Faces of Meth: Archaeology Edition

USA Today reports that methamphetamine users now make up a substantial proportion of archaeological looters in the United States:

Alone among survey respondents, U.S. archaeologists described methamphetamine addicts as often responsible for looting, in 18 states. A 2005 Bureau of Land Management report has noted "many" suspects arrested for thefts from federal archaeological sites also ran meth "labs". And Archaeology Magazine in 2009 noted more reports of meth lab operators stealing Anasazi relics. In the survey, Proulx collected comments such as "Meth nuts are the relic collectors," from one Arkansas researcher, as well as similar ones in California, Oregon and Southeastern states.
"The survey started to get these comments from U.S. archaeologists, just popping out of the responses," Proulx said. She suggests that since meth labs are often found in isolated areas, just like archaeological sites, geographical coincidence may explain the complaints. Meth addicts are known for repetitive behavior and may find digging at sites soothing, she adds in the study.

Digging is "soothing" to the tweaker. I like that. USA Today is reporting research by Blythe Proulx in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice (November 2011), which found that North American archaeologists reported high incidences of drug-related looting and crime at archaeological sites (the whole issue, which focuses on antiquities crimes, is worth a look - if you have access).

The research confirms other reporting, like this piece in Boing Boing from as far back as 2005.  Archaeology Magazine reported a similar story in 2009. Drugs, gun-running, and antiquities looting go together in the American west, but not all the crimes are equally punished:

The involvement with drugs is a mixed bag for officers who specialize in cultural resource crime. On one hand, meth makes the looters careless and more likely to make mistakes (though paranoia may temper that). But once a suspect is caught, looting offenses take a back seat to drugs charges--violators of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act face two years in prison, but only if the value of the artifacts exceeds $500, while drugs and firearms carry much steeper penalties. Bowman and others also wonder how well-equipped narcotics officers are to notice, assess, or know what to do with antiquities they find. Some, especially federal agents in the Southwest, know to call in specialists. That is not always the case. 

Drug cases can make it easier to recover artifacts--suspects relinquish them more easily when they have drug cases hanging over them--- --but also encourage prosecutors to plead out or simply drop looting cases. The result is that there is little additional risk for a tweaker or drug dealer to diversify into the antiquities trade. Furthermore, the looting-meth connection is difficult to quantify--looting alone is nearly impossible to assess accurately--complicating policy-making. And many still see looting as a victimless crime.

For some of the gory 'faces of meth' photos made famous by the Multnomah County Sherriff's Department, click here or here. Today's tweakers, tomorrow's looters!

Heritage OK in Libya... So Far

Leptis Magna

So far, Libya's rich heritage (especially its famous Roman sites) seem to be unscathed by the ongoing revolution. (Though with the near information blackout, I'm not ready to be too optimistic). Marie-Louise Gumuchan of reports for Reuters:

While communication with Libya difficult sketchy amid the uprising against Gaddafi's four decade rule, two archaeologists who frequently work in the country said cultural artefacts appeared to have been spared the ravages suffered during Egypt's recent revolt.

"So far there are no records whatsoever of any areas from the cultural heritage of Libya being affected by the troubles," said Hafed Walda, a Libyan who advises the country's department of antiquities and once led an excavation at Leptis Magna. "We're always worried about this in terms of chaos. It's going in the right direction so far but I'm not sure it will carry on like this. I don't know," he said from his London base.

The theater at Sabratha

 Walda and his colleague Paul Bennett say that local militia, soldiers, and antiquities department staff are protecting sites. The article has an interesting reflection on nationalism and archaeology in Libya:

Libya's archaeological work began in earnest in the 1930s when fascist Italy, the colonial power, hoped to demonstrate the Roman presence and prove Italy's historical dominance of the Mediterranean. That work also led to the discovery of oil. Archaeology took a back seat after Gaddafi's 1969 revolution although some foreign archaeologists continued work, making finds even during the low point of relations with the West.

"It's been neglected by the regime for quite a while. At one time it was seen as not Libyan heritage as such but imperialist," Walda said. The Gaddafi government had sought to improve resources and infrastructure in recent years, he added, amid efforts to develop tourism. "I'm hoping attitudes will change -- we want the department of antiquity to be seen as part of the Libyan identity and the future of Libya," Walda said.

Tracking the Looting in Egypt

A decapitated mummy in the Egyptian Museum (National Geographic)

If you can spare an eye from Al Jazeera's live feed from Cairo, I want to recommend two sites tracking what we know about looting of museums and sites since the protests began in Egypt last week:

• Kate Phizackerley's (her real name!) Egyptological Looting Database covers sites around the country
• Egyptologist Margaret Maitland's Eloquent Peasant, which has a good link, video, and photo roundup updated today.

I'm glad these sites are out there: given the mix of bland optimism (Zahi Hawass says everything's just fine) and alarmism ("UCLA Egypt Professor: Museum Looting, Mummy Beheading is a Huge Loss for World Heritage") it's hard to know what exactly is going on. Obviously, with the national police AWOL for a few days and the army otherwise distracted, this is a great window of opportunity for looters.

Standing guard (National Geographic).

In the fuss about the attack on the Egyptian Museum (which seems to have been orchestrated by the police for propaganda value), I hadn't heard about the thefts from less-known depots and sites (Qantara, the Coptic Museum in Cairo, Memphis, Herakleopolis Magna, Saqqara, Giza), though some of them are rumors as yet without any hard data. Let's hope that Zahi is right, and everything remains under lock and key. And props to all of the demonstrators who formed that human chain in front of the Egyptian Museum.



Nat Geo has a good article on how bloggers and ordinary people are pitching in to protect museums and recover stolen artifacts, and a good summary of the museum attack (dated Sunday), including this video:

Boy George Repatriates Looted Icon to Cyprus

The Greek Bishop of Brussels, and Boy George. Loltastic combination (BBC).

When Boy George learned his juicy 18th century icon of Christ had been looted from a church in Cyprus, he did the right thing, as the AP reported yesterday:

Boy George agreed to return the 18th century icon he bought from a London art dealer in 1985 after being presented with proof of its true origin, the church said in a statement posted on its Web site.

Boy George, who said he was unaware of the icon's history when he bought it, personally handed the icon over to Bishop Porfyrios in London on Tuesday. In return, the bishop gave him a modern icon of Christ as a token of gratitude and "with the wish that others soon follow his example."

The leader of the Cyprus church, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, lauded the singer for doing the right thing.

"The moment he heard that the icon was stolen, I think that he did right to return it to the Church of Cyprus to which it belongs," the archbishop said. "We thank him and if he ever comes to Cyprus, we will certainly welcome him."

The church statement said Boy George expressed hope that the icon would soon be returned to the church of Saint Charalambos in the village of Neo Chorio Kythreas from where it was taken. The icon is now in Brussels and will return to the island later.

Good for George. The photo of this odd couple on either side of Jesus is fantastic!

Kythreas is in northern (Turkish) Cyprus, northeast of Nicosia. Since the 1974 military coup, Turkish invasion and civil war, the northern (Turkish) part of the island has seen systematic looting of its heritage, especially of Christian religious icons and frescos. Though even the Greek Cypriot government acknowledges that looting is problem on the whole island, the northern Cypriots should be ashamed that they've done such a poor job of protecting the Christian heritage of the region.

Boy George, of course, should also be ashamed of himself for buying looted art. London is one of the world's major centers for the trafficking of stolen art and antiquities, and even in 1985 there was enough information available for the savvy buyer to understand that most antiquities on the market were illicit. Nowadays, anyone who buys such a thing is simply colluding in the theft.

Theft from the world's oldest temple

Göbekli Tepe and its striking stelae.

Göbekli Tepe in southeast Turkey is the world's oldest known site of religious worship, with a 'temple' going back at least to the early Neolithic (9000 years). Last week Milliyet reported (Turkish) the theft of a newly discovered statue from the site. The 40-centimeter high, T-shaped stela had a human head above and an animal figure below and had been left in place in the excavation area. Sunday, when most of the excavation team was off work, archaeologist Gülsüm Yaprak discovered that the new statue was missing and called the gendarme.


A detail of one of the T-stelae. Note the vulture, scorpion, and crazy-looking bird.

I can't find any more news as yet about this major theft. It's hard to overstate the importance of the site, which has evidence for complex architecture and representative art as early as 11,000 years ago - before even the development of pottery.

The new discoveries are finally beginning to reshape the slow-moving consensus of archeology. Göbekli Tepe is "unbelievably big and amazing, at a ridiculously early date," according to Ian Hodder, director of Stanford's archeology program. Enthusing over the "huge great stones and fantastic, highly refined art" at Göbekli, Hodder - who has spent decades on rival Neolithic sites - says: "Many people think that it changes everything...It overturns the whole apple cart. All our theories were wrong."

If Ian Hodder is blown away, well, you probably should be too. I am, this site is amazing! Not least because it confirms my opinion that early people were much more like us than we usually give them credit for. The picture of the neolithic emerging from Çatalhöyük, Göbekli, and other sites in the region changes totally our picture of hunter-gatherers - from grunting savages in skins to settled communities with complex ideas and artistic traditions, who just happen to live on wild animals and plants rather than cultivated ones. Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute, the excavation director, thinks that the stelae represent shamanistic religious traditions. Even more cool, there's lots of vultures juxtaposed with human body parts, suggesting that these people practiced sky burial, which survives in only a few remote places today (e.g. see this insane slide show or this video from Tibet).



Of course, such stuff is catnip for the unscrupulous collector, whose ego tells them they should have the right to "own" something like these stelae. I wonder if the theives were opportunistic, or whether the theft was commissioned? The fact that the stela was recently found points to inside knowledge and a certain familiarity with the archaeologists' routines. Local farmers? Workmen? Archaeologists? The Gendarmes? There's overlap between local mafias and antiquities smuggling in southeast Turkey. Depending on the area they could be connected to the Kurdish rebels, the army or gendarmes, or both.

The excavation has been closed to the public until further notice. How long it will take for the stela to show up in some museum, with an innocent-looking tag that says: "Syria or Anatolia. Purchased from an old private collection"? Whoever touches this thing deserves our rich contempt.

AP: Sinking oil threatens historic Gulf shipwrecks

From Cain Burdeau at Associated Press, an article about the archaeological impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil crisis (via Boing Boing):

TIMBALIER ISLANDS, La. — Not just flora and fauna are getting caked in oil. So is the Gulf of Mexico's barnacled history of pirates, sea battles and World War II shipwrecks.

The Gulf is lined with wooden shipwrecks, American-Indian shell midden mounds, World War II casualties, pirate colonies, historic hotels and old fishing villages. Researchers now fear this treasure seeker's dream is threatened by BP PLC's deepwater well blowout.

The bridge of the USS Oriskany, off Pensacola, Fla. (AP)

Within 20 miles of the well, there are several significant shipwrecks — ironically, discovered by oil companies' underwater robots working the depths — and oil is most likely beginning to cascade on them.

"People think of them as being lost, but with the deepsea diving innovations we have today, these shipwrecks are easily accessible," said Steven Anthony, president of the Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society.

"If this oil congeals on the bottom, it will be dangerous for scuba divers to go down there and explore," Anthony said. "The spill will stop investigations; it will put a chill, a halt on (underwater) operations."

The wrecks include two 19th-century wooden ships known as the "Mica Wreck" and the "Mardi Gras Wreck." The German submarine U-166 and ships sunk by other German submarines during World War II are within the spill's footprint.

The Mica was a 200-year-old, two-masted schooner that sank sometime before 1850, according to a report by the Minerals Management Service. It was discovered about 2,500 feet deep in the Mississippi Canyon during work to lay a pipeline.

In 2002, the Mardi Gras wreck was discovered by oilfield workers in even deeper waters: About 4,000 feet down about 35 miles off the Louisiana coast. The wreck got its name from the pipeline project where the wreck was found: the Mardi Gras Gas Transmission System, a huge deepwater pipeline system.

Read the rest.

Monday Not-Quite-News Roundup

2012 Shocker
This just in from the LA Times: apocalyptic disaster movie 2012 might not be based in sound archaeological evidence!

Canadian archaeologist Kathryn Reese-Taylor... says the translation of the text essentially says that something will occur on Dec. 21, 2012 and that it will be similar to something that occurred on another date in the past. "At no point do any of the Maya texts actually prophesize the end of the world," she said.

But what's this picture about then?




Shelby rules, but facts are like, so hard!
There’s a new exhibition of Neolithic artifacts at the NYU Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, sponsored by the famous/infamous Shelby White. The Baltimore Sun is on the scene with a reporter who fawns over White (just ‘Shelby’ to her friends), who with her late husband Leon Levy came to be known as much for their naked enthusiasm for stolen antiquities as much as for their philanthropy. The author also freely insults one of her sources as “long-winded” and “pontificating” because her descriptions of the exhibit actually include some information about its historical context. Moral of the article: old stuff is pretty, but facts are hard and boring!

The White Man's burden
While we’re the in comedy section, let’s check out the latest defense of James Cuno’s proposal to bring back partage, from John Tierney in the New York Times.

Tierney starts out complaining about Zahi Hawass’ belief that the Rosetta Stone is Egyptian (!?), and recycles the old orientalist argument that the Egyptians don’t really deserve to own it because they weren’t sufficiently interested in antiquity back in 1799. He derides governments like Turkey, Egypt, or Italy as and incompetent and ‘protectionist’, and veers headlong into the old stereotypes of the ignorant, grasping, swarthy Oriental, who doesn’t know how to appreciate the past like the White Man does.

Can I get a ride home? (Victor Koen/NYT)

As usual, all the fuss about ‘openness’ is really the collector and curator's veiled resentment about having to ask nicely to borrow the treasures of the ancient world, instead of being able just to take what they want, whenever they want it. If Tierney or Cuno really cared about the free exchange of ideas, they’d get behind efforts to expand artifact loans, as Italy has done recently. I wish these guys would just focus on bringing back the fun parts of colonialist archaeology, like gin tonics, pith helmets, and khaki shorts with spats.

A kinder, gentler Orientalism (villagehatshop.com).

Monday News Roundup

Some quick items:

Roger Atwood has a great op-ed in the New York Times about the importance of involving local people in anti-looting efforts.

Another op-ed by Uri Avnery on the political repercussions of the excavations of “David’s Town” in Jerusalem by an ultranationalist group.

Vermont Archaeologists protest changes that could gut the state’s contract archaeology industry.

As the LA Times reports, Egypt has cut ties with the Louvre over its refusal to return five fresco fragments allegedly stolen from a tomb in Luxor in the 1980s – including suspension of the museum’s excavations at Saqqara. But is it revenge for Egypt’s candidate being rejected as UNESCO head?

Meanwhile, Egypt is increasing penalties for antiquities smuggling: the maximum is now life imprisonment.

EBay and the economics of fake artifacts

Chuck Stanish has an interesting piece in this month's Archaeology on EBay and the illegal antiquities trade:

Our greatest fear was that the Internet would democratize antiquities trafficking and lead to widespread looting. This seemed a logical outcome of a system in which anyone could open up an eBay site and sell artifacts dug up by locals anywhere in the world. We feared that an unorganized but massive looting campaign was about to begin, with everything from potsherds to pieces of the Great Wall on the auction block for a few dollars. But a very curious thing has happened. It appears that electronic buying and selling has actually hurt the antiquities trade.

I'm happy to discover a silver lining of any kind in EBay's shameful facilitation of the illegal antiquities trade. And to be honest, it's satisfying to see wealth transferred from unscrupulous, well-heeled collectors who encourage the destruction of sites to unscrupulous, needy artisans who are not destroying sites.

However, in most places it's development, not illicit pot-hunting, that constitutes the major long-term threat to the archaeological record. And here is where I see a possible wrinkle. If the success of forgery as a cottage industry encourages local people to treat the material remains of the past as a commodity that can simply be manufactured to meet outside demand, they then have little economic incentive to preserve intact archaeological sites, unless these serve some other end, such as attracting tourists or archaeologists.

Of course I don't mean to imply that forging artifacts necessarily precludes the kind of respectful stewardship of genuine past material culture that archaeologists--for a variety of motives, not all disinterested--like to see local folks exhibit. But EBay might well end up saving sites from the looter's spade only for them to be destroyed by construction backhoes.

-SB

More Cuno in the NY Review of Books

Last month I wrote about James Cuno, director of the Chicago Institute of Art, who is on a quixotic quest to abolish nation-states' control of antiquities in order to allow museums like his to buy more artifacts, regardless of their provenience.

In this week's New York Review of Books, Hugh Eakin offers an in-depth, nuanced, and I think fair critique of Cuno's recent work. A couple highlights:

For Cuno, the disjuncture between modern states and the civilizations of the distant past exposes a central flaw in the concept of cultural property. For if the correlation is arbitrary, he maintains, so must also be the laws in archaeological countries that give the state control of ancient art found within their borders...

[But] rather than a threat to the cosmopolitan ideal... the new détente between foreign governments and American museums should be seen as an essential step in confronting the urgent problem of the destruction of archaeological sites. For the most crucial challenge is not the aggressive nationalism of some countries or the voracious appetites of some museums: it is the disappearance of the ancient past so coveted by both.

Read the rest!

MySims: Looting Enabled

GameSpot reports that new versions of Electronic Arts' kid-focused MySims franchise for the Nintendo DS and Wii will have looting archaeological sites as a feature of gameplay:

On the Wii, MySims Agents will play similarly to a traditional adventure game. Assuming the role of a MySims special agent, players attempt to unlock the mystery behind the nefarious doings of Morcubus, the leader of an underground crime syndicate. Players will be aided in their task by a variety of MySims characters as they perform detective work such as picking locks, hacking computers, and stalking persons of interest. MySims Agents also lets players plunder ancient ruins for antiquities with which to decorate their headquarters.

The DS edition of MySims Agents will feature a similar theme as its Wii counterpart, in which players must thwart the efforts of a ne'er-do-well who has been plundering ancient ruins in search of antiquities. Though EA did not delve into specifics of gameplay, the publisher did say that the DS game will offer 10 different minigames and a variety of interactions with MySims characters.

This is just a teaser press release, so it's hard to say what's going on exactly, but it sounds like the Wii is working the dark side while the DS version keeps it real. Regardless, a lot of kids are going to be learning about looting issues through these games.

A screenshot from the Wii version, from videogamer.com. Looks like some classic Indiana Jones-style temple looting is about to occur.

Now, I don't want to get into Tipper Gore mode here and be the morality police for videogames. The idea of looting some temples is undeniably kinda fun, whether we like to admit it or not. Videogames are also exactly the place where kids should be misbehaving and doing crazy, illegal, and violent things.

On the other hand, archaeology needs to be reaching out to game designers and offering them resources beyond this "fake Maya temple with big gold idol" kind of stuff. Where's the plan to influence the industry our way?

James Cuno Wants to Party Like It's 1899

Some yellow rag called Science News just put up this op-ed from James Cuno, director of the Art Institute of Chicago, in which he advocates the abolition of the 1970 UNESCO treaty, the return of the colonial-era partage system, and removal of restrictions on museums purchasing looted antiquities. Cuno is flogging his new book, Who Owns Antiquities?, and has also recently appeared on WBUR Boston promoting his views. (Disclaimer: I have not yet read the book.)

Let me take a break from my head exploding and eyes popping out of my head to explain the jargony stuff:

• The 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property is the basic international law dealing with looted artifacts. Put simply, it says that before you can buy an artifact or work of art, you have to a) have evidence that it was legally exported from its country of origin, or b) was publicly known prior to the convention entering into force.

• ‘Partage’ refers to the old custom of divvying up antiquities found on excavation sites between the excavator and the host government – I get to pick one, you get to pick one, and so on. As soon as countries like Egypt or Turkey got out from under the thumb of the European powers, they got rid of this system and passed laws keeping all artifacts found in their country.
  

Resuming my head explosion, we return to the op-ed, which for some reason is disguised as an interview. The opening header says what his critique is really about: ‘treaty on antiquities hinders access for museums’. Already we can tell that Cuno is more interested in getting goodies for his museum than he is in stopping looting.

He relies on some familiar but weak arguments, like the notion that the 1970 UNESCO treaty has not eliminated looting, and that looting is inevitable. This is an old saw trotted out by people who want to make it easier to buy illicit antiquities. Laws, by themselves, don't do anything - the real conversation has to be about effective enforcement and harm reduction. The Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species has not stopped people killing tigers or rhinos – does that mean we should get rid of it, and go buy us some tiger skins? (For ‘research’, of course.)

Moving on to the downright offensive, Cuno argues that modern nation-states are not direct descendants of ancient peoples, so they don’t have any right to control artifacts of ancient cultures on their territory.

Talk about glass houses. For centuries, European and American collectors and museums plundered and stole everything they could get their hands on to build their collections – which is why the Parthenon Marbles are in London and the bust of Nefertiti in Berlin. These artifacts were acquired to feed the nationalist ambitions of European nations. For Europeans or Americans to turn around and complain about nationalism when it doesn’t suit their interests is – how to put it politely? – ironic. Cuno fantasizes about a return to the good old days when white guys in pith helmets and knee socks got to decide who should own the world's antiquities. Thankfully, those days are not coming back.

He closes with a whopper: partage is “the only reasonable way to protect the legacy of antiquities and promote a global understanding of what they represent”. Let’s be real here. Partage is a symbol of colonial domination. Egypt is likelier to invite the Israelis back into Sinai than to adopt this system again. But beyond that, it’s a bullshit argument. We can all think of a dozen successful exhibitions of antiquities that have toured the world to great acclaim, with support of the governments that own them. There is a new trend toward bi-lateral agreements that could make such loans easier and more frequent: the US and Italy just made a deal to allow more Italian art and artifacts to come to the US, in return for the a crackdown on the import of illicit antiquities. These are reasonable ways of promoting global understanding. Dispersing finds around the world to feed the ego of museum directors, not so much.

It’s annoying to hear vapid ideas from an intelligent man. But more frustrating than that is that comments like Cuno’s are a distraction from the real conversations we need to be having – archaeologists and collectors alike – about what to do about the looting issue. There is an ongoing demand for antiquities, while some countries have a huge surplus of artifacts that languish in warehouses for decades. A regulated, licit antiquities market could quell demand for looted artifacts while providing cash where it is needed for conservation. By the same token, the nation-state sometimes plays a negative role in cultural heritage issues. But what we need is a nuanced discussion in an atmosphere of respect, not the self-interested musings of a frustrated would-be collector.

In deense of Science News, they’ve also published a good article profiling recent research on looting by Morag Kersel, Christina Luke, and others. I should also give a nod to some fellow archaeology bloggers. Paul Barford has his own comments on the Cuno article and recent tightening of Egyptian laws. Derek Fincham notes the importance of openness and transparency in the antiquities trade, something which collectors avoid like plague-ridden vampires. Finally, David Gill points out that we need to look at ethics as well as expediency in our approach to the looting issue.

Cai Mingchao: Civil Disobedience at Christie's

Today’s news from the antiquities trade involves a fashion designer, the Opium Wars, Jackie Chan, political blackmail, and a creative act of civil disobedience. The biggest private art auction in world history concluded in Paris at Christie’s last Wednesday, as the collection of fashion designers Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé sold for $484.6 million (the catalogue alone ran 1,800 pages).

The biggest stir was caused by an anonymous telephone bidder who purchased two Qing dynasty bronze fountainheads for $20 million each. The heads were among a dozen looted in October 1860 by from Beijing’s Old Summer Palace by Anglo-French troops during the Second Opium War. The palace was stripped of artwork prior to its destruction on the orders of Lord Elgin, then British High Commissioner to China. (And, ironically, son of the Elgin of Parthenon Marbles fame). Since the Christie’s sale was announced, the Chinese government has been demanding the return of the bronzes as stolen property. Actor Jackie Chan was quoted in the Times Online as saying “They remain looted items, no matter whom they were sold to. Whoever took it out [of China] is himself a thief. It was looting yesterday. It is still looting today.”

Cai Mingchao reads his statement (Photo Brothersoft).

The mystery bidder was revealed today as Cai Mingchao, a Shanghai collector and dealer and consultant for China’s National Treasure Fund, a government organization which purchases looted and stolen relics on behalf of the state. There was, however, a catch: Cai declared that he has no intention of paying for the heads, and that he placed the bid in order to sabotage the auction. He excused his action as an act of patriotic civil disobedience: "every Chinese would have done the same as I did. It's just that I got the opportunity. I have fulfilled my duty." He also noted that because the Chinese government had deemed the sale illegal, he would not have been able to take delivery of the heads within China anyhow.

While it is unclear whether Cai’s scuttling of the auction was in any way sanctioned by the Chinese government, it fits with the tenor of its recent statements. The French decision to allow sale of the bronzes caused “serious damage to Chinese people's cultural rights, interests and national sentiments,” according to the China State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

On the surface, it is easy to admire Cai Mingchao for risking his reputation as a dealer and collector in pursuit of historical justice. Among the more repulsive episodes in European colonialism, the Opium Wars were fought to defend unregulated narco-trafficking in China by government-sponsored British and French cartels. Beijing’s Summer Palace was looted and burned as a gesture of revenge, and Chinese still smart from the humiliation.

I am generally sympathetic toward repatriation demands. I also see how useful civil disobedience at auctions could be as a strategy for derailing the sale of obviously looted antiquities. (I have heard of other examples, which I will track down for a different post.) Some further context, however, makes the story a little murkier. Of the original twelve heads, five are missing and five are back in China, making the two YSL heads the only two left on the market. While they are interesting and significant as artifacts, they are not particularly ancient. Nor they even particularly important compared to other looted Chinese treasures floating around the antiquities market. And China already owns most of the extant pieces! I suspect the government has chosen to pursue these particular artifacts in order to whip up nationalist and anti-colonialist sentiment both at home and to sympathetic audiences abroad.

The play of meaning around these artifacts is fascinating. While they were clearly collected by Bergé and Saint Laurent as pure objets d’art, no one involved in the auction pretends that they are only that. Cai and the Chinese government have made them into patriotic symbols, while Bergé used them to snub China with a facile statement about human rights. According to the Daily Telegraph, Bergé offered to give China the heads in return for human rights concessions:

"I acquired them and I am completely protected by the law, so what the Chinese are saying is a bit ridiculous," he said. "But I am prepared to offer this bronze head to the Chinese straight away.

“All they have to do is to declare they are going to apply human rights, give the Tibetans back their freedom and agree to accept the Dalai Lama on their territory.

"If they do that, I would be very happy to go myself and bring these two Chinese heads to put them in the Summer Palace in Beijing. It's obviously blackmail but I accept that."

The amount of real charity behind this “offer” is, of course, nil. As Bergé surely knows, this particular piece of “obvious blackmail” had a 100% chance of strongly offending the Chinese government and zero chance of success. His gesture has the odor of colonialist smugness: the uppity natives might be allowed to have their baubles back if they meet the rational demands of the white man. But of course they won’t because, after all, they’re not very civilized, now are they, old chap?

It is important, however, that Bergé acknowledges, in principle, that the heads are not simply art objects. Dealers in stolen antiquities often insist that the value of the objects is truly to be found in their inner aesthetic aura, so that their lack of provenance (and the destroyed archaeological sites the looters leave behind), are unimportant. This case exposes a revealing chink in the armor of that argument.

Link roundup:

Portfolio on the auction
Portfolio on Cai's announcement
The story in the Times Online
Danwei on Cai
The Daily Telegraph on Bergé's "offer"
Some AP photos of the bronzes