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The Antiquities Trade and the Destruction of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures*

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The Antiquities Trade and the Destruction of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures* chapter thirty THE ANTIQUITIES TRADE AND THE DESTRUCTION OF ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN CULTURES* Debate and evaluation of the commercial trade and dispersal of antiqui- ties begins with the comprehension that the vast majority of unexcavated ancient objects in existence, whatever their cultural backgrounds, have been plundered; archaeologists did not excavate them (Nagin 1986: 23; Koczka 1989: 196). Archaeologists designate excavated material as artifacts, and those non-excavated as antiquities. Possessors of antiquities often claim they had been “excavated,” but this term can be used only to designate an archaeological activity. Disorder, pertinent to both legal and archaeological matters, occurs when museums and antiquity dealers, and some arche- ologists, refer to “provenance” to identify a site-source of an unexcavated antiquity. But the terms provenance and provenience are distinct, inasmuch as they designate two distinct loci and two diferent activities. Provenience speci cally designates the site where an artifact was excavated; provenance identi es the current or past location of the antiquity: a collector, museum, auction house, or dealer’s shop (Muscarella 1977a; and pace Brodie et al. 2000: 3). Collector and museum catalogues and exhibition labels, along with auction house and dealer catalogues, sometimes furnish a deceptive claim that the antiquity derived from a named site, but they neglect to name the attribution informant: a dealer or a previous auction house sale (Muscarella 1977c: 77–79; 2000a: 11, 14; Vitelli 1984: 153). A fairly small number of antiqui- ties were indeed plundered and traded decades ago, sometimes legally (e.g., “commercial excavations” in Iran). But these activities have never ceased; they continue relentlessly throughout the world. Thus every topic and judg- ment discussed herein obtains for every ancient culture in the world, with- out exception; the ancient Near East is but one example of a worldwide situation. * This chapter originally appeared as “The Antiquities Trade and the Destruction of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures,” in A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, ed. D.T. Pott (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 107–124. 838 chapter thirty The plunder of sites encased within a mound (Persian tepe, Turkish hö- yük, Arabic tell) formed by successive settlement constructions, and burials and tombs, has a long history. The archaeological record reveals that the practice occurred throughout antiquity. Numerous tombs in Egypt were plundered millennia ago, the most spectacular being that of Tutankhamun, which was looted after the king’s burial but soon thereafter resealed. Royal tombs built within a contemporary, inhabited palace at Nimrud (Iraq) were partially plundered and then repaired while the site was still inhabited. And numerous tombs buried under mounds of earth, called tumuli, and visible to all, were totally or partially destroyed in antiquity and thereafter. Examples include Pazyryk in the Altai (but much was recovered), Sé Girdan in northwestern Iran, Kerkenes Da˘gin Anatolia, where scores of tumuli there have been obliterated, and the Sardis area in western Turkey, where 90 percent of the tumuli have been plundered (Luke and Kersel 2006: 185– 186; Roosevelt and Luke 2006: 173–187). The prevalence of ancient tomb plundering across the centuries within Near Eastern cultural regions is unknown. But a good number of burial sites have been excavated in modern times. Examples include tombs at Nimrud, Kish, and Ur (Iraq); Umm-el Marra (Syria); Alaça Höyük and Arslantepe (Turkey); Susa, Hasanlu, Dinkha Tepe, Marlik, and many in Luristan (Iran); and Tillya Tepe (Afghanistan), where two burials were looted but six were excavated, containing thousands of artifacts of gold, silver, and ivory (Hie- bert and Cambon 2008: 210–293). Artifact contexts of undisturbed burials are not merely of inestimable value for knowledge of the ancient cultures involved; in some cases, they are our only source of cultural data. They also vividly inform us of the information forever lost from the countless plundered tombs. Ancient plundering was presumably conducted both as desecration and to acquire loot. Looting is the basis for all current plundering, evidenced by the vast number of destroyed cemeteries throughout the Near East. These activities increased in the 19th century, a result of the renewed interest in antiquity and fueled by a ful llment of social ambitions exempli ed by the increased collecting of antiquities by museums and private collectors every- where (Meyer 1973: 46–47, 191–197). Egypt, the Holy Land, Greece, Cyprus, and Italy were the primary victims, never vacating that status. In the 1870s plundering occurred somewhere near the wide-ranging Oxus river, and a quantity of gold and silver objects (including modern forgeries) labeled the “Oxus Treasure” was acquired by the British Museum. But no archaeologist can identify its nd-spot(s) (Muscarella 2003a). In the late 19th century Luigi Palma di Cesnola looted countless sites in Cyprus. He sold thousands of.
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