Saving Antiquities for Everyone

11/14/2022

Based on human rights and fundamental freedoms, the 2005 Convention ultimately provides a new framework for informed, transparent and parti

01/09/2020

"Saving Antiquities for Everyone firmly condemns these threats and any intentional targeting of cultural heritage sites in Iran.

The impact of devastated cultural heritage goes well beyond the loss of history and context of the site itself. Purposefully targeting and destroying cultural heritage sites during times of conflict is directly linked to the financing of terrorist organizations, most recently ISIS, across the Middle East and North Africa through antiquities trafficking."

On January 4th, 2020, U.S. President Trump declared on Twitter that if Iran threatens to retaliate after the killing of Qasem Soleimani, he has already selected 52 Iranian cultural heritage sites for military targeting. This…

08/16/2019

"Two artefacts, linked to one of the world’s largest smuggling rings, have been repatriated to India through a joint US-UK operation.

Objects are reportedly linked to antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor who is facing criminal charges in the US

08/10/2019

"It has now been discovered that the mask was brought to France after the Second World War by the world-renowned anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, and sold at auction in 1951 to collector Pierre Vérité. His son, Claude Vérité, inherited it and offered the mask at Christie’s, according to another collector, Pierre Amrouche. Mr. Amrouche, who lives in Paris and Togo, says Claude gave it to him in 2017, after which he kept it in his Paris living room."

The mask was seized during an infamous raid on a potlatch in remote B.C., then improperly sold. It remained in France for decades before Canadian dealer Donald Ellis orchestrated its return to the U’mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay

08/10/2019

"Involving a foreign museum and no direct claimant, the Beothuk repatriation is a particularly twisting example of the work required if Indigenous people, museums and governments are to undo the decades of colonial treasure hunting and voracious archeological digging that deposited human bones in institutions across Canada and abroad. From Victorian collectors who considered a skull an exotic bibelot to 20th-century archeologists who uncovered the evidence of human habitation in North America dating back thousands of years, there is nothing new about gathering up old bones. What is new, however, is that museums and universities have changed their attitudes and no longer want to keep the hoard."

It’s a long, slow process to return the bones and skulls once collected by museums around the world back to the places in Canada where they were found, rife with issues ranging from who covers the cost to finding burial sites

08/08/2019

"Pandora 3, organized by the European Union Law Enforcement Cooperation Agency to eliminate the trafficking of stolen artefacts, seized 18,000 stolen items and arrested 59 people. "

More than 30 pieces from non-European countries such as Colombia, Egypt, Iraq and Morocco have been found.

08/07/2019

"Antiquities plundering and trafficking also remains a problem, said Heyam al-Bitar, an archaeologist with Gaza’s ministry of tourism and antiquities. She said the ministry only learned earlier this year that dozens of ancient Greek silver coins were smuggled out of Gaza in 2016."

http://ow.ly/5lWO50vr3n9

08/02/2019

"The artifacts on display Monday at the foreign ministry in Baghdad include archaeological and historical items, such as pottery fragments and shards with writing dating back at least 4,000 years to the ancient Sumerian civilization."

Iraqi officials are displaying stolen artifacts from the country's rich cultural heritage that were recently recovered from Britain and Sweden. Many archaeological treasures from Iraq, home of the ancient "fertile crescent" considered the cradle of civilization, were looted during the chaos that fol...

07/31/2019

"The Government of Kenya on Monday handed over 30 cultural artifacts to Kaya elders from the Mijikenda community that were allegedly stolen over 150 years ago and shipped to the United States."

The Government of Kenya has handed over 30 cultural artifacts to Kaya elders from the Mijikenda community that were allegedly stolen over 150 years ago.

07/31/2019

"Looted ancient objects represent an irreplaceable loss of knowledge. When these artifacts are harvested purely for their financial value, no attention is paid to where they were found, what they might have been found with, or the ephemeral traces of how those objects were used. Archaeology is a notoriously slow discipline because excavators vigilantly record every possible scrap of information to illuminate the original purpose of an object. Without that contextual data, an ancient coin or ceramic vessel is reduced to a pretty object sitting on a shelf rather than the rich source of information that it could be."

Operation Pandora III resulted in the arrest of 59 individuals and the recovery of more than 18,000 cultural objects, including Greek and Roman coins, a 15th-century Bible, and a Mesopotamian crystal cylinder seal.