Museum Watchdog
Archaeology Magazine ()
An interview with David Gill is now available on Archaeology's website.
David Gill, a professor of archaeology at the University of Wales Swansea, is the author of a number of studies on the antiquities market. With his colleague Christopher Chippendale, Gill has conducted detailed surveys on the origins of thousands of artifacts in private and public collections. His blog: http://www.lootingmatters.blogspot.com/, explores the murky relationship between the museum world and illicit antiquities.
It's not a long interview, but it is an interesting insight into the work of David Gill and Christopher Chippendale into the illicit antiquities market. As an interesting aside, Gill says that at Sotheby's New York Egyptian antiquities have formed 35% of total sales over the last 10 years.
A closely related feature can also be found on the Archaeology website from the most recent issue (Volume 60 Number 5, September/October 2007): A Tangled Journey Home by Eti Bonn-Muller and Eric A. Powell, which looks at the most recent developments in the return of priceless antiquities to Italy and Greece from three key American museums.
Antiquities dealers Robert Hecht and Giacomo Medici should have tidied up their desks. Raids by the Italian police in 1995 and 2000 yielded a mountain of evidence--from photos of Greek and Roman artifacts still in the ground to Hecht's handwritten memoir--that showed exactly how the two had been trafficking looted antiquities through the international art market for decades ("Raiding the Tomb Raiders," July/August 2006). Their clients included, among others, three preeminent American cultural institutions: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu.
Italy and Greece were simultaneously outraged and delighted with the news. Their long-standing suspicions were confirmed: artifacts recently acquired by major museums had been looted from their soil. And they jumped at the opportunity to get them back.
See the above pages for the full details.
- David Gill And Repatriation
Wales Online This article about the excellent work of David Gill barely touches on Egypt but the subject is both relevant to Egypt and important on a global scale. And yet another reference to Indiana Jones. Sigh. LIKE Indiana Jones, Dr David Gill delights...
- The Value Of Ancient Egypt At Sotheby's, New York
Looting Matters (David Gill) David Gill has been keeping an eye on the sales of Egyptian antiquities at Sotheby's. See the above page for his graph showing a comparison of the value of lots sold in the December and June sales in Sotheby's New...
- The Intellectual Consequences Of Collecting Coptic Art
Looting Matters (David Gill) Following on from recent reports about fact Coptic art held in museum collections, David Gill has made the brief point that he and Christopher Chippindale have been making for many years - which is that "Collecting recently-surfaced...
- Repatriating Disputed Antiquities
http://www.archaeology.org/0611/etc/president.htmlAn article by Jane C. Waldbaum, President of the Archaeological Institute of America on the Archaeology Magazine website: "By repatriating disputed antiquities, museums will be able to bring even more...
- Museums On Trial
http://www.archaeology.org/0603/etc/conversations.html An Archaeology Magazine special interview with Ellen Herscher about the trial of key J. Paul Getty representatives, and its implications for other purchasing policies of US museums in the future:...