[Tlc] Thai Antiquities, Resting Uneasily

[Michael Montesano]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/arts/design/17fink.html?_r=1&oref=slog
in

THE NEW YORK TIMES
Arts and Leisure Preview 
Thai Antiquities, Resting Uneasily 
By JORI FINKEL 
Published: February 17, 2008 
(Note: This article will appear in this Sunday's Arts & Leisure
section.)

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/02/12/arts/12fink-slideshow_index.
html
IT just might rank as one of the biggest accidental discoveries in
archaeology. In the summer of 1966 a Harvard
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/har
vard_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  student named Steve Young
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/y/steve_youn
g/index.html?inline=nyt-per>  was living in a village in the northeast
reaches of Thailand, going door to door canvassing political opinion for
his senior thesis, when he tripped over the root of a kapok tree. As he
hit the ground he found himself face to face with some buried pots,
their rims exposed by recent monsoons. Intrigued by the look and feel of
the unglazed shards, he knew enough to bring them back to government
officials in Bangkok. 
What he had stumbled upon is now viewed as one of the most important
prehistoric settlements in the world. Initially dated as early as 4000
B.C. - a date since revised amid much controversy to 2000 B.C. or even
later - the so-called Ban Chiang culture is the earliest known Bronze
Age site in Southeast Asia, documenting the early arrival of culture,
agriculture and technology to the region. 
Now Ban Chiang is in the news again as a result of a five-year
undercover investigation by three federal agencies. Their examination
centers on two Los Angeles antiquities dealers, Cari and Jonathan
Markell, and a wholesaler, Bob Olson, who federal agents say donated Ban
Chiang artifacts to museums at inflated values in a tax fraud scam. Last
month four California museums - the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/l/los
_angeles_county_museum_of_art/index.html?inline=nyt-org> , the Bowers
Museum of Art in Santa Ana, the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena and the
Mingei International Museum in San Diego - were raided as part of the
inquiry.
The investigation could also have broad implications for other museums
across the country. In the affidavits filed to obtain search warrants,
the agents laid the groundwork for a legal argument that virtually all
Ban Chiang material in the United States is stolen property. 
In essence, the paperwork states, antiquities that left Thailand after
1961, when the country enacted its antiquities law, could be considered
stolen under American law. And since Ban Chiang material was not
excavated until well after that date, practically all Ban Chiang
material in the United States could qualify. 
Among the many American museums with Ban Chiang artifacts are the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/met
ropolitan_museum_of_art/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  in New York; the
Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington; the Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston; the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts;
and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. And that roster includes only
institutions that have published highlights of their collections online.

"I believe that virtually every big American art museum that collects
Asian art has some Ban Chiang material," said Forrest McGill, chief
curator at the Asian Art Museum. His museum owns 77 Ban Chiang objects,
from painted earthenware bowls to bronze bracelets and stone ax heads.
After learning of the federal investigation, he said, he reviewed these
acquisitions - almost all made before he arrived at the museum in 1997 -
for links to the Markells. He found none.
"We are nervous about everything - been nervous, getting nervous," Mr.
McGill said. "It's not as easy as you would think to be up to date and
conversant with different countries' laws and to know which foreign laws
the U.S. is committed to enforcing and which not." 
The Freer and Sackler have 56 works, mostly ceramic vessels. The Met has
33 pieces in its holdings, among them vessels, bronze bracelets, bells
and ladles. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has 17, including gray
stoneware pots and beakers and assorted clay rollers. The Cleveland
Museum has eight artifacts, mainly jars. The Minneapolis Institute owns
two ceramic jars and three glass ear ornaments. 
None of the acquisition records posted online mention the Markells or
Mr. Olson. And for sheer volume of material, none of these museums
approach the Bowers, which has roughly 1,000 artifacts.
But the very specter of "looted goods" can prove a public relations
nightmare for museums, which helps to explain why few curators contacted
at those museums were willing to be interviewed about Ban Chiang
artifacts. 
Beyond public relations problems are the potential legal difficulties.
In the most extreme example Marion True, a former antiquities curator at
the J. Paul Getty Museum
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/get
ty_j_paul_museum/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  in Los Angeles, was
indicted in Italy on charges of conspiring to acquire stolen objects for
her museum. More generally United States case law on cultural patrimony
is fast evolving, reflecting a growing awareness that collecting certain
objects can encourage looting of archaeological sites. American museums
have thus seen foreign laws that were long overlooked at home suddenly
taken seriously. 
In the affidavits supporting the search warrants in the federal
investigation, for example, agents invoke a 1961 Thai law, the Act on
Ancient Monuments, Antiques, Objects of Art and National Museums,
stating that "buried, concealed, or abandoned" objects are "state
property" and cannot legally be removed from Thailand without an
official license. 
They quote a Thai government official as saying that as far as he knew,
Thailand's Department of Fine Arts "had never given a license to anyone
to take antiquities out of Thailand for private sale." 
Then, because a foreign country's law is not necessarily recognized in
the United States, the affidavits cite two federal laws that could give
the Thai statute some teeth, the National Stolen Property Act of 1948
and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979. 
Of course it's ultimately up to the courts, not federal agents, to
determine what constitutes a violation of American law. And no
indictments have been filed. 
But Patty Gerstenblith, a DePaul University
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/d/dep
aul_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  law professor, said the
affidavits signaled a serious federal interest in Ban Chiang as well as
tax fraud. 
"I can't say it's going to be a slam dunk for the government if this
reaches court, but I will say the information in those affidavits is
impressive," she said. "It was, after all, a five-year investigation. We
can as outside observers draw the conclusion that there is a fairly
substantial likelihood that this Ban Chiang material could be considered
stolen property under U.S. law."
The first major excavations of Ban Chiang began in 1974, led by the
University of Pennsylvania
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/uni
versity_of_pennsylvania/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  in partnership with
a Thai group. Joyce White, a scientist who now oversees the Ban Chiang
project at the university's museum and is assisting the federal
government with the current investigation, was a graduate student at the
time. 
She remembers seeing crates of excavated material arriving at the
university on loan from the Thai government. "There were what
archaeologists call small finds - bronze bracelets, clay rollers and so
on," she said. "And then there were bags and bags and bags of broken
pottery." (Some research material remains at the museum on long-term
loan.)
By the 1980s Ban Chiang material was flooding the international market.
"I'm told that some 40,000 pots have come out of Ban Chiang, excavated
from the site," said Mr. Young, the former Harvard student, in a
telephone interview in which he confirmed the details of his discovery,
down to the bruises from his fall. The son of a former American
ambassador to Thailand, he said he never collected the work himself out
of concern for his family's reputation and now owns only one pot, a gift
from a Thai princess.
Other collectors did amass the material, however, especially in the
1980s and '90s. The objects were abundant and, by comparison with other
antiquities, cheap - typically under $1,000. It was mainly during this
time that leading American museums secured donations and, to a lesser
extent, made acquisitions to help fill gaps in their Southeast Asian
collections. 
Museums have in the past argued that they were safeguarding objects
already on the open market. But many archaeologists find the collecting
of such artifacts distressing because it removes objects from their
original, information-rich context. "It destroys the archaeological
record," Ms. White said. "It's shameful really, a destruction of
knowledge." 
Increasingly sensitized to those concerns, many museum curators now say
they wouldn't touch the stuff even if offered by their most prestigious
donors.
"We would turn it down," said Robert Jacobsen, chairman of the Asian art
department at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, "and not just because
of the investigation in California, but because times have changed.
There's a moral basis here." 
Asked whether his museum would consider repatriation, Mr. Jacobsen said:
"When we acquired or were given these works, and I think I speak for all
museums here, we did not think of them as illegal. But if it comes to
pass that legislation declares this material illegal, we would simply
return it." 
Mr. McGill in San Francisco also said he would take any claims "very
seriously," while noting that the Thai government has never contacted
him for the museum's Ban Chiang artifacts, despite a history of
collaboration. "We did a big exhibition borrowed from Thailand two years
ago," he noted, "and the director of the National Museum in Bangkok was
at our museum several times."
Still, he said, he is watching closely to see how the federal
investigation unfolds.
So are legal experts in cultural patrimony. Ms. Gerstenblith said the
inquiry could lead to criminal trials or civil forfeiture proceedings.
In the meantime she is urging all museums, "for ethical if not legal"
reasons, to review their Ban Chiang objects. "When they accepted those
donations, what kind of documentation did they ask for? Where did the
pieces come from?" 
Stephen K. Urice, a professor at the University of Miami
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/uni
versity_of_miami/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  School of Law, said the
legal issues were far from cut and dried. 
He pointed out that National Stolen Property Act of 1948 applies only to
property valued above $5,000 and that federal courts had not yet upheld
the application of Archaeological Resources Protection Act to foreign
antiquities. He also cited a precedent established by a 2003 federal
appellate court decision against the antiquities Frederick Schultz,
which puts a burden on the foreign government to show that it enforces
its own property statute. 
Imagine "you have this vast body of archaeological material over which
another government has waved its wand and said it's ours," Mr. Urice
said, "but they have not done anything more than that to protect it.
Under those circumstances, there is an open question as to whether the
U.S. would treat it as stolen." 
As for the next steps in the federal investigation, Mr. Urice is not
placing any bets. 
"The whole thing could be dropped altogether because of insufficient
evidence or because they are feeling weak about their legal theories,"
he said, "or this could move forward into an important,
precedent-setting case."

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