(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[cultural monuments] Last week, Ny Tid wrote about the import of other countries' cultural monuments to Norway. A former Afghanistan soldier had taken home a compressed pile of old coins and a metal vial. The soldier was not allowed to hand over the objects to the Cultural History Museum in Oslo when he approached them in 2005.
- We photographed the objects and advised the soldier to have them returned to Afghanistan. The museum cannot accept things that belong to other countries' cultural heritage, says collection manager at the Cultural History Museum in Oslo, Håkon Ingvaldsen.
According to Ny Tid, the coins may be as much as 2000 years old and possibly originate from the Indo-Greek empire, while the vial is somewhat younger. The museum did not examine the objects further and can therefore not say anything about the historical context to which they belong. No name of the soldier was noted either. Ny Tid has not succeeded in finding information on where the taxes may have gone – neither through Økokrim, the Ministry of Culture nor the Norwegian customs authorities. The incident is probably just one of several:
– From time to time we receive inquiries from soldiers, aid workers and tourists who bring with them smaller cultural monuments, such as jewelery and coins, from abroad, says Ingvaldsen.
Do not report
The high age makes it likely that the coins and flakong are of great cultural historical significance. Each country has its own laws on cultural heritage protection. In Norway, everything older than the Reformation, in the middle of the 1500th century, belongs to the Norwegian state. The state has delegated the management of such objects to the five archaeological museums in Norway.
"In Afghanistan, the legislation may be slightly different than in Norway, but so old things are probably subject to export restrictions and are also likely to be owned by someone, be it a private or public collection," said Christopher Prescott, professor of archeology at the University in Oslo (UiO).
– In other words, taking such an object out of the country is illegal and unethical, he points out.
Kenneth Didriksen at Økokrim says that the police are now actively working to identify illegal exports and imports of cultural objects to Norway. He says that the museums are not obliged to inform Økokrim about cases where there may be illegal importation.
-We can not order the museums to accept this type of thing, nor can they order them to report to the police. But we are interested in hearing about such cases to map the scope. The knowledge lies with professionals, he says.
In 2007, Norwegian law prohibited the import of cultural monuments from other countries into Norway. However, the law does not have retroactive effect, nor was it illegal under Norwegian law to import cultural monuments from other countries in 2005, when the soldier came from Afghanistan, Ny Tid is informed by the Customs.
- Most concerned with their own
Norway has long had strict rules for the export of Norwegian cultural monuments. It was not until 2007 that a similar ban on imports was introduced, with the ratification of the UNESCO Convention of 1970. Norway has been slow to transpose the convention into legislation, compared to many other countries in the world. Prescott at UiO points out that Norway has been very concerned with preserving and protecting its own cultural monuments, while there has been remarkably little interest in what belongs to other countries.
– It is also worth mentioning here that Norwegian cultural objects, with some exceptions, have little value on the international black market, while things from countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq are priced very highly, and thus also very vulnerable in a global context, says Prescott.
He mentions the Schøyen case from 2002, which Prescott himself was very critical of. Here it was revealed that the collector Martin Schøyen put on ancient cases and manuscripts from, among others, Egypt, Afghanistan and Iraq. The debate afterwards led Schøyen to return several of the manuscripts.
– This is the most obvious example of Norwegian cultural authorities having had a naive and ill-considered relationship with other countries' cultural treasures, he says.
The Storting is now working on a new regulation that will make the export of Norwegian cultural monuments more difficult. When it comes to imports, things are still more unclear. The customs service informs that they have not seized cultural objects from abroad after the new legislation came into force in 2007.
– So far there have been no seizures, but several products have been stopped and investigated. However, it has turned out not to be illegal products, says Anita Graff, deputy director of the Directorate of Customs and Excise.
Nevertheless, professionals point out that illegal exports and imports are a growing problem, also in the Norwegian context, as it appeared in the previous issue of Ny Tid.
- A loyalty issue
Ingvaldsen claims that the museum had no preconditions for knowing whether the coins and the vial were illegally made from Afghanistan when the soldier came to the door in 2005. He says that the museum chose not to proceed with the case for the sake of the soldier.
– We experienced that the soldier had a clear desire to get rid of the objects, Ingvaldsen says. He emphasizes that the soldier had been in a crisis-stricken area, and that it was probably difficult to assess all aspects of bringing the objects out of Afghanistan. Although in this case it may seem as if the person in question only wanted to return the objects, Prescott believes that it was right of the museum not to accept.
– It immediately sounds right. The museums should in principle be very careful about receiving and examining old cultural objects. Many people just want to get authenticity verified so that they can resell the items on the illegal market.
Professor Svein Indrelid at the Cultural History Collections at Bergen Museum reacts differently:
– I have not received such inquiries myself, but it is not so difficult to discover if things are really old, and thus can be protected. In that case, it is important to contribute to a clarification, so that the items can be returned. It is about loyalty to foreign colleagues – and respect for other countries' cultural heritage, is his comment.
In the meantime, 2000-year-old cultural heritage is probably still on wild roads. ■
