A stolen collection

The reputation of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has, once again, been besmirched by the Manhattan district attorney who revealed that $69 million in stolen antiquities had been confiscated over two years from a wealthy trustee and benefactor. Of the 89 objects from 10 different countries seized, 71 have been declared loot and 29 have been recently returned to Greece, 12 to Turkey, four to Iraq, two to China, and one to Yemen.

 “Our investigation into the collector Shelby White has allowed dozens of antiquities that were ripped from their countries of origin to finally return home,” declared Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg who thanked her for her cooperation and said she has not been accused of any crime. Her lawyer has said she bought these artifacts “in good faith” from dealers she regarded as reliable. She and her suppliers have been accused by critics of failing to do “due diligence,” examining purchases to discover their origins and see that they had been legally exported. This was not the first time White has been caught with hot artifacts.

White’s collection was also investigated in 1990. Theartnewspaper.com reported that this took place after more than 200 objects amassed by White, 84, and her late husband Leon Ley were included in a Metropolitan Museum exhibition of the “Glories of the Past.” Subsequently, the authoritative journal wrote that “archaeologists David Gill and Christopher Chippindale published a study in which they found that 93 percent of the works on display had no known provenance.” Where antiquities are concerned “provenance” identifies where and when artifacts were found and provides archaeologists and governments with their historical relevance. After this investigation and exposure, White returned at least 15 items to Greece, Italy and Turkey.

Since its founding in 2010, the antiquities unit has repatriated a total of 950 artifacts to 17 countries. The unit is headed by Matthew Bogdonos, a former US Marine Corps colonel with classical university and law degrees. He was assigned the task of dealing with the pillage of the Iraq National Museum following the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq. A month after the fall of Baghdad, I went to Iraq with a team from UNESCO, the UN cultural and educational organisation, and National Geographic. Our aim was to investigate the break-in which lasted five days and nights and assess loss and damage to the museum’s unrivalled collection of Mesopotamian and Islamic artifacts. Bogdonos managed to recoup some stolen items while trying to defend the reputation of the US military. Soldiers did nothing when Iraqis broke into and looted the museum while at least one US tank was parked on the road outside.

Before this, the second US war on Iraq, senior US archaeologists had warned the George W. Bush administration that Iraq’s cultural treasures had to be protected but their warnings were dismissed. When Bogdonos retired from the marines, he returned to his old job as in New York City’s attorney general’s office to fight art and antiquities crimes instead of conventional lawbreaking.

Last year, Bogdonos told The Guardian that his unit had convicted a dozen people of antiquities trafficking. He stated, “That’s unheard of. It used to be a gentlemen’s sport done by gentlemen for gentlemen. Now these gentlemen and gentlewomen of the trade are getting handcuffed. People who have wings of museums named after them aren’t accustomed to being handcuffed and that has had an impact.”

Antiquity trafficking is widespread and highly destructive. Looters tear treasures from excavated, known and unknown archaeological sites. If experts study artifacts in place they contribute to the story of mankind. Looters, smugglers, dealers, auction houses, private collectors and museums are guilty of cultural crimes but rarely punished. Museums are allowed to advertise their loot while influential collectors are petted and honoured.

The biggest thieves are museums and wealthy collectors in the West. They have always focused on countries formerly ruled by colonial powers which have pillaged this region, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The oldest and grandest museums in this region — in Istanbul, Tehran, Damascus, Cairo, and Baghdad — as well as post-independence national museums exhibit objects from their own and neighbouring countries’ histories and cultures rather than items trafficked from distant lands.

The Metropolitan Museum was established on a foundation of looted antiquities. Many years ago I visited the “Met” with Iraqi archaeologist Selma al-Radi, who was a close friend and the Iraqi member of the team which investigated the looting of the Iraq Museum in 2003. She had also excavated in Cyprus and fumed when we entered rooms displaying Cypriot artifacts,

A small Eastern Mediterranean country with a 10,000-year history, Cyprus suffered exploitation by former soldier-of-fortune Luigi Palma di Cesnola, an Italian who fought with Britain in the Crimean war and the Union against the southern secessionists in the US civil war. He was rewarded with US citizenship and in 1865-1877 was appointed US consul in the Cypriot port city of Larnaca.

During the final chaotic years of the Ottoman empire he carried out illegal excavations in ancient sites and assembled a vast collection of 35,000 items, most of which disappeared in transit when the ship carrying his haul sunk. He retained 6,000 pieces which he offered to the Louvre and other museums but eventually sold to New York’s newly established Metropolitan Museum. He became its first director in 1879 and held the post until his death in 1904 .

Cypriot loot not only launched the museum’s vast storehouse of treasures but also prompted other tomb raiders to journey to the island to snatch whatever they could. The museum website boasted in a 2004 article, “The richness and fame of the Cesnola Collection… did much to establish the Museum’s reputation as a major repository of classical antiquities and put it on a par with the foremost museums in Europe, whose collections had largely been formed at an earlier date. Indeed, with regard to Cypriot antiquities, it could be said that the Museum’s acquisition of the Cesnola Collection prompted subsequent British and French expeditions which intended to furnish European museums with Cypriot material to match that in New York.”

In self-defence, in 1882 Cypriots petitioned their newly installed (1878) British colonial protectors to establish a museum for their antiquities. Despite Western depredations, it now houses the world’s largest collection of Cypriot artifacts. Nevertheless, Cypriots — like Greeks, Italians, Iraqis, Syrians, and Turks — resent the mining of their cultural heritage by Western museums, dealers, and collectors.