Forensic Archaeometry Applied to Antiquities Trafficking: The Beginnings of an Investigation at the Frontiers of Knowledge
Abstract
:1. Introduction
States Parties may support their requests for the recovery and return of cultural property which is unlawfully excavated or lawfully excavated but unlawfully retained in another State Party to the Convention, with reasonable scientific reports, results of scientific analysis or experts’ evaluations on provenance of the unlawfully excavated property.
Considering the difficulties of conducting research for retrospective evidence, States Parties are strongly encouraged to consider accredited scientific studies and analysis as evidence.
2. The (Deficient) International Response to Antiquities Trafficking
2.1. The International Legal Response: Reevaluating What Is Criminal
In the run up to the drafting of the Convention, Western markets saw a major increase in the number of looted and stolen antiquities, most notably from important sites in Iraq and Syria in connection with the breakdown of law and order in those countries. Non-state armed groups and terrorist organizations were involved in the destruction and plundering of ancient sites in order to finance their belligerent operations.
2.2. Operational Responses
3. The Problem of Objects with No Known Provenience or Collecting History
3.1. Connivance with Private Collecting
3.2. The Debate between Objects and Context
3.3. The Debate over a Date
3.4. Falsification of Provenience and Collecting History
4. “Proof of Origin” in Spain
5. New Analytical Methodologies to Tackle Old Challenges
Author Contributions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
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1 | In the case of artifacts that have not been subjected to an archaeological autopsy, there is a certain disparity in the terminology used to refer to the concept of what in Spanish is called procedencia. This is because it encompasses two distinct realities: The site or stratigraphic location and the list of successive owners. The most common terms in English are “provenience” and “provenance,” as established by Coggins (1998, p. 65). Both terms are used both by archaeologists (Brodie 2011) and chemists (Price and Burton 2011, p. 213 ss.). Chippindale and Gill (2000) changed “provenance” to “collecting history”. Similarly, the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD 2013) uses the term “ownership history” instead of “provenance”. By contrast, Myren (2010) uses the pair of terms “origin” and “provenance”. More recently, Marlowe (2016) referred to these two concepts with the terms “grounded” and “ungrounded”, to distinguish between artifacts whose collecting history is known and those for which there are doubts. In this paper, in order to facilitate overall comprehension, we will use “provenience” to indicate the place of origin of a given archaeological object and “collecting history” to refer to the list of its successive owners. |
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Rodríguez Temiño, I.; Yáñez, A.; Jorge-Villar, S.E.; Reyes Mateo, Á.; Rufino Rus, J.; Salas Álvarez, J.; Lavín Berdonces, A.C. Forensic Archaeometry Applied to Antiquities Trafficking: The Beginnings of an Investigation at the Frontiers of Knowledge. Arts 2018, 7, 98. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts7040098
Rodríguez Temiño I, Yáñez A, Jorge-Villar SE, Reyes Mateo Á, Rufino Rus J, Salas Álvarez J, Lavín Berdonces AC. Forensic Archaeometry Applied to Antiquities Trafficking: The Beginnings of an Investigation at the Frontiers of Knowledge. Arts. 2018; 7(4):98. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts7040098
Chicago/Turabian StyleRodríguez Temiño, Ignacio, Ana Yáñez, Susana E. Jorge-Villar, Álvaro Reyes Mateo, Javier Rufino Rus, Jesús Salas Álvarez, and Ana Carmen Lavín Berdonces. 2018. "Forensic Archaeometry Applied to Antiquities Trafficking: The Beginnings of an Investigation at the Frontiers of Knowledge" Arts 7, no. 4: 98. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts7040098
APA StyleRodríguez Temiño, I., Yáñez, A., Jorge-Villar, S. E., Reyes Mateo, Á., Rufino Rus, J., Salas Álvarez, J., & Lavín Berdonces, A. C. (2018). Forensic Archaeometry Applied to Antiquities Trafficking: The Beginnings of an Investigation at the Frontiers of Knowledge. Arts, 7(4), 98. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts7040098