Pakistani Artifacts and Fakes Stolen from Police Station

Antiquities looting, fakes (fraud), and theft, all in one case.  It's been determined that the recently recovered priceless Ghandhara "relics" were actually stolen from a local police station.  Is this a case of the Keystone Cops (you have to be pretty old to recognize the analogy, unfortunately) or a case of an inside job?  Whatever the case, equally pathetic and sad.  And enraging, too.  Imagine a thief selling the United States' Constitution to a collector on the illegal antiquities market.  Why is this is this not the equivalent?

Gandhara relics: Stolen or not, police and archaeologists can’t agree on one number

Nation­al Museum’s direct­or claims 330 artefa­cts record­ed; Awami Colony SHO says only 308 presen­t.

By Our Correspondent

Published: July 22, 2012

 

KARACHI: The police and archaeology experts seem to be at loggerheads over the actual number of Gandhara relics seized earlier in the month.

Amid press reports that some artefacts have been stolen from the Awami Colony police station, both parties associated with the case are coming up with a different total for the statues.

While National Museum’s director Mohammad Shah Bokhari claims to have photographed and documented around 330 pieces earlier, the newly posted SHO at the police station, Hatim Marwat, says there are only 308 artefacts. [Like the absolute difference in the numbers is so frigging important??? This is even worse that the idiots arguing with each other in the U.S. Congress while the country continues its slide into third world status.]

The police had seized a container full of Buddhist relics on July 6 and then found some more in a Korangi warehouse on July 8. As the police were investigating the case, archaeology experts, including officials from Sindh culture department and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s archaeology department, were called in to record the details of the seized relics.

Many of the Buddhist relics thought to be of the third century turned out to be fake, making it even more difficult for archaeologists to determine their exact origin. [Okay, just how, exactly, can an archaeologist determine the origin of a FAKE?]  According to an antiquities officer, experts are yet to determine how many of the Buddhist relics are fake.  [WHAT? Are the fakes that good?  Or are the archaeologists that bad?]

“We need resources such as forensic analysis to determine the authenticity of each of the relic,” he said. “Right now we don’t have that facility.”  [More excuses.  What about using your EYES and TRAINING, heh?]

Some of the ancient relics had even been damaged due to the careless handling by police officers and labourers during shifting. The artefacts were dumped in a compound of the Awami Colony police station. Reports in the press suggested that piece by piece, the relics were being stolen due to the casual security at the police station. There were reports that three statues have gone missing, but there has been no official confirmation.

Awami Colony SHO Marwat told The Express Tribune that all of the seized relics were documented by the Sindh culture department officials and have documentation numbers on them.

“It is untrue that artefacts have been stolen [from the police station],” he said. “To our knowledge, there are only 308 pieces. We don’t have information about the rest.” [Yeah, right, dude.  And I have a bridge in Mahanttan I'd like to sell you...]

However, National Museum’s Bokhari told The Express Tribune that photographic evidence and records were available of 330 artefacts. If some have gone missing, it is the responsibility of the police, he added.

“The police have their custody, and we can’t keep check all day and night to see where the idols are and how they are being handled,” Bokhari said. “If they have been stolen, the police are to be blamed [for it].”

The artefacts will remain at the police station until the next court hearing on July 24. It is expected that the court will handed them over to the culture department.

When asked why the Gandhara relics were dumped in the courtyard, the SHO replied: “The statues are not watermelons that need to be kept in a refrigerator. Look at their size and weight. Where else would we keep them?”

Police sources said that the former SHO was transferred as some statues had gone missing from the police station. But Marwat denied this, saying his predecessor’s posting was a routine matter.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 22^nd, 2012.

"Ancient" Statue a Fraud

Fascinating!  So, the original charges of  "looting antiquities" are going to have to be amended to "attempted sale of FAKE antiquities."  LOL! 

From BBC News
3 April 2012 Last updated at 11:23 ET

'Ancient' Greek statue found in sheep pen is fake

Fake antiquity!

An "ancient" Greek statue found in a sheep pen north-west of Athens last week has now been deemed a fake.

At first, archaeologists at Greece's Culture ministry thought the figure of a woman dated from the 6th century BC.  Now, a closer examination has found moulding marks and traces of bubbles which prove it is a copy, sources at the ministry told news agencies.

Two men were arrested last week for allegedly trying to sell the statue for half a million euros (£417,000).   They are currently awaiting trial on charges of looting antiquities.

The figure is 1.2m (4ft) tall and depicts an archaic maiden, but experts are now certain it is a cast rather than an original sculpture.

They say it is an identical copy of a statue found in the Acropolis in Athens, and not an item of "priceless historical value" as originally thought.

Is Berlin Museum's Hatshepsut a Forgery?

(Image from Wikipedia Commons, identified as: bust of the pharoah Hatshepsut, taken at the Altes Museum, Berlin (part of the Ägyptisches Museum Berlin collection), taken by Keith Schengili-Roberts in 2006. I think this is the bust referred to in the article, but I wouldn't swear to it on a stack of bibles). Egyptian bust in Berlin museum may be fake July 19 2009 at 04:35PM Berlin - An Egyptian bust acquired at vast expense by a Berlin museum more than two decades ago may be a forgery. The bust in brown granite of female Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt for 22 years, is one of the draws at the German capital's Egyptian Museum and is only outshone by the limestone bust of exquisite Queen Nefertiti. Scientists at the Technical University of Berlin have discovered the Hatshepsut stone is rich in the minerals magnesite and siderite. No other bust from the Nile region is made of such rock, suggesting that the 16.5cm figure might be a modern fake. Asked for comment, Dieter Wildung, the recently retired director of the museum, said he had not been aware of the scientific study. The museum reportedly paid 1 million marks (R5.9 million) to buy the statue in 1986 from Robin Symes of Britain but Wildung declined to confirm its price."The purchase was long before my time," said Wildung, who became head of the museum in 1989 and retired two weeks ago. He criticised the media for "sneakily" going public with the report without clearance from the museum. Hatshepsut died in 1458 BC.

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Why did they have the piece tested? Did someone on staff suspect it was a forgery? Surprisingly, this time I actually found answers to my questions! Check this post out from Google Groups, by Tom Flynn on July 21, 2009: University denies test on Egyptian bust in Berlin Posted : Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:23:40 GMT Author : DPA Earth Times: Berlin - A German university denied Monday that it had analysed the bust of Pharaoh Hatshepsut, an Egyptian sculpture at a Berlin museum, or suggested the statue was a forgery. The bust of the female ruler is one of the icons of the Egyptian Museum in the city. It was acquired for 1 million marks (510,000 euros or about 715,000 dollars) two decades ago. A news report Sunday said a test of the stone suggested it might be a fake. But the Technical University of Berlin said it had never studied the bust's authenticity. Scientists had in December 2007 merely studied some tiny flakes of stone found on the statue. "The analysis found these flakes were made of rock rich in the minerals magnesite and siderite. Where these flakes came from has not been established," a statement by the university said. The German news magazine Der Spiegel had asserted such rock was not sculpted in any other known Pharaonic statue and that this implied the figure was fake. Hatshepsut ruled Egypt for 22 years till her death in 1458 BC. Her 16.5-centimetre-high brown granite bust is a key draw at the museum, along with a limestone bust of exquisite Queen Nefertiti. The Berlin museum has been criticized by Cairo officials for refusing to give Nefertiti's bust, regarded as a national treasure, back to Egypt. Link: http://tinyurl.com/n6xxaz

Antiquities Fraud Redux

A further take on a subject I posted about a few days ago. (Image from article: Forms to cast fake 2nd to 3rd century coins found in Trier, Germany. Chris 73/Wikipedia licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.5) EBay Changing the Face of Antiquities Trade By Kat Piper, Epoch Times Staff May 30, 2009 With the launch of online auction website eBay over a decade ago, archaeologists feared that antiquities trafficking would suddenly become much more accessible and lead to increased looting of ancient sites. But in fact, eBay has inadvertently created a vast market for fake artifacts, according to Dr Charles “Chip” Stanish, UCLA professor of Anthropology and expert in Andean archaeology. Dr Stanish has followed items listed as antiquities on eBay for nine years. He has also worked with the US customs service and visited workshops in Peru and Bolivia that specialize in making reproductions of pottery. Rather than investing energy in looting, “[Greek], Chinese, Bulgarian, Egyptian, Peruvian and Mexican workshops are now producing fakes at a frenetic pace,” writes Dr Stanish in the May/June issue of the journal Archaeology. “People who used to make a few dollars selling a looted artifact to a middleman in their village can now produce their own ‘almost-as-good-as-old’ objects and go directly to a person in a nearby town who has an eBay account,” he said. “They will receive the same amount or even more than they could have received for actual antiquities.” The proliferation of fakes has depressed the value of real artifacts, acting as a further disincentive to looting, said Dr Stanish. When he first started tracking eBay sales of South American antiquities, Dr Stanish estimated that the ratio of real to fake artifacts was 50:50. Five years later, 95 per cent were fakes. But the quality of the fakes has improved so much that Dr Stanish admits that he can’t always tell. He estimates that about 30 per cent of objects currently listed as “antiquities” are obvious fakes and only 5 per cent are genuine. Modern forging techniques are so good nowadays it is “almost impossible” or prohibitively expensive to authenticate objects using current methods, said Dr Stanish. As long as there are people willing to buy the “genuine” Peruvian Moche pottery, currently being sold for as little as $US160 on eBay (a real pot is worth about $US16,000), the trade will continue to flourish, as will the quality of reproductions. Looting, which is illegal, is the bane of archaeologists because looters rarely remove artifacts using appropriate scientific methods, or record where they came from, so make the objects harder to date and break their valuable link to the wider context of the site and cultural heritage.

Antiquities Fraud Abounds on the Internet

Story from The Los Angeles Times 'Ancient' artifacts, cyber scams Archaeologists and legitimate antiquities dealers warn that most EBay sellers are duping bargain-hunters looking to buy a piece of the past on the cheap. By Mike Boehm May 29, 2009 When Charles "Chip" Stanish, director of UCLA's Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, craves a good laugh over human folly, he knows it's just a mouse-click away, on EBay's crowded bazaar of ancient artifacts. A reddish clay pot in the shape of a man's head pops onto the computer screen in his office beneath the campus' Fowler Museum. Stanish notes its wide-eyed, gape-mouthed face and tries to stifle a laugh, but there's no helping himself. The tousle-haired anthropologist, who researches ancient commerce and communal life in the mountainous Lake Titicaca region of Peru, is slain again. "Look at this stupid face with the stupid grin," he says. "The teeth are ridiculous. The eyes are goofy. . . . It's something you'd find at the Lima airport," selling for a few bucks. On EBay, the seller is advertising it as a mint-condition artifact of Peru's Nazca culture -- a depiction of a warrior, possibly 2,000 years old. It's yours for $499.99, satisfaction backed with a "lifetime guarantee," as long as that lifetime expires within the 14-day window for returns. Customers have given this seller a satisfaction rating of nearly 100%. "Oh, I have such a good time," Stanish says. "Sometimes I put it on my TV, and my friends and I have some glasses of wine and crack up." Rest of article. Just for the heck of it, I did a quick search at ebay for antiquities and located this "bronze figure amulet/Ra genuine." It is said to be 5.7 cm in height. No representation is made as to the age of the piece. Now darlings, I'm sure no expert, but after taking a look at this two times, I decided that if it is anything, it's an amulet of Sekhmet, the Goddess in the form of a lioness (an aspect of Goddess Hathor), and is not Ra, although there is a connection because Ra was Sekhmet's father (Sekhmet was one of the "Eyes of Ra"), if memory serves. About the first image above, it could be said it is at least questionable as to what god or goddess the amulet is meant to represent, given what I consider its poor condition; the second image shows a side profile of the amulet and indicates to me the distinctive profile of Sekhmet, along with the remains of her Sun crown enclosed by the Uraeus. For a comparison, check out the images at the Wikipedia entry on Sekhmet. I suppose just because I think it's something other than Ra doesn't mean it's a fraud. I also point out the poor condition of this piece of bronze. I've only seen photos on the internet and in catalogs and books and also in person at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Musem of Art (fresh in my mind as we returned from New York on May 19th), so I'm no expert on what the condition of an "ancient" Egyptian bronze should be, since the only ones I've seen have been in generally good condition, considering that most of them came from inside tombs. Perhaps this bronze amulet was owned by a camel herder and had a really rough life, being caught in sand storms and such. Or perhaps it came out of a really bad mold and was then suitably "antiqued" to look like something that might be 2,000 or more years old. Only the Shadow knows... For reasons that I believe will be clear to my readers, I'm not providing a link :)

More on the Fake Christian Amulet

From the Timesonline.uk My suspicion is that the real problem is that the amulet is unique. Because it doesn’t fit their understanding of the period, they are determined to believe that it cannot be genuine. Here's the original post. Christian amulet that ruined my life is not a hoax Andrew Norfolk September 22, 2008 The archaeologist who discovered a silver cross exposed by scientists last week as a Roman “hoax” says he is convinced that the find is genuine. Quentin Hutchinson has remained silent since he found the early Christian Chi-Rho amulet while excavating a 4th-century grave near the Somerset town of Shepton Mallet in 1990. It was initially regarded as the earliest evidence of a Christian burial in Britain and was hailed as one of the archaeological finds of the century. But after tests by experts at Liverpool University, which concluded that the silver was of 19th-century origin, it has now emerged that doubts about its authenticity were voiced almost from the moment it was found. Mr Hutchinson, 46, has never before spoken publicly about his discovery of the tiny cross on Sunday, July 15, 1990. But now he says that it has ruined his life and he wishes that he had never found it. His integrity was called into question soon after the find, and the suspicion that he had planted the cross himself ended his professional career. He denies playing any part in a hoax and maintains that it would have been impossible for anyone to plant the amulet without disturbing the soil. In the absence of such evidence, he is convinced that the cross could only have come to be underneath the right femur of the skeleton of a middle-aged man, possibly a priest, if it had been buried with its owner more than 1,600 years ago. He believes that the experts must reconsider because the find may yet prove to be of great importance. In the summer of 1990, Mr Hutchinson, then 28, had been an archaeologist for four years and was a member of Birmingham University’s Field Archeology Unit. It had been asked to conduct a dig at the site of a proposed £6 million warehouse development. What they uncovered, beside the Fosse Way was evidence of a large Romano-British settlement, with roadside buildings, workshops, agricultural enclosures and industrial workings. There were also three 4th-century cemeteries, one of which – where the graves lay east to west – was thought to be Christian. Mr Hutchinson was asked to complete the excavation of one grave, which had been left by a colleague with the upper half of the skeleton uncovered but the lower half still hidden beneath compacted soil. “I began lowering the grave fill. You can always tell, from subtle differences in colour and texture, if there has been a disturbance. In this case, the soil was very clean, very compact. It did not look to have been disturbed in any way. The site director [Peter Leach] had already looked at it with me. There was absolutely nothing to suggest that it had been tampered with.” When Mr Hutchinson reached the upper right leg bone, he noticed a fleck of black and a bead, embedded in the soil next to the bone. He gently removed a fist-sized clod of earth surrounding the object and lifted it out. He found himself holding a small silver cross, 45mm long, and 39mm wide. The bead had been the tip of one of its four points. Heart racing, he hurried to Mr Leach, who wiped the remaining soil from the small disc at its centre. This revealed the Chi-Rho marking, an early Christian symbol formed by superimposing the first two letters, X and P, of the Greek word Christos, “the anointed one”. He said: “I thought, ‘Oh my God, what have I found?’ It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment. Peter Leach said that nothing like it had ever been found in Britain. It was incredibly exciting.” Within days, word spread of the amazing find and Shepton Mallet seemed destined for fame as one of Britain’s earliest centres of Christian belief. Mr Hutchinson left Britain on a short holiday two months later. When he came back, his world fell apart. “My director called me into his office and told me that he had been asked by the British Museum to question my professional conduct because they were convinced that the amulet was a modern hoax.” Mr Hutchinson was asked if he had planted it. He angrily denied the accusation. The find remained, officially, genuine until last week’s tests but passion for archaeology – and trust in Britain’s archaeological establishment – left its finder many years ago. Shattered by the suspicions surrounding him, he resigned from the Birmingham team in 1991 and left the profession in 2000. He has subsequently worked as a teacher, in a post office and in a supermarket. He now wants a gathering of experts to thrash out the controversy. “I’m not an expert on Roman silver, so in that sense I can’t say whether the amulet is genuine, but what I do know is that it came out of an untouched grave. My suspicion is that the real problem is that the amulet is unique. Because it doesn’t fit their understanding of the period, they are determined to believe that it cannot be genuine. The truth is I wish I’d never found it, because it ruined my life.”

I Have a Problem with This Story...

From The Times Online.UK September 19, 2008 ‘Ancient’ Christian amulet exposed as modern hoax Simon de Bruxelles A silver cross regarded as one of the most important early Christian artefacts found in Britain is a modern fake, scientists confirmed yesterday. The Chi-Rho Amulet, which bears an early Christian symbol incorporating the first two letters of Christ’s name in Greek, was found in a 4th-century Roman grave near the Somerset town of Shepton Mallet in 1990. Tests carried out by Dr Matthew Ponting, from the University of Liver-pool, revealed that the silver used to make the cross is of 19th-century origin. The test, using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES), examined impurities in the metal. It also established that silver used to make the cross and the pierced disc that bears the Chi-Rho inscription comes from two sources. Suspicion is focusing on protesters who opposed construction of a vast drinks warehouse on the site beside the Fosse Way, an Ancient Roman road. The discovery of the amulet 18 years ago caused a sensation in Shepton Mallet. An entertainment complex and a street were named after it and a replica was presented to George Carey (now Lord Carey of Clifton), who wore it at his enthronement as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1991. Marsh, deputy leader of the town council, said: “It’s like the magic has been removed from Shepton Mallet. I’m not sure there’ll be any need to change any names in the town but it’s a shame the myth of the amulet has now burst. “It was part of the town’s claim to fame, though the revelation that it’s a fake won’t come as a surprise to many people. When the amulet was first discovered it was felt it may have been placed there as a joke. But we’re still proud of Shepton and its Roman heritage.” Stephen Minnitt, acting head of the Somerset museum service, said: “Following detailed analysis of the Shepton Mallet amulet Somerset County Council can confirm that the artefact is almost certainly not the rare Christian artefact it was first believed to be. Experts are now 99 per cent certain the amulet is not genuine.” He appealed for the faker to come forward to solve the mystery. “It was deliberately planted. It didn’t get there by accident. There was a lot of local concern over the fact that the site was being destroyed and there was quite a lot of local opposition.” He said the hoaxer would not be punished. “There is no threat to them. They haven’t committed a crime or anything. It would be good to bring the story to a conclusion. We would be delighted if someone came forward and told us why and what happened.” The amulet is believed to have been copied from a genuine but little-known Roman brooch presented to the British Museum in 1954, implying a degree of specialist knowledge. The amulet was found in the grave of a man in one of 16 burial plots in the Roman cemetery. Peter Leach, who led the Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit that carried out the excavation, said that he did not suspect any of his 40-strong team of planting the amulet. “There is absolutely no question it was anybody to do with the archaeological team,” he said. “I was there when it was found. There was never any doubt about its provenance as it was in a genuine Roman burial.“A local group might have had an agenda to place an object there in the hope that an archaeological find would stop the development.”

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This cross was found at a bonafide archaeological dig in 1990. How the heck did it get there? Was it just left behind on the surface one night by a prankster and the next day the diggers showed up and said oh lo and behold, a new artifact? Hmmm..... So perhaps it was buried underground in - as it turns out - a 4th century Roman grave. Coincidence? And why did the people working on excavating this particular grave NOT NOTICE that the dirt had been disturbed? I mean, darlings, don't you think the dirt would have been disturbed if you were intent on burying an object in a grave that wasn't there originally??? How else could it have been done - was it shot into the ground with a gun? (That's a joke). So, you're brushing away on this grave for weeks and weeks (because that's what the "diggers" often use - brushes) and you don't notice any disturbance in the dirt at your dig that suddenly shows up overnight? Hmmm....

Forensic Science for Antiques

Revealing art secrets—and exposing forgeries
By Dina Modianot-Fox
Smithsonian.com, May 15, 2008
(Photo: Fake Tang Dynasty Horse - I have to ask - how could anyone be fooled by this piece??? Does this look 2300 years old to you???)

The clients had paid many thousands of dollars for the Chinese silk samples with the bird motifs and now wanted reassurance that they were indeed from the Warring States period (about 480–221 B.C.).

But the news was not good. After testing them, the Rafter Radiocarbon Laboratory in New Zealand declared the samples less than 50 years old. "We had some really unhappy submitters," says Dr. Christine Prior, team leader at Rafter, which is part of the National Isotope Centre of the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences.

We've all marveled at the forensic wizardry that traps villains on such TV hits as CBS's "CSI" ("Crime Scene Investigation"), but dazzling science is also exposing secrets in another, more refined field—art. Armed with the latest technology, art historians are becoming cultural detectives, piecing together the puzzle of an item's past and, in the process, helping differentiate genuine from bogus.

The fake Chinese silk samples fell afoul of radiocarbon dating, a technique discovered in 1949 but greatly improved since then. It can tell the age of material (such as wood, silk, cotton or bone) that was alive in the last 50,000 or so years by measuring the amount of carbon 14 it has lost. Dr. Prior says that the period 1650 to 1950 is hard to date precisely because so much fossil fuel (oil and coal) was burned that it "disturbed the natural production cycle of carbon 14." However, nuclear tests conducted in the 1950s and 1960s released huge quantities of carbon 14 in the air, creating the "bomb effect"—a chronological benchmark.

"Although art and antiquities forgers can be very exact in replicating materials, style and technique," she explains, "if they use a raw material that has been growing since 1950, it will have 'bomb' carbon 14 in it."

Radiocarbon dating and other high-tech tools have become such adjuncts to art collecting that many museums and art galleries have extensive in-house laboratories. Wondering about the age of an oak panel painting from northern Europe? Dendrochronology can reveal when the tree was felled by counting the number of rings in the wood. Trying to date an Italian bronze? X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopes detail the metal's composition, thereby providing the alloy mix that is characteristic of a certain period. And if the item is too large to bring to a lab, portable XRF machines provide in situ inspection. Could this be a newly discovered Monet? Pigment analysis will tell whether the paints used were available during Monet's lifetime.

Infrared reflectography, ultraviolet light, plain old X-rays, CT scans and microscopes are all part of the exploratory process.

Nicholas Penny, the new director of the National Gallery in London and former senior curator of sculpture at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., says: "A very great deal of the investigation is undertaken to find out how an item was made, not necessarily to clear it for authentication."

But authentication is an overwhelming issue, especially when it comes to Chinese items. Soaring auction prices—Christie's sold a Yuan Dynasty (mid-14th century) blue and white porcelain jar for $27.7 million in 2005—combined with China's tradition of reproduction have proved a dangerous mix, leading to a flood of forgeries. Almost 75 percent of the so-called antiques marketed through Hong Kong are said to be copies. That's where another state-of-the-art technique comes in: thermoluminescence (TL) dating. Small samples taken from inconspicuous parts of the object are heated to a sufficiently high temperature to produce a measurable blue light (thermoluminescence). Pottery, porcelain and the casting cores of bronzes can be dated by the amount of radiation the piece absorbs. The more intense the glow, the older the piece.

Rest of story.

Crystal Skulls Debunked

(Image: the rock crystal skull sent anonymously to the Smithsonian in 1992)
From Archaeology magazine:Legend of the Crystal Skulls
Volume 61 Number 3, May/June 2008
by Jane MacLaren Walsh

Along with superstars like Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, and Shia LaBeouf, the newest Indiana Jones movie promises to showcase one of the most enigmatic classes of artifacts known to archaeologists, crystal skulls that first surfaced in the 19th century and that specialists attributed to various "ancient Mesoamerican" cultures. In this article, Smithsonian anthropologist Jane MacLaren Walsh shares her own adventures analyzing the artifacts that inspired Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (in theaters May 22), and details her efforts tracking down a mysterious "obtainer of rare antiquities" who may have held the key to the origin of these exotic objects.

Sixteen years ago, a heavy package addressed to the nonexistent "Smithsonian Inst. Curator, MezoAmerican Museum, Washington, D.C." was delivered to the National Museum of American History. It was accompanied by an unsigned letter stating: "This Aztec crystal skull, purported to be part of the Porfirio Díaz collection, was purchased in Mexico in 1960.... I am offering it to the Smithsonian without consideration." Richard Ahlborn, then curator of the Hispanic-American collections, knew of my expertise in Mexican archaeology and called me to ask whether I knew anything about the object--an eerie, milky-white crystal skull considerably larger than a human head.

told him I knew of a life-sized crystal skull on display at the British Museum, and had seen a smaller version the Smithsonian had once exhibited as a fake. After we spent a few minutes puzzling over the meaning and significance of this unusual artifact, he asked whether the department of anthropology would be interested in accepting it for the national collections. I said yes without hesitation. If the skull turned out to be a genuine pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artifact, such a rare object should definitely become part of the national collections.

I couldn't have imagined then that this unsolicited donation would open an entirely new avenue of research for me. In the years since the package arrived, my investigation of this single skull has led me to research the history of pre-Columbian collections in museums around the world, and I have collaborated with a broad range of international scientists and museum curators who have also crossed paths with crystal skulls. Studying these artifacts has prompted new research into pre-Columbian lapidary (or stone-working) technology, particularly the carving of hard stones like jadeite and quartz.

Crystal skulls have undergone serious scholarly scrutiny, but they also excite the popular imagination because they seem so mysterious. Theories about their origins abound. Some believe the skulls are the handiwork of the Maya or Aztecs, but they have also become the subject of constant discussion on occult websites. Some insist that they originated on a sunken continent or in a far-away galaxy. And now they are poised to become archaeological superstars thanks to our celluloid colleague Indiana Jones, who will tackle the subject of our research in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Details about the movie's plot are being closely guarded by the film's producers as I write this, but the Internet rumor mill has it that the crystal skull of the title is the creation of aliens.

These exotic carvings are usually attributed to pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, but not a single crystal skull in a museum collection comes from a documented excavation, and they have little stylistic or technical relationship with any genuine pre-Columbian depictions of skulls, which are an important motif in Mesoamerican iconography.

They are intensely loved today by a large coterie of aging hippies and New Age devotees, but what is the truth behind the crystal skulls? Where did they come from, and why were they made?

Museums began collecting rock-crystal skulls during the second half of the nineteenth century, when no scientific archaeological excavations had been undertaken in Mexico and knowledge of real pre-Columbian artifacts was scarce. It was also a period that saw a burgeoning industry in faking pre-Columbian objects. When Smithsonian archaeologist W. H. Holmes visited Mexico City in 1884, he saw "relic shops" on every corner filled with fake ceramic vessels, whistles, and figurines. Two years later, Holmes warned about the abundance of fake pre-Columbian artifacts in museum collections in an article for the journal Science titled "The Trade in Spurious Mexican Antiquities."

The first Mexican crystal skulls made their debut just before the 1863 French intervention, when Louis Napoleon's army invaded the country and installed Maximilian von Hapsburg of Austria as emperor. Usually they are small, not taller than 1.5 inches. The earliest specimen seems to be a British Museum crystal skull about an inch high that may have been acquired in 1856 by British banker Henry Christy.

Two other examples were exhibited in 1867 at the Exposition Universelle in Paris as part of the collection of Eugène Boban, perhaps the most mysterious figure in the history of the crystal skulls. A Frenchman who served as the official "archaeologist" of the Mexican court of Maximilian, Boban was also a member of the French Scientific Commission in Mexico, whose work the Paris Exposition was designed to highlight. (The exhibition was not entirely successful in showcasing Louis Napoleon's second empire, since its opening coincided with the execution of Maximilian by the forces of Mexican president Benito Juárez.)

Rest of article.

Jiroft Artifacts to Be Returned to Iran

From CAIS (Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies):

(Image: Oscar Muscarella at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art says this game board is a forgery - see link at end of article)

Iran Wins Battle Against London Barakat Gallery in Jiroft's Smuggled Artefacts

December 22, 2007

LONDON, (CAIS) -- A London appeal court made a ruling on Friday that the city’s Barakat Gallery must return 18 artefacts smuggled from the ancient site of Jiroft in southern Iran.

In March 2007, London’s High Court had rejected Iran’s ownership of the 5,000-year-old artefacts which had been put up for auction at the Barakat Gallery, which has offices in Mayfair, central London and Beverly Hills.

Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization (CHTHO) appealed against the court decision in May.

“The return of the artefacts is vital for Iranian culture and civilization,” deputy director of CHTHO’s Legal Department Sussan Cheraghchi told the Persian service of CHN.

The collection of historic items consists of two jars, five cups, six vases, a bowl, a vessel and three weights.

Lawyers and other experts had reckoned that Iran and the Barakat Gallery had equal chances of winning the legal battle. The court had set a security of 100,000 euros for the appeal, and Iran had accepted to pay the sum to induce the appeal court to begin legal proceedings.

If Iran had lost the case, the security would have been paid to the Barakat Gallery as compensation for the delay in the auction of the artefacts.

In March 2005, Britain returned 118 ancient artefacts which had been looted from Jiroft. The items had been confiscated by HM Customs and Excise at Heathrow Airport in the summer of 2004.

Jiroft came under the spotlight in 2002, when reports surfaced that local people had begun extensive illegal excavations and were plundering priceless relics.

Five excavation seasons have been carried out at the Jiroft site, under the supervision of Professor Yusef Majidzadeh, leading to the discovery of a ziggurat made of more than four million mud bricks dating back to circa 2200 BCE.

After numerous rare discoveries in the region, Majidzadeh declared Jiroft to be a cradle of art and civilisation, and named it as the “archaeologists’ lost paradise”.

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Not mentioned is whether any of these artifacts are forgeries...

Iraqi Cuneiform Tablet Offered on eBay

From BBC online: eBay Iraq relic auction stopped December 18, 2007 Swiss authorities have blocked the sale of an ancient clay tablet, thought to have been smuggled from Iraq, on the internet auction site eBay. A German archaeologist spotted the 4,000-tear-old tablet on eBay's Swiss site. It is carved with cuneiform - one of the oldest known types of writing. Swiss authorities were alerted and eBay stopped the auction minutes before the end of the bidding deadline. Police confiscated the tablet at a storage facility in Zurich. Swiss officials said that criminal proceedings have been started against the seller, who has not been named but faces a fine of up to 500,000 Swiss francs (300,000 euros) or a prison term. Switzerland has a ban on trading Iraqi cultural artefacts exported from the country after 1990. 'Invaluable' Yves Fischer, a senior official in Switzerland's culture department, said the tablet had been offered at a starting price of 250 euros ($360) on eBay but it was not clear if any bids were made. Cuneiform tablets are on a list of endangered Iraqi cultural objects drawn up by the International Council of Museums. "This Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet has an invaluable historical value," but the seller "could have acquired it for less than 300 euros," Mr Fischer said. "If it's a tainted object, then the goal will be to return it to Iraq," he added. The tablet has not yet been deciphered. Cuneiform tablets were used throughout the Middle East and ancient Persia for recording the deeds of leaders as well as correspondence and book-keeping. The Iraqi National Library and the country's National Museum were both heavily looted in the days following the US-led invasion in 2003.

Follow-Up: Antiquities Fraud Back in the News

Here's a follow-up to a recent post from BBC News:

British forger fools US museum

December 13, 2007

A sculpture which has drawn crowds to a Chicago museum has been unmasked as a fake created by a British forger.

The Art Institute of Chicago reportedly paid $125,000 (£61,225) for the faun in 1997, believing it to be by the 19th Century French artist Paul Gauguin.

But it was created by Shaun Greenhalgh, from Bolton, Greater Manchester, who was jailed last month for fraud. His mother, Olive, received a suspended sentence for fraud. His father, George, 84, will be sentenced later.

The institute's director of public affairs, Eric Hogan, told the Chicago Tribune: "No one could think of any other instance in which anything like this happened here."

Last month, British police said the Greenhalgh family were behind "the most sustained and diverse" art forgery case ever. The family had conspired to defraud art institutions between June 1989 and March 2006. All three admitted fraud and money laundering at Bolton Crown Court in November.

Following the court case, police said they had evidence of a forged Gauguin ceramic, although they did not know its whereabouts. This prompted investigators from the Art Newspaper to step in.

It revealed that the half-man, half-goat ceramic figure in Chicago was a fake. Mr Hogan said "everyone who bought and sold [the work] did so in good faith", and the institute did not "have experience in this area".

Shaun Greenhalgh passed off scores of faked artefacts and artworks as genuine. Last month he was jailed for four years and eight months. His 83-year-old mother was given a 12-month suspended sentence for her part in the con. And his father will be sentenced after medical reports.

The trio made about £850,000 ($1.74m) from the sale of art and antiques. Bolton Council paid thousands of pounds for the so-called Amarna Princess believing it was 3,300 years old - but three years later experts found it was counterfeit. The statue was said to represent one of the daughters of Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti, the mother of Tutankhamun.

The scam came to light after George Greenhalgh presented three faked Assyrian reliefs - ancient stone wall art - to the British Museum for examination in 2005. Errors in the cuneiform script - in effect, spelling mistakes - prompted museum officials to doubt their authenticity. They alerted the Metropolitan Police's Art and Antiques Unit which began an investigation.

Antiquities: The Hottest Investment

From Time.com By Maria Baugh Wednesday, December 12, 2007 The sculpture is just three and a half inches tall and looks like a female body-builder with a lion's head. But there's no question that the 1948 purchase of the "Guennol Lioness" by Alistair Bradley Martin was a brilliant investment. The 5,000 year-old piece of Mesopotamian religious art — presumably of Inanna, goddess of sex and war — was sold at auction by Sotheby's New York last week for a record-shattering $57.2 million. Found at an archaeological dig near Baghdad, it is an extremely rare representation of the goddess — known elsewhere as Ishtar — in animal form. She is one of the earliest of the gods whose names have survived through history. Before her sale, the most expensive piece of sculpture of any period sold at auction was a piece by Pablo Picasso which went for $29 million. The previous antiquities record was set by a Roman bronze which sold for $28 million. Such prices may scare away ordinary investors from even considering antiquities, which are defined as relics of ancient times that include coins, sculpture, tools, pottery and jewelry. among other objects. Can such objects even be a possibility for folks of much more modest means? The good news is that it is possible for the individual investor to buy antiquities — and for a surprisingly moderate sum. According to John Ambrose, founder and director of Fragments of Time, a Boston-area antiquities dealer, they're within even a modest investor's reach. "For under $10,000 a year you could acquire two to four quality objects with good provenance that you could expect would not only hold their value but increase in value over time," he says. In the past, the increase was anywhere from 8 to 9% annually, but in recent years that figure has gone up. Hicham Aboutaam, who is co-owner with his brother, Ali, of Phoenix Ancient Art in New York City and Geneva, attributes the increasing value to a couple of factors. For one, there is now a finite number of legitimate objects circulating in the U.S. due to more stringent art import legislation, enacted within the last few years. In addition, there is an increased interest in art and antiquities as investment. "People have started to appreciate the fact that this is a field where you can still get high quality objects for a fraction of what you would spend on a contemporary art object, where speculation is the biggest element determining value," he says. Ambrose agrees: "The art market has gained status as a respected asset class." So what should the novice collector know before jumping in and buying the first Greek vase they find? Ambrose advises that they study up on an era or object that they are truly interested in. He also suggests building rapport with a dealer. "A respected dealer will work with you...and they love to share their knowledge," he says. Aboutaam says that the new collector needs to understand the importance of the provenance, or history, of the object. "Check the authenticity of the piece. Who is selling it and who has seen it in terms of scholars or experts?" he says. "And it's crucial to get a condition report from a third party." Are there particular eras that the investor should look at now? "In terms of investments I do think there are still pockets of antiquities that are generally undervalued," says Ambrose, sounding as much like a stock broker as an art dealer. He lists Roman lamps, Roman bronze brooches, Greek pottery (especially south Italian Greek pottery) and Egyptian amulets, which, he says, are overlooked. "There can be fascinating intact examples," says Ambrose. And, no matter how ornate a stock certificate might be, an Egyptian amulet is always going to look better in your living room display case.

Antiquities Fraud Back in the News

Unbelievable - the Art Institute of Chicago has been taken in by a fraud! I wrote about these folks back in April. Chicago museum says The Faun is a fake Wed Dec 12, 9:08 AM ET CHICAGO - A half-man, half-goat ceramic figure supposedly sculpted by 19th century French artist Paul Gauguin has delighted aficionados visiting the Art Institute of Chicago for a decade, but now the museum says "The Faun" is a fake. "No one could think of any other instance in which anything like this happened here," the director of public affairs at the institute, Erin Hogan, told the Chicago Tribune for a story posted Tuesday on its Web site. "So we don't have experience in this area." The museum said the sculpture is among scores of forgeries produced by the Greenhalgh family, which has been under investigation by authorities in Great Britain for nearly two years. A private dealer bought the piece at Sotheby's in 1994 and the Art Institute purchased it from the dealer three years later. A British judge sentenced Shaun Greenhalgh, 47, to four years and eight months in prison last month. His mother, Olive, 83, received a suspended term of 12 months, and his father, George, 84, was to be sentenced later. Shaun Greenhalgh created the fakes, while his parents handled most of the sales. All three pleaded guilty earlier this year to defrauding art institutions and other buyers over 17 years. They had also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to laundering the proceeds from the sale of a fake Egyptian statuette. The creations by the Greenhalghs also included Assyrian stone reliefs, and several copies of paintings by American artist Henry Moran. Hogan declined to reveal the purchase price of the discredited piece and said the Art Institute was talking with Sotheby's and the private dealer about possible compensation. "Everyone who bought and sold (the work) did so in good faith," he said.

Elderly Scam Artists

This is an "Everything" post. I've been coming across lots of articles recently that discuss fraud in the antiquities market - New York, for instance, is a big market for both illegally excavated (or otherwise illegally acquired) antiquities and outright fraudulent "antiquities." We've been posting links to recent articles and even a website devoted to the subject at Goddesschess' Random Roundup. This one, though, takes the cake! Elderly pair face art scam charges Martin Wainwright Friday April 27, 2007 The Guardian A couple in their 80s and their sons were charged yesterday with conning a council into buying a fake ancient Egyptian statue that was supposed to put the Louvre's similiar piece of art in the shade. Embarrassed town hall staff in Bolton were allegedly hoodwinked by George Greenhalgh, 83, and his wife Olive, 82, into paying nearly £440,000 for the 50cm (20in) image of the Amarna princess, said to represent Tutankhamun's sister. The statue was later found by experts to be many centuries short of its supposed age of 3,367 years. The couple appeared before Greater Manchester magistrates yesterday with their sons, George Junior, 52, and Shaun, 46, who are jointly accused of using their home in Bolton as a base for selling bogus antiques. The parents and Shaun are accused of conspiring to defraud the arts and antique world by selling fake and forged work as genuine between 1989 and 2006. They are also charged with knowingly handling fake art and antiques and the money made from selling such items. Mr Greenhalgh and his sons are charged with involvement in handling the cash transfer from Bolton council for the statue, whose purchase the council said at the time was a "bargain". It was really worth £1m, the council said in 2003. The statue represented a daughter of the Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti. The council paid for it by securing a grant of £360,000 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, as well as £75,000 from the National Art Collections Fund, and £2,500 from the Friends of Bolton Museum and Art Gallery. The allegedly bargain price had been attributed to the wish of the Bolton seller that the Amarna statue should stay in his native town. The relic occupied pride of place at Bolton Museum until a Metropolitan police inquiry in March last year. The inquiry followed suspicions raised by the appearance of a supposedly ancient Syrian sculpture sent to the British Museum some months earlier. No pleas were entered. A further hearing will take place at the end of July. The four defendants were given unconditional bail.