The problem with looting: An alternative perspective on antiquities trafficking in Southeast Asia

The 1950s and 1960s constitute a key “moment” in the history of the looting of archaeological sites in Southeast Asia. The emergence in the region at that time of a commodity market for antiquities such as pottery triggered a wave of illicit excavation of archaeological sites. Simultaneous with the trafficking of antiquities out of the Philippines and Thailand into the hands of private collectors and museums in the West during this period and subsequent decades a thriving domestic antiquities market developed. It is argued here that the valorization of antiquities as national heritage, rather than inhibiting acquisition by citizen collectors, facilitated a process wherein collecting became a form of cultural capital accumulation. It is inaccurate to categorize Thailand and the Philippines simply as “source” or “supply” nodes in the global antiquities trade. This paper aims for a more nuanced approach to the geoeconomics of antiquities consumption.     

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting for the Palestine Exploration Fund, 9 June 2016

Abstract

Palestine's archaeological heritage is facing a serious crisis due to the prevalence of illicit digging. Antiquities looting is a widespread and flourishing phenomenon throughout the Palestinian National Territories (PNT) and has resulted in a large number of primary and secondary archaeological sites and features being damaged, disfigured, or completely destroyed, and in the extraction of at least hundreds of thousands of heritage items. The main aim of this research project is to explore the physical hazards encountered by the Palestinian antiquities looters. To this end I interviewed 53 antiquities looters residing in 41 different villages in the West Bank. The physical hazards which they encountered are classified by type as follows: cave-ins; the use of equipment, including heavy machinery (back-hoes, front-end loaders, bulldozers, etc.), other power implements, and traditional excavation tools; falling stones or tools; contact with insects, snakes, scorpions, and spiders; work during inclement weather; and attack by the jinn.     

When Communities Collide: Competing Claims for Archaeological Objects in the Market Place

Rather than recount a specific archaeological project and its community relationships, in the following, I consider the competing claims for archaeological objects by the various groups associated with the illegal and legal trade in antiquities. For nearly a decade I have examined the efficacy of cultural heritage laws in the protection of eastern Mediterranean archaeological landscapes. More specifically, I am interested in the contentious issues surrounding legalized antiquities markets as a means of protecting the archaeological past. In order to assess the value of various legal instruments I attempt to engage with the communities who claim an interest in the buying, selling, protection or appreciation of antiquities. The list of communities is long, varied and often at odds with each other. Reconciling these competing claims is a Herculean task, but one worthy of investigation as questions of inclusion, responsibilities and ownership of cultural heritage are at the forefront of an engaged archaeology.     

Museum salvage: A case study of Mesoamerican artifacts in museum collections and on the antiquities market

Abstract

Museum salvage refers to critical studies of museum collections with little or no provenience information that seek to glean useful archaeological information from these artifacts and examine the nature of their origins and possible connections to the illicit antiquities trade and the art market. Our case study focuses on artifacts from Mesoamerica and objects from the ancient capital of Teotihuacan in particular. We take a multi-scalar approach, including a quantitative analysis of Sotheby’s auction records for Mesoamerican items from 1966 to 2010, a survey of Teotihuacan attributed items in U.S. museums, and a more detailed examination of Teotihuacan-style artifacts in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science collections. The study tracks and attempts to explain diachronic patterns in the Mesoamerican antiquities trade, connections to museum collecting practices, and looting behavior. The study illustrates the potential benefits of museum salvage, while also revealing the clear limitations of research on poorly documented archaeological material.     

Identifying sites at risk from illicit metal detecting: from CRAVED to HOPPER

Archaeological sites are at risk from acquisitive crime: this paper focuses in particular on illicit metal detecting. The effects of theft in this context are not merely financial, but have devastating impact on our knowledge and understanding of the site. Even where items are later recovered, we lose the vital clues about the precise context of an object. We therefore need to reduce the risk of theft occurring in the first place.

This paper draws on case studies from England and presents a new methodology to assess which archaeological sites may be at risk from illicit metal detecting: ‘HOPPER’ identifies the characteristics of sites likely to be targeted by offenders looking for antiquities. In brief: History (a history of finds at the site); Open (the site has physical public access, and/or is documented in the public domain); Protection (protected status can act as a beacon for offenders); Publicity (site is known about or receiving new attention); Evasion (there are known ways to escape apprehension); and Repeat victimisation (The site has been a target before). The impact of HOPPER will be its use in the field to develop a pragmatic risk assessment applicable both in a local and international context.     

A Retrospective and a Look Forward

Abstract

For 20 years (1974–1993), the “Antiquities Market” section of the Journal of Field Archaeology provided news and commentary on the illicit traffic in antiquities and on issues of cultural heritage relevant to field archaeologists from around the world. Much has happened in more recent years; military conflict, natural disaster;development, political or religious extremism, calculated looting, and the illicit sale of antiquities all combine to jeopardize the very existence of archaeology. The commodification of material culture is among the most pressing issues on the archaeological agenda. Links between collecting and looting continue to be hotly debated, and recent investigations illustrate how archaeological research may also unintentionally spur looting. Legislative efforts attempt to curb the plunder of sites and the illicit sale of antiquities. What is clear from the various efforts and questions is that globalization is bringing us closer together,and that we need a concentrated international initiative to document and preserve the archaeological record. Concrete proposals for such an initiative are required. The restoration of the “Antiquities Market” section is intended to reopen dialogue on these pressing issues by discussing specific sites in jeopardy and instances of looting, highlighting current trends, and encouraging all those who value the past to protect cultural heritage.     

From the Ground,Up: The Looting of Vưườn Chuối within the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian Antiquities Trade

The exact nature of the illicit antiquities trade from ground to market in Southeast Asia remains poorly known outside of Thailand and Cambodia, where most research has been focused. This paper helps to address this imbalance by documenting and contextualizing looting activities at the Bronze and Iron Age site of V???n Chu?i, located within urban Hanoi. A brief excavation history is provided so as to place recent looting into archaeological context. The methods used to document the recent and on-going looting observed are then discussed, followed by the nature of the current threat to V???n Chu?i and a summation of what little is known about the Vietnamese antiquities trade in general and its relationship to regional antiquities trafficking. Finally, we discuss the current regulatory landscape in terms of constitutional, ownership, penal and international law, difficulties with enforcement and prosecution, and what course of action is needed not only to protect V???n Chu?i and similar sites in and around Hanoi, but also to continue to raise public awareness of the archaeological repercussions of the trade itself.     

The role of the internet in removing the ‘shackles of the saleroom’: Anytime,anyplace, anything,anywhere

Abstract

The alliance of the internet with the antiquities industry has seen the market grow at an unprecedented rate. E-commerce has facilitated an increase in flexibility and access to the market, which has encouraged an influx of new people to the trade. Anyone can now buy and sell antiquities.

The expansion and extension of the market has created new threats to our cultural heritage. Indeed, my research suggests that this has had a significant impact on the organisation, extent and intensity of site destruction. Furthermore, the increased demand for artefacts has led to the proliferation of fakes, increasingly obvious with the widely circulated images on the world wide web. Consequently we are faced with a progressively more confused and fragmentary archaeological record, challenging efforts to piece together the past.

All assessments of the future must accept that the e-market is vast, that it remains largely unsupervised, and that it is impossible to police. Evidence suggests that the illicit trade is filtering into the cyber-sphere, which provides an ideal means of placing material onto the market quickly and quietly. The extent of this unwelcome development is unknown and remains difficult to assess. What is certain is that action needs to be taken if the ‘Age of Technology’ is not to consume the present as well as the past.     

Brian Hope-Taylor,the Council for British Archaeology,and ‘The Need for Adequate Archaeological Propaganda’

Abstract

Brian Hope-Taylor (1923–2001) is remembered as one of the first archaeologists in the United Kingdom to introduce the discipline to a wider audience, through presenting television programmes in the 1960s. He also oversaw numerous excavations. The Council for British Archaeology (CBA) is known for being an educational charity, with the protection of the UK’s archaeological heritage and historic environment central to its activities. What is perhaps less well-known is that, in the 1940s, Hope-Taylor was behind a proposal to the CBA to introduce a campaign of ‘cheerful propaganda’, in order to raise awareness among the wider public about chance archaeological finds and their significance, and hence to persuade them to report these discoveries to appropriate ‘experts’. This paper uses archival evidence and the existing literature to examine, within a historical context, the proposed scheme. Had it come to fruition, it would have introduced principles and mechanisms for public reporting and recording of archaeological discoveries comparable to those laid out by the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which itself did not come to fruition for another five decades.     

2007 Cultural Heritage Legal Summary

Abstract

During the past year there has been continuing progress in the ratification and implementation of the two most important international conventions that deal with tangible cultural heritage. This progress is, to some extent, surprising as it involves some of the more significant market countries, such as Germany and Switzerland. At the same time, Italy's efforts to recover its stolen cultural objects continued to meet with success as the Getty and Princeton museums agreed to return significant numbers of antiquities from their collections. Finally, two cases decided in British courts have recently taken center stage in the ongoing efforts of nations to protect their archaeological heritage through the legal system.     

Mediterranean heritage: ancient marvel,modern millstone

ABSTRACT. The wealth, variety and seaborne accessibility of Mediterranean societies since late prehistory have made the region's cultural heritage the world's most widely acclaimed. But since the fall of the Roman Empire the Mediterranean has been increasingly disadvantaged, its history compromised, its legacy beleaguered. Two millennia of invasion and rapine, religious vendetta, foreign conquest, imperial dominion and colonial subjugation have left Mediterranean peoples with fewer resources and weaker infrastructures than those of transalpine and transatlantic nation‐states. The consequences for the care and control of Mediterranean heritage are parlous. That heritage is both the region's self‐defining pride and its economic mainstay, yet a crippling burden to protect and maintain, let alone to interpret and celebrate. It is everywhere beset by natural and human attrition. Weathering and erosion, illicit excavation and pillage, tomb robbery and the international antiquities market exact tolls that legal codes and police forces are all but impotent to stem. Recent social and political trends suggest potential remedies for some of these dilemmas.     

PALESTINIAN ANTIQUITIES LOOTERS,THEIR SKILL DEVELOPMENT,METHODOLOGY AND SPECIALISED TERMINOLOGY: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY

Abstract

The state of Palestine’s archaeological heritage resources is one of serious risk, due to the on-going looting of antiquities. Vandalising archaeological resources is a widespread phenomenon throughout the Palestinian National Territories (PNT) and has resulted in either total or partial damage to thousands of these resources, and the extraction of at least hundreds of thousands of archaeological objects. The main aim of this study is to explore the measures that have been used by Palestinian antiquities looters to develop their knowledge, fieldwork skills and experience. To this end, I interviewed 96 antiquities looters residing in the West Bank. The Gaza Strip, which is totally relevant to the issues under discussion, was only excluded from this study due to the current travel restrictions between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.     

Managing,Valuing, and Protecting Heritage Resources in the Twenty-First Century: Peatland Archaeology,the Ecosystem Services Framework,and the Kyoto Protocol

Abstract

This paper argues that the development of the Ecosystem Services framework, which has recently emerged as an internationally recognized framework for valuing ‘the ‘natural capital’ of ecosystems, presents a number of opportunities for heritage management and the archaeological record, arguing that the inclusion of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental ‘value’ within this framework presents an opportunity to incorporate heritage alongside a range of other critical ‘services’. It presents a short case study focusing on the problems facing the preservation of peatland archaeological sites and deposits in situ alongside developments within peatland conservation and restoration initiatives partly driven by the ability of healthy, functioning peatlands to sequester carbon and hence mitigate climate change. It is argued that this drive towards peatland re-wetting may bring both positive benefits and opportunities for heritage management but also presents a number of practical issues, which now require active engagement from the archaeological community.     

The RAAR Project — Heritage Management Aspects on Reburial After Ten Years of Work

Abstract

The general purpose of the international reburial project, Reburial and Analyses of Archaeological Remains (RAAR), is to evaluate reburial as a method for the long-term storage and preservation of waterlogged archaeological remains. Since 2001 material samples have been buried, retrieved, analysed systematically, and the results reported.

RAAR has mainly focused on the degradation of materials commonly encountered on archaeological sites, and on environmental monitoring techniques in order to determine what type of material can be reburied and for how long. The project has concluded that a heritage institution could provide short- or long-term curation for its archaeological archive by using reburial depots provided they are set up according to guidelines and restrictions stipulated by the RAAR project.

However, there are management and legal aspects that need to be discussed and resolved before each reburial project. Actual reburials that have been carried out so far are often a solution to emergency situations and lack collection and management policies. The questions ‘what’, ‘why’, and ‘for how long’ have been forgotten and need to be addressed. The legal protection of a reburial site is also important. This paper discusses these aspects and their consequences and highlights possible differences in approaches between the countries involved in the RAAR project.     

Digging and destruction: artifact collecting as meaningful social practice

Collected sites are commonly seen as places requiring expert intervention to ‘save the past’ from destruction by artifact collectors and looters. Despite engaging directly with the physical effects of collecting and vandalism, little attention is given to the meanings of these actions and the contributions they make to the stories told about sites or the past more broadly. Professional archaeologists often position their engagement with site destruction as heritage ‘salvage’ and regard collecting as lacking any value in contemporary society. Repositioning collecting as meaningful social practice and heritage action raises the question: in failing to understand legal or illegal collecting as significant to heritage, have archaeologists contributed to the erasure of acts that aim to work out identities, memories and senses of place, and contribute to an individual’s or group’s sense of ontological security? This question is explored through a case study from the New England region of North America where archaeologists have allied with Native American and other stakeholders to advocate for heritage protection by taking an anti-looting/collecting stance. We explore alternatives to this position that engage directly with forms of collecting as meaningful social practices that are largely erased in site narratives.     

2011 Cultural heritage legal summary

Abstract

This article summarizes the legal developments during 2011 that affect archaeological heritage. Among the more significant developments were advances in and challenges to the use of international law in deterring the trade in undocumented antiquities and questions of whether artifacts on loan to U.S. institutions from Iran could be used to satisfy judgments against Iran awarded to victims of terrorist bombings. Finally, the article presents a preliminary assessment of the impact of the "Arab Spring" conflicts on cultural heritage preservation.     

Buddhist buildings in England: the construction of ‘under-represented’ faith heritage in a multicultural and post-Christian setting

Until recently the ‘heritage industry’ in England overlooked buildings of minority faith traditions. Little has been written about this ‘under-represented’ heritage. Drawing on data from the first national survey of Buddhist buildings in England, we examine the ways in which Buddhist heritage is beginning to be incorporated into the state-funded ‘heritage industry’ as well as how Buddhist communities in England construct heritage through these buildings. First, we draw upon spatial theory in the study of religion to examine three dimensions of minority faith buildings in England and what this tells us about the communities involved: ‘location’ (i.e. the geographical location of the buildings); ‘space’ (i.e. what the buildings are used for and their relationship to local, national and transnational scales); and ‘place’ (i.e. what types of buildings are selected by different communities and why). We then turn to theories of memory that have become popular within the study of religion as well as heritage studies. Religion understood as ‘a chain of memory’ plays an important role in heritage construction via faith buildings, and an analysis of faith buildings, their spatial dimensions and role in ‘memorywork’, helps us think through the dynamics of modern religious belief in a multicultural and post-Christian setting.     

International Heritage Tourism in Rwanda: Paving Over the Past at the Musanze Caves

Through a case study of the Musanze Caves, this paper describes the impact of Rwanda’s heritage tourism industry on archaeological resources. The paper outlines Rwanda’s tourism industry and describes how it privileges ‘natural heritage’ above ‘cultural heritage’, a situation which is negatively impacting upon archaeological sites such as the Musanze Caves. To create the Musanze Caves tourism experience there has been significant non-archaeological excavation and construction in the caves, which has damaged regionally significant archaeological remains that date from 1000 CE to the present. Furthermore, the Musanze Caves tourism experience does not incorporate extant archaeological information into the presented narrative, which is instead based on ‘natural heritage’ and adventure tourism. This situation is damaging rare resources that might help construct new historical narratives to replace untenable colonial and pre-genocide ones, and is generally unhelpful in communicating the knowledge that we do have about the region’s history.     

Maps and the assessment of parish rates in nineteenth‐century England and Wales

Abstract

This paper reviews the role of maps in the assessment of rates levied for the relief of poverty in nineteenth‐century England and Wales and examines the relationships between tithe maps and parochial assessment maps both in general terms and with specific reference to Poor Law unions in the county of Kent. An appendix lists 207 parochial assessment maps made in connection with the levy of poor rates which are extant in the public archives and libraries of England and Wales. Other ‘lost’ examples of this genre awaiting discovery in parish churches and vestries will undoubtedly add to this small but important constituent of the corpus of English and Welsh cadastral maps.     

Advisory Commissions for Archaeology — Sense or Nonsense? The Case of Belgium

Abstract

Belgium has a long tradition of consultative commissions, responsible for the preservation of heritage. In the 1940s and 1950s, Belgian archaeologists expressed a need for such an institute, specifically competent for archaeology and the supervision of excavations. Only in 1965, the first members of a National Commission for Excavations were appointed. They had modest powers, but were able to advocate the value of archaeological heritage and, to a limited extent, supervise fieldwork performed by amateurs. The Commission was also asked to prepare a legal text that would protect archaeological heritage. However, ratified laws were not accomplished and, despite much regret of Belgian archaeologists, the Commission was abolished in 1979.

During the 1980s, Belgium underwent several state reforms which ultimately resulted in the complete regionalization of archaeology (1988–89). Throughout this period, a shift in opinion occurred between Walloon (French-speaking) and Flemish (Dutch-speaking) archaeologists. This resulted in different arrangements of governmental agencies responsible for immovable heritage and archaeology. Nonetheless, as UNESCO had recommended in 1968, all three Belgian regions (including the Brussels-Capital Region) installed advisory commissions that were involved in the preservation in situ of archaeological remains. However, these consultative bodies had little influence on politics and policy. Especially in Flanders, the Archaeological Council achieved very little. Probably, the lack of continuity retained the Council from building up a reputation and authority. Nevertheless, advisory commissions for archaeology do make sense in Belgium. They provide a necessary ‘forum’ to discuss problems and to express undivided opinions; they form a ‘channel’ to communicate with policy makers; and they present an ‘instrument’ for advocating the preservation of archaeological heritage.