Good News From China!

This link points to a recent news article discussing new measures to patrol and prevent maritime looting of shipwreck sites around the Xisha (Paracel) Islands, in the South China Sea. Although a few controlled excavations have been done, according to the article, the scope of illegal wreck diving is severe, and the area to monitor is immense, but officials acting on any further recognition of the problem is a step in the right direction. Some success in boat and artifact confiscation is already reported. Let's wish local authorities even more resources and vigilence.

Getting the (Copper) Out

This link will point you to a Salon.com article written by Associated Press reporter Donna Bryson, for which myself and my colleague Dougald O'Reilly were interviewed. In the end, the report focused on the theft of contemporary bronze sculptures and statuary from South African art museums, so that these expensive, highly elaborate pieces could be sold for next to nothing and melted down for scrap. A real crime in its own right! However, Dougald and I were happy to provide comparative information on the Southeast Asian antiquities trade, specifically the looting and sale of metal artifacts from late prehistoric contexts. Although no equivalent rash of museum thefts in Southeast Asia has come to my attention, the information we provided would come in handy if a media release comparing the antiquities trade situations in Southern Africa (or across the continent) and Southeast Asia should be written in future. In my opinion, there is ample room for comparison.

Human Remains Repatriated to Namibia

This is a quick post to report on the successful repatriation case of 20 human skulls to Namibia, after more than a century of storage at the Charite teaching hospital in Berlin (see the photo above left for an example). Namibia, then known as German Southwest Africa, was the site of Germany's brief attempt at colonial rule of foreign lands; a chapter in its history which ended rather badly. These skulls were taken from those who died in German prison camps during a retaliatory campaign of genocide against the Harero (Herero) and Nama (Namaqua) tribes from 1904-1907. This "first genocide of the 20th century," according to the article, was in response to a Harero uprising in January 1904 over alleged theft of land, cattle and women which killed 123 newly settled German civilians. The skulls were kept in a medical hospital to inform later eugenics-themed "research" intended to lend scientific credibility to Nazi claims of racial superiority.

It is great news, then, that these skulls will finally be returned on October 4th, with a reburial memorial and traditional mortuary rights being held on the 5th in the capital, Windhoek. As Namibia's former ambassador to Germany noted in 2008 (quoted in the article), the return of the skulls is "a question of retaining our dignity." I couldn't agree more. As this additional article points out, this repatriation is the tip of the iceberg, with the Charite museum allegedly having at least 7,000 skulls in its collections, as well as a variety of other bones, and several other museums in Germany the same; acquired under equally dubious circumstances. In their year of remaining funding, it is my hope that the physical anthropologists and historians involved will be able to collaboratively identify the most likely origin events that brought these skulls to Germany and arrange for their repatriation, after making sure that all relevant data that can be collected from them is. The injustices of the past should always be acknowledged and remedied as much as possible, but in my opinion, this does not excuse collecting all relevant information.

The "tomb raiding" crisis in China continues.

As I gather my thoughts and photos together from Vietnam to soon begin a series of posts discussing the antiquities trade in Hanoi as I observed it last month, this interim post concerns the following article. It concerns the continuation and apparent escalation of organized, literal tomb raiding in several provinces around China, specifically highlighting the situation in Shaanxi province. Criminal gangs from several nearby provinces have descended on the province in droves, with local police having solved 250 cases of raiding/smuggling since 2009 alone.

However, it is clear from the article that this is a drop in the ocean of what's really going on. What was most disturbing, and obviously the most challenging for local and national archaeologists and non-corrupt officials to deal with, is the degree and extent to which these gangs form "alliances" with either local villagers or even local police. This is not a new phenomenon, nor is it confined to China, but the situation again indicates why the severity of looting in China is among the worst in Asia; similar to what's going on in Peru.

On the upside however, the article suggests that increased village patrols, police presence, and even the self-induced reformations of former gang members/leaders while in prison appears to be having some effect. Note as an example the case of Pan Baocheng, the 53yr old gang member from Henan. He started to loot out of greed, was caught, and saw the error of his ways in prison. Or, the case of Pan Liusuo (see photo above left), also from Henan, serving time in the Dafeng detention centre. Sometimes, if the stolen and smuggled antiquities are "high profile" enough (like the grave goods of Wu Huifei, sold in 2006 to US collectors, but later returned to the Shaanxi History Museum), they can be tracked down and repatriated. Perhaps a similar fate would have awaited the Baphuon lintel described in my last post (if authenticated), should it have been purchased and shipped? It is common knowledge, however, that such high profile pieces are a tiny fraction of the global trade.

The legal punishments mentioned in the article strike me as very fair (and I would never advocate the death penalty), but at the end of the day, the task remains to stop these crimes before they start. Like anywhere else, increased vigilance, education, transnational cooperation and (where possible) the fostering of greater responsibility on the "demand" side. However, it can't be stated enough: the only way to avoid complacence in the destruction of global heritage and the archaeological record and/or avoid scams, fakes and individual ties to additional criminal activities is to NOT PURCHASE ANTIQUITIES!

Reprehensible...

A colleague recently sent me this opinion piece, published on the "living if" website. Brazenly entitled "taking home a piece of Angkor Wat," it describes in very open terms the process of shopping for antiquities in Bangkok, a place "where a person can get anything they want, for a price." At first glance, one might assume that this is an expose piece focused on the reality of the antiquities trade, and the real ethical and moral "dilemmas" contained therein. Sadly, this is not the case. The author instead seems to take pages straight out of Cuno's playbook in arguing the "aesthetic" point of view, perpetually seeking to justify the transborder sale of antiquities for beauty's sake. "Why should cultural relics stay in a place rather than cross borders and share their beauty with people who can't make it to their original location?," the author posits. The possibility of the international movement of carefully excavated and recorded artifacts as part of a museum exhibit on loan to a foreign institution doesn't even come up.

The gist of the internal "debate" the author and his wife engage in in this article concerns the purchase of a piece of the Bayon temple from a Bangkok dealer. Questions of authenticity (deemed likely real, given their "research," but no way to guarantee it without asking Sotheby's "experts"), price (too expensive!), and shipping (look how easily we can fool US Customs...) all come up in the author's investigations. One might hope that their raising of these questions would lead them to realize how risky and ethically fraught the purchase of looted antiquities is (if the piece is even real), but instead, their actions are continually justified through the same tired arguments. You know the drill: Priceless artifacts are safer permanently in foreign museums or living rooms; "sharing" the "beauty" of artifacts (whether devoid of context or not?) helps otherwise apathetic Westerners care about "those" countries that have or are suffering political turmoil; private buyers (as well as foreign museums and institutions) are required to help preserve objects for the good of humanity, etc. These arguments sound no more or less like "sugar coated" cultural property internationalism...

The final line really got to me. "The lessons we learned in the process though, were worth it, without finding a piece we loved, doing the research, debating amongst ourselves, and deciding, we wouldn't have had the opportunity to think through the right, wrong and grey area of being a tomb raider." A tomb raider? Really?! The public misconception of archaeology that helps fuel the trade continues. Without deliberate outreach effort to counteract pieces like these, it will only get worse...

Back in the 'Berra

I have made it back to Canberra after a successful, but rather hectic, final research trip to Hanoi. All in all, the data collection went well, and should definitely improve the final PhD produced. I also had a bit more time to investigate antiquities sellers in more 'remote' areas of Hanoi; the very area (around Nghi Tam St., West Lake District) in which I first documented a no-questions asked antiquities trade during my first trip (although you can bet I did ask questions where appropriate).

As expected, numerous stores were once again encountered in this area, of which I had time to look around, posing as a 'buyer off the street,' and talk to the owners of three. Unfortunately, I did not have time to seek out similar stores in Saigon. Maybe next time. I will blog about what I uncovered at each of these locations in time; what they were selling, for how much, what they had to say or not about how to ship items abroad, their usual clientele, or the general acknowledged legality or illegality of the enterprise. While I fully admit that my "sample size" is small, nothing that I learned caused me to view this information as atypical for the city. In my opinion, on-the-ground "check-ups" and documentation every once and awhile is very important. As an example of the primarily Iron Age Dong Son artifacts encountered in most stores, see the photo above left. Photo courtesy of the author, taken at the Chi Lan "souvenir shop and art gallery," Hang Bong St., Hanoi. More to come, so stay tuned.

Grim Discoveries...

Exploration of side streets and back alleys in search of those scattered shops that still openely sell genuine antiquities has been occurring at a decent pace, whenever I can squeeze it in between my "day job" and those times that it's not pouring down rain. My investigations see me posing as a potential "buyer"/tourist off the street, to see who shows me what, for how much etc. Of the three shops visited so far, one only offered clear and freely admitted replicas of prehistoric artifacts (Dong Son drums, for example), but genuine historic period ceramics and 18th-19th c. statuary. A second shop sells a wide variety of genuin historic period pieces (mostly Han-Ly/Tran Dynasties) with some admitted by the owner to derive from shipwrecks off the central coast, but deliberately avoids handling prehistoric objects.

The very first shop I entered, however, was the most open about their activities. Located in the heart of the central Old Quarter district by Hoan Kiem lake, the "Van Hoa Viet" (Viet Culture) shop displayes two to three glass cases full of genuine prehistoric-historic ceramics (Neolithic period to Han), as well as Dong Son spear heads, axe heads, bangles (with human remains!), bracelets, a few beads, and several late Palaeolithic ("Da But" period c. 6-5,000BP) shouldered adzes, crafted from a variety of stone. I asked about price while pretending to comparison shop. It seems that, at least at this store, antiquities are also able to be bargained down if one can manage it. At all such shops I've visited to date, I was told that "friends" (middlemen or genuine friends of the family or both?) would call them personally when new items were found, or else go from shop to shop to sell what they could. It is my opinion that those who deal openely in antiquities here are probably aware of local heritage laws (which dictate that nothing real over 100 years old is allowed out of the country), but ignore them anyway. This matter will be investigated further-with caution.

In my remaining time here, I will search out as many other shops as I can; both in Hanoi and in Saigon when there. I readily admit to a lingering language barrier between me and my informants, but I can only do my best. Further thoughts and findings, and many photos, to come. Stay tuned.