Italian Conference on "Cultural Goods: A 'Treasure' to Defend with the Law"

One of the conference organizers measures the effectiveness of Italy's antiquities police by the number of successful restitutions of important artifacts:

«Per capire – conclude Clemente - quanto efficace sia oggi l’azione di tutela dei beni culturali, intesi come patrimonio universale, basta ricordare i casi della Triade Capitolina, della Venere di Morgantina, dell’atleta di Lisippo, dei meravigliosi Grifoni di Ascoli Satriano e le numerose querelle internazionali in corso, perché le opere d’arte vengano restituite ai Paesi di provenienza».

While restitution is undoubtedly an important facet of the carabinieri's cultural protection work, one would think that the primary measure of effectiveness should be the crime rate -- which, with regard to the looting of archaeological sites, has gone down dramatically over the past few years. High-profile restitution cases may well have contributed to this reduction in looting, though the main cause is more likely the substantial beefing-up of site-policing resources by the Italian government.

Clemente is also quoted on the importance of artifacts found in his frontier region to that region's particular identity -- distinct, one should note, from national identity (though Clemente does also link these objects to the nation, and to universal patrimony as well):

«I beni culturali – commenta Clemente - rappresentano l’immagine del territorio, lo specchio della sua storia, il libro della memoria collettiva, che tanto serve a dare una identità al Paese. Ciò vale in modo particolare per la Capitanata, terra di frontiera, da sempre attraversata da popoli e culture diversi, nella quale abbondano siti archeologici».

Identity on the frontier is cosmopolitan because it has been created by the history traced on the territory by the diverse peoples and cultures that have crisscrossed it. That is a far more nuanced view of cultural identity than the one ascribed by the cultural internationalists to so-called "retentionist-nationalist" countries like Italy.

What Should an OPEC-style Antiquities Cartel Demand From Market Nations?

Derek Fincham has an interesting recent post here reflecting on the prospect that countries of origin for antiquities are likely to band together OPEC-style to negotiate as a bloc, rather than continuing the individual dealmaking that has so far been the case. Fincham assumes, perhaps rightly, however, that even as a bloc antiquities-rich nations are unlikely to play hardball in demanding restitution and/or more stringent import rules because of the need to maintain good relations and thereby encourage increased tourism that can provide revenues needed to bolster site protection.

Reliance on tourism, he points out,

carries with it the distasteful tradeoffs, such as the commodification of heritage, and the wear-and-tear which millions of visitors will always cause. Hopefully nations of origin will be able to move beyond the dramatic repatriations, which are a necessary step, and continue to work to preserve the sites themselves.

But it is difficult to see how countries of origin will be able to do more to preserve the sites themselves absent some concerted effort to demand that any deal involving repatriation and loan agreements also involve some mechanism for generating revenues for site protection from within the market states, not from tourism dollars. The most appropriate source for such revenues is the antiquities market. Imposing a tax on all sales of antiquities would require lawmaking, of course, and countries of origin may feel it would be easier to make a deal with individual museums and collectors than to pressure them to call on Congress to tax the antiquities market. Dealers are almost certain to oppose any such measure, as well. But a cartel is far more powerful than any individual country, and with the stick and carrot of repatriation and loans in hand countries of origin have at least a chance to succeed. Surely it is worth a try.

Why do arguments against the "retentionist" cultural policies of source nations ring so false?

The answer is that those making them -- the heads of encyclopedic museums -- are so clearly arguing in bad faith. Their agenda is not to promote exchange of cultural materials: that could be accomplished through loan or touring exhibition agreements that preserved the source nation's ownership of the items. Rather, it is to make it easier for more antiquities to flow into the antiquities market and, via collectors or through direct purchase, into their museums' permanent collections.

Nor are they interested, really, in protecting archaeological objects, either in the ground or out of it. The claim made by Cuno, de Montebello, et. al. is that if they would relax their own anti-export laws, poor source countries could sell their "excess inventory" and raise the money needed to improve site protection and museum conservation. But money could be raised far more effectively by changing our own laws. A tax could be imposed on all sales -- and even on gifts -- of antiquities, with proceeds dedicated to anti-looting and conservation efforts in the countries of origin. Such a tax would be small change for the wealthy collectors who drive the market. A single Mesopotamian figurine sold last year for $58 million. Had it been taxed 3.5% this one sale would have provided enough money to cover the entire 2003 budget of Iraq's State Board of Antiquities and Heritage.