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The Antiquities Trade, Museums, Legislation,and Borders

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Ashley Washington
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« Reply #15 on: April 20, 2008, 12:40:14 am »




Fig.8: Stela 14 from El Duende area of Dos Pilas after base was cut off by looters (photo: Stanley Guenter; Courtesy of Mesoweb)
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Ashley Washington
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« Reply #16 on: April 20, 2008, 12:41:00 am »

Both of the stelae at the Cleveland Museum of Art represent royal women. Such public displays of women are rare in Maya monumental art, but are essential for our understanding of access to power. Rulers often traced their royal bloodlines (or perceived royal bloodlines) through the matrilineal line and in several cases, royal women appear to have founded dynasties. The iconographic representations of these prominent women, then, provide a lens into a highly charged and negotiated political landscape of the Late Classic period. The plaque placed near the stelae clearly shows how proud the museum is to have not just one example of a royal woman, but two: “The Maya devoted much stone sculpture to royal portraits, usually of men. The museum is fortunate to have two reliefs that feature noble women…”
    The only provenience given for one of the stela is “Mexico or Guatemala, Usumacinta River region, Maya style (250-900).” Given the importance of women and the relatively rare occurrence of their representation, the plunder of these stelae is particularly appalling. The other stela is attributed to El Perú:
    "She originally stood in a plaza between depictions of men, one probably her husband, ruler of the provincial Maya town El Perú... According to hieroglyphic texts, her importance stemmed from her family background. She came from a ruling dynasty at another Maya center, Calakmul, that was more powerful than her husband's; through marriage, he probably gained potent allies."
    The remaining part of the museum text details the stylistic details of the piece as a work of art and the information contained within the hieroglyphic text. It was the work of Ian Graham that proved that the stela was in fact from El Perú. He found the matching remains in the main plaza, effectively re-contextualizing the stela and, thus, allowing for the detail now on the museum plaque.


http://www.athenapub.com/15-central-america2.htm
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Ashley Washington
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« Reply #17 on: April 20, 2008, 12:41:43 am »



Fig.9: Stela 33, the mate of Stela 34, kept in the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. This sculpture, looted from the site of El Perú, displays a ruler standing with his scepter and tasseled shield. By wearing the regalia of the gods, the ruler is sanctified as the nurturer of his people. Limestone, 107-3/8 x 68-3/8 in., acquired in late 1960s (photo © Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas).
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Ashley Washington
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« Reply #18 on: April 20, 2008, 08:12:48 pm »

Another of El Perú’s stelae is at the Kimbell Museum in Forth Worth, Texas, acquired by the museum on the New York art market in the late 1960s. There is no description of the site of El Perú, only general reference to the importance of stelae and a sentence directing you to Cleveland, “The Maya set up official portraits like this one in ceremonial courtyards of pyramid-temples. This stela is one half of a pair of so-called marriage portraits that depict a male and female ruler (fig.9). The mate to this piece is in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.” This stela, like those at Cleveland, is in pieces, reassembled for display, reflecting the destructive methods employed to remove and transport it from the site.
    These stelae and others in museum and private collections around the world were acquired in the 1960s, a period of increased plunder in the Maya world. Clemency Coggins brought the situation to light in her 1972 article, “Archaeology and the Art Market,” published in Science. She published not only a critical summary of the problem, but also the photographs of cut-up stelae parts in suitcases! The result of Coggins' research and efforts led to the 1972 Pre-Columbian Monumental Architectural Sculpture and Murals Statute (discussed below). Yet, the market, at least the public market, made adjustments again. As Gilgan’s (2001) research points-out, the sales at Sotheby’s over the years have focused on movable objects with few monuments or parts of monuments put up for public auction.
    Site Q: While not offered on the public market, Maya stelae continue to be looted, as the cases from Dos Pilas above indicate. The impact on scholarship from looting in the 1960s as well as more recent events is real. For example, in the 1960s a series of hieroglyphic texts (at least two dozen), presumably from such monuments or facades, appeared on the market. A number of museums purchased the sculptures, including the Art Institute in Chicago (fig.10). The decipherment of the texts on those monuments at Chicago described a prominent Maya center, known for years as the mysterious Site Q. Many of the texts were incomplete, yet epigrapher Peter Matthews, who looked at the corpus as a whole (i.e., putting all the broken parts together), noticed that the texts were indeed complete. The details of the hieroglyphic and iconographic work led to various interpretations of the political order of the greater central Lowlands (Schuster 1997).
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« Reply #19 on: April 20, 2008, 08:14:31 pm »



« Last Edit: April 20, 2008, 08:15:40 pm by Ashley Washington » Report Spam   Logged
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« Reply #20 on: April 20, 2008, 08:16:44 pm »



Fig.10: One of six known looted ballplayer panels that may have adorned a staircase at site Q. An inscription above the righthand ballplayer identifies him at Red Turkey, a name that also appears on two stela fragments at La Corona (fig.4), a site  in the Peten region of Guatemala, in the Late Classic period. (Limestone, h. 43.2 cm x w. 25.1 cm; Ada Turnbull Hertle Fund, 1965.407) (photo © Art Institute of Chicago).
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« Reply #21 on: April 20, 2008, 08:17:54 pm »

Suggestions had been made that La Corona was indeed Site Q, and in 2005 a discovery at the site of an in situ hieroglyphic text (finally) confirmed that La Corona was the mysterious site. In fact, it was the placement of the looter’s trench that led to the discovery of the hieroglyphic text by Marcello Canuto; as recounted by Guenter, “He’d been taking GPS points on a number of pyramids in the eastern part of the site so we could check them against our map. He had had trouble with his GPS unit and just set it on the side of a looters’ trench and decided to nose around. And that’s when he noticed the carved stone” (Guenter 2006). This find (with context) has at last placed the sculptures on the landscape in the antiquity, even if many of the two dozen sculptures remain “lost,” buried deep within the black market or in the private collections, perhaps bank vaults, of their “owners.”
    Looting of Maya sites destroys more than just the hieroglyphic record. It destabilizes structures, exposing contexts that while unmarketable for looters, are precious windows into the past. The recent surge of research at the site of San Bartolo has redefined our understanding of early occupation and social and political life in the central Lowlands. San Bartolo had been the focus of numerous looting efforts: the large abandoned trenches exposed an early Classic Maya mural. The mural was in situ, now exposed to the elements. The chance find of the mural in a looter’s trench by William Saturno set in motion a large-scale research program backed by National Geographic. Subsequent professional excavation has uncovered the earliest known hieroglyphic text of the region, some 300 years earlier than previously documented.
    This situation highlights the numerous issues associated with the antiquities trade. If left without proper attention, looted contexts will only cause further destruction to monuments, and their associated finds, such as stucco facades, murals or other movable goods, will succumb to the rain, wind, open air, etc. Yet there is a deeper problem as well. In all the news articles reporting San Bartolo and La Corona, the trade in antiquities is only mentioned in passing and no real attention has been paid to the real need to document all looting trenches systematically. There has yet to be real public out-cry from the archaeological community, demanding further protection and enforcement of legislation or a focused push to treat evidence of looting in the field with a systematic approach.
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« Reply #22 on: April 20, 2008, 08:19:10 pm »



Fig.11: Two Ulúa style marble vases, one gold figure, and one jade hand of the Santa Ana Corpus (photo: courtesy of the Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University).
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« Reply #23 on: April 20, 2008, 08:20:02 pm »

Ulúa Marble Vases: A final consideration for review here is movable materials. Ulúa marble vases (figs. 11-13) from the Lower Ulúa Valley of northwestern Honduras are among the most sought-after items on the antiquities market. Only a handful has been excavated in truly professional contexts. The remaining 200+ are scattered in museums and private collections. The appearance on the public market comes late, only after a museum exhibition highlighting the fantastic nature of the vases (Luke and Henderson 2006). Rather, the plunder for such vases was driven by museums, mostly US institutions, and private collectors, documented as early as the late 1890s (Luke 2006) with a substantial rise in demand during the 1960s and 1970s. Furthermore, the trade labels the vases as Maya, yet many consider the region to be a frontier zone, not strictly Maya.
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« Reply #24 on: April 20, 2008, 08:20:52 pm »



Fig.12: Two Ulúa style marble vases of the Peor es nada corpus (photo: courtesy of the Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University).
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« Reply #25 on: April 20, 2008, 08:21:30 pm »

The prices for these vases are indeed high for material from the Ulúa region: ca. $60,000 per vase. The exposure of the region through academic scholarship, particularly links to the central Maya lowlands, is promoting the area in the trade and driving prices higher, particularly for ceramics. Yet, plunder continues, further obliterating what little is left of the archaeological sites in the area, many completely destroyed (Luke and Henderson 2006).
    The market for Pre-Columbian movable materials – fancy jades and ceramics – is anything but quiet. Christie’s has opened a new auction house in Paris, France. Recent sales at Sotheby's in New York show values for a single polychrome vase between $200,000 and $250,000, and $1,575,500 for an Early Classic Maya Jade at Christie's in their November 2004 sale. Such prices have traditionally been reserved for materials from the Classical world. The cases presented here only scrape the surface of the truly tragic situation facing the region of Central America.
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« Reply #26 on: April 20, 2008, 08:22:18 pm »



Fig.13: Map of the Ulúa Valley and surrounding areas in Honduras and Guatemala (Luke 2005).
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« Reply #27 on: April 20, 2008, 08:23:01 pm »

Recent debate: With all the looting and the rise in market prices, what can be done to ensure that sites are not looted? While the outspoken pro-trade, legal expert John Merryman and others contend that the trade in materials should be legal precisely because these objects constitute world cultural heritage and, thus, should not be controlled by the modern nation states that subsume the sites, this camp appears to disregard their own argument when it comes to the protection of archaeological sites. An object is an object, regardless of whether it has context or not. Yet an object can be a direct lens into the past if it, as well as its context, is preserved. This holistic approach emphasizes that context must be the primary concern, the study of the artifact a natural corollary. Thus the very paradigm that is often used as an argument to open trade in antiquities, to promote museum exhibitions for educational purposes, is in fact the key problem. The world archaeological record must be protected and yet this is frustrated by the trade, which is dead-set on backing statements that value the object over context, thus dismissing the importance of the archaeological site. This seems to deflate credibility more than it appears to help and points to the ignorance of not only those in the trade, but also those in the upper echelons making decisions.
    This debate has been a long-standing issue with museum acquisitions, both from direct sale and from donations from patrons. The material from the Landon T. Clay collection in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is an example specific to material from Guatemala (fig.14). In the late 1980s, the museum accepted a number of objects from Clay. Guatemala strongly believes that the material was looted from the Petén and, hence, should be returned to Guatemala. Restitution of the objects remains unresolved.
    This standstill with Guatemala may change in coming years, particularly with the current spotlight on museums and their acquisition policies at auction and from donors. Both the MFA and the Metropolitan have been involved in detailed negotiations with the Italians, following the explosion onto the antiquities radar of the trail of former Getty Museum curator, Marion True (see Introduction, pp.22-24; and Case Study 2, pp.32-38). In February, 2006 the Metropolitan agreed to return twenty-one artifacts to Italy, including the celebrated Euphronios krater (pp.27-30). Subsequently, on September 28, 2006, the MFA Boston signed a similar agreement with Italian officials, resulting in the return of thirteen culturally significant objects such as the six-foot Greek marble statue of Sabina (Edgers and Pinto 2006). The Getty Museum, meanwhile, has returned some artifacts to Greece and Italy and has recently conceded its prize artifact, a statue of Aphrodite purchased for $18 million in 1988, which the Italians claim was looted from Morgantina in Sicily (see pp.32-38).
    While the restitution of objects is the subject of an entire paper, if not book, some press statements on the issue highlight the troubling lack of concern of the trade, and perhaps much of the museum world, to context. Metropolitan Museum Director Phillip de Montebello, for example, laments the plunder of archaeological sites, but he clearly does not view the central importance of context as an archaeologist would see it. In an interview published in the New York Times (Kennedy and Eakin 2006), Montebello said, “It continues to be my view – and not my view alone – that the information that is lost is a fraction of the information that an object can provide…Ninety-eight percent of everything we know about antiquity we know from objects that were not out of digs.” His specific example related to the highly contested Euphronios krater: “How much more would you learn from knowing which particular hole in – supposedly Cerveteri – it came out of?” he asked. “Everything is on the vase” (Kennedy and Eakin 2006; see also Case Study 1, pp. 27-30). From an archaeologist’s perspective, these comments provide a nearly perfect illustration of the scant attention paid to context in the museum world. Yet a much fuller realization and acceptance of the direct relation between context — or its obscurance — and legal vs. illegal status of imported artifacts is urgently required, especially by museum spokesmen. If museums would be both informed about illegal artifact trade, and held accountable for avoiding the purchase of illegally smuggled artifacts, this would introduce a necessary criteria of illegal vs. legal context that all museum officials would need to learn.
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« Reply #28 on: April 20, 2008, 08:23:53 pm »

Legislation in Central America: In most cases, the countries of Central America including Mexico have had laws that govern cultural patrimony for over a century (see Table 1). The respective legislation in many cases corresponds to exploration and archaeological research by foreigners, usually under the auspices of a major institution, such as the British Museum or the Peabody at Harvard. For example, protection for the site of Copan in Honduras was triggered in 1836 by the work of John Lloyd Stephens, most likely by his purchase of the site, later revoked. Guatemala, too, had early laws, among the first in Central America (Chinchilla 1998). Over the years institutions wrestled against each other, all attempting to transport monuments back home. Faced with transportation difficulties, they developed a method of making plaster casts, thus allowing the remains to stay in place while bringing home a sort of replica. This would seem to be an ideal situation, yet many of the monuments have since been destroyed by the antiquities trade, such as monuments from Piedras Negras (fig.4), so that now only the plaster casts at the Peabody allow us to see their once intact state.
     These early laws defined what constituted cultural patrimony in the respective region as well as established guidelines for foreign institutions wishing to conduct excavations. In most cases, the finds were divided evenly between the host nation and the sponsoring institution. This was certainly the case in Honduras during the early decades of the 20th century. Yet with the increasing awareness of archaeological context and need for site preservation, countries began to change their positions, restricting the export of any materials. For Honduras, the border was closed under a 1936 law, yet material continued and continues to move clandestinely out of the region (Luke 2006).
    In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the international focus turned to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illegal Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, and countries began to take a closer look at national ownership laws, particularly how (and if) they discerned between export regulations and full declaration of ownership. These two issues continue to be among the most important for prosecution of a case under US law.
    For example, in 1984 Honduras put into place the Law for the Protection of Cultural Patrimony (legislative Decreto No. 81-84), firmly establishing both export and ownership provisions in the law. This law, like many laws in Central America [e.g., Guatemala (Decree 26-97) and El Salvador (Decree no.513)], recognizes unambiguously cultural patrimony as property of the state and enforces strict regulations for its excavation (i.e., application for work under a permit process). Yet these laws often allow for the transfer of cultural patrimony (for sale or as gifts) between private individuals and/or institutions within the country, provided that the material patrimony and its location are registered with the Ministry of Culture or designated government entity/institution. Thus, in theory, an active and legal trade is possible within the country. Honduras broke with this model in 1997 with the passage of Decree 220-97, which forbids the sale or transfer of cultural patrimony as well as the possession of cultural patrimony within state borders. The law is retroactive. The only provision is that objects may stay in collections until the death of the current patron, but they may not be transferred through inheritance.
    Central American countries have also reached out to their neighbors in attempts to have regional cooperation to thwart the illicit traffic of antiquities over borders. All are party to the 1970 UNESCO and none have additional implementing legislation, as is the case with many “market” countries. As a party member, these countries of Central America as well as Mexico pledge to uphold their respective cultural patrimony laws. In addition, all, save Belize and Mexico, are party to the 1976 Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological, Historical and Artistic Heritage of the American Nations. Yet, Belize and Mexico have a bilateral agreement with each other, as does Mexico with Guatemala and El Salvador. Thus, while Mexico may not be party to the 1976 Convention, it has taken steps to ensure that those countries it shares borders with do have legal instruments that pertain to cultural patrimony.
    Finally, an international convention that has been gaining favor once again is the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on the Return of Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects. UNIDROIT, unlike UNESCO, makes no distinction between plunder and theft, providing an opportunity for countries to pursue legal action under existing stolen property instruments. In the last six years both El Salvador and Guatemala have become parties.
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« Reply #29 on: April 20, 2008, 08:24:30 pm »

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