-antiquities-looting-culture-heritage-archaeology/

8. http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/5/middle-east-heritagearabspring.html

9.  http://www.vox.com/2014/8/7/5980595/iraq-crisis-bombing

10. http://news.artnet.com/art-world/are-more-monuments-under-threat-from-isis-75383

10i. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/21ab7c65ab4c4736b9b6eadbd32cc66a/militants-threaten-ancient-sites-iraq-syria

10ii. http://www.savingantiquities.org/documenting-damage-interview-dr-simone-muhl/

11. http://www.businessinsider.com/why-kobane-is-not-erbil-2014-10

12. http://www.archaeology.org/exclusives/articles/2363-%20kurdistan-erbil-excavations

13. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/ancient-treasures-casualties-in-iraq-and-syria/#.VCOJFwSj68Y.twitter

14. R. Lemkin, 1944. Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.

15. https://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/fiona-rosegreenland/cultural-heritage-and-violence-in-middle-east

16. C. Sahner in http://online.wsj.com/articles/syrias-blood-diamonds-1410215215

17. http://news.artnet.com/in-brief/isis-destroy-armenian-genocide-memorial-in-syria-116406

18. C. Sahner in http://news.artnet.com/art-world/syrias-cultural-artifacts-are-blood-diamonds-for-isis-96814

19. A. Bowman. ‘Transnational Crimes Against Culture: Looting at Archaeological Sites and the ''Grey'' Market in Antiquities Blythe’, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, published online 7 May 2008.

20. http://icom.museum/resources/red-lists-database/

20i. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140903-syria-antiquities-looting-culture-heritage-archaeology/

21. http://conflictantiquities.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/iraq-syria-isil-isis-antiquities-trafficking-fundraising/

22 https://en.unesco.org/news/florence-declaration-emphasizes-role-culture-post-2015-development-agenda

23. http://chasingaphrodite.com/2014/08/14/twenty-percent-isis-khums-tax-on-archaeological-loot-fuels-the-conflicts-in-syria-and-iraq/

23i. John Russell, a State Department consultant http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140903-syria-antiquities-looting-culture-heritage-archaeology/

23ii. e.g. http://tcf.org/blog/detail/for-syrian-women-refugees-exploitation-is-constant and http://blogs.redcross.org.uk/emergencies/2014/10/knitting-sewing-weaving-independent-life/

23iii. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bonnie-burnham/syria-cultural-sites_b_4026129.html

23iv. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/03/the-cultural-legacy-of-syria-is-at-risk/

24. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/15/stolen-art-uk-sign-hague-convention

25. P. Gerstenblith, 2009. ‘Archaeology in the Context of War: Legal Frameworks for Protecting Cultural Heritage during Armed Conflict’. Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress.

25i. http://www.savingantiquities.org/heritage-crisis-syria-call-temporary-moratorium-trade/

26. http://news.artnet.com/art-world/experts-decry-british-complacency-with-syrian-destruction-64799

26i. http://www.heritageforpeace.org/heritage-for-peace/legal-framework/unesco-convention-1970/

26ii. http://www.heritageforpeace.org/heritage-for-peace/legal-framework/unidroit-convention-on-stolen-or-illegally-exported-cultural-objects/

27. http://news.artnet.com/art-world/islamic-state-drives-last-archaeologists-out-of-middle-east-113841

27i. Emma Cunliffe, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140903-syria-antiquities-looting-culture-heritage-archaeology/

27ii. http://www.heritageforpeace.org/heritage-for-peace/risk-management-in-conflict/

27iii. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/03/the-cultural-legacy-of-syria-is-at-risk/

27iv. Brian Daniels, University of Pennsylvania. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140903-syria-antiquities-looting-culture-heritage-archaeology/

28. http://www.heritagemonitor.com/en and http://www.asor-syrianheritage.org/about/mission/

29. http://www.savingantiquities.org/uk-adopts-resolution-prohibiting-import-antiquities-syria/ and http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/supporting-museums/cultural-property/export-controls/export-licensing/

Provenience, fakes and the art market

This post is about the importance of knowing where an archaeological artefact comes from when it appears on the art market. Such information is called 'provenance', and it includes both the ownership history of an object and its original archaeological findspot; the latter is also referred to as‘provenience’.[1] If no archaeological findspot is cited and/or if the ownership history of the object is unclear or incomplete, a potential buyer should be wary. It may turn out that the object was stolen, illegally excavated and/or illegally exported from its country of origin and therefore the new owner may find himself/herself obliged to return the object to its rightful owners or its country of origin, in some cases without financial compensation. Conversely, the object may turn out to be a fake, and therefore not worth the price paid for it: the value of an antiquity is a factor not just of its aesthetic qualities but also of its age and the connection that it provides with the past. A fake, no matter how beautiful and skilfully made, is worth a fraction of the price of an authentic artefact.

[Chinese antiquities for sale: how do you distinguish the real from the fake? Image from: http://www.theartnewspaper.com/imgart/256-china-ban.jpg]

The issue of ownership history became a huge one after the Second World War, as Philip Hook, author of ‘Breakfast at Sotheby’s’, notes.[2] When they came to power, the Nazis confiscated works of art from Jewish families; some of these works were sold abroad, others were burned if deemed ‘degenerate’, many were simply stored away. Access to relevant records of these actions that were held in Eastern Europe was made impossible until the end of the Cold War, and those kept in the National Archive in Washington were only made accessible to the public in the 1990s. At this point a project of restitution began: identifying works of art that had been stolen during the war (many of which were by that point in national museums or in private collections), finding the descendants of those from whom they had been taken two generations previously, and returning it to them. Cases arose where the new owner of a work of art had purchased it in good faith and was understandably reluctant to give it away; sometimes to solve this problem the work was sold and the profits split between the two parties, a solution which must have been highly frustrating for both parties. Restitution made it very hard to sell works of art if there was anything suspicious about their whereabouts between 1932 and 1945. Auction houses adapted to the new concerns of buyers by setting up departments to research the ownership history of works of art and thereby ensure that any work of art put up for sale would not carry the risk of a restitution claim by descendents of previous owners.

[Artworks confiscated by the Nazis in France. Image from: http://www.npr.org/2013/05/08/180037498/in-france-a-renewed-push-to-return-art-looted-by-nazis]

In recent decades, there have been many high-profile cases where a museum was forced to return an artefact it had purchased back to its country of origin after it emerged that the object had been illicitly excavated and/or exported - and in some of those instances, the museum knew this to be the case at the time of purchase but had turned a blind eye. For example, the Euphronius Krater, a beautiful red-figure vase painted by the famous Greek artists of that name, was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1972 for the then-record amount of $1 million. Later, it was found to have been illegally excavated in Cerveteri, an Etruscan site in Italy, which is a country that has a law vesting ownership in the State for all objects excavated after 1939 that are of artistic, historical, archaeological or ethnological interest, and rendering it illegal to export such items without an export license. The krater was returned to Italy in 2006, following interviews with the tombaroli (the men who had illegally dug at Cerveteri and found the krater), police investigations of the middle-men who had sold the krater to the Metropolitan museum (Robert Hecht and Giacomo Medici) and repeated demands from the Italian government. Lately, the Turkish government in particular has been putting pressure on North American Museums to return objects that were uncovered in Turkey and subsequently illegally exported. This is a message to potential buyers: good title cannot be obtained to objects that are illegally excavated and exported; therefore any object with a shady ownership history might bring trouble to a new buyer.

[The Euphronius Krater. Image from: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/01/11/arts/11krater.600.jpg]

My main focus today, however, is on fakes. The traditional secrecy of the art market with regards to the histories of objects (which, it is claimed, is intended to preserve the anonymity of present and past owners) enables fakes to be sold alongside genuine artefacts, with few means available to the average buyer or even to experts for distinguishing between real and fake. If a complete document citing the provenance of the object from the moment it was excavated to the present was required, it would be very difficult for fakes to enter the market. My particular focus will be on stone artefacts, which are impossible to date scientifically and which therefore present a particular challenge when they surface on the market without provenience.

Fakes are, as Hook writes, ‘a response to demand, an ever changing portrait of human desires. Each society, each generation, fakes the thing it covets most’. For example, medieval monks faked the relics of saints and martyrs in order to gain visitors seeking miracles and thereby to receive endowments to their foundation. Nowadays, there is a demand for branded items: designer handbags, sunglasses and watches are counterfeited and sold to buyers who are not fooled about their authenticity but are buying ‘the illusion of status, of belonging, of success, conferred by the fraudulent reproduction of a famous name’.[3] Alongside this, there is a demand for a connection to past societies and their supposed simplicity and wisdom, for objects of timeless beauty made in a time before modern mass-production. With the commodification of culture (‘the global tendency to treat art and antiquity as market commodities’),[4] original artefacts are given a high value that encourages their faking. Such objects bring status to their owners, but they are a limited and non-renewable source, and the expanding market and high demand for such objects provides a tempting opportunity for fakers to cash in on the trend.

[Counterfeit designer handbags. Image from: http://optrace.ie/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Counterfeit-Bags-3.jpg]

It has been said that fakes are ‘made with the intention to seduce the contemporary eye’,[5] and therefore that, while ‘they may deceive the generation in which they were created…, unlike the real thing, they date’.[6] Hook cites van Meegeren, the Dutch faker who fooled many experts in the 1930s, as an example: nowadays, his works are easily recognised as fakes, because ‘the Dutch seventeenth century viewed through the eyes of the early twentieth century looked different from the same period seen by the eyes of the early twenty-first’. The problem is that this only applies to works from well-documented periods of history: it is possible to recognise a fake Dutch seventeenth-century painting as such, but much harder to recognise a fake Cycladic statue (more on which below), for example, because much less is known about that particular culture and its artistic output: archaeologists were able to document very few objects from a limited number of sites before looters destroyed the archaeological record and sold their marketable finds; they have not been able to establish a chronological sequence and are not even sure which types of figures are part of the corpus, making it very difficult to distinguish fake from genuine.

[A van Meegeren fake Vermeer. Image from: http://en.rotterdam.info/data/offer/offerid4502/large/2010-De-valse-Vermeers-van-Van-Meegeren--1967479231.jpg]

The flood of fakes on the market is problematic for scholars because ‘when a [fake] is accepted into the canon of genuine work all subsequent judgments about the artist or period in question are based on perceptions built in part upon’ the fake itself:[7] in other words, fakes, if mistaken for authentic artefacts, can mislead those trying to learn about the past; and subsequent fakes may be accepted as authentic through reference to a fake that has already been accepted. For the art market, this means that a huge number, even a whole category, of artefacts may be forgeries and therefore of no worth. Archaeologists are very concerned by the looting of Cycladic sites on islands in the Aegean in search of highly-prized statues dated to the 3^rd millennium b.c: it has been estimated that only 40% of Cycladic statues known on the market are from archaeological excavations. For all we know, the rest may all be fakes. The statues are made of stone, which is impossible to date. Archaeological excavations uncovered statues that appeared to be female, if gendered; the figures were small, with a few double figurines and figurines of musicians found. When demand for Cycladic figures grew on the international art market, there suddenly surfaced great quantities of the rare, and therefore more valuable, double figurines and figurines of musicians. The market also came to feature male figurines, never found in excavation, and statues of increasing scale (some as big as 148cm), which attracted high prices due to their impressive size – all without provenience. Had these all surfaced from illicit excavations, or were they manufactured precisely because they are rare and would bring greater profit to the forger?[8] It is not impossible that all the male statues and all those greater than 100cm are fakes. Nor can any buyer be certain that his/her Cycladic figurine is authentic, unless from a legal excavation: an archaeological findspot is the best guarantor of authenticity.

[Cycladic Lyre Player. Image from: http://www.medusaart.gr/files/album/19/2012_2_3_09-27-00_a.jpg]

Moving on from these ambiguous classes of Cycladic statues, some objects ‘would be condemned [as fakes] if they appeared on the market’, but are known to be genuine because they were ‘discovered in a properly conducted excavation’. The Blau monuments, two stone objects less than 10 cm high and less than 20cm wide, were presented to the British Museum in 1899 without a provenance, and were dismissed as fakes because nothing like them had been found in excavations. In later years, excavations in southern Mesopotamia uncovered similar objects in Sumerian contexts dated to 2900 b.c. The Blau monuments are now understood to be ‘among the earliest examples of early cuneiform script, still mainly pictographic’.[9] Unique objects appearing on the market today without provenance may be dismissed as fakes and their significance never fully understood. 

[The Blau Monuments. Image from: http://cdli.ox.ac.uk/images/P005996_detail.jpg]

The real problem is that, with no means of dating stone artefacts, it is impossible for even experts ‘to refute or confirm claims of authenticity’[10] regarding any stone artefact without a recorded findspot. This means that the object cannot contribute anything to knowledge regarding the culture or site from which it is supposed to have come, and that buyers are not guaranteed to be investing in an item of any value. An example of this deadlock is the Getty Kouros, a sculpture which combines ‘features of Archaic sculpture associated with several regional traditions and therefore not seen before in a single piece’.[11] This otherwise unattested combination of Attic and Coritinthian features suggests that the statue is a fake, but on the other hand, it seems unlikely that a faker would combine them precisely because it raises too many questions about the object’s authenticity. The statue is either a unique artefact from the past, and therefore of priceless value, or it is a fake that does not correspond to any past artefact, and therefore of no value.

[The Getty Kouros. Image from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Getty_kouros_11.jpg]

What happens when a unique artefact is offered for sale, without a provenance? The Guennol Lioness, a stone statue 3.5 inches tall, was sold by Sotheby’s in December 2007 for $57.2 million-  a record price. The piece was described as having an ‘impeccable provenance because it has been in private collections since 1931 and on display and ‘accessible’ to the public in the Brooklyn Museum since 1949’; however it does not have a known findspot and the sale catalogue merely stated that the object was ‘said to have been found at a site near Baghdad’.[12] No comparable objects are known, though the lioness resembles depictions of felines on some Mesopotamian cylinder-seals. We do not know where this object was found, with what objects, in what structure: ‘was it from a funerary context, a domestic context, a cultic context? Was it buried alongside a child, a woman, or a dog? Was it found inside a pot or in the foundation of a building?’.[13] Each scenario affords the lioness a different meaning, illustrating the extent to which objects which surface ‘without secure information beyond what is immanent in themselves… are unable to broaden our basis of knowledge’.[14] And each scenario conjures up images of the irreparable loss to knowledge of the past: the fragile human remains destroyed by the looters’ search for a saleable object, any surviving botanical evidence such as seeds blown away in the wind, any other aesthetically-pleasing objects separated from this one and each other and sold to the four corners of the earth. More troubling for the current owner, the very uniqueness of this lioness should raise questions regarding its authenticity: ‘without knowing the exact archaeological findspot, … can the investor ever be certain that the artefact being purchased is real?’

[The Guennol Lioness. Image from  http://www.elamirkan.net/index_files/image899.jpg]

With regards to religious artefacts, for example those sold to tourists by dealers in Israel with catching captions such as ‘from the time of king Solomon’ or ‘from the time of Jesus’, these are valuable insofar as they are seen to have an aura of the sacred through their connection to past religious events or characters, both of which rely on the authenticity of the object.

[A sketch of the James Ossuary. Image from: http://www.galaxie.com/images/bspade/15d01-34.jpg]

When the James Ossuary came to light a decade ago, this small chalk ossuary inscribed with the Aramaic words ‘James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus’ was hailed in the media as ‘the first ever archaeological discovery to corroborate biblical references to Jesus’. It had no archaeological findspot and was said to belong to ‘an anonymous Tel Aviv antiquities collector who, having become aware of its significance, was now willing to allow news of its discovery to be made public’.[15] A reputed epigrapher dated the inscription to the first century a.d., and scientific tests came to the same date for the ossuary. It later emerged that the ossuary belonged to Oded Golan, who soon after was found to have forged an inscription relating the 9^th century b.c. repairs to the Temple of Jerusalem which had surfaced shortly after the James Ossuary. New tests were conducted and eventually, it was decided, based on the patina of the inscription, that the ossuary itself was genuine but that the inscription was modern. Those sceptical of Christianity or religion in general mocked those who had found their faith strengthened by the ossuary; the latter were humiliated. The archaeologists Goren and Silberman, documenting the changing opinions regarding the objects, concluded that ‘it is time for scholars to stop dealing with unprovenienced antiquities’.

Such advice is probably pertinent to all involved with ancient artefacts – whether in a scholarly capacity or in search of a reliably lucrative investment. Antiquities must be put on sale with a recorded findspot, for the benefit of human knowledge and to provide buyers the certainty that they are buying a genuine artefact.

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[1] C. Coggins 1998. ‘United States Cultural Property Legislation: Observations of a Combatant’ International Journal of Cultural Property 7:57

[2] Philip Hook, 2013. Breakfast at Sotheby's: An AZ of the Art World. Penguin UK.

[3] Mark Jones (ed.) 1990. ‘Fake?: the art of deception’. British Museum Press.

[4] ibid.

[5] C. Chippindale and D.W.J. Gill, 2000. ‘Material consequences of contemporary classical collecting’, American Journal of Archaeology: 463-511.

[6] Hook

[7] Mark Jones (ed.) ‘Fake?’

[8] C. Chippindale and D.W.J. Gill, 1993. ‘Material and intellectual consequences of esteem for Cycladic figures’, American Journal of Archaeology 97: 601-659.

[9] Mark Jones (ed.) ‘Fake?’

[10] M.M. Kersel, 2012. ‘The Value of a Looted Object– Stakeholder Perceptions in the Antiquities Trade’, in R. Skeates, C. McDavid and J. Carman (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Public Archaeology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 253-274.

[11] Chippindale and Gill 2000.

[12] M.M. Kersel 2012. ‘The Power of the Press: The Effects of Press Releases and Popular Magazines on the Antiquities Trade’, in E.M. Meyers and C. Meyers (eds.), Archaeology, Bible, Politics and the Media: Proceedings of the Duke University Conference, April 23-4 2008, Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 72-82.

[13] M.M. Kersel ‘Power of the Press’

[14] Chippindale and Gill 2000.

[15] Y. Goren and N.A. Silbermann 2003. ‘Faking biblical history’ Archaeology 56: 20-29.