The Background to the Benin Punitive Expedition

Michael Yates has written an article on Kunstpedia concerning matters that lead to the removal of the Benin bronzes from the Oba’s palace in the 19th century. He says he has tried to give an objective account without wanting to see events only from a British viewpoint, and indeed his version differs from those traditional in the discussion. What he does however is concentrate on the ambush of 4th January, 1897, rather than the details of the Punitive Expedition, and it is the latter which is in question in discussions of the repatriation issue.

I found the discussion of the BM selling off (deaccessioning) some of the objects rather interesting in the light of their arguments that British law does not allow them to deaccession items from their collections.

See also: Karen Mercury, 'Expansion & Invasion: The Benin Punitive Expedition', Unusual Historicals


Vignette: Harry Rawson, commander of the punitive expedition. 

Nefertiti's bust, time to go home?

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Wafaa El-Seddiq head of the International Union for the Preservation of Heritage and former director of the Egyptian Museum asks why the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti is still in Germany. This is by far one of the best written and persuasively argued accounts from the Egyptian side which I have seen in a long time.
Nefertiti's bust, time to come home? Al-Ahram Weekly, Issue No. 1094, 19 - 25 April 2012

Sothebys insists Cambodian statue was not stolen

Sotheby's said it had been in "active discussions" with the U.S. and Cambodian governments over the ancient Cambodian statue of a warrior ("Duryodhana") which was taken stolen from the Prasat Chen temple at Koh Ker in Cambodia and that the result was "disappointing".

The 10th century statue was broken off at the base and apparently smuggled out of Cambodia early in the 1970s. The government of Cambodia regards the statue as stolen, and wants it back. It had been consigned to Sotheby’s for sale by a Belgian collector and had been set for auction in New York in March 2011 but was abruptly pulled from the market at the last minute after Cambodia claimed ownership. Strong evidence indicates it was plundered during the upheavals of the Cambodian civil war in the 1970s. Its pedestal — and that of a matching statue now at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif. — was found at Koh Ker, a site about 80 miles northeast of Angkor Wat. The claim that the 'Belgian-collector/Sotheby's' statue was looted during the Cambodian civil war rests partly on findings by a French archaeologist, Eric Bourdonneau, who reported that the work had been seen in place as recently as the 1960s, that a road built after 1965 provided the first easy access to the site, and that the piece did not appear on the art market until its first known sale in Britain in 1975.

Sotheby's denied doing anything wrong, saying it "strongly disputes the allegations". "This sculpture, which had been in the possession of a good faith owner who obtained good title almost 40 years ago, was legally imported into the United States and all relevant facts were openly declared," the auction house said. "We have researched this sculpture extensively and have never seen nor been presented with any evidence that specifies when the sculpture left Cambodia over the last 1,000 years nor is there any such evidence in this complaint," it added.

It's legal innit? What does it mean "in good faith"? How can you buy something, identifiably (by style) from Cambodia, freshly broken off at the bottom, from a country where the news is full of reports every day of the brutal war going on there? How can it be a "good faith" purchase if the seller does not say how and when it left the country where it was obtained? Where there is no export licence? I fail to see how that actually qualifies as a good faith purchase any more than a cheap IPad in its original box ("only a little shop soiled") but no documentation bought from a guy ("he looked decent enough, in a suit, not a hoodie") two days after the London riots.

Norton Simon had no illusions what he was buying. According to an article in the "Chasing Aphrodite" blog he was under no illusions about the illicit origins of his impressive collection of Asian art which today is a highlight of his Pasadena museum. As a serious US collector it seems he felt himself above such niceties as laws:

In a 1973 article headlined “Norton Simon Bought Smuggled Idol,” the New York Times asked Simon about a bronze Hindu deity of Siva he had just purchased for $1 million. India claimed it had been ripped from a temple and smuggled out of the country. His answer:

“Hell, yes, it was smuggled,” said Mr. Simon in a telephone interview. “I spent between $15- and $16-million over the last two years on Asian Art and most of it was smuggled. I don’t know whether it was stolen.”

The same would appear to apply to the Khmer temple guardian that he bought three years later from a  New York dealer William H. Wolff.

So, we are asked to believe that the worldly Norton Simon accepted that he was buying illicit goods, but the more naive Belgian collector who was active over the other side of the Atlantic really had no idea. Can one have "good title" to such an object without having any document which shows that at the time of purchase permission had been given for the sawing (or breaking) off of an element of temple sculpture and exporting it? Or did the buyer assume that since there was a war going on, no such document was necessary?


Ralph Blumental, Tom Mashberg, 'Officials Are Set to Seize Antiquity', New York Times April 4, 2012.

Brigitte Dusseau, 'Sothebys insists Cambodian statue was not stolen', AFP, April 13, 2012

Kwame Opoku comments on Return to Namibia of Skulls by Germany

Namibia: Return of Stolen Skulls by Germany - Closure of a Horrible Chapter?
By Kwame Opoku, 22 March 2012

Vernichtungsbefehl (Extermination Order) by the German commander, General Lothar von Trotha (October 1904):

Ich, der große General der deutschen Soldaten, sende diesen Brief an das Volk der Herero. Die Hereros sind nicht mehr deutsche Untertanen. Sie haben gemordet und gestohlen, haben verwundeten Soldaten Ohren und Nasen und andere Körperteile abgeschnitten, und wollen jetzt aus Feigheit nicht mehr kämpfen. [...] Das Volk der Herero muß jedoch das Land verlassen. Wenn das Volk dies nicht tut, so werde ich es mit dem Groot Rohr dazu zwingen. Innerhalb der Deutschen Grenze wird jeder Herero mit und ohne Gewehr, mit oder ohne Vieh erschossen, ich nehme keine Weiber und Kinder mehr auf, treibe sie zu ihrem Volke zurück oder lasse auf sie schießen. Dies sind meine Worte an das Volk der Hereros.

"The return of the 20 skulls surely cannot be a symbolic closure of a tragic chapter in the history of Germany and Namibia. At best, the handing over could be regarded as a symbolic beginning of a process that may close this incredible chapter of cruelty and criminality organised by a European state against African peoples. German rule in South West Africa (1884-1915) was marked by singular brutality, disregard of the human rights of Namibians, confiscation of land and cattle, coupled with exploitation of the human and material resources of the vast colony. The massacres of the Herero and the Nama were the first genocides of the 20th century..."

Contested Turkish Objects in London

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According to Martin Bailey in the Art Newspaper, Turkey is blocking museum loans to some US and UK museums because they refuse to surrender objects excavated in Turkey in the past. In Britain, both the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museums are having problems in this regard in their efforts to create two 'encyclopedic' exhibitions.

The Turkish government wants the British Museum to return a carved stele (stone slab). Dating from the first century BC, it depicts King Antiochus I Epiphanes greeting Herakles-Verethragna. The stele was first recorded in 1882 when it was found in a field in Selik, near the town of Samsat in modern Turkey. The carved, sculpted relief, which is four feet high, had been used as an olive oil press and a large hole had been drilled through its centre. It was bought in 1911 by the archaeologist Leonard Woolley, who was digging in Carchemish with the permission of the Ottoman authorities. When the first world war broke out, the area around Carchemish was fought over. After the war, the archaeological store was in Syria, then administered by the French. In 1927, Woolley exported the stele with the permission of the French authorities and it was bought by the British Museum. Although a claim was made for the stele in 2005, it was not pursued by the Turkish authorities. In the meantime, loans between the two countries continued. Turkey’s claim to the stele was revived in January 2011 by its ambassador to London, Unal Cevikoz, after the appointment of a new director-general of cultural heritage and museums, Osman Murat Suslu.

The BM was keen to resolve this issue, it recently organized an exhibition about the “Hajj” exhibition and since Mecca was controlled by the Ottoman empire from 1517 to 1916, there are many historic artefacts referring to this site held in Turkish museums. (It would be interesting to know whether the Saudis are asking for their surrender).

A British Museum spokeswoman told us last month: “The museum would be willing to discuss a loan of the stele, subject to the usual conditions. The trustees cannot consent to the transfer of ownership and firmly believe that it should remain part of the museum’s collection, where it can be seen in a world context by a global audience.” It is on display in the Near East Galleries.

Bailey reports that the V&A is facing a similar problem over its planned exhibition “The Ottomans” intended to focus on the development of Ottoman art from the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 to the 19th century. For this, loans from Turkey would be essential. The show was "scheduled for 2014, then delayed a year, it is now on hold". Turkey has requested the surrender of the stone head of a child, representing Eros, from the 3rd century BC Sidamara sarcophagus (The Art Newspaper, October 2010, p9).

The head was removed in 1882 by the archaeologist Charles Wilson, and donated to the V&A by his family in 1933. The head is now in store at the V&A. The Sidamara sarcophagus, which is otherwise intact, is on display in Istanbul’s Archaeological Museum. A V&A spokeswoman says that the head was legitimately acquired and the museum is not allowed to deaccession. “The offer of a long-term loan of the head to Turkey has been discussed,” she adds.

Martin Bailey, 'Turkey blocks loans to US and UK', Art Newspaper, Published online: 01 March 2012

Turkey Seeks Surrender of Part of the Met's Norbert Schimmel Collection

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The Turkish government is currently seeking the return of 18 objects from the Ancient Near East Galleries of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (reported by Martin Bailey in the Art Newspaper earlier this month). Turkey is threatening to refuse to loan objects to the institution until questions about the contested objects were addressed.

Turkey claims all of them were illegally excavated and smuggled out of the country after the passage of a 1906 law that gave the state ownership of its cultural property. All the contested objects are from the Norbert Schimmel Collection, which the museum has described as “the finest private assemblage of its kind in America” and “one of the most important gifts of ancient and Classical art ever presented to this museum.” Between the 1950s and his death in 1990, Schimmel was a member of the Met’s board of trustees and acquisitions committee. In 1989, he donated 102 objects from his collection to the Met.

Chasing Aphrodite lists the Norbert Schimmel Collection objects, mostly Hittite and Urartian. Most of the objects have no documented ownership history other than being in the Schimmel Collection by the mid 1960s or 1970s. As Felch and Fremolino note:

The Schimmel Collection was published in a 1974 volume entitled “Ancient Art:The Norbert Schimmel Collection.” The editor of the volume was Oscar White Muscarella, a former Met curator who has been an outspoken critic of the role museums have played in the illicit antiquities trade. We’ve asked Muscarella for his thoughts on the Turkish claim and will post his response when we have it.

It is interesting to note that for some reason Turkey waited 38 years after the publication of the collecting before asking for the objects back. Turkey is also requesting surrender of an object from the British Museum and one from the Victoria and Albert Museum. According to Chasing Aphrodite, Turkey is also considering asking for the return of 11 other (?) unidentified objects at the Met, and apparently objects from several other US museums.

Chasing Aphrodite, 'Exclusive: Turkey Seeks The Return of 18 Objects From The Metropolitan Museum of Art', Chasing Aphrodite blog, March 20, 2012.

HOT DOC: TURKEY REQUESTS FROM THE

Benjamin Sutton, 'More Antiquities Woes for U.S. Museums Loom, As Turkey Demands 18 Artifacts From the Metropolitan Museum', ArtInfo, march 20th 2012.

New Book on Trade in Egyptian Antiquities

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Ashraf El-Ashmawi was for more than seven years the legal consultant for Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), now the Ministry of State for Antiquities. He has a book coming out within days, published by the Lebanese Egyptian Printing House (the German version will be released in October, an English version is in the making). It is titled: 'Legitimate Robberies, on the illicit trade of Egypt’s antiquities'. This relates the history of trade of Egypt’s antiquities during the last 200 years (the blurb says 'illicit trade').

Due to his legal position at the SCA El-Ashmawi witnessed and collaborated in the restitution of almost 5,000 artefacts that have been illegally looted and smuggled out of the country. Legitimate Robberies reveals the mysteries behind several recent antiquities thefts and ones from all the way back to the end of Napoleon's French Expedition to Egypt in 1802. In his book, El-Ashmawi uncovers that laws and regulations that controlled Egypt’s antiquities in earlier centuries actually legitimated the antiquities trade - a major crimhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife, robbing Egypt of its history and civilisation.[...] Among these stories is the controversy over the exhibition in Germany of the exquisite, painted bust of Nefertiti

Uh-oh. El-Ashmawi relates the stories behind several antiquities thefts and the efforts exerted by the SCA and himself to return those objects back to their homeland, Egypt. The ideology behind this book would seem (from this pre-publication blurb) to be that if it is from Egypt, it belongs back in Egypt, no matter under what laws (or lack of them) it was removed in the past. Personally that is not a position I accept. There is a legitimate trade in antiquities of documented collecting histories which take them back to beyond vesting ("retentionist" if you like) legislation.

Nevine El-Aref, 'New Release: Legitimate Robberies, on the illicit trade of Egypt’s antiquities', Ahram Online, Monday 19 Mar 2012