BAZAAR

ARCHAEOLOGY:

THE MECHANICS OF
THE ANTIQUTIES
MARKET
Instructor: Dr. Javier Alvarez-Mon
I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the Macquarie
University land

The Wattamattagal clan of the Darug nation

Whose cultures and customs have nurtured, and continue to nurture, this
land, since the Dreamtime

We pay our respects to Elders past, present and future.

Prof. J. Alvarez-Mon
AHIS 2251
A
Brief HISTORY of

MUSEUMS
Looting and Forgeries of the Ancient Near East:
The Antiquities Market

Javier Álvarez-Mon
Assoc. Professor in Near Eastern Archaeology and Art
MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY
https://mq.academia.edu/JavierAlvarezMon
Plundered Black
Object Market
Site

Organized Forgery?
Publication
Object

Exhibit? Museum Auction Antiquity

House Dealer

New New
Identity? Identity?

If you are not confused you are not paying attention…

OOTING
Instructor: Dr. Javier Alvarez-Mon
 LOOTING ROBS US OF KNOWLEDGE

In a 2013 survey conducted by Blythe Bowman Proulx of 2,358 field

archaeologists:

97.9% Said looting exists

89.6% said looting exists in all countries
78.5% personally encountered looting

WHAT DO YOU THINK? A looted objects can rarely be traced to its place
of origin. Without its historical significance
Instructor: Dr. JavieritAlvarez-Mon
can only remain “beautiful bu
dumb”
The incentive for the looting derives
from the market, from the circumstance
that the looted objects can be sold
for significant profit.

It has, however, been well documented

(Brodie 1998) that it is not
the looters themselves who reap the full
financial benefit of their activities.

The price of the objects in question

increase as they move up the chain:

from regional dealers to

metropolitan dealers in the country
of origin,
to dealers trading clandestinely in
international centers,
to dealers and auction houses
trading openly when the objects
have changed hands sufficiently
often that their illicit origin can no
longer be firmly documented
 WHY LOOTING?
"The art trade is the last major unregulated market…and while it always involved large
sums of money, there was never the level of trading and investing that we have now.”
(2005. Art Collector)

I. Plundering Ii. Acquisitions

Iii. The Role of The Historical
the Ancient Record
and Forgeries and Donations Historian

"There's a lot more money in this business than there used to be, and yet we're less
regulated than used car dealers…. If you make the business transparent it would collapse
overnight."
2005. Art Collector)
Source: http://www.forbes.com/2005/05/30/cx_0530conn_ls.html
PRODUCTS:

The Difference between

Loot and Fake (Forgeries)
The final markets for dealers’ antiquities are collectors and
museums.

Forgeries are manufactured to be sold alongside genuine

unexcavated, plundered antiquities. They are manufactured in
workshops all over modern Near Eastern countries.

(Muscarella 2007: 611–614; 2009a: 404–405)

Plundered artefacts are offered for sale by antiquities dealers and

auction houses, all self-proclaimed experts. Most sell forgeries as
if they had been plundered (albeit that word is never used)

Collector and museum catalogues and exhibition labels, along

with auction house and dealer catalogues, sometimes furnish a
deceptive claim that the antiquity derived from a named site, but
they neglect to name the attribution informant: a dealer or a
previous auction house sale
The objective of plunder is the acquisition of treasure to
be sold:
no customers, no plunder

Antiquity dealers and their customers disingenuously

allege that their antiquities were merely “found in the
ground”, that “it was a poor farmer plowing his field”
who accidentally made a “chance find”

Atwood 2004: 288 n. 32

Antiquity dealers and Auction houses are the penultimate

destination for plunder. They bear sophisticated names
such as Ariadne Galleries, Royal-Athena Galleries,
Phoenix Ancient Art, or simply the dealer’s name. They
save and sell “art” “acquired through trade” and “in good
faith,” implying legitimate acquisition

Muscarella 1977b: 159–160; 2000a: 2; Koczka 1989:

190–191; Brodie et al. 2000: 23, 26–2 Atwood 2004: 31;
9.
At the end of the 1960 and in the beginning
of the 1970s, thefts were increasing both in
museums and at archaeological sites,
particularly in the countries of the South. In
the North, private collectors and, sometimes,
official institutions, were increasingly
offered objects that had been fraudulently
imported or were of unidentified origin

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/research/et
hics/policy_antiquities
 INTERNATIONAL LAW

1970 Archaeological artifacts are internationally protected by the Hague Convention for the Protection of
Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and their circulation is prohibited by the UNESCO
Convention (1970) on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of
Ownership of Cultural Property.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/research/ethics/policy_antiquities
THE ART AND THE MARKET
 II. ACQUISITIONS AND DONATIONS
To disguise these antiquities, dealers and auction houses provide a camouflage ruse,
proffering a deceptive provenance by claiming that their antiquity derived from “an
old private collection” recently discovered in a basement in Italy or Germany, or
derived from a “noble European family” or from the “Collection of Monsieur R”

http://www.phoenixancientart.com/egyptian/
(Hicham and Ali Aboutaam)

To document a purportedly old provenance, dealers will supply forged letters,

eagerly embraced by their customers, as documentation that the purchase was
legitimate Atwood 2004: 84.

Simpson 2005: 29–30, 32; Muscarella 2007: 610; Christie’s, London, 10/25/07: 83.
 The Art Collector

http://www.mahboubiancollection.com/life-and-works/mahboubian-gallery-in-
london
 CUSTOMERS
Museums worldwide have been the foremost purchasers of plundered antiquities

Koczka 1989: 192–193; Muscarella 2000a: 23–25; 2007: 611–612.

http://www.amisdulouvre.fr/nos_acquisitions/accueil.htm
https://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/Acquisitions.pdf

Curators, some of whom are archaeologists and historians, initiate their museum
acquisitions, seeking out and proposing purchases

Muscarella 1974; 2007: 612–613; 2009a: 400–401; Cook 1995: 181, 185; Graepler
2004.

Ultimately directors and trustees make the final purchase decisions. Unknown to most
scholars and the public is that they make purchases (and accept donations) knowing that
they were plundered and smuggled abroad, an activity rarely reported in the press

For rare examples, see E. Wyatt, The New York Times, 1/26/08: 1, 13; 1/30/08.
Trustees include not only wealthy and powerful citizens
but also national and local government officials and
Museum
owners of important newspapers. Participation
Silver 2006: 3; Muscarella 2009a: 399; 2009b: 7, 11–12.)

Some trustees collect antiquities, in part for eventual tax-

deductible donations to their museums
Nagin 1986: 24; Renfrew 2000: 27–35; Atwood 2004:
141–142; Silver 2006: 1; Wald 2008.

Private collectors are also wealthy individuals of social

importance, exemplifying these roles by their purchases.
These are exhibited in, or donated to, museums, for which
they have galleries named after them, and receive tax-
deduction benefits based on the alleged increase in value
since the original purchase

Brodie and Renfrew 2005: 353–356; Silver 2006: 1,7–8;

Greenfield 2007: 259.
 THE MODERN-DAY MEDICIS: TAX-LAW
In the USA. Have the art appraised. Donations of over $5,000 are now subject to review
by the Internal Revenue Service and both you and your appraiser can be penalized for
misstating dollar values.

In Australia. Tax incentives: http://arts.gov.au/tax_incentives/cgp

Noteworthy is the fact that it is self-serving antiquities dealers who furnish the museum
appraisals. Collectors are cited by dealers and museum personnel as “prominent” or
“serious” collectors, as having a “lust” or passion for art, thus revealing their infatuation
Muscarella 2000a: 9, 11–13, 23 n. 5.

Consequently, pivotal to comprehending the nature of the plunder culture is full

awareness that, worldwide, museums and private collectors are the financers and
sponsors, the beginning of the long chain of the process
Muscarella 1974; Elia 1994: 20; Brodie and Renfrew: 2005: 349.
 MONEY LAUNDERING AND HISTORY LAUNDERING

Money laundering is the process

of changing large amounts of
money obtained from crimes,
such as drug trafficking or
selling of looted antiquities, into
origination from a legitimate
source.
BREAK TIME!