GREECE: Greece secures return of two more ancient artifacts from prominent U.S. museum in antiquities battle

Greece on Monday (December 11) secured the return of two more artifacts illegally smuggled out of the country from the prominent American J Paul Getty museum, after more than a decade of efforts. Greek Culture Minister George Voulgarakis said the Getty agreed to return an elaborate 4th century BC Macedonian gold funerary wreath and a 6th century BC marble statue of a woman, called a "kore". "We are pleased to announce today we have reached an agreement in principle on the return of two objects in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum - a gold funerary wreath and a statue of a kore - that have been claimed by the Greek Ministry of Culture," Voulgarakis said, reading from a joint statement issued by the ministry and Getty Museum. Hailed as a success by the Greek government, Greece began efforts in 1995 to bring back a total of four artifacts contested as victims of the illegal antiquities smuggling trade. The Getty returned the first two artifacts in August: a 2,400-year-old, black Boeotian stele - a grave marker - and a marble votive relief dating from about 490 BC. The Greek government believes thousands of artifacts have left the country illegally over the decades and turn up in private collections or in museums abroad. It has always been an uphill battle to recover them. But it has been a significant year in the illegal antiquities trade with a series of scandals rattling the art world, after Italian authorities uncovered cases involving the trade and purchase of illegal antiquities involving dealers, collectors and museums, including the Getty. A former antiquities curator of the museum, Marion True, is on trial in Rome for conspiring to acquire looted artifacts for the museum. She denies any wrongdoing. A Greek prosecutor has also charged True with involvement in buying the wreath believed to be illegally removed from the country 13 years ago, and sold to the Getty in 1993. At least three American museums have now agreed to return artifacts to Italy. The Italian investigations were followed by a series of raids by Greece of homes on the Greek islands of Schoinoussa and Paros, connected to True and other antiquities collectors and dealers. A Greek prosecutor has also brought charges against the owner of one of the island homes on Schoinoussa. The theft of Greek artifacts is an old wound in Greece. Smugglers have been looting archaological sites for decades, despite an international convention in 1970 by UNESCO which sought to control the illegal trade. Archaeologists say everywhere one digs in Greece artifacts will be found, in fields, in the sea, even in back yards. Many a farmer has stumbled across ancient finds, and smugglers are posted across the country, hovering around villages close to archaeological sites, spreading the word they are looking for artifacts and will pay well. They raid sites recently dug by archaeologists. Greek chief of the special crime unit for illegal antiquities smuggling, George Gligoris, poses undercover as a wealthy buyer to weed out smugglers. He says say no matter how many they catch each year, new smugglers keep propping up. "Every year there are new smugglers, its never the same faces. As long as there is demand in the international community there will be supply. There is a belief that stupendous sums of money can be made in the antiquities trade," said Gligoris. Smuggling gangs hide artifacts in fruit baskets in transport trucks heading to Europe. They smuggle them on tourist ferries or yachts across Greece's open seaways, or in cars and buses of Greeks travelling abroad. Police say since the formation of the European Union, road border checks are more lenient. And smugglers are getting more creative in moving the goods. Once an artifact is stolen it could disappear out of sight for several years. It resurfaces in the hands of a foreign dealer, with minimal documentation of previous owners and its historical background - where it was dug up -missing. This background is called provenance in the art world, and can be the defining point between legal and illegal. Many museums and collectors buy artifacts without provenance. Experts say the only way to hinder the illegal trade is for museums to acquire artifacts or collections from collectors with provenance, where there are no doubts about the artifacts origin. "If a musuem were not able to acquire looted antiquities then a large part of the market would disappear and also if collectors knew that a museum would not even accept the antiquities as a gift, then the collectors would change. They wouldn't know what to do with their stuff and that if that really became widespread some of the big collectors would find it very difficult to dispose of their collctions because museums wouldn't touch them so who else would? And if this were to come about you would see a significant collapse in the price of various categories of antiquities," said Colin Renfrew, a British expert on the illegal antiquities smuggling trade from Cambridge University. This year Greece is creating tougher legislation against smugglers and cooperating with other countries affected by the trade, such as Italy, through information sharing. Harsher controls over its open sea frontiers are planned, while a special department will be created in the country's culture ministry to deal with the issue. "Greece does not want to empty the museums of the world of Greek artifacts. What concerns us is that anything that has been illegally removed from this country is returned to Greece. We want this crime wiped out, which we consider equal to to human trafficking or gun smuggling," said Voulgarakis.

ITN Source | December 12, 2006

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