Last year, there was a series on TV called Blood and Treasure. In it, a terrorist organisation was using the theft and subsequent sale of looted artefacts to fund their schemes.
Ignoring the comic-book side of this series, it touched on a genuine issue – the illicit trade in cultural property. How big is this trade? A 2020 article by the NETcher Social Platform for Cultural Heritage offers an estimate of $3 billion to $15 billion annually.
Not all sources agree the figures are this high, and while it is disputed as to whether this trade funds organised crime and terrorism, we cannot deny that there is an active trade in trafficking illicit cultural property.
According to INTERPOL figures, law enforcement agencies seized globally 854,742 cultural objects in 2020. Operation Pandora VI , which was finished up by Interpol in 2021, saw 52 arrests across 28 countries and the seizure of 9,408 looted artefacts.
Journalist Nada El Sawy co-wrote this telling piece on the trade in the middle east (the images of the Abu Sir Al Malaq site are sobering). For a more technical law-enforcement perspective, check out this report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Economic conditions, war, climate change, or greed may exacerbate trafficking of cultural property. The illegal looting of sites deprives peoples of their heritage and history. The scientific and archaeological study of these ancient sites is irremediably destroyed. In fact, we cannot truly understand the extent of this destruction because sites are being destroyed before science knows of their existence.
While I was researching for this post, a question came to mind – what is the difference between cultural property taken 12 months ago compared to that taken 100 years ago?
There are an entire class of cultural objects that have been taken from their countries of origin but are exempt from the laws that govern the trafficking of illicit cultural property. In fact, many institutions will point out it is illegal for them to return these artefacts. Although there are examples of cultural property being returned (such as the return of looted artefacts to Nigeria by the British Museum) there are many examples where it is not.
An exhibition of Aboriginal cultural objects at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery is only on loan from international institutions for the next 2 years. Recently, there have been calls from the Egyptian people for the return of the famed Rosetta Stone. The British Museum cites a 1801 treaty and the fact that there are many replicas in Egypt as justification for why it should not be returned.
I can only speak from my personal experience with an Aboriginal colleague and watching her cry as she spoke of the work she was doing repatriating objects and remains to Aboriginal communities in NSW. It took that moment for me to comprehend how important cultural property can be to a group, a community, a country. Losing these objects, whether taken a day ago or a century ago, continues to impact the culture, history, identity, and soul of the affected people.
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