“Sharon Waxman has written a compelling page turner about the world of antiquities and art-world skulduggery. She manages to combine rigorous, scholarly reporting with a flair for intrigue and personality that gives Loot the fast pace of a novel. I enjoyed it immensely."
“Sharon Waxman’s Loot is the most instructive as well as the most intelligent (and the most entertaining) guide through the labyrinth of antiquity and the ways in which the claims of the departed intersect with the rights of the living.”
Douglas Preston, author of The Monster of Florence:
"Loot is a riveting foray into the biggest question facing museums today: who should own the great works of ancient art? Sharon Waxman is a first-rate reporter, a veritable Euphronios of words, who not only explores the legal and moral ambiguities of the conflict but brings to life the colorful -- even outrageous -- personalities facing off for a high noon showdown over some of the world’s iconic works of art. Vivid, witty, and delightful, this book will beguile any reader with an interest in art and museums."
Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit:
“Sharon Waxman approaches her subject with the passion of a great journalist and the rigor of a scholar. It may never again be possible for some of us to walk down the halls of the Louvre or the British Museum or the Metropolitan without a vague sense of disquietude, a frisson of wonder about the provenance of some of their showcase works of ancient art.”
Karl E. Meyer, author of The Plundered Past and co-author of Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East:
"Sharon Waxman’s Loot is indispensable for everyone concerned with the illicit trade in smuggled antiquities. She exposes the self-serving humbug that too often afflicts both affluent possessors and righteous nationalists and shows that we all have a stake in getting an honest account of how great objects came to rest in our grandest museums."
On January 13, Sharon will be speaking about "Loot" as part of the Jacksonville World Affairs Council's Speaker Series. The event will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the University Center at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Complimentary
tickets are required; World Affairs Council members can reserve tickets through
the Council’s office at (904) 280-8162. Tickets can also be
reserved here or by calling (904) 620-2117.
Ancient treasures stolen from museums in the aftermath of the United States-led invasion of Iraq five years ago have been found in Basra, in one of the biggest recoveries of the loot through a “sting” operation by investigators.
According to a report in The Independent, the priceless artefacts, about 230 of them, were saved as they were about to be smuggled abroad.
Seven members of the gang, which is said to have specialized in trafficking the country’s stolen antiquities, have been arrested and are being questioned.
They are also suspected of being involved in the systematic stripping of archaeological sites.
Iraq’s museums and archaeological sites - including the National Museum in Baghdad, were plundered as the country descended into chaos after the US led invasion five years ago.
More than 20,000 items, some of the most precious antiquities in the world, went missing.
Museums in Basra and Mosul, Iraq’s second- and third-largest cities, were also looted. Much of the heritage of of Mesopotomia, the cradle of human civilisation, disappeared as thieves turned to the archaeological sites.
Some of the stolen artefacts were recovered in Iraq and outside the country. The National Museum has recovered around 3,500 of its 15,000 stolen artefacts.
The ferocious violence in Iraq meant that allied and coalition forces and their Iraqi allies did not have the time or manpower to investigate the thefts.
But now, more efforts are being put in by the Iraqi government to recover the country’s plundered cultural heritage.
The Basra investigation began after security forces received intelligence that a haul of the treasures had arrived in the city en route for Kuwait.
An informant introduced two undercover officers from the Iraqi Army’s Quick Response to the underworld group as agents of foreign buyers who were keen to see what was on offer.
The officers were shown artefacts wrapped in newspaper and stored in cardboard boxes. They persuaded the gang that their clients needed to see photographs of some of the items.
During the investigation, conducted by Iraqi and British security forces, ancient items destined for private collectors in the Middle East and the West were found buried in gardens and hidden under floors in houses in the suburbs of Basra.
According to Iraqi authorities, they included Sumerian and Babylonian sculpture, intricate gold jewellery, decorative silverware and ceramic bowls.
The artefacts have been sent to Baghdad for analysis and to ascertain their origins. (ANI)
Amenhotep III was one of the most celebrated pharaohs in Egyptian history, commemorated in countless statues, bas reliefs, colossi and wall paintings. It is his tomb in the Valley of the Kings that was mutilated by a 19th century adventurer who cut out three of the pharaoh's heads that can now be viewed in the Louvre. There is a picture of the tomb, with the missing heads, in "Loot." Now one missing Amenhotep II head is being returned, this one stolen and smuggled from Egypt in1990. This report from the BBC:
"A 3,500-year-old stone head stolen from Egypt almost 20 years ago has been returned to the country's embassy. The sculpture, depicting a pharaoh who died in 1375BC, was smuggled out of Egypt in 1990, breaching laws banning export of antiques over 100 years old. London antiques restorer Jonathan Tokeley-Parry dipped the sculpture of Amenhotep III in plastic and painted it black to make it resemble a cheap copy. Now, 10 years after he was jailed, the head has been returned in a ceremony. In 2002, a US dealer was also jailed for handling the article., which was found in London by police in 1999. Since then, the international legalities of returning it have been negotiated and finally agreed. Det Sgt Vernon Rapley, Head of the Met Art and Antiques unit, said: "It is a great privilege to be able to finally hand this priceless item back to the Egyptian authorities. "It is a valuable piece of Egyptian history, which was ruthlessly taken by an organised criminal, who sought to strip the country of its antiquities for his own profit." Tokeley-Parry, a well-known figure in the art world, was convicted in 1997 of illegally selling stolen archaeological finds, and spent three years in prison. In 1999, the Metropolitan Police recovered the sculpture."
In just a few weeks, Sharon will be appearing live at the new New York Times building in New York as part of the Times' Art & Leisure Week of programming.
Sharon will be appearing live at 1 p.m. EST/ 11 a.m. PST on Northern California's NPR station, on the program "Your Call" radio show with host Rose Aguilar, archeology professor McGuire Gibson and art expert Nabil al-Tikriti. The show can be found on KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco and KUSP 88.9 FM in Santa Cruz. For more information and other radio appearances, go to the appearances page.
I was afraid of this. The deal between Peru and Yale, struck in 2006, has apparently fallen apart. Now Peru has filed a lawsuit in federal court to reclaim the artifacts. So instead of being a model for compromise and sharing, as had been hoped, we are back to the hard-nosed tug--of-war that has been the hallmark of these disputes for the past several years. Here's the AP story.
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – Peru is suing Yale University to recover thousands of Incan relics excavated by an American explorer at Machu Picchu.
Explorer Hiram Bingham shipped thousands of ceramics, textiles and bones to the New Haven, Conn. university after rediscovering Machu Picchu in 1911. The mountaintop ruins are Peru’s main tourist attraction.
Peru sought to reclaim the artifacts in 2006, but an agreement to share them stalled last year.
Yale representatives met Peru’s foreign minister in September, but failed to reach a deal.
Peru says Yale has more than 40,000 Machu Picchu artifacts.
The lawsuit was filed Dec. 5 in a federal court in Washington, D.C. and claims the artifacts are central to the history and heritage of Peru.
The court document also says that Yale is wrongfully, improperly and fraudulently detaining the items
First, my apologies--
I savaged your name badly in a letter that I e-mailed to the Times
today. Would you believe "Shirley Waxwood"?! I thought I had remembered it
from an e-mail sent from Denmark to various persons interested in
archaeology.
You might be interested in what I said, ignoring the mangling of your
name. I would be interested in what you have to say about the situation that
I describe below. my e-mail adddress is at the end.
"I've sent the following letter to the editor today. Perhaps it will be of
interest. The bowl mentioned seems to have a provenance of a time before the
Chaldeans came up with the Saros eclipse-prediction cycle.
------------------------------------------------
"There is an overlooked aspect of international antiquity shuffling which
Shirley Waxwood overlooked in her recent Op-Ed piece (Dec. 1, 2008):
What about antiquities obtained innocently in one country and transported to
another country,.. but which the first country declines to accept when
offered a return as a gift?
I purchased a small copper bowl in an open-air suq in Riyadh while I was
working there for the U.S.-Saudi Joint Economic Commission in 1976. After I
decoded its markings the following year back in the United States I made an
offer to return the bowl. The offer was forwarded through a friend still in
Riyadh.
I received a polite response which essentially said, "It sounds interesting
and we'll think about it."
Twice more in the past 30-plus years I again have tried to give the bowl
back, once through the Saudi Embassy in Washington and, more recently, via
e-mail to the national museum that has been established in Riyadh since I
left.
In both cases I have not received a reply.
However, when I offered to donate the bowl to the Penn Museum in
Philadelphia I was told that they could not accept the gift because of the
United Nations guidelines on antiquities.
So...what should I do with the artifact, about which I have published
several articles through the decades and which sits beside my computer as I
e-mail this? I will be 84 in July.
Could some reputable institution or individual take the bowl off my hands
while I'm still around to make the gift or sale?
"In short, the best archaeopolitics book I’ve read since Edward Fox’s Sacred Geography." So writes Alun Salt, an archeology doctoral candidate in England, at his blog, ArcheoAstronomy.
Salt devotes a very long post to the book. Among his generous observations:
"Despite disagreeing with Waxman’s conclusions I think this (the Turkish) part is written very well, like the rest of the book, and it genuinely helpful in explaining what the concerns of the museums which have bought illicit material are. Waxman uses the Lydian Hoard as an example of artefacts which are now much less visible (or even not visible at all in the case of one brooch). What is particularly impressive is the way she’s able to glide between the issues of accessibility and security and the very personal tales of people who’s lives have been changed by the smuggling of the hoard without any sense of grinding gears. As far as writing about the past goes, I think this section could be used as an example even for some of the more literate archaeologists."
and here's another:
"Waxman puts forward the argument that True is being made a scapegoat for the Getty’s lack of ethics, which is true, and that this is unfair - which I struggle with. For a start foreign justice is always rough justice, mainly because foreigners have this habit of having their own laws which you don’t fully understand. This works both ways. In the UK many of us are baffled as to how bankers involved with a financial swindle can be sent to the USA under terror laws. Secondly scapegoating is, for a certain stratum of society, a fairly common experience of justice. Minor drug dealers are imprisoned for long lengths of time to hurt the activities of the big players, who aren’t the ones inside. It seems a common law enforcement tactic that, if you can’t get the major criminals, you make the ones you can catch pay. I don’t have a lot of sympathy with drug dealers, and similarly I don’t have a lot of sympathy with True. Perhaps if I met her and found out what a nice person she was my view might change. I’m also sure there are many amiable drug dealers too, but I don’t see that as a basis for changing the law. I also don’t imagine that many defendants in Italian courts have hugely rich museums bankrolling their defence."
He concludes:
"Loot is not just a good introduction to the illicit antiquities problem, it’s also a useful contribution to the debate upon what should be done about it."
Thanks to the Cambridge Club for hosting a lecture about "Loot" on Wednesday at the historic First Parish Church in Harvard Square. About 100 people came, and the event will be broadcast on NPR stations across the country in the coming weeks.
And my thanks to dear friends Susan Whitman and Joseph Helfgot for hosting a party for "Loot" in Boston. Pix to follow.
