"Indiana Jones has no future" - plundering antiquities loses acceptability - Interview

UNESCO Courier, April, 2001 by Michel Bessieres

Even though the plundering goes on, a collector who purchases a piece with dubious provenance can no longer live with a clear conscience, says Lyndel Prott, director of Unesco's Cultural Heritage Division

Owning stolen works will soon be as objectionable as wearing fur or smoking in public," the American magazine Art & Auction wrote recently. Do you agree?

It's true that the climate is changing. Moreover, it's not just a simple matter of saying the right thing. More and more, looting is seen as morally indefensible.

And yet, the plundering goes on.

Sometimes it's even getting worse. This is the case in countries destabilized by war, such as Afghanistan, of course--where pillaging takes place on a massive scale in addition to destruction--but also in Cambodia and Iraq. Bas-reliefs from Sennacherib's palace in Nineveh have been turning up in western countries for several years.

What's more, looters are acting on a large scale because of the technical means they're using. The tombaroli of southern Italy are ransacking archaeological sites with earth-moving equipment. Treasure hunters equipped with metal detectors in Icklingham, Great Britain, have unearthed Roman bronzes, which were sold to a private collector in the United States. In Central America, they have electric generators and circular saws to steal Mayan stele. In China, underwater sites off the Xisha islands are attacked with dynamite. Devastated cemeteries in Jordan, mutilated idols in Nepal and wrecked Buddhist stupas in Pakistan attest to the scope of demand in the northern countries.

How would you explain the growth of the art market in the northern countries?

It's a combination of factors. In the United States, nearly a decade of steady growth has given a new impetus to speculation on art. Furthermore, major museum exhibitions have introduced long-overlooked cultures to the public: collectors are increasingly numerous and their interest is diversifying. More generally, cultural consumption occupies a preponderant place in the economy.

Would you like to see this market regulated?

UNESCO encourages the movement of art works provided they have a determined provenance. What we're fighting against is the illicit trade, which requires calling certain traditions into question. If you sell a piece of land or a car, the buyer asks you for a deed or registration papers. That's not the case with cultural property. It's an exception.

Where does that come from?

An aura of prestige surrounds the art market, where people think it would be unseemly to question collectors' integrity. The confidentiality of transactions is still the rule. For generations up to the 1990s, diplomats acquired and unlawfully exported important works. That kind of behaviour supposedly reflected their interest in culture. At the same time, INTERPOL has told us that operations against drug trafficking have led to the seizure of several hundred paintings. In criminal circles, art is a nameless, reliable means of payment which keeps its value over long periods.

Despite all that, you say mentalities are changing.

Today, this reality no longer goes unnoticed. The media report on looting and illicit trade. And rightly so, because these deeds fill us with outrage. A collector who purchases a piece with a questionable provenance can no longer live with a really clear conscience. What's more, a series of steps has been taken to curtail trafficking. Individuals, institutions, national minorities and States are the driving forces behind these initiatives. At this level, the main instrument in the fight against looting is the 1970 Convention drafted by UNESCO (see box).

Is the Convention enough to cope with the problem?

It has gone a long way to help change mentalities. In the early 1970s, museum curators would say, "Our job consists of putting together the most beautiful collections possible. UNESCO should be helping us instead of putting obstacles in our way." Today, very few curators see things that way. Most museums have adopted the code of conduct drafted by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), which cooperates closely with UNESCO. It requires the museum not to acquire, or display pieces without good provenance.

Sometimes, museums also ask us for information on the provenance of a certain piece they would like to acquire. This notably happened when we sent out specific warnings with regard to pieces from Cambodia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Has public opinion also changed?

Yes. In the 1980s, the media challenged the "Indiana Jones" mentality, unscrupulous hunting for treasures of all kinds, by explaining the problems looting creates for the countries concerned. At the same time, non-governmental organizations have decided to react. I'm especially thinking of the Berne Declaration, a Swiss NGO that manages educational and economic projects in the southern countries. This group saw the extent to which looting has become a cause of cultural alienation for people living in the countries where it is ongoing. So it published first-hand accounts of the human consequences of cultural heritage loss. In Switzerland, a major art-market country, a change in attitude has been observed since these steps were taken, We're still in this stage; many countries are acknowledging that looting is not just somebody else's problem.