AAH 2025 - Who Owns Antiquities?
It was a great pleasure to convene the session “Who Owns Antiquities?” at the Association for Art History Annual Conference (9-11 April 2025) in York. Our session covered a wide range of pressing issues in art history, archaeology, and museology today, including the future of universal and encyclopedic museums, provenance research and the art market, the restitution and repatriation of antiquities, and practicing archaeology and museology in colonial settings or at times of armed conflict.
The excellent group of scholars who participated in this session have approached these issues in new and exciting ways. They have actively been involved in the case studies which they spoke about, wearing many hats such as a field archaeologist, a museum curator, a provenance researcher, a cultural historian, an analyst for the District Attorney’s office, an art crime specialist, and in some instances a combination of these. Here is some more information on the session and speakers:
Session title: Who Owns Antiquities?
Session convenor: Erhan Tamur, University of York
Who owns antiquities? Cultural, legal, economic, and political dimensions of this question continue to inform debates on the restitution and repatriation of antiquities, with immense repercussions for the fields of art history, archaeology and museology. This session invites papers on topics including but not limited to the future of “universal” and “encyclopaedic” museums; restitution-related case studies; the relationship between museology, archaeology and efforts of empire- and nation-building; antiquities and definitions of “decolonisation;” provenance research; indigenous archaeologies; and the antiquities market. We are interested both in critical engagements with the current state of our disciplines as well as informed analyses of future possibilities and challenges. We encourage papers across disciplines, periods, and geographies.
Schedule - Friday, 11 April 2025, SLB 005 (Spring Lane Building) Session 1 (10:00-12:00)
Daniel Healey, Worcester Art Museum
Law Enforcement and the New Landscape of Antiquities Restitution in the United States
In recent years, law-enforcement agencies in the United States have placed themselves at the forefront of efforts to stop the illicit trade in antiquities and return stolen cultural property to countries around the globe. Units specialized in antiquities-related crimes at both the national and local levels have arrested dealers, seized antiquities from prominent U.S. museums, and repatriated thousands of objects to dozens of nations—all to great fanfare and press coverage.
By examining two recent repatriations of antiquities from the United States, one to Turkey and the other to Lebanon, this paper considers the implications of law-enforcement’s efforts for museum practice and, more broadly, knowledge of the past. When it comes to museums, law-enforcement restitutions have effectively redefined what can be considered acceptable provenance and sound legal title to antiquities, whether acquired before or after UNESCO’s 1970 Convention. Moreover, museums are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to researching and vetting their own collections, since they lack crucial resources and investigative tools at law enforcement’s disposal. Recent restitutions by U.S. authorities also present a dilemma when it comes to our understanding of the archaeological record. While law-enforcement officials are uniquely positioned to uncover new information about an antiquity’s findspot and provenance, this information is routinely embargoed due to the confidential nature of investigations and secrecy laws governing courtroom proceedings. At best, this necessary lack of transparency creates permanent gaps in archaeological knowledge, and at worst, has the potential to introduce errors into the archaeological record.
Cecilie Brøns, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek
A Critical Matter to Resolve: The Return of Antiquities from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen to the Republic of Türkiye
This presentation addresses the current repatriation case regarding the return of a bronze portrait of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus from Boubon and a group of 48 architectural terracottas from Düver, both in southwestern Türkiye, from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen to the Republic of Türkiye. The paper presents the Danish legal basis and ICOM’s guidelines for such cases and discusses the arguments for the return of these artefacts to Türkiye. As a basis for the decision of a return, the museum carried out meticulous provenance research, including technical analyses, archival research, and archaeological assessment to establish the artefacts’ place of origin. This research shows how such cases are often very different and should therefore be assessed on a case-by-case basis. More importantly, it illustrates the difficulties for museum institutions in navigating within a field, repatriation and restitution, the pace of which currently outstrips that of the development and updating of relevant national legislation and guidelines.
Richard Bott, Macquarie University, Sydney
‘Not Yet Been Studied, Except for Cataloguing’: Exploring the Desires of Ownership and their Influence on the Marketing of Papyri, 1960-2000
In recent decades the relationship between the academy and the antiquities market has come under increasing scrutiny. Often focussing on text-bearing antiquities, various researchers have demonstrated that academic expertise plays a crucial role in establishing value and authenticity in the market. Many of the antiquities used to illustrate this, however, are high-end, valued for their aesthetic qualities or because they are important historically: aspects only confirmed or established through study. Given less consideration, are the more mundane objects collected specifically for publication. In the case of the papyrus trade, the value for many of the papyri bought and sold during the 20th century lay primarily in their potential to be published. Aware of this, dealers in the mid-to-late 20th century paid careful attention to how they marketed their papyri, often stressing the unstudied nature of material on offer. It was also, however, during this period that dealers began to make overt use of academic expertise to market material. Drawing on dealer catalogues and archival material, this paper explores the ways market participants navigated the tension between the use of academic expertise by dealers and the desires of institutional collections to acquire unstudied papyri, and how this is reflected in the presentation of papyri on the market. It will be shown that marketing of antiquities is often shaped by the ownership motivations of the likely collector. Ultimately, this paper will shed new light on the relationships between academic market facilitators, dealers, and institutional collections.
Session 2 (14:30-16:30)
Johannes Köhler, Freie Universität Berlin
‘Like Shadows of Nebuchadnezzar’ and a Tell for a Penny. The British Museum Excavations and the Famine of 1880
In 1879-1880, the Jazira region between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers experienced an extremely cold winter, leading to significant population displacement, starvation and death. In these circumstances the Trustees of the British Museum reappointed Hormuzd Rassam to conduct excavations in the vicinity of Mosul at Kuyunjik/Nineveh and its environs, as well as throughout modern Iraq. The progress of the Nineveh excavations was observed by a British engineer-turned-artist and a German scholar who were travelling through the Jazira in the spring of 1880. Their respective travel accounts, Rassam’s own recollections, archival material and previous studies on Rassam provide a reconstruction of the developments during this winter, of some of the objects acquired, and the purchase of land at Nebi Yunus. This paper aims to explore these tragic events and how the British Museum capitalised on these circumstances.
Alexandra Solovyev, University of London
British Opposition to Collecting and Excavating Abroad: From Lord Elgin to the Present
Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, British amateur and professional archaeologists conducted large-scale excavations in Britain’s territorial holdings and spheres of influence, acquiring thousands of antiquities for private collections and public institutions such as the British Museum. The backlash that these excavations inspired in the nations where these antiquities were unearthed is well-known: the newly-formed government of Greece demanded the return of the Parthenon Marbles from Britain as early as 1835 and the Ottoman Empire implemented antiquities legislation in 1869 in response to John Turtle Wood’s excavations at Ephesus. Less well-known is the opposition that these archaeological and collecting practices garnered domestically. My paper will survey the British scholars, writers, and amateur archaeologists who opposed British archaeological excavations and collecting practices abroad during the mid-to-late nineteenth century. While most public discourse in Britain at the time maintained that the acquisition of antiquities was not only justified but also commendable – that these acquisitions represented the rightful ‘return’ of these objects to Britain – the historical record reveals counterhegemonic voices who viewed these practices in a negative light. The paper will explore the reasons why individuals like railway administrator and amateur archaeologist Hyde Clarke, who saw the excavations at Ephesus as unlawful and destructive, opposed these practices and aimed to qualify the impact of oppositional voices on the conversation around the collection of antiquities in Britain. The paper concludes by reflecting on the legacy of nineteenth-century domestic opposition to British historical collecting practices in the present day.
Summer Austin, University College London
Tut on Tour: 30-Years of Demand Creation through Blockbuster Exhibition
Tut on Tour is a multidisciplinary investigation into factors that create, enhance, and normalise demand for collecting antiquities. Using the original blockbuster, ‘Treasures of Tutankhamun’ as the case study, this research investigates the correlating antiquities markets’ reaction to ‘Tut’ blockbuster exhibition by gathering, quantifying, and contextualising 30-years of exhibition and antiquities market data. The objective of this study is to introduce reliable data to the crucial debate concerning the relationship between museum blockbuster exhibitions, end-market demand, and the illicit antiquities trade. The market for illicit antiquities is a demand-driven economic system predicated on collectors and museums acquiring antiquities; thus, we must understand what influences demand for antiquities. Utilising primary-sources and archaeological, economic, museological, and criminological theory, this research addresses the assumption that blockbuster exhibitions influence demand in the antiquities market. Anecdotal evidence and single-auction evidence in journals make up the totality of evidence for this assumption; thus, this research addresses a pivotal gap concerning causality between museums, the market, and the illicit trade. Using a dual-methodological investigation, this research presents compelling evidence to support the hypothesis that blockbusters generate demand for their subject matter. The data demonstrates an instantaneous, intense, and sustained demand for ancient Egyptian objects created in direct response to the exhibit. This study provides a foundation to understand what motivates and inspires demand and collecting with the objective of protecting today’s heritage. If we can understand and anticipate demand, more can be done to proactively reduce harm to the finite resource.
