Focus 580; Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers, and the Looting of the Ancient World

In this first hour of the show today we'll be talking with Roger Atwood about his book Stealing history two narrators smugglers and the looting of the ancient world in which he makes the point that tumor rating is certainly nothing new. However today it has become a huge global industry stripping countries of their heritage and at the same time distorting the historical record. In the book he explores the extent of this robbery some of the very large amounts of money involved and takes a look at the market forces that drive the hunt for stolen artifacts the book as published by St. Martin's Press and should be out now if you like to take a look at it. Our guest Roger Atwood is a regular contributor to our news and archeology magazines and his articles on culture and politics have appeared in a number of publications including The New Republic Mother Jones the nation the Washington Post and The L.A. Times he's joining us this morning by telephone. Mr. Atwood Hello. Hello. Thanks for talking with us. Well for having me as I mentioned in the introduction and you make the point in the book what we're talking about as a phenomenon. It is not new. You write about it

this way. The Romans looted the tombs and temples of the Greeks the vandals looted Rome and then European colonialists looted nearly everyone. Most of the tombs in Egypt's Valley of the kings were robbed within a few years of their ceiling. Even the famously pristine tomb of today Common had been penetrated at least twice in antiquity before Howard Carter founded in 1920 two Mexican's before the arrival of the Spaniards were known to appropriate items from the tombs of their forebears the Olmecs the modern antiquities market dates from as far back as the 18th century when European travelers started returning home from Greece in the Levant with classical carving sculpture and relics. Having said all that you do go on to say that the antiquities trade today is nothing like that of those historical examples. How is what's going on today so very different from what has happened in the. I asked. Well what is happening now and into these trade is that it's all gotten very globalized and streamlined and very very efficient and it works with a

with a very systematic kind of efficiency to it to do it eliminate whole tune's and eliminate whole of the archaeological record in whole parts of the world to bring antiquities to buyers in market countries it works with much greater efficiency now than it used to. We all know that the entity's trade has been going on for a long time and lots of people know about the whale again. The British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century taking down the marbles from the Parthenon in Athens and shipping them all to London and I. You talk about that case in my book and how that case started the whole modern thinking about cultural property and the value of preserving cultural property as a historical record not a physical record of the ancient world. But I think what is really happening now is that with greatly increased air links and much greater roads the great increase in container shipping around the world the antiquities trade is able to

get the goods from the source to the market with much greater speed and in much greater volume than they ever have in the past ever in human history. So what we have now is a greater volume and a greater variety of antiquities on the market than there has ever been in human history and that they can they can get incredibly quickly I've talked with looters in Peru I interviewed quite a lot of them for the book who have pieces that they sell to middlemen who then bring them to the United States or to Europe the next day. And that didn't happen before that kind of speed with which things get to the market and it's what with which you can get to market. And that's made. The market incredibly sensitive to market wishes it's allowed the the demands of consumers in this case collectors and dealers and unfortunately sometimes museums in the buyer countries such as United States to kind of set the market make the market and determine which kinds of cultures and civilizations will sort of come into fashion in the market so you see different cultures

different civilizations coming into fashion for a time and it was my in particular Guatemalan stonework and then C'mere stone carvings from Guatemala from Cambodia for a time. West African funerary objects from the Niger basin and West Africa you know Mesopotamian antiquities kind of come into fashion and the looting market responds to that by by providing these things and that they're provided by looters and not that the pieces aren't sort of sitting in collections waiting for their day in the sun in the market. The pieces are actually provided by looters who then pass them on to middlemen and then they would be sent and smuggled out of the country to the market nations. You in the book you try to look at the various people who are involved in this process all sort of step by step all along the way starting with the people who are doing the looting. And as you say that you you spent a lot of time in Peru with people actually. You did actually go out with some people who were involved in

looting tombs of the. People called the mochi which was a significant certainly was would have been anybody would consider it a very significant archaeological find. When I produce a lot of very beautiful and to collectors very desirable material. That's true and the reason I did that was because I wanted to do it really really two reasons to. I did that I when I with looters and actually saw them digging up tomb which is a by the way a very noisy aiding and violent site. Partly because I wanted people to see people who buy antiquities by undocumented on provenance and to document antiquities I don't have any chain of ownership showing that they were excavated by archaeologists to actually I wanted to describe so people could actually see how these things actually come to market and where they're actually found and they're found in tombs and they're there. They're the product of grave robbing and a lot of people don't realize that because as I was researching this book I realized that

when I talk to people about antiquities and where they came from people had this idea and dealers a lot of us sort of put out this idea that they were just sort of found by chance that people found them farmers found them filling their fields or digging ditches or they just sort of you know appear in the ground and that's not the case at all and I want to show that they are found by commercial grave robbing and by very large scale commercial grave robbing sometimes involving heavy machinery such as front loaders and bulldozers and. Also I wanted to show very clearly the how the the antiquities trade is very much connected to looters and how looters are the providers of the raw material for the modern antiquities trade which as I said before has nothing to do or very little to do with the classical antiquities trade we have a modern globalized efficient antiquities trade now which is really sprung up in the last 20 30 years and which is gradually obliterating a very large record of the physical very large part of the physical

record the age of world I think it already has in some countries basically obliterated the the archaeological remains of certain certain certain parts of certain countries. Are these people who are. Deliberate educated enough so that they know what the value is of the material that they steal. What can sell and what not. Or on the other hand are the people who are poor people essentially who see it only as another way of scratching out a living. I think that the way that most of the first part you describe the looters who are very much you know in business it's a professional grave robbers are not terribly poor or they're not you know the poorest of the poor in most of these countries they're people who are basically small businessmen whose job is to find ancient sites and destroy them for the antiquities trade to defeat the antiquities trade

most of the. No that's a high quality grave robbing it to use that expression is done by people who are professional grave robbers who've been doing it all their adult lives and they know what they're doing and they have a great empirical knowledge about how to find sites they have knowledge at in some ways kind of mirrors that of the archaeologists and how to find ancient sites and they are very much connected with what the market wants with the ease of communication with the internet and email and you know much better telephone links everywhere in the developing world. It's much easier for the writers to be in touch with what dealers are wanting in places like New York or London. There was for a long time and there is to some extent still in some countries. Grave Robbing associated with poverty and associate also with ritualistic and some ceremonial properties. But that at least in Peru which I take as a kind of case study

for the soul trade in which I talk about a lot in this book because it's very important to transformation of grave robbing at least improve that ritual and ceremonial aspect has gradually disappeared and been taken over by the more commercial aspect of it by the commercial grave robbing that's that really is what feeds antiquities trade. So and I think the association of poverty is constantly it's getting less and less it's becoming more and more of an industry. Are these people working what are established sites or do they actually go out and find new ones that before had not been. They're finding new sites all the time every night constantly finding new sites there is some in there. There is some problematic at established archaeological sites with theft from those sites with looters breaking into them and digging up you know by the light of the moon. That does happen a lot I've been some very well-known cases of that but it's I would think most antiquities getting on to the

market the great majority of antiquities getting on the market are from tombs that have two tombs or ancient sites that have been looted recently or looted looted freshly. And I think that's that's very very important to bear in mind. How much money can these people make from their activities. Nothing like what you know dealers who deal in undocumented antiquities make of course. But but a little bit more than you might think. It's not you know $5 here and $10 there they say they are. In better touch with what these pieces actually get on the open market they know they know a little bit more about what prices are in the great are dealing capitals than we might expect. I was going around with some looters in Peru who dug up an ink a textile which they sold to one of their middlemen for a thousand dollars which really surprised me at the that the quantity of that but these were a team of three

looters who dug up tombs every night on the southern coast of Peru and one night dug up this very beautiful textile from the grave of some Inca common as a lot of people are surprised to hear that textiles can survive that long about almost 500 years. But they do in a very arid climate of truth. So the text was in very great condition. And I heard them dickering over the phone with their with their middleman who takes things out of the country and they sold it in for a thousand dollars a textile that I looking at it it's hard for me to say as I'm not an appraiser but it looked to me like it would be worth about six maybe seven thousand dollars in the art market here. I wonder how would having had the opportunity to talk. Some people who do this how it is they think about what they're doing and do they do they think about it in terms of their selling off pieces of their heritage. Or do they think about this more as a natural resource that they are mining

and don't think any more of that than they would if they were digging gold nuggets out of the ground. I think they see it. I've every time I tried to ask the looters about that I asked them that sort of that question you just asked you know aren't don't you think that you're kind of you know digging up your heritage are you sort of selling off you know. This is who you are these are your this is your past and wouldn't it bother you if somebody dug up your to and stole things that your family had buried with you. And I think they kind of. Package it in their minds and in a way that you know that that justifies it by saying well you know there are people who want these things. You know these people are dead. They're not around to protest so you know why not sell these things and I see arguments like that all through the equities trade all the way up to dealers and to collectors. There's always a kind of justification for what you have to defend it's in your mind in some ways if you're going to be dealing in commercially pillaged objects.

And that you know you'll hear a dealer saying well these people are always digging up these things anyway these people have been looting these tombs for hundreds of years so you know what what's the problem with them continuing to do it or they'll say well they're not really worthy of these treasures Anyway I'll take better care of it than they will or they'll say well what good is it doing if it's just sitting in a tomb in Peru. You know I'll take care of it and display it. And as always it's kind of a you know kind of denial I think going on all the antiquities trade and one of the things I'm hoping to do with this book is to kind of break through that that I have a bit and expose the psychology behind the the trade in undocumented woodies and how really corrosive it is. Yeah. Well it seems that you get a very important point there and that is the attitude that's taken by people who trade in these things people who collect them and and after all it is the just. Vocation that we have for museums as well all all of these people think on one level they seem to think that they're preservationists

and that it's that they're doing something positive. They do think that and I I think that kind of that thinking has really got to change museums not a lot of museums have changed their ways I mean in Illinois you've got the Field Museum which does a very good job of not taking undocumented antiquities and other museums have made the step of renouncing the purchase of undocumented antiquities and that's and those museums really need to be celebrated. But there are others that I talk about in the in the book that are still receiving undocumented antiquities usually as bequests or as donations from collectors and a collector of course gets a federal tax deduction in exchange for these donations and they help keep this trade going by setting the kind of ethical climate for the trade and also by allowing collectors to donate these pieces it's very destructive and it's not when it doesn't. Museums when they take these pieces they're not balancing. They're

the the public gain by displaying these pieces they're not balancing the damage that's done to the archaeological records. They're not you know they're not. Understanding and not comprehending that the fact that they take these pieces encourages more looting and allows this trade to keep going and to keep causing the destruction of these ancient sites. Our guest in this part of focus 580 is Roger Atwood he is a regular contributor to our news and archeology magazines. His book on the subject if you'd like to read it is titled stealing history Toomer Raiders smugglers and the looting of the ancient world. St. Martin's Press is the publisher. We have a couple of callers here to bring into the conversation. Others are welcome here in Champaign-Urbana. The number to call 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. And if you're outside of the immediate area here and it would be a long distance call use our toll free line that is 800 to 2 to 9. 4 5 5 and we have several people here and we go first to someone listening in Dewitt County. They are on our

line number four. Hello. Good morning. I wonder if you're familiar with Hershel Shanks the editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review who's been on a campaign saying that the trade in these antiquities is in part driven by people wanting to have antiquities but the ones that are dug up legally are scrolled away sometimes in warehouses like he makes the point that there are thousands of M4 from the ancient world that are just catalogued in and kept in warehouses and why couldn't some of these things be studied. You know a label they have properly and then sold with the perk collectors and the money put into finding more digs to try to stay ahead of the looters. I wonder if you could comment on that idea.

Sure I have heard that proposal and I have to say I agree with it very much I think it would be I think would make sense and I know I'll not score I part ways with a lot of archaeologists at the end the book I have some policy recommendations and one of them is that the cultural institutes and museums in source countries have a lot of archaeological material. So a small portion of them or some of them off into the open market to raise money for archaeological digs and to raise money for security for archaeological sites and also to encourage rural development in the sites in the areas around. These in Iran archaeological digs and in areas where there are great ancient great cultural treasures underground so that maybe people won't feel so obligated to loot and that maybe that will discourage looting in the first place or by offering economic incentives. I think that's a very sensible idea. It's anathema to the source countries. I mentioned that in an interview with a Peruvian official and she absolutely went to the ceiling I mean the idea that these countries should sell

even one piece it shouldn't sell anything up from their ancient heritage into the open market is really an idea that they haven't quite wrap themselves around yet but I think it is a sensible idea and it would also show that I think the source countries. Are willing to do their part in solving this problem combating the illegal trade and take with ease rather than simply relying on countries like United States or European countries to do all the effort at confiscating looted antiquities and restitution to the country of origin. I know this is a very controversial proposal for a lot of archaeologists but it does make sense to me I've seen museums all over Latin America with ancient pots stacked up in the ceilings thousands of the warehouses of them you know I own I laughed at them and I wouldn't say they repeated I wouldn't say that they're all identical but I do think that it would seem to make sense to me that there could be some kind of like a seal system or a system by which you if you want to buy

antiquities you can buy an antiquity with a clean conscience knowing that it was archaeologically excavated that its sale was approved by the country of origin. And now you can take it home legally and stay on the right side of the law. I think that makes I think to be a great idea I hadn't heard Hershel Shanks make that proposal but if he has I completely agree. And one further comment about the damage that the looting of the archaeological record. The recent scandal in Israel with the James S. wary James brother of Jesus where Ian and several of the seal ring that were on provenance but were now thought to be genuine which are turning out almost certainly to be frauds. Yeah the fact that their provenance but looking out so good there because there's there's so much fraud in the antiquities market too that you know it just destroys all contacts and leads people astray and done a great deal of damage.

Well I think that's that's an important point I think it when we deal in one province and dignity when we deal in securities that haven't been archaeological excavated and we don't know where they're from because the looter dug them up in only a looter knows where they're from. Then dealers and institutions make themselves very vulnerable to fraud because we don't have any information on whether this is excavated so of course we get all these for all these fakes in the market because of that. So things you know cases like the same James Ossuary which I think is pretty well established to be a fake appear in the market and that in the case of the James Ossuary it's the ossuary itself apparently is authentic but the inscription on it is been made recently and made in modern times. But these also were everywhere mega zillions of them all over the league. All right thank you. Thank you. Thanks go to another call. This person is in Urbana line one. Hello hello. I'd like to hear more about say when the middle man arrives in New York with this group of stolen objects. Does he go directly to known

dealers or do I then middle men in New York. Or does he go to various say artillery to try to sell them. Or how does it get distributed from that point. There were a few smugglers I met in improve who said that they would take pieces that they would have the contacts all set up as one. One guy I met who who took things to Amsterdam who said you know he would have the contacts already established through friends of his or through other people who were doing it. I mean the way you would establish anything and the way you establish trade in any area I mean you you hear. People you know who are in the business and you ask them OK well who is your contact in a in a particular place you know and you do it like any other business contact. I mean I there has to be a lot of discretion involved of course but yes it does I mean it involves a lot of discretion and involves. But but

doing business contacts in the way you would with any other product. Another woman I met took things to Atlanta she would take textile salon and textiles are very much the motor of the market now the pre-Colombian trade I mean textiles are you know ancient weavings are very much very coveted now by dealers because they're easy to get past partly because they're very easy to get past airport security checks. And she would take these from Peru to Atlanta where she had some dealer who dealt in these things and maybe that she was not doesn't have a shop in lines they might have elsewhere but anyway there was a concierge a contact in Atlanta to whom she would take these things Other times more with Middle Eastern antiquities or at Mediterranean tech with these they're more likely to cool their heels in laundering point somewhere in Europe often in Switzerland in the past but the laws have tightened up in Switzerland so a lot more that it's moving to to Munich in Germany. They'll often come by way of a European point to the United States where they might be given a false what's called a false provenance which is a document

with a fake but plausible sounding history of the object asserting that the object had been in a collection for many many years from dating from before the development of laws in this country restricting illicit antiquities from entering this country. So there are lots of ways of doing this. They hold the antiquities trade has developed lots of tricks and techniques for getting these things into this country in violation often of U.S. law. And it's you know has developed the business contacts necessary to do that. There's a call as I get your question. Yes. Thank you. Let's go to Indiana for another. Person here Lie number two. Hello. Well this is sort of an anecdote that sorta leans towards a question but it may be so out of date my not having to do with what you're observing now but in the early 60s I was a graduate student in Chapel Hill.

A group of friends from different disciplines anthropology history philosophy math and psychologists instead of that role grad students and we meet every once in a while each other's houses and one night I received a call not particularly late but in the sense that you know for grad students should be studying. I went over to a fellow's house and we all sit down there by a sort of somber I really didn't know what was going on all of a sudden one fellow looked rather distinguished and he had a girlfriend and they were introduced and it turned out both of them have had fellowships traveling fellowships to the Middle East and them are entering an area and also he brought out a leather bag which you know to a graduate student didn't have much money. It looked like it was worth quite a bit and he started pulling out coins and small figurines of them on a large table and started talking about their history in actually started

selling them. And the some of the people. I was in school with came from rather nice families and I was told after the meeting was over and the fellow left and sold a few things that he was one of the finest families in the east and you know that kind of thing. I was just wondering if this is over four years ago and things maybe been a lot looser for getting through customs and stuff but is there a class element in this sort of thing in any way whatsoever or at least you know in terms of the people who are some of the in-between years. Could this still be going on graduate students. You know making a little bit on the side where they're studying the culture at the same time and they bring Mary back into the country and you know and selling them. Yeah sure. It would be very difficult I think for an Arkia I mean an archaeologist or a graduate student in archaeology to be taking you know things illegally from the country of origin I mean everything if you're an archaeologist or you know them. So you know if you're if you're

not geologist working him. Developing country you're supposed to hand over everything you're actually all the objects you actually go to the National Cultural Institute or some local museum that's one reason why there were so many objects in the Iraqi museum in Baghdad in 2003 was because these archaeologist have been working there for decades and decades and had had handed over all the objects that they excavated to the museum so I don't think that happens very often with graduate students these days I mean there might you know it sometimes you hear rumors about cases like that but I don't get impressions very common and I'm and I'm and I'm sure that archaeologists did that it would be if it were discovered they would be they would come under professional sanction. And what would be would be if they were caught would be banned from doing archaeology archaeological work in their in their particular country. But when people you asked if there is a class element than well maybe there is I think there is and there is this feeling that antiquities grant status and privilege

and power that they're assigned a privilege and status and I think that's one of the things that's kept him to please go into his tried going for so long to trade in and document Antiquities has benefited from this idea that collecting antiquities is a prestige hobby and I would hope we would move away from that and because it has been a very it's a very destroy. Active kind of thinking that's resulted in the instruction of a lot of ancient sites to see the straight I mean the way that we moved against in the ivory trade I mean people used to have this idea that elephant ivory was a very prestige thing to own and. We knew that that kind of thinking encourage the poaching of elephants all over Africa until there were international treaties that were designed to restrict the trade in elephant ivory and because it was a great public consciousness about the fact that when you buy ivory you are you know encouraging the poaching of elephants. And I think that that comparison is very apt with antiquities trade because

the there's this residual idea that that you can show your your good taste or your con a sewer ship by tying these pieces is is quite obsolete I hope and kind of thing that I think needs to change because these pieces like the friend you mentioned in Chapel Hill will put the. If you're going to be the person to put these things on the table you know these figures that he's putting on the table are presumably you know extracted illegally from tombs if they were not to logically excavated and we don't really know Mary much about them we don't know particular where they're from if they've been taken by looters. Yeah. I just I realized why we were the all of us were there and I looked around and most of the people who are there of them came from Europe where people had fellowships like I did but they didn't need them. Let's put it that way. And this fellow seemed to have you know he's I don't know what you call it. But he

had a lot of connections and he mentioned a lot of names some of which I knew you know and that certainly most of the people in the room knew knew the people and I did this I just when I remember I left there and I had this impression of that one just this incredible network of wealthy people you know removing things from other countries and in the end of that that I was never asked back was that ever purchased anything I mean that kind of money to buy these things and so I lost contact with a group and this is the first time I've even really you know thought about it when David had you come on the show to talk and so I just hop in and give that the land there and you get my two cents and thanks a lot. OK well thank you. Our guest this morning in this hour focused 580 is Roger Atwood he's journalist he's a regular contributor to our news and archeology magazines has also written on culture. Politics and his articles have appeared in The New Republic Mother Jones the nation the Washington Post. If you're interested in reading on this subject we're discussing here. He has offered a

book that you can look for it's relatively new and should be out in the bookstores if you want to take a look at it the book is titled stealing history Toomer Raiders smugglers and the looting of the ancient world is published by St. Martin's Press. All countries the countries where the material is being removed they are indeed trying to protect the sites they are trying to prevent the export of this material and then countries where the material either might be shipped to that place or through that place like the United States for example is they are trying to find this material that's being brought into the United States but perhaps you could talk a little bit about how governments and law enforcement of those governments are trying to deal with the trade both when you look at the Country of Origin say Peru for example because that's where you you spend a lot of time and you write a lot about that in the book and say the United States which often is a place where this material is shipped either it's going to go through here to someplace else or. It's coming here and we have somebody here who then it will take it and

then sell it or pass it on somebody else. Right. Well there's been a lot more cooperation in the last What's been gradually increasing in the last 10 years especially there's been much much more cooperation between the United States and other governments in stopping this trade and it it you know you can always criticize it for being too tardy or not being forthright enough I mean there's there's plenty to criticize but it's. But but but the that there has been a law enforcement response to this and police forces all over the country in this country I'll start talking the United States are just now or in the last few years have realized the extent of this trade I talk about the New York City Police Department apprehending some Mayan stone or some looted and smuggled Maya and stonework in 1909 in 2000 and how the New York Police Department just started coming across this whole underground trade that they didn't even realize was going on and there it was and you know there so they were dumping all these things at the

consulate of Guatemala in Manhattan you know and just finding all these things that would finding this whole trade that they didn't realize what was going on so I think even local and local law enforcement departments. Around the United States are realizing the extent of the volume of this trade. The FBI has just set up an art theft team a special art that unit with to what I call roving prosecutors who can prosecute cases all over the United States and I that's also dealing with art that you know stolen paintings and the like but they do definitely deal with smuggled antiquities and I think that does show the seriousness with which the federal government uses problem. It's not a huge team it's about nine people but it does show that this is an area that's moving you know a lot of stolen property and that is an area of great concern to the United States from lots of points of view in the source countries. The one of course I can speak with the most experience is

Peru where they have put a lot of efforts into. They've they've put more efforts into trying to stop things as they're leaving the country if you leave Peru now your your carry on bags are X-rayed and if the image of a pot or any kind of you know Jar sort of flickers onto the screen. Then you get you know you got your bag opened and they will inspect they send you over to his desk with an art historian or an archaeologist who will look over the particular piece in your bag and decide if it's authentic and it's authentic they they confiscated from you they don't punish you they don't give you a fine or anything but they do take it back for you. So and I've had every time I've left Peru I've seen that desk there and they do they do seize things from people you know and the idea is to sort of you know discourage people maybe start discouraging people from selling these things to or to foreign visitors to Peru I mean it's not to sort of frighten people it's just to maybe discourage Peruvians themselves from selling the people these these pieces if they know that they run the

risk of having them compensated at the airport and losing you know whatever money they spend for them. Unfortunately that system doesn't get the real motor of the market these days which is textiles that's really what's what's hot in the market these days as I was saying these ancient weavings those you can just see you know stuff and dirty T-shirts and take them out of country and they won't show up on these kinds of X-rays I mean unless you do a hand inspection. But there all the Peruvians are also improving to other countries in parts of Central America in West Africa they're working with. Archaeologists and local officials are working with local people to develop these anti looting brigades these kind of patrols that go around with binoculars and you know their local villagers to keep an eye on ancient sites ancient cemeteries and burial mounds. You know around their farm fields in rural areas and do sort of citizen's arrests when they see professional grave robbers coming to dig up sites it's been quite effective it's worked on a pretty small scale in Peru and to some extent

it's pushed the problem elsewhere. But you know on a on a small scale it has really worked quite quite a bit. And it's also been combined with with an education campaign to get people in rural areas and that you know this is really where the battle for preserving the past is going to want to last in these rather remote rural areas in places like the coast of Peru getting people in these places to think about their archaeological sites not as this windfall to exploit something that you just saw dig up once and sell but rather you know a community resource like good roads or clean well water or feels free from erosion or free from selling ization getting them to think about these sites as areas that can bring a community that can bring resources to community through archaeology through tourism. And also to help and see it as you know a piece of their past a piece of their identity and it's been quite effective anymore. More effective than you might expect.

Do archaeologists ever deal with looters. They do in a kind of in a strange way I mean that archeology looting is kind of a kind of evil twins archeology because looters often find the sites that archaeologists later excavate and you know some of the more I think you know on their side geologists will admit that that though you know they looters often kind of test a site in a way they will you know sink looters shafts into a particular site dig up some things and then archaeologists find out about that site about the importance of the site and what's there when those pieces that litters I got actually start hitting the market and start getting sold in the archaeologists get wind of them that the galleries are starting to sell these pieces. That's certainly what happened in supine this was a very case a very important case of looting in archaeology in 1987 was one of the really most important of the larger discoveries in Latin

America of the 20th century and this is a site that was discovered by looters in February 1987 every 16000 A7 going to be looted and they these pieces they were these fabulous pieces these gold and silver. Funerary items started circulating for the whole market very very quickly. London and Los Angeles and then of course and in Peru as well of course. And the archaeologists got wind of this and as did the police or the police chased off the looters and then the archaeological excavation started so you had this kind of comparison is almost kind of minute by minute comparison of what looting does in my doc Elegy does. But I don't think that archaeologists would have found that that too that really that really changed our whole understanding of the quality of art and the way Art was used in society and could live in societies if it weren't for these looters.

Archaeologist had worked at that site before and had left that they'd moved on because I didn't think there was anything there but the looters kept working they found it in museums around this country and in Europe there is material that was removed from Latin America from Africa from around the Mediterranean from the Near East from the from East Asia from Southeast Asia. That certainly is part of those country's cultural heritage that arguably was looted. You know what sort of how do museums think about that and also what because there have been attempts from time to time for four countries on a governmental level to say look this this material was removed from our country whatever the circumstances were whether it was with permission of a past government or not. They'd say this is this really belongs to us. It's our cultural heritage and really it should be repatriated it should be here and museums have dealt with it in different sorts ways I suppose you could argue if the museum gave back museums gave back everything

like that there might not be too much left in their galleries. How do we how do museums think about these days that these days and then how how have countries sort of countries have success have countries head in ass. King for asking for material back. Well museums they have gotten a lot of missions they got in trouble for having things in their collection that have every sign of having been looted and smuggled out of the country of origin the Metropolitan Museum of Art was faced legal action from the government of Turkey over a very large stash of funerary items which were the two sides eventually settled out of court and the match ball returned a whole lot to Turkey. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has come under a lot of pressure from Guatemala to return some wonderful Mayan vases and not that museum collection. And I think that that I as these demands from countries pileups the return of these pieces and as

you know the there's this pattern starts to get established at museums receiving looted and smuggled antiquities. I think. It's led to museums to put more resources into doing the research into these things and finding out where the bases actually came from so they don't face these kinds of legal problems. I think the issue of Holocaust start is also put you know with art that was looted from Jewish Holocaust victims in World War Two and finding its way United States and into American museums that also has put a lot of pressure on museums to put much greater resources into investigating the background of these things they buy rather than just going to the market and buying anything that looks nice. That shows up and it's it's put museums and a lot of pressure they've had to think much more about provenance issues in ways I never did. Now there aren't really that many restitution demands from countries on museums and museums talk about how if they start giving back things well then we'll get these wholesale demands will have to empty our

galleries will have to be shipping all the stuff back to these countries and that really isn't the case that there aren't that many cases of that actually happening and I you know I think we see for example with the Native American this is this is an internal United States but I think it's a very apt comparison a Native American graves protection of a pattern nation act. Of 1990 that act allowed for Native American groups to request pieces back from museums if a particular piece was considered sacred or important to a Native American group. Then the museum would have to give the piece back basically have to give the piece back in most cases to the Native American group. And when this law went through you had all these museums and always museum organizations saying oh no you know we're going to have these Indians coming up driving up with their U-Hauls and demanding we give all this stuff back and emptying our galleries and giving all these things back. And that didn't happen. It didn't happen at all because people are responsible and people and ethnic groups in the United States have indigenous groups in this country. We're selective

about the pieces that they asked back that are truly important pieces and I think that's true of source countries as well source countries for looted antiquities. They're not demanding wholesale restitution pieces they are demanding that museum stop buying and stop acquiring either through through purchase or through donation of requests pieces that show all signs of having been looted and smuggled out of the country of origin. We have about 10 minutes left actually but less than this. Our focus for Haiti. Let me again introduce our guest Roger Atwood. His book if you would like to read more on the subject is stealing history to my writers smugglers and the looting of the Ancient World published by St. Martin's Press. We have a caller we'll get right to and we might get in one or two in the time there remains 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 is the number here for Champaign Urbana and toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. There's color in a nearby community Belgium line number four I don't know.

Good morning. I'm fortunate I haven't heard your conversation this morning but you did touch on something that the thing I was going to ask about and that is I am very interested in artifacts that are found on search on the surface you know you find arrowheads and various. It's been stuff that were used in early American are what do we want to call them societies. Then the question I had is that all over this part of the United States there are burial mounts now you would not want to didn't want to stop but the question comes to me if you own that piece of property that this spot is sign does that become your property or does it ring ring to people's property. It depends on the state. Their lawyers you know who know this inside and out so I don't know too much about the subject. You know within the borders United States. But on first on all federal and all that's very well protected I mean legally very but there are there are big problems

of looting in this country in the Southwest Arizona-Mexico huge problems with that settled out of a place in Colorado which was looted back in Teddy Roosevelt's time and that was that case which is very stand listening beginning the 20th century caused a public outcry that was the case said God. Cultural property legislation going in is going to force you know made people think about the problem of looting this country was said of it by a certain states do have protections on archaeological sites or you know ancient sites on private land. I don't nobody Illinois Indiana does Indiana has very strong legislation on that. Some states in New England do as well. It really did you'd have to consult your state government on that. But there's no United States is actually one of the very few countries in the world that doesn't have a national central government protection for archaeological resources on

private land and discovered an undiscovered underground treasures on private lands. It has no no there's no federal protection for that. But as I said on anything on any government land it is very much protected. Here I knew that government lands were protected. I just wanted to know and if you were something you. Up on the surface is that protected as much as something that is period. You know there is or you know there's a fine line there you know something yeah I discarded some of these things would be just discarded items you know that would not really have an archaeological value but then other things that are very very culturally and tangled in things you know well the things that are on the surface taking things on the surface that's not as destructive as actually sinking holes in the laws that are on the books I think are not aimed at people who find things on the surface so find arrowheads or other things on the surface. I think it's aimed more at the idea of people buying tracts of land and then sinking holes in them or using heavy machinery in them to to

demolish ancient sites to extract the you know a few the most valuable pieces and then destroying all the physical record and historical record that that's contained in that site. So I don't think that that I mean I think you have to ask a lawyer about that just where what the DISA distinction is between things that are found on the surface versus things that are found underground. I think any archaeologist would agree that it's much more destructive to actually sink sites into the sink holes into the into a particular site rather than picking up things off the ground. But it it's the law it's various and state to state in that area. To bring an example of Coke here which is down near St. Louis. Oh ok yeah I really want to visit that site I hear. Very fascinating. Yeah back an hour earlier years in a country they revelled not these mounds just plant making the farmers produce the ground and from time destroyed many archaeological frights extraordinary I mean it's a good story I mean and you know

the way in which Indigenous ancient sites in this kind of stick in the Mississippi Valley are being treated. I mean there are big problems with people and I've understood in Arkansas law and in Mississippi with people on private land destroying ancient sites. I think people shouldn't do that obviously I think it's you know these sites should be excavated probably by archaeologists. Thank you very much sir. Thank you. Thanks for the call. We are pretty much the point here we're going to have to stop some very quick huge you could say and mention the fact that indeed in the book at the end of the book. You have some suggestions for things that should be done to address the problem. Yeah I think people in general. I think if when people buy antiquities that aren't that don't have a pedigree that aren't that haven't been archaeological excavated or don't have any clear documentation that they're out of the ground before 1903 which is when the United States ratified the.

The Unites country down cultural protection proper protection of cultural property. Then people really shouldn't buy things. I mean when you go to a gallery and see and speak with these that are that don't have any information on on their previous ownership they don't have any sign of having been in a previous collection they don't have any sign about without having been archaeologically excavated. Then I don't think people should buy them. I think that's that's that's that's what contributes to this trade. And I think once you go to the bottom of the integrities trade you realise and you see really what what kind of damage this does. It's and that's what I hope this book does make people see really what where these pieces actually come from. Well there we must leave it again if people want to read the book we've talked about the title stealing history published by St. Martin's Press by our guest Roger Atwood Mr. Atwood thanks very much. Thank you very much.