"Turkey’s campaign criticized"

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The campaign of Turkey to reclaim archaeological items taken from Turkish soil is being strongly criticised in Europe claims the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet Daily News ('Turkey’s campaign criticized', October 2 2012).

“The Turks are engaging in polemics and nasty politics,” said Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, according to the New York Times. “They should be careful about making moral claims when their museums are full of looted treasures,” Parzinger said. [...] Parzinger told the New York Times that Turkey did not actually posses any legal claim to the artifacts it claims the Pergamon Museum retains illegally. According to the article, Parzinger warned that “treating Germany like a petty thief puts more than a century of archaeological cooperation at risk and harms relations between the countries as Turkey seeks to join the European Union.”

I think Parzinger's words give out an entirely (and perhaps unintended - who knows?) message when reported to the Turkish public by the Turkish press that when he was talking to a sympathetic NYT journalist. But he said what he said, and the damage is done. 

Turkey's Claims on Antiquities in New York Times

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The New York Times has yet another piece on the efforts of Turkey to get back from US museums what the country says rightfully belongs back in Turkey (Dan Bilefsky, 'Seeking Return of Art, Turkey Jolts Museums', New York Times September 30, 2012). The NYT characterises Turkey's "tactics" as "aggressive" and links them to the country "asserting itself politically in the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring" (eh?). Bilefsky says this has "particularly alarmed museums. Officials here are refusing to lend treasures, delaying the licensing of archaeological excavations and publicly shaming museums".He does not explain why Turkey should lend objects to museums that will not recognize their right to other objects and refuse to give them back - if they hand onto what they've already got from Turkey, why should Turkey lend them even more? Why should the Turks allow foreigners free and easy access to Turkish archaeological sites? It is not a "right" to be able to march into a foreign country and dig through its archaeological record at will. Why should we not shame museums who thumb their noses at foreign nations and their concerns? Bilefsky writes: 

An aggressive campaign by Turkey to reclaim antiquities it says were looted has [...] drawn condemnation from some of the world’s largest museums, which call the campaign cultural blackmail. In their latest salvo, Turkish officials this summer filed a criminal complaint in the Turkish court system seeking an investigation into what they say was the illegal excavation of 18 objects that are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Norbert Schimmel collection [...] “We know 100 percent that these objects at the Met are from Anatolia,” the Turkish region known for its ancient ruins, [Turkey’s director-general of cultural heritage and museums, Murat] Suslu, an archaeologist, said in an interview. “We only want back what is rightfully ours.”Turkey’s efforts have spurred an international debate about who owns antiquities after centuries of shifting borders. Museums like the Met, the Getty, the Louvre and the Pergamon in Berlin say their mission to display global art treasures is under siege from Turkey’s tactics. Museum directors say the repatriation drive seeks to alter accepted practices, like a widely embraced Unesco convention that lets museums acquire objects that were outside their countries of origin before 1970.

Well, that's not actually true. Basically if the Norbert Schimmel collection contains items which were illegally excavated, and illegally removed from Turkey, then - "Convention" or no "Convention" - why would the Met WANT to keep them? Becoming party to the Convention surely is an indication of what a given country and its citizens consider right and proper, it contains principles which the act of accession surely indicates that a given state considers to be universal.

Met director, Thomas P. Campbell, said his museum believed the objects sought by Turkey "had been legally acquired by Norbert Schimmel in the European antiquities market in the 1960s before being donated to the museum in 1989, and thus were in compliance with the Unesco accord".

“The Turks are engaging in polemics and nasty politics,” said Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees the Pergamon. “They should be careful about making moral claims when their museums are full of looted treasures” acquired, he said, by the Ottomans in their centuries ruling parts of the Middle East and southeast Europe. 

The President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation also complains:“If all Westerners are just thieves and robbers,” he asked, “then who has been restoring their cultural heritage?” I really think this kind of rhetoric does no good, Turkey is not suggesting that ALL WESTERNERS are the problem, just some of their museum curators. I'd say the Prussian "Cultural" Heritage Foundation is not well served by the all-too-public expression of such sentiments.

A Video Visit to the Acropolis Museum

 

"A short visit to the Acropolis Museum" posted on YouTube by TheAcropolisMuseum

Directed by Konstantinos Arvanitakis, Music: Yiannis Drenogiannis, Post Production: digimojo Production House. Copyright: Acropolis Museum

While on the topic, here's a video of the work being done in the Acropolis Museum on the cleaning and conservation of the Caryatids, the Kore from the south porch of the Erechtheion temple. Visitors had the opportunity to watch conservators do the delicate work of cleaning the Caryatids with advanced laser technology.

 

"Conserving the Caryatids", posted on YouTube by TheAcropolisMuseum Directed by Konstantinos Arvanitakis, Post Production: digimojo Production House. Copyright: Acropolis Museum

This month, the conservation work project carried out on the Caryatids of the Erectheion South Porch, using laser was awarded the 2012 Keck Award by the International Institute of Conservation (IIC) in Vienna. The Keck Award, endowed by Sheldon and Caroline Keck, is presented every two years at the IIC Congress to the individual or group who has, in the opinion of the Council, contributed most towards promoting public understanding and appreciation of the accomplishments of the conservation profession. The British Museum took small hammers and wire brushes to the Acropolis Marbles they claim to be "looking after". 

Flynn on New Moves to Return the Parthenon Marbles

Tom Flynn has a piece published yesterday 'Greece prepares for fresh assault on the British Museum over the Parthenon Marbles'(20th Sept 2012).

This follows the announcement by the Greek Ministry of Culture that it will now re-establish a special advisory committee to coordinate actions which will secure the repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles currently held in Britain. He quotes 'Alternate Culture Minister' Costas Tzavaras saying:

"Greece's moral right is above every objection that is based on arguments aired as mere delay tactics, and aiming to brush aside the basic principle that is universally applied, namely, the necessity of cultural monuments to be repatriated, meaning a return to the place of their origin".

Flynn comments:

That word "universally" jumps off the page. I'm not so sure the British Museum — the self-styled "universal" museum par excellence — would subscribe to any principle, basic or otherwise, that would support the repatriation of cultural monuments to their place of origin. Meanwhile, December could be crunch time for the Greek economy, with commentators of every stripe queuing up to predict Greece's exit from the Eurozone. Were that to happen it would surely increase the desire for repatriation of the Marbles as Greece seeks to reassemble its sense of national pride and cultural identity. If the Marbles are essential to the British Museum's tourist revenues — which we know them to be — it logically follows that they would bring a similar benefit to the New Acropolis Museum were they to be installed where they belong in the new museum's beautiful Parthenon Galleries. It will be interesting to see whether this new cultural committee manages (where past initiatives have signally failed) to maintain its momentum and presses its claim through the proper diplomatic channels with a tough follow-through.

The "Repatriation Debate" According to FT

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The Financial Times has an article today which its author Peter Aspden claims is a presentation of the "repatriation debate". But I cannot share and comment on it as I would like, as the paper tells its readers: "High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article". As far as I am concerned therefore, readers can find for  themselves this "high quality journalism". I did not read it, but on skimming it note that it seems to have a big chunk which looks as if it's cobbled together from Cuno's book. What are the chances that this text it goes beyond the usual object-centred arguments and the "how to protect your investment in art" advice?

Italian Group Requests Return of Mona Lisa to Florence

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Aurelie Filippetti says 'no'.

It is being reported that campaigners of the National Committee for Historical, Cultural and Environmental Heritage in Italy have collected over 150,000 signatures calling on the Louvre museum in Paris to hand over Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to Florence where its painting was begun. Committee President Silvano Vincenti said he has made a formal request to the French minister of culture, Aurelie Filippetti, for the painting to be given back.

Leonardo is thought to have begun work on the enigmatic portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a wealthy Tuscan silk merchant, in Florence in 1503. But art historians think he took it with him when he moved to France in 1516. The French Royal family then acquired it and following a spell at Versailles it ended up at the Louvre museum after the French Revolution. 

So, no real grounds for it "going back" it seems to me. Surely this is just a publicity stunt.

Source: Michael Day, 'Give us back the Mona Lisa: Italian campaigners demand France returns world's most famous painting to 'home city' of Florence', Daily Mail 7th Sept 2012.

Penn-Turkey, Loan Resolution of Restitution Claim

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The University of Pennsylvania's Penn Museum has made a deal with Turkey over 24 pieces of ancient Trojan-style gold jewellery that seems to have been looted from northwestern Turkey in the 1960s. It has lent the pieces to that country for an indefinite period.

 In exchange, the Turkish government pledged to lend other artifacts for a one-year exhibit at Penn's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology[...] The country also promised support for ongoing excavations by Penn scholars within its borders. The exchange represents an amicable agreement in a realm often marked by rancor [...]  The 24 pieces of gold jewelry, dated to 2400 B.C., were purchased by the Penn museum from a dealer in 1966, but were not accompanied by any documents that established their origin. [... the evidence of their Turkish provenance...] is highly likely but it's not conclusive," [Julian] Siggers [new director of the Penn museum since July] said. "That's why it goes as an indefinite loan as opposed to being given back. . . . They're delighted to have this back, but I think everybody wins here."

The clinching evidence of the origins of the items was some dirt in one of the loops which was found by  neutron activation analysis to have high arsenic levels.

That amount of arsenic, 40 parts per million, is similar to levels found in northwestern Turkey, he said. But Pernicka, who also studied the metal itself, said he could not prove it was from Turkey, adding that Greece was a possible alternative. This knowledge gap illustrates what can happen when artifacts are not excavated in an academic fashion, said C. Brian Rose, curator of the Penn museum's Mediterranean section and a professor of archaeology. "There's no question that it was looted," Rose said. "We're just not sure of the exact place from which it was looted." The Penn museum purchased the objects because of their similarity to others known to be from Troy - the city that inspired the Iliad, Homer's account of the Trojan War. But officials were troubled by the uncertain origin of the objects, and the museum decided in 1970 it would no longer acquire undocumented artifacts. It was the first museum to make that move. 

It turns out that the items had been bought in 1966 from Robert E. Hecht Jr. who had "bought the items from a middleman and did not know if they had been illegally excavated. He said he was not bothered by the lack of documentation. "The main thing is the beauty of the thing," Hecht said".

Sources:

Tom Avril, 'Penn museum lends possibly plundered items to Turkey' Philadelphia Inquirer, Sep. 6, 2012,

Kathy Matheson, 'Penn Museum makes deal with Turkey for 'Troy gold', The Associated Press  Sept 4th 2012.

Vignette: One of the necklaces (Charles Fox, )