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3 J. Fin. Crime 7 (1995-1996)

handle is hein.journals/jfc3 and id is 1 raw text is: KEY COMMENT
Art Fraud: Raiders of the Lost Past
Colin Renfrew

The clandestine excavation of antiquities for profit
is not a new enterprise: papyrus texts show it to
have been a pressing problem in Ancient Egypt.
But the scale of the traffic in looted antiquities is
now said to be second only to that of drug smug-
gling in terms of annual turnover, and there is
evidence that the traffic in antiquities and the traf-
fic in drugs now often go hand in hand -
especially when the antiquities in question derive
from drug-producing countries in South-East Asia
and in South America. Moreover, antiquities are at
present relatively easy to market - they are highly
fungible assets, and hence very suitable as a
medium for money laundering.
It is also disquieting that London is now widely
seen as the focal nexus for the trade in illicit antiq-
uities. That this should be so is perhaps not
surprising, since the London art market has always
been one of the most notable in the world (and
traditionally among the more highly reputed). In
recent years, a number of dealers and auction
houses seem to have followed a 'no questions
asked' policy. Antiquities are publicly offered for
sale, often without any plausible provenance and
certainly without any guarantee that they are not
the product of recent looting. Many of the more
reputable dealers and auction houses subscribed
some years ago to a Code of Practice, which was
supposed to offer some discouragement to the sale
of illicit materials. But there is little sign of its
being applied, and few dealers are seen to make
reference to it.
The disastrous loss to our common heritage -
our collective understanding of the human past -
is the principal outcome of this unsatisfactory sit-
uation, and this point will be considered below.
But first it is worth emphasising that the scale and
pace of depredation has now reached crisis propor-
tions. In just one week recently three major police
initiatives against shady dealers were announced.
Ironically it was in the same week that the Depart-
ment of National Heritage divulged that they were

not proposing to go ahead with the Treasure Bill,
an item of legislation which passed in the House
of Lords last year but fell in the Commons due to
lack of Government support. There is consensus
among archaeologists and cultural advisors that
England's archaic 'Treasure Trove' law is totally
unsuitable for the protection of the national herit-
age, and that adequate legislation on portable
antiquities is desperately needed. But the Depart-
ment of National Heritage, conforming to its
'do-nothing' reputation seems content to take no
initiative.
On 11th March, under the very apposite head-
line 'Treasure hunters loot history of the world',
Stephen Grey in the Daily Express reported the
ransacking of ancient sites in Iraq, and the pillaging
of Iraq's museums after the Gulf War.
'In January Scotland Yard's art and antiques
squad mounted one of its biggest raids ever on
the cargo terminal at Heathrow. They found
necklaces, pottery and carved tablets worth
thousands from the ancient Sumerian city of
Umma... Det. Chief Insp. Charles Hill, head
of Scotland Yard's art and antiques squad, said
most of the looted art was circulating freely.
Much is on open sale in smart Mayfair galleries.'
At a recent seminar in Baghdad the scale of
looting was disclosed. Unfortunately many items
from the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad,
which were dispersed for safety at the outset of the
war, have been plundered in their supposed ref-
uges in provincial museums. Similarly, antiquities
from the Afghan National Museum in Kabul are
now openly being offered for sale in Delhi, Lon-
don and New York.
On 12th March, in the Sunday Times, Ian Burrell
and Adrian Levy reported an international police
operation resulting in the arrest, in England, of
five art dealers and a police officer, for trafficking
in stolen antiquities looted from Egyptian Govern-

© Emerald Backfiles 2007

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