In Colombia, students glean clues on their heritage during a visit to the Cucuta
archaeological museum.
Forever gone from Angkor.
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Driven
by an insatiable demand for artefacts, looters are all too often beating archaeologists
to ancient sites and snatching our only chance to understand bygone cultures
Because archaeologists
don’t know where it lies, a major Mayan city in the jungle of Guatemala has simply
been nicknamed “Site Q.” The site obviously exists, since sections of wall carvings
from its temple pyramids have been recognized in private collections and museums
around the world. But such pieces are not enough to reconstruct a culture. In those
that left no written traces, like the trading society that flourished in Mali some
1,000 years ago, the loss is all the more acute, since archaeology offers our only
chance to understand the past (see
p. 26).
According to estimates, nearly half of Mali’s ancient sites have been looted for
their beautiful terracotta statues: history is literally disappearing from beneath
the people’s feet.
Since ancient times, tombs have been robbed and cultural heritage destroyed by treasure
hunters. In recent decades, however, demand for collectable and saleable artefacts
has become insatiable, and looting of the world’s archaeological record has reached
epidemic proportions. Developments in technology and communication, combined with
sophisticated smuggling networks, have made modern looting an awesomely efficient,
global industry. Whole sites are destroyed to recover select items that fetch vast
sums in the West, where they may be valued as objects of art, financial investments
or interior design.
But antiquities are worth more than this: when properly excavated they offer a window
on history. Archaeological sites are a non-renewable resource: they can only be dug
once, and the opportunity must be wisely used. When an object is looted, irreplaceable
details of its provenance (where it was found) and context (what it was found with)
are lost. Such details are crucial if we are to glean information about times past.
Looters in South America have described throwing dozens of ancient mummies over cliffs
when cutting them open reveals no silver or gold. In doing so, they discard important
sources of historical information, like quipu, the knotted strings which the Inca
used to record official accounts. Many other materials deemed worthless by looters,
such as bones, broken pottery, perishable organic remains and the soil itself, offer
invaluable clues on entire cultures. Constantly improving scientific techniques are
further enhancing our understanding. Analysis of ancient teeth, for instance, can
tell us where individuals spent their childhood, while other human remains can reveal
the ingredients of their diets. Shattered skulls can be reconstructed so that we
can look into the faces of our ancestors, while DNA studies can establish their relationships
with each other and ourselves. Analysis of residues on apparently unremarkable pots
proves what and how people were cooking, brewing or manufacturing. With access to
undisturbed contexts, archaeologists also gain insights into broader questions relevant
to our past, such as when humans first settled down to cultivate the land. Shadows
of shard marks have been uncovered in carefully excavated soils from very early contexts,
complemented by studies of ancient plant remains. Such details might also be relevant
to our future: in England, studies of marine remains in the River Ouse, for instance,
have tracked pollution levels over the past 1,900 years.
When we only have unprovenanced material to study, our understanding of ancient peoples
is limited and distorted: Peru’s pre-Inca Moche culture is a case in point. For decades,
scholars struggled to comprehend this advanced civilization on the basis of “art”
objects which appeared on the market, orphaned from their past. Then, in 1987, looters
broke into a tomb in a massive mud-brick pyramid at Sipán. Archaeologists
were alerted and, for the first time, were able to examine an undisturbed royal Moche
burial site. This single excavation transformed our entire understanding of the culture.
Furthermore, contextual evidence proved that previously known, but unprovenanced,
objects had been misunderstood and could now be re-interpreted, even identified as
fakes.
When
looters swipe an entire site
Similar
problems face scholars studying the distinctive white marble figurines found in bronze
age graves in the Cyclades Islands, Greece. Some 1,600 figurines are known, but only
about 150 have a secure archaeological provenance. Since it is impossible to date
marble by scientific means, experts are unable to rule out the possibility that a
considerable number may be fakes, produced in the last 30 years to feed booming demand.
This further obscures attempts to make sense of these extraordinary objects.
It is impossible to tell how much information is being lost. One study suggests that
Italian tombaroli must loot nine tombs to recover one Apulian vase (more than 4,000
have surfaced, unprovenanced, since 1980). At Wanborough (England), looters came
at night with metal detectors and trucks and removed much of the site of a Roman
temple—soil and all—to excavate at their leisure. In some cases, whole cultures are
only known to looters. Guatemala’s “Site Q” is one example. Similarly, outstanding
formative pots from an unknown culture in the mountainous Marañon River region
of Peru are today offered for sale in Europe. They are beautiful, but we have no
idea of their true historic significance, or of the information lost during their
retrieval. This, rather than ownership issues, is the archaeologists’ main concern.
Attracting
tourist dollars with buried riches
Ownership
issues, however, are of prime importance to governments, most of whom impose some
form of sovereign claim over archaeological material, making illegal excavation,
or removal abroad, a crime. Many archaeologically rich countries are economically
poor. Expending valuable resources to police cultural heritage is impossible, but
they often recognize archaeology, and the understanding of the past it can provide,
as a source of national identity and pride, as well as a much-needed economic resource.
Lebanon recently inventoried vast numbers of antiquities and sites looted during
years of civil war, noting that its rich archaeological heritage is comparable to
other Arab nations’ oil resources in terms of potential tourist income.
In rare cases where recently looted material is repatriated, authorities are increasingly
aware of the value of returning it to regional museums, preferably created with local
people, for whom looting is often a way of life and essential source of family income.
At Sipán, for instance, a new museum has been built quite near the site, which
has now become a tourist attraction (see p. 30). Cafés and souvenir shops
have sprung up. More money is generated in tourist dollars, for whole communities,
than the individual looters could have dreamt of. Museums like this are more than
sources of pride and revenue: they are crucial educational tools for both locals
and tourists. At the opening of the European Union-assisted museum at Cambodia’s
Angkor Borei, local people reacted with awe, fascination and sometimes devotion.
Younger people said they had never seen such sculptures (antiquities in war-torn
Cambodia have been thoroughly ransacked in recent years and local museums are uncommon),
nor realized their town’s importance.
Therein lies our most powerful weapon against modern looting: increased awareness
that people’s cultural heritage is worth more, in every sense, than the usually paltry
sums it fetches when sold to local middlemen, or huge amounts it raises in auction
rooms in the West. The monetary value of the illicit trade in art and antiquities—including
other categories of badly looted material like religious art (frescoes, mosaics and
icons from orthodox churches and sacred statues from oriental temples and shrines),
ethnographic and tribal objects, and fine art—is estimated at billions of dollars.
But when an object is looted, almost everyone is poorer for it. |
