Examination of Witnesses (Questions 42
- 59)
THURSDAY 23 MARCH 2000
MR MARK
TAYLOR, DR
MAURICE DAVIES
AND MR
MAX HEBDITCH
Chairman: Gentlemen, I should like very
much to welcome you here today. I think you were here and heard
some of the previous discussion. I shall now call on Mr Fearn
to continue it.
Mr Fearn
42. You refer in your evidence to the looting
of archaeological sites in this country. To what extent is the
product of such looting traded on the international market?
(Dr Davies) It is often hard to know
because, notwithstanding what the Museums & Galleries Commission
said, it really is the case that if you go to buy many categories
of antique object from a dealer or an auction house, you simply
cannot find out where it has come from. With paintings you can
and with paintings there is often a clear provenance and indeed
in auction catalogues often an ownership history is set out. If
you were to go to a dealer here or in New York and ask about where
the item had come from, the dealer is under no obligation to tell
you. One of the main characteristics of the art trade is a kind
of professional code of respecting the anonymity of sellers. You
may find a British item on sale. You might not even know it is
British if it is Roman. You might not know what country it has
come from. It looks like an interesting item but the chances are,
particularly if it is at an auction, a dealer may be more helpful,
that you will not be able to find out where it has come from even
in the past few months, let alone 10, 20, 30 years ago, if indeed
it has been out of the ground for that long. The whole code of
secrecy within which the art trade operates really makes it impossible
almost to put figures on things. However, there are cases; we
cite in our evidence the case of Wanborough. I am not an archaeologist
but archaeologists say that certain things which come from Wanborough
have been found on sale at coin fairs in Europe and in New York
and in the States and some things have been recovered. Then there
was the famous case of the Icklingham bronzes which were exported
from this country, sold in New York and the land owner has tried
tirelessly to recover them. However, in fact partly because Britain
has not ratified the UNESCO Convention, the United States authorities
were not willing to help recover those items to Britain. British
material is clearly being exported and being sold overseas, but
nobody has any idea how much.
(Mr Taylor) This is a market. Our evidence shows extraordinary
tales of clandestine lorries full of material and if people are
prepared to go to those lengths then they are doing it because
there is a market for it and the market is bound to be abroad.
They would not make that effort and take those risks unless it
was so. I am afraid market forces apply.
(Mr Hebditch) There is some evidence that the programme
of recording chance finds being carried on in a number of counties
on an experimental basis, including my own in Dorset, has led
to some improvement in the reporting of finds and therefore this
may to some extent be ameliorating the situation in relation to
small casual archaeological finds. There is some evidence that
has led to an improvement as a result of the Treasure Act.
43. You just mentioned that there seems to be
a code of secrecy. How do we break that? What do we have to put
in place to break that down?
(Dr Davies) The art trade now says that it has in
place voluntary self-regulation under things like the code of
the Council for the Prevention of Art Theft and indeed there are
all sorts of other things in the memoranda of evidence which you
have received from the art trade which say that the art trade
is recording information. Now it would be interesting to find
out whether it is really recording information. That is the first
point. There may well be a case that some of that information
is legitimately confidential, although I am not sure. Mr Wyatt
explained how when you buy a car or a house you do find out who
the previous owners are. If you are a man who likes to buy lots
of Rolls-Royces you cannot keep that quiet if you then sell them.
If you are a person who likes to buy lots of antiquities perhaps
you should not be able to keep that quiet either. Even so, I am
not necessarily certain that the information is even recorded
privately in dealers' own internal documents. I just do not know.
You would need to ask the police really because occasionally there
are criminal inquiries and then the police do have access to material.
I think this happened with the Salisbury Hoard, which was something
illegally dug up near Salisbury, broken up and sold through a
chain of dealers. It has been very well documented in a book published
by a British Museum Keeper. The police there could get hold of
records and find out. One of the characteristics of the art trade
is the incredible chains of ownership. Things change hands all
the time, often increasing in value. With material looted overseas,
it is quite shocking. The little bits of evidence people have
been able to piece together show that something like one or two
per cent of the final sale price of an item goes to the poor people
who dig it out of the ground and all the rest is taken by chains
of dealers and middle men along the way. It is a characteristic
of the art trade that things do change hands an enormous amount.
At the very least the art trade should be required to have proper
documentation, even if it is kept confidential, unless it becomes
a criminal matter so that the trails can then be followed through.
44. How do you think museums should respond
if they legally acquired works of art wrongfully through the Nazi
period for instance?
(Dr Davies) Museums at the moment are taking a very
careful look at their collections and indeed are being pro-active
in trying to identify items where there are gaps in the ownership
history in the period 1935 to 1945. For example, the National
Gallery and some of the other national museums have now published
details of all items where there is a gap in the ownership history.
The question then comes: if then somebody comes forward to claim
those items what then happens to them? There is only one single
item at the moment which is being claimed or being discussed which
is a painting in the Tate Gallery. The situation at the moment,
something you were discussing with the Museums & Galleries
Commission, is that even if the Tate Gallery decided that it wanted
to return that item, under the legislation which governs the national
museums it would not be able to do so. We have not reached that
situation yet and the Secretary of State for Culture has established
an advisory group which will assess claims for Second World War
material. There is quite a long way to go yet before we see what
actually happens.
Chairman
45. You mentioned Mr Wyatt's comparison in the
previous evidence session with the purchase of a car. I mentioned
the possibility of certificates of provenance or the counterpart
of a logbook for a car. I suppose that one problem is that you
have control to a very considerable degree over car transactions
because of the fact that motor vehicles have to be licensed, whereas
you have a myriad of transactions here, some of them private,
some of them clandestine. Would any attempt to introduce a logbook
or institute a logbook have a deleterious effect on the art trade
or would it cause them to raise their standards?
(Dr Davies) The key point Mr Taylor made was that
the material which is being illegally dug up or stolen, all the
material which is being illicitly obtained, is being bought by
somebody. It is a market and markets are stimulated by people
at the end of the chain purchasing stuff. If nobody bought things
which did not have a clear provenance, then no-one would dig it
up. It is a simple relation really. There would be a time lag,
but if it became clear out in Peru that if something is looted
out of the ground there is no market for it, people would soon
stop digging it up because financially it would have no value.
Something like a logbook, the idea of the logbook, is absolutely
what is needed. There are practical issues and objections would
be raised about confidentiality around private ownership which
might cloud the issue a bit. In a sense museums now try not to
buy anything which has been illicitly traded; even though quite
legally they could do so they try not to. Often they cannot get
the information. There are three categories really. There are
museums which are not careful enough and do end up acquiring something
they should not have. There was a case with the British Museum
acquiring I think the Icklingham bronzes[2]
from Lord McAlpine which turned out to have been ... I get all
these muddled up. One of the British Museum's acquisitions they
then had to return. Sometimes museums are not careful enough,
sometimes museums obviously make mistakes and simply cannot find
out and also we found evidence of museums actually turning down
acquisitions because they simply could not reassure themselves.
Something has gone from Burma to Thailand and it is on the London
market and there is an export licence from Thailand but they just
cannot pin down the documentation which gives it permission to
leave Burma in the first place. Even though it would be perfectly
legal for a museum or a private collector to purchase that item,
there is something suspicious about it; it does not feel quite
right so museums then turn it down. There is definitely a need
for more information in some form.
(Mr Taylor) There is definitely a case
that logbooks—to use the shorthand—may be perhaps
a little over the top. I do not want to push the comparison between
dodgy car dealers and the art trade too much; perhaps a little
but not too much. If we did not have logbooks then I imagine that
the car dealers would be saying there would be much too much administration
and so much paperwork and they could not do it. That is roughly
what the art trade would say as well. They have their reasons.
46. That is a very good point you make, a very
important point. Protests from the trade are not necessarily convincing.
(Dr Davies) The other point is that the trade claims
that it is putting in place proper self-regulation. If it is,
then it is already gathering the information it would need to
put in the logbook, so it would be no extra burden at all because
they already have the information.
(Mr Hebditch) What causes some concern is that a year
or two ago a survey done by the Getty Foundation in California
of dealers and dealers' organisations showed that only about 40
per cent of them, or less than 40 per cent, considered that issues
of provenance, by which we particularly mean ultimate place from
which this came in the case of archaeological material, only a
very small proportion seemed to consider that important to the
understanding or the appreciation of the object. We find that
very, very difficult to come to terms with. Your point that some
pressure may need to be brought to bear is an important one.
Mr Maxton
47. The point is that large quantities of objects
in museums which have been there for even 100 years were looted,
were they not?
(Mr Hebditch) Yes.
48. There is nothing you can do about that?
You just have to accept that is the case?
(Mr Hebditch) There is possibly something you can
do. I have to be quite careful whether I am actually giving a
Museums Association opinion or a personal one at this point and
I shall try to give the Museums Association's still. I think that
any decisions to acquire, and most big museums have 150 years
of existence, have been the consequence of a whole series of decisions,
legal, intellectual, which related to why do we want it, how do
we display it and also moral decisions. Some of those things change
through time, that is the legal and moral positions do actually
change, they are slightly contingent. So decisions taken a long
time ago were taken in a different environment and a different
set of circumstances. My point in making that is the issue about
whether there is a moral or in some cases a legal claim on an
item in a museum to go somewhere else, whether it is within the
United Kingdom or abroad, you have to unpick all those decisions
through its past history, which is why, like the Museums &
Galleries Commission, we claim every case should be considered
on its merits individually. Secondly, you also then have to form
a view as to what is the best outcome for that object in the future
which is the future decision. I hope that at least within the
European Union, say, we are saying that there is a common heritage
in all our museums—to go back to the point about the Louvre
which was made in the earlier one—and therefore we can perhaps
best manage this collectively within the European Union now and
not look too narrowly at either national or regional boundaries.
That is approximately the museums' position.
(Mr Taylor) It is also worth saying that stopping
the illicit trade now is stopping repatriation claims later on.
It is prevention we are talking about here.
49. That is across international boundaries
of course, but there is looting within. I am not quite sure where
you draw the line between looting and me walking across a field
on the Isle of Arran and kicking out a piece of flint which I
think is interesting and putting it in my pocket, when in fact
it is actually a spearhead or something like that which I do not
know about. I do not know where you draw the line and it is sometimes
difficult. There is that going on in this country as well, is
there? There is actually looting of actual sites?
(Dr Davies) Yes. Wanborough was looted. I live in
St Albans and the local paper is full of stories of metal "detectorists"
arriving at a newly ploughed field by night and it is a scheduled
ancient monument and metal "detectorists" are buzzing
over there at the moment taking things. It is interesting because
in Britain there is a relatively liberal regime; if you kick over
a piece of flint in Scotland it is different. In Scotland I think
it would belong to the Crown but in England it would belong to
the land owner unless it were treasure, which is defined. With
the land owner's permission you would be able to keep it and there
is a voluntary recording scheme which is growing in its success
and impact, where you would be encouraged to take that flint to
the right place to have it recorded. Then you could keep it. What
is interesting, in spite of there being a kind of liberal regime
in the United Kingdom, is that there is still looting. There is
still stuff going missing. A lot of people say the reason material
is looted from other countries is because they have such draconian
laws on ownership so that everything under the ground belongs
to the state. Clearly, even in countries like Britain and in the
United States, where there are no laws at all about it except,
I think, on federal land and state owned land, there is still
looting. There are all sorts of different estimates of the size
of the market but it is clear that there is a big market. At one
end of the scale you will have the chance find and certainly the
dealers would like us all to think it is all coming from chance
finds. I think Angkor was attacked by rocket wielding bandits
to steal sculptures. There was a Channel Four TV programme which
we mention in the context of Peter Watson's investigation of Sotheby's
and diggers were filmed with infra-red cameras, JCBs digging up
tombs and looting stuff. There is full-scale organised destruction
going on in order to feed the market.
50. I am trying to remember exactly what this
was but I remember on the Antonine Wall they discovered a hoard
of Roman nails. I think there were millions of them. It was obviously
a store for the building work. Nobody wanted them and in fact
if I remember rightly you could actually go along to the local
museum and buy them.
(Mr Hebditch) It was the Roman fort at Inchtuthill
in fact. I have four, acquired by legitimate means I hasten to
add. Yes, there are circumstances in which things come onto the
market. If I may draw from my past experience, I was Director
of the Museum of London until three years ago and we had a scheme
in conjunction with the Port of London Authority which licensed
people to search on the foreshore. That was similar to the sort
of recording schemes which have gone into place and that certainly
meant that material came in and was identified and equally we
were in a position to say that we did not want this material because
another six of X only adds to the thousand we already have. There
was a perfectly legitimate way for things to come onto the market.
That does not mean though that anyone taking that item out of
the country did not need an export licence because it was archaeological
material from the ground with a report from the Museum of London
which actually said that. Certainly we know that items turned
down by the Museum of London were seen in auction catalogues in
Australia and various places. There was no need to seek to recover
them, but they certainly went out technically illegally.
(Mr Taylor) I should say do not forget we are not
just talking about some interesting examples of Roman social history.
In some of the looting and pillaging which goes on in Africa and
South East Asia we are talking about sacred sites. We are talking
about icons. We have brought along, which you can have later on,
books produced by ICOM about missing objects from various holy
sites round the country, just appalling, hacking the heads off
things. They have much more significance than simply just education.
51. I do appreciate that and, as you will know
from previous questions, it is a concern. That is not what I intended
asking you about, because I think we have been through it. There
is this whole question of value in this. When does an antique
become an antique? Presumably it is when somebody decides that
it actually has a higher value than it had when it was first made
or bought. Is that not right? We have all watched Lovejoy and
I suppose Lovejoy and the Antiques Roadshow have managed to ensure
that most people now get at least something for those objects
which they have but they are objects. Previously they were just
an everyday part of your life, like the mug which our Chairman
acquired.
(Mr Hebditch) The intellectual value upon so many
antiques has actually been put there by museums. In other words,
they were the people who said these things were actually interesting.
That applies to archaeology. In most instances, that value, which
is an intellectual value, has been established as a result of
some form of scientific or historical inquiry, through excavation
or through the study of a particular cultural society. That is
actually a value of this, but not the monetary value. What has
happened of course is that is then translated into monetary values
so that what in my youth were called junk shops are now antique
stores and it is almost entirely a consequence of museums saying
that the study of the social history of the last 100 years, from
flat irons through to standard pots and all the rest of it, is
actually worthwhile. That has been translated into monetary value.
A great deal of the trading, particularly in antiquities or to
some extent scientific specimens, is because museums have actually
said these are valuable, that has been picked up by the trade,
converted into monetary value which then becomes the driver for
the looting of antiquities in other parts of the world and to
a lesser extent in the United Kingdom. For administrative purposes
you may need to put certain dates on, like 50 years old or whatever
it might be, or when it has been dug up, in terms of your internal
operations. In terms of concept there can actually be no strict
date attached although administratively you may have to do it.
52. If you go to York museum—I think it
is called the City Museum—there are large numbers of objects
there, washing machines and so on which we used to have in our
house. May I switch to a slightly more serious area? I cannot
disappoint the Chairman by not raising computers at least once.
Now we have this modern technology, websites, Internet and all
the rest of it, does where a particular object is matter? I accept
the religious cultural point of view but for other objects does
it matter, when any student from anywhere in the world can study
it if people are prepared to spend some time putting it on the
website?
(Mr Taylor) Yes.
53. It still matters.
(Mr Taylor) Absolutely it matters. Of course the Internet
and such things offer huge potential for bringing information
and enlightenment to people who could not go to see the object,
but there is nothing quite as good as seeing and feeling the objects
yourself. It is what museums do and people get an enormous amount
from seeing the real objects, otherwise there would never be cultural
tourism and they could probably look at some glorified animated
version and never go to these places.
Chairman: That was the answer to your
question in the libraries inquiry last week when you asked the
people of the British Library whether we need books when we can
read it all on the Internet. So you have been squashed twice.
Mr Maxton
54. I would accept that but within certain limitations.
It certainly would not be true of the domestic objects which are
displayed for instance in the York Museum that you actually have
to go to see them in order to get the best from them. You can
see those just as well—
(Mr Taylor) You do to get the best. To get the best
you have to go to see it.
(Dr Davies) We have always had reproductions of objects,
ever since popular prints in the nineteenth century. We have always
had books of the paintings in the National Gallery but numbers
visiting the National Gallery to see the real things go up and
up and the demands for repatriation seem to me to indicate that
to a lot of people the physical location of an object really does
matter. People would not put all that energy and personal time
and commitment into making repatriation claims if they did not
really think it was important that the object did move. To a lot
of people it obviously does matter.
55. For things like the Elgin Marbles returning
them to their original situation is different. Where there is
a clear religious or cultural desire, because in many cases it
is part of rebuilding their identity, that is important. Other
objects? To be honest, if I go round a museum, the explanations
of a particular object are not necessarily particularly full.
I am on my feet and I am walking therefore I do not want to spend
a long time standing at one particular object reading what it
says, even if it is a full explanation. If I look at it on the
website I get much more information, I can go round it, I can
look at other objects which are linked to it. I suppose it comes
down to the question of whether a museum is there to conserve
the past or a museum is there to educate people in the present
about the past.
(Mr Taylor) With respect, it is quite easy for you
to say you could have access on the Internet to those very interesting
pieces from Nigeria, but perhaps the people in Nigeria have first
call on them and they have less access to the Internet.
56. That is what I am saying in a sense. Why
can we not return them and ensure that we have the same ability
to look at them because we can see them.
(Mr Taylor) In some cases we can, providing we approach
it in a logical and orderly manner. That is possible in some cases.
57. Therefore should we not at least be spending
a fair amount of money developing our information about all the
objects we hold in museums?
(Dr Davies) Absolutely.
(Mr Taylor) Yes.
(Mr Hebditch) Yes.
58. Lottery funding for that?
(Dr Davies) There is some, some New Opportunities
Fund money. We have not really yet seen a kind of completely coherent
strategy but that is what the Museums, Libraries and Archives
Council has been created for, to make sure that happens; that
is the one thing it has to do.
59. What about our older museums, for instance
the regimental museums presumably must hold large amounts of objects
which have been looted from around the world during the period
of imperialism? Are they part of your association?
(Dr Davies) Yes.
2 Note by Witness: It is in fact the Salisbury
Hoard. Back
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