(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
In 2005, a former Afghanistan soldier appeared at the Cultural History Museum in Oslo with two objects from Afghanistan. Both objects, one a kind of metal flakong, the other a compacted pile of old coins clearly showed that they were in sand and clay. For the sake of international regulations against the execution of such objects, the museum refused to examine the objects, but photographed them before returning them to the soldier.
- Soldiers get their luggage searched when they return home to Norway. You look for weapons and drugs and such. But not always old objects, says archaeologist Josephine Munch-Rasmussen who has written a master's thesis on our handling of stolen cultural treasures.
In 2003, British journalist Robert Fisk described the looting of the Iraqi National Museum. He trampled on the dust of Assyrian, Sumerian, Babylonian, Persian and Greek antiquities – "5000-year-old marble objects that had survived all the sieges of Baghdad, all the invasions of Iraq throughout history, only to be destroyed now when the Americans came to liberate the city." . In the weeks before the disaster, the staff at the museum had done what good museum staff should do: They had hidden away parts of the collection – in basements, on farms outside the city, in warehouses. Still, there was plenty to pick up when the doors opened to one of the world's most precious antiquities collections. The world had not seen the like since the Taliban blew up the famous Buddha statues in Bamiyan a few years earlier, writes Robert Fisk before giving the floor to shocked museum guards who wonder where the soldiers who are to protect the collection are.
The looting of the Baghdad Museum shocked professionals as well as lay people around the world. The looting also focused on what the US FBI believes is the third largest illegal trade in the world. The illegal sale of cultural monuments should only be surpassed by illegal arms and drug trafficking. Norway is also affected.
- Some countries function as storage countries. Norway is favorable as a transit country, with a land connection to Russia and good boat connections to England, Norway is suitable. You can send objects back and forth and thus launder cultural treasures of unknown origin, according to archaeologist Munch-Rasmussen.
Sleeping law
Munch-Rasmussen believes that there are more reasons why Norway can be suitable as a transit country than its geographical location, among other things, Norway has had poorer control over the import and export of cultural objects than some neighboring countries.
- The Netherlands, Finland, Poland and Sweden have all had a stricter control, they have also had a number of revelations that have led to debate, she says.
On 1 January 2007, a new regulation was also introduced in Norway on the export and import of cultural monuments. The law came after a years-long debate about the rich and brings together Martin Schøyen's collection of ancient cases and manuscripts from, among others, Egypt, Afghanistan and Iraq. The debate, which also attracted international attention, ended with Schøyen returning several medieval manuscripts to Pakistan and Afghanistan. But Munch-Rasmussen fears the new law is dormant.
- In the course of a year, they have not made a single seizure. It may be that no such objects have arrived. But the Customs themselves say that they do not have the prerequisite to control. If, for example, an Assyrian or Sumerian object arrives at four in the morning, there is a good chance that the customs officers will simply give a damn. They can choose to seize, with a lot of paperwork involved, or not to. I think they usually do the latter, says Munch-Rasmussen.
Tax in the luggage
In working on his own thesis, Munch-Rasmussen interviewed both museum employees and customs officers, the latter admitting to having poor knowledge of what could be stolen cultural treasures. Among other things, they called for lists of current objects. Customs officers also admitted that they more or less have to trust that the cases they clear customs, the owner states that they are.
Not everyone who smuggles antiquities is a professional art thief. Descriptions from the desert in Iraq and Afghanistan have appeared in the luggage of soldiers, journalists and others who have stayed in such areas. Objects from the National Museum in Baghdad appeared in the luggage of one of Robert Fisk's colleagues. There is reason to believe that Norwegian soldiers, journalists and aid workers have also smuggled such objects. Munch-Rasmussen has looked at the regulations of the Armed Forces and interviewed soldiers from the Telemark Battalion who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Two soldiers have said that they were given historic buildings that they should avoid firing at or from. They were unsure of what kind of rules would otherwise apply to old objects. Both replied they have been offered "old cases" but not bought.
Colonial thinking
The Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs says that they work continuously to prevent the export of Norwegian objects to other countries, among other things, it has become more difficult to export objects to the USA where there is a large market for Norwegian peasant antiques. The Ministry informs Ny Tid that it is now working on a revision of the new law on the import and export of cultural objects. If everything goes according to plan, this will take effect during the autumn. The ministry is also working on a guide, which will help the customs authorities to recognize stolen goods.
- It is important to reduce the barriers between different agencies that work with these issues. Ecocrime, the customs authorities, ABM development (State Center for Archives, Libraries and Museums, editor's note) and the ministry therefore work together to build up expertise on issues related to the illegal import and export of cultural objects, according to the Ministry of Church and Culture.
However, Munch-Rasmussen believes that there is a lot of old thinking regarding ancient matters and "our" responsibility as guardians of an international cultural heritage.
"I am amazed that international law actually allows a country to destroy its cultural heritage, while it is illegal for an incomprehensible person to help save it," said Martin Schøyen when he was accused of having manuscripts in the collection stolen from the National Museum in Kabul. in 2004.
At the time, Schøyen received support from, among others, national librarian Bendik Rugaas and Professor Jens Braarvig, who believed that Norway was better able to preserve the Afghan manuscripts than the Afghans themselves were.
- It is used as an argument that one saves treasures for civilization, that these are objects that are the whole world's cultural heritage. This applies, for example, to objects from Mesopotamia. It is emphasized that this is not the same as Iraq today, that the ownership of these objects is not in today's Middle East but in the West, which somehow takes better care of them, says Josephine Munch-Rasmussen.
- The problem with that type of argument is that it does not work that way. These objects are not in a vacuum. It is not the case that you save an item by buying it. When you buy a looted item, you contribute to the demand being greater, and that more is looted. Those who profit from this are those who sit at the end of the chain, the big auction houses in London or the collector himself. Who buys professional and public recognition, she explains.
The example Martin Schøyen is telling, when the Norwegian collector started buying up Afghan medieval manuscripts, he bought whole books. But after the host, the books were divided, and Schøyen bought one fragment at a time. Thus, the seller could earn more. The acquisition was not a rescue, but a motive for destroying the original manuscripts, Munch-Rasmussen believes.
- The material has been spread, the knowledge we as archaeologists can get out of it has been reduced. We also do not have the context of the manuscripts, they are kept hidden because the material has been looted, says Munch-Rasmussen.
She adds that the country that gets its taxes wants is to get back the ownership, it does not necessarily mean that the taxes can thus not be lent to museums and researchers elsewhere in the world. Furthermore, the context and history of an object is necessary for one to understand it. If you take an object out of context, it loses value for the researcher. The history of the object after it appeared is also interesting to researchers. If you lose it, you also cast doubt on the authenticity of the object.
- We see it a lot in connection with so-called biblical archeology. These are almost always fakes. We have an example now with this alleged coffin of Jesus' brother. The coffin is from the right time, but the inscription may have come about in modern times. It is difficult to determine because we do not know the history of the coffin. We know that something so sensational can be sold for a completely insane price. Therefore, many forgeries appear, and then you can also get research based on fake objects. Then all the research will be false.
