Immoral Immigration

Mechanical diggers looting an ancient cemetery in southern Italy
Photo courtesy of Soprintendenza Archeologica Della Puglia

The past decade has seen a sea change in the world’s view of looted antiquities. Since the 1970s, the antiquities trade had burgeoned; as prices soared, annual sales were estimated to reach up to $2 billion. The market was almost entirely—about 90 percent—dependent on illegally excavated and exported artifacts, often broken or damaged, wrenched from the context of ancient lives and communities.

Thanks to modern technology—bulldozers, dynamite and power tools—homes, tombs and even cities were pillaged by a sophisticated and completely illicit global network feeding the demand of private collectors, auction houses, galleries and museums. The destruction is so widespread that many archaeologists believe our understanding of the past, our world cultural heritage, is seriously threatened.

In the 1990s, Italy emerged as a leader in enforcing export laws on antiquities: What’s below ground in Italy belongs to Italy, and if objects without history of ownership or origin (provenance) materialize, they are considered stolen—and Italy will do whatever it takes to get them back.

“We are now at the moment that a country has the right to possess its own cultural roots and to keep objects that document those cultural roots,” said Beatrice Basile, superintendent for art and archaeology for the province of Enna.

So, what’s a museum to do?

The University of Virginia Art Museum gives the objects back. In February, archaeologist Malcolm Bell III, professor of art history and one of the United States’ foremost voices on archaeological repatriation, organized “The Goddesses Return” symposium. The event marked U.Va.’s repatriation of acroliths (marble heads, hands and feet originally attached to wooden bodies) thought to represent Demeter and Persephone and believed clandestinely stolen from Morgantina, the ancient Greek city in Enna, Sicily, where Bell has directed excavations sponsored by the University for the past 28 years. In 2002, the University accepted the donation of the acroliths with the understanding that they would be returned home, only the second time a U.S. nonprofit has accepted a donation with the intention of its repatriation.

In addition to showcasing current scholarship on the pieces, the symposium was one of the first times museum professionals and Italian government representatives have been assembled to discuss how to handle artifacts whose illicit origins may be identified years after purchase or donation.

The event came after a year in which the Italian government and U.S. museums moved from adversarial roles toward partnership and collaboration. In 2007, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts agreed to return to Italy objects said to have been looted, to make reciprocal loans—40 Bernini sculptures will go to the Getty in an exhibition to open in August and objects from American collections will continue to be lent abroad—and to cooperate on archaeological digs and other research.

“The origin of works of art is important, particularly works of art that are excavated. The issue is whether they should be deprived of that history and that information,” said Bell, setting the agenda. “The question to consider now is repatriation of substantial works of art in existing collections we can assume were looted in recent times.”

For Italians, who are attempting to stop the looting by discouraging market demand, the  position is unequivocal: “We are obligated to ask for [archaeological works] back,” Jeannette Papadopoulos of Rome’s Ministry of Cultural Properties told those assembled.

The question of antiquities repatriation cuts directly to the identity and role of the public museum. The public museum developed about 200 years ago with the noble intention of bringing the world under one roof to educate everyone. It was called the “universal museum” and considered an important institution for a civil society, an idea expressed by panelist Susan Taylor, director of the Princeton University Art Museum: “To understand other cultures, we must see their works of art.”

But what if the institution discovers it owns an object with a suspect past? How does it prohibit future illicit purchases or donations? And what should the statute of limitations on repatriation be? Italy uses 1939, but many museums have accepted the date of 1970, when UNESCO adopted a convention discouraging the illicit trade in cultural items. Works not known before that date are excluded from purchase.

“The collecting museum should decisively separate itself from the contemporary market,” said Bell.

“Museums are subject to pressure from donors,” said Kimerly Rorschach, director of the
Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. “Morality tends to get ‘mushy,’ so policies are important.”

Magnus Fiskejö, assistant anthropology professor at Cornell University and former director of Sweden’s Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, believes museums must publicly post on the Web their collecting policies and all objects in their collections. “Museums must account for their collections,” he said.

In the 1970s and early ’80s, patrimony laws were seen as export laws, said Rorschach, adding that today museum ethics must extend to museums taking responsibility as importers rather than considering any already-exported object fair game.

“Put the onus of responsibility on ourselves,” said Fiskejö, explaining his museum’s policy in Sweden: “If we suspected this object might have come on that conveyor belt of looting, we would not accept the object.”

“More can be gained by exchange versus ownership,” said Taylor, whose institution recently negotiated with the Italian government for the return of objects, reciprocal loans (Princeton has loaned 87 objects to Italian institutions), collaborations on archaeological digs and other research opportunities—all important aspects of the university’s teaching program, she said.

“The solution is to go through collaboration in the field, research and publication,” said Papadopoulos. “We prefer to study pieces together, not just to return objects.”

“Aim higher than the mere formality of the law,” said Fiskejö. “The acroliths are a positive example for the future.”