6. Memorandum submitted by Mr Charles
Hill
INQUIRY INTO ILLICIT TRADE IN CULTURAL OBJECTS
THE SCALE
AND IMPLICATIONS
OF THE
LOOTING OF
THE IRAQ
MUSEUM IN
BAGHDAD AND
MUSEUMS AND
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES
ELSEWHERE IN
IRAQ
Issues confronting the Committee's inquiry are
wider than recent wars in Iraq suggest.
A carrot and stick approach is a better idea
to assist in the recovery of looted Mesopotamian antiquities stolen
from the Iraq Museum and elsewhere than just a legislative stick.
In my opinion, and based on my experience in dealing with art
crime, government policy is more likely to be effective with both
incentives and disincentives.
The 1990 cut off date in recent legislation
(Section 8 of the Iraq (United Nations Sanction) Order 2003) is
short sighted and arbitrary. Larger works of art and archaeological
artefacts that were stolen and came out of Iraq prior to 1990,
or for which their acquisition date is contrived, should be recovered
as well as those looted since the first Gulf War. We need to develop
confidential sources of information about these things. A carrot
and stick approach to antiquities dealers will help to do that.
I suggest that the Committee recommend to the
Government an amnesty period for the return of Iraqi antiquities
that are known or believed to have been looted that is similar
to the ones for firearms that the police in this country periodically
offer. A year's amnesty from the date of the Committee's next
published report would be enough.
I also suggest that the Committee consider suggesting
to the Government that an offer is made to reputable antiquities
dealers for some of their costs in returning items. This would
be to reimburse reasonable transportation costs during an amnesty
period. It is a small carrot, but would be an encouraging incentive.
The reason for this is that some of these items were bought in
good faith before the recent sea change in attitudes towards antiquities
dealers. They have become pariahs, and Lord Renfrew's and Professor
Riccardo Elia's mantra, "Collectors are the real looters",
indicates their popular status. Perhaps Professor Norman Palmer's
DCMS Ministerial Advisory Panel on Illicit Trade could be reconvened
to oversee and adjudicate such an incentive programme.
The attempt to curb the trade in looted antiquities
could usefully include a curb on the trade in fakes and forgeries
of Mesopotamian art and artefacts. I see a lacuna in recent
legislation that would allow fakers of Mesopotamian antiquities
opportunities to sell them, if they could prove that they were
not looted originals and they had no proveable intention to deceive.
Of course, that should not include museum quality reproductions
such as the British Museum's gold and lapis lazuli dagger and
sheath from Ur (2600-2500 BC). The wider sale of quality reproductions
like that might usefully help to defray the costs of the British
Museum's and others' good work in helping to stem the illicit
antiquities trade.
8 September 2003
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