Present Pasts Vol. 3, 2011, 2-8 doi: 10.5334/pp.37 Who “Owns” the Euphronios Krater? Nationalism and Internationalism in the Protection of Archaeological Heritage Marina Papa-Sokal* This paper is based in part on a longer article, “Beyond the nationalist–internationalist polarisa- tion in the protection of archaeological heritage: A response to Professor Merryman”, that was published in Art Antiquity and Law, vol. XIV, no. 3 (October 2009), pp. 237–274. We thank the editor of Art Antiquity and Law for permission to republish some of this material here. “Sublime” and “smuggled in for sure” were some of the But in 1992, the special branch of the Italian Carabi- thoughts that went through the mind of Thomas Hoving, nieri dedicated to the protection of the country’s cul- then Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New tural patrimony opened a criminal investigation against York, when he first set his eyes on this Krater by Euphroni- Giacomo Medici, a notorious antiquities dealer, after a os (Figure 1) — as he himself recounts the story in his au- series of raids at his home in Italy and at a large ware- tobiography and other writings (Hoving,1993: 312; 2010). house he kept in the Geneva freeport revealed compel- ling evidence of a massive smuggling operation of antiq- uities from Italy and elsewhere. Medici himself was put on trial and convicted, but the investigation ended up impli cating a number of major American museums and collectors as likely buyers of illegally excavated Italian antiquities, including the Met, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Cleveland Museum, the Princeton Univer- sity Art Museum and the prominent New York collectors Leon Levy and Shelby White. After lengthy negotiations be tween them and the Italian government, a number of antiquities thought to have been illegally exported from Italy over the past decades were returned to the Italian state. In addition, two prominent figures in the art world, Marion True, chief curator of Greek and Roman antiqui- ties at the Getty Museum, and Robert Hecht, the prolific antiquities dealer who had sold the Euphronios Krater to the Met, are now facing criminal charges at a high-profile trial in Rome. Among the recovered objects was the Euphronios Krater. The Italian investigation established that, in all Fig. 1: The Euphronios Krater. likelihood, the Krater had been illicitly excavated in the area of Greppe Sant’Angelo, near Cerveteri, in December 1971 by a gang of tombaroli. The vase, together with 68 Despite serious doubts about the Krater’s provenance, other recovered antiquities, was triumphantly displayed the Metropolitan Museum decided to acquire the vase at a widely acclaimed exhibition at the Palazzo del Quiri- in 1972, for one million dollars, at the time a staggering nale in Rome in 2008. The suggestive title of the exhibi- amount of money for an antiquity, from an American art tion was Nostoi: Capolavori Ritrovati — an obvious allusion dealer based in Rome. The acquisition was closely scruti- to the homecoming journeys of the Greek heroes from the nized in the press and openly condemned in some quar- Trojan war. ters. Nevertheless, the Euphronios Krater remained one of Italy is not, in fact, the only country seeking restitution the crowning glories of the Met’s collection for over 30 of its illegally excavated or illegally exported antiquities. years. Greece, Turkey, Peru and several other countries have made highly publicized claims in recent years, mostly against museums and collectors in the United States. * UCL Institute of Archaeology Papa-Sokol: Who “Owns” the Euphronios Krater? 3 However, at this point, one may begin to wonder wheth- erate internationalism that opposes all private ownership er we are actually making a mistake by framing the de- of antiquities while encouraging the international circula- bate about how best to protect the world’s archaeological tion of art and antiquities among public institutions. The heritage around the narrow legal concepts of “property” ultimate goal is to move beyond the nationalist vs. inter- and “ownership”. Perhaps, by conceiving more broadly the nationalist polarization and to devise means to protect different types of protection that archaeological re sources the world cultural heritage while making it available to can receive — and the different actors who might be au- citizens of all countries. thorized to make decisions about that protection — we It is useful to start by being clear about what the prob- might make more progress on the problem. lem is. Of course, as we archaeologists well know — but Incidentally, it is worth remembering that the concept the general public and politicians often do not ap preciate of cultural “property” is a peculiarly English terminology. — the purpose of archaeology is not just to recover pretty In Italian, we usually talk of “beni” culturali, just as in objects from the ground; it is to reconstruct the history of French we say “biens” culturels. the human past. Indeed, some of the most useful infor- Furthermore, it is often difficult to attribute “owner- mation for archaeologists comes from items that have no ship” to one particular coun try. Modern state borders monetary or aesthetic value at all: pottery shards, pieces rarely coincide with those of ancient civilizations. In ad- of charcoal, human and animal bones, even seeds and dition, because of trade within the ancient world, objects pollen. All the information that could be obtained by sci- may be found in archae ological sites far from the place entific excavation is irreparably destroyed every time an where they had been originally produced. In purely con- archaeological site is plundered. At best we are left with a ceptual terms, why should an Attic vase found in an Etrus- few objects, beautiful as they may be, but silent. can tomb at Cerveteri or Vulci be considered the “prop- In the past two decades, the looting of the human past erty” of Italy rather than, say, Greece? Or, for that matter, has become a large-scale industry. Archaeological sites shouldn’t we consider cultural heritage as belonging to around the world are being stripped clean to feed the humanity as a whole? world market in antiquities. As journalist Roger Atwood There are, in fact, huge legal and ethical questions in- documents in his recent book Stealing History, looters are volved and making the right decision is not always easy well-organized and increasingly well-informed about the or clear-cut. tastes of collectors in rich countries (Atwood, 2004).The In this paper I would like to address the debate between pillage of archaeological sites, no less than the drug trade, nationalist and interna tionalist approaches to the protec- is driven by demand from the market. tion of cultural heritage, as well as the quite different de- Several detailed case studies have given additional quan- bate between the supporters of a freer trade vs. the sup- titative documentation of the trade in specific categories porters of more stringent regulations on the movement of of illicitly excavated antiquities. For instance, Ricardo Elia cultural property. Most importantly, I would like to help has carried out an exhaustive analysis of the Apulian red- disentangle and clarify a number of confusions that have figure vases in museums, private collections and the pri- long marred this debate: vate market, using the comprehensive vase lists published in 1978–1993 by Trendall and Cambitoglou together with 1. miscasting the controversy as a dichotomy between all Sotheby’s London and New York antiquities catalogues “nationalist” and “interna tionalist” approaches in for the period 1960–98 (Elia, 2001: 145-153). He docu- which “nationalist” is assumed to be a synonym for ments “a virtual flooding of the international market [in “anti-market” and “internationalist” for “pro-mar- the 1980s] with previously undoc umented Apulian vases, ket”. I shall argue that this conflation is improper: as well as robust collecting, both by museums and espe- internationalists can perfectly well oppose the pri- cially by private collectors” (ibid. 148-149). He concludes vate collecting of antiquities, just as nationalists that: can support it. 2. failing to stress the crucial difference between mu- Since the only possible source of genuine, new seums and public institutions on the one hand and Apulian pottery is looted archaeological sites in private collectors on the other. Puglia, the updated vase lists published by Tren dall 3. failing to take proper account of the differences be- and Cambitoglou in effect provide documentary tween antiquities and other classes of art. evidence of massive looting of archaeological sites 4. indiscriminately using the word “market” to denote in Puglia in recent years (ibid. 149) very different types of trans action, between differ- ent types of buyers and sellers. Moreover, for each valuable (i.e., marketable) object re- 5. eliding the fundamental differences between ex- covered by looters, many more sites are destroyed in the port control laws and national patrimony laws. process. On the basis of vase counts from archaeolog ically excavated Apulian tombs, Elia estimates that The key issue, I will argue, is not whether all archaeo- logical material should necessar ily be kept in its country several thousands, even tens of thousands, of an- of origin; it is how best to safeguard archaeological sites cient tombs [must] have been plundered to obtain from looting and pillage. I shall therefore defend a mod- the more than 13,600 Apulian red-figure vases that Papa-Sokol: Who “Owns” the Euphronios Krater? 4 exist throughout the world and were recovered in a particular, for antiquities, we need laws, such as patrimony non-archaeological manner. (ibid. 151) laws that assign ownership of all undiscovered antiquities to the State, to ensure the protection not just of what is Nationalism vs.