Limelight
To catch a thief!
The pageant of history would never be as penetrating or as compelling, were it not for the physical remains of the arts, artefacts and architecture left behind by our forefathers. Generations have bowed in reverence to the stately magnificence of the Great Pyramids and Mighty Sphinx, an everlasting eloquence more expressive, more impressive than volumes of history's written accounts of the glories of our past. Infused with the spirit of those who created them, they are the full-dress view of who we were, linking us forever to our ancestors. Their temples, statues, vases, jewels, pots and pans, break the drowsy spell of history's narrative as they lead us down the path of times forgotten. How often has this inheritance been pillaged and plundered, smuggled and squandered!
The shock following the recent ransacking of Iraq's National Museum in Baghdad, is in itself, shocking. Why are we horrified at the demeanour of a mindless and frantic mob? History is replete with shameful accounts of headless crowds, brutal and savage, exercising their lawless liberties, totally lacking in recognition of the dignified mortals who travelled before them. Far worse is the cold-blooded deliberate thefts of a nation's cultural heritage purely for personal gain.
Almost every country with an ancient history has been thus abused, with Egypt the biggest prey. In the Middle East, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Pakistan and Turkey have been violated as well as Asia's India, Japan, China, Nepal, Ceylon, Cambodia and Afghanistan. Africa, America and Europe were not spared. Countries are primarily victimised by colonial invaders, tomb raiders, antique dealers and wealthy collectors. Even scientifically-minded learned archaeologists under the guise of digs and excavations have been responsible for the looting of enormous treasures out of their homeland and into galleries, museums and libraries across the seas. Worst still were the rulers and heads of state whose duty was to protect, honour and preserve their nation's legacy, but instead distributed freely countless gifts to friends, visitors and dignitaries, treating such national treasures as their own personal inheritance to dispose of as they pleased. In 1855 Egyptian ruler AbbasI offered his visitor Archduke Maximilian of Austria the entire contents of the Royal Archives, which Mohamed Ali had designated to house Egyptian artefacts. The Duke had declined an original gift of a horse with gold studded saddle and asked instead for one item of the museum. He got it all!
While Baghdad was burning, its treasures squandered and destroyed, 50 icons of the 17th -- 18th century were stolen in Ghent, Belgium; Matisse illustrations were missing in Athens, a Picasso ceramic plate was smuggled in Madrid; and paintings by Duffy, deBuffet, Marquet and Metzinger were stolen in London. Paintings by Van Gogh, Vermeer, Renoir, Manet, Monet, amongst 60 other valuable art works are missing, an embarrassing vacuum in the display of a nation's proud past; and the thefts continue, and the thieves prosper!
As we contemplate the defiling of Iraq's National Museum in our present dejected mood, we are reminded that the theft of ancient artefacts has been ongoing for centuries. Since the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt in 1798, the French became obsessed with everything Egyptian. They called it "Egyptomania", and it spread like wildfire throughout Europe resulting in a fascination that has never diminished. The British occupation followed the French. Now the Rosetta stone sits in the British Museum, while the famous 5th Dynasty Scribe, unequalled in its artistic perfection, adorns the Louvre and is even known as the Louvre Scribe! How!?
While it gives every Egyptian a deep sense of pride viewing crowds visiting Egyptian displays around the world's finest museums, the Louvre, Metropolitan, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Leipzig, Boston, Chicago, etc, it is nonetheless laced with a little sadness that these creations of their forefathers will never find their way back home. If you wish to see the perfection of Nefertiti's bust go to Berlin; the Zodiac of Denderra go to the Louvre; the grace of an Ancient Egyptian obelisk go to Rome. Despite an edict by Mohamed Ali Pasha (1769-1849), banishing the export of antiquities, successive rulers of Egypt continued to give away extravagant gifts, while the smuggling and looting continues.
The Supreme Council of Antiquities headed by Dr Zahi Hawass considers it a top priority to end the looting of Egypt's cultural heritage. "The Nile has been raped for the past 200 years. We are going to stop that rape." stated Hawass. A case in point is the "Ebers Papyrus" considered the oldest and most perfectly preserved medical text known to man. One hundred and ten pages scroll, it dates back to 1552 BC, and is written in the form of chapters for every specialty in medicine. Found by a farmer between the legs of a mummified body, it was purchased by a German antiquities wheeler/dealer, George Ebers, who travelled to Cairo to collect the going price of $8,000 from the German Embassy. The Germans walked away with one of the most priceless manuscripts in history, which now resides in the library of the University of Leipzig.
Relationships between Greece and Britain have been strained for two centuries over the affair of the Elgin Marbles. The Seventh Earl of Elgin, then British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, purchased for a few coins, a 2,400-year old marble panel of carved figures and reliefs taken from the ruins of the Temple of Apollo. "The Parthenon Marbles" as the Greeks prefer, have been claimed regularly, but Britain believes such relics are safer in a British museum!
An international law was established in 1954 in The Hague, at the "Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property", conceived in the wake of the massive destruction of the cultural heritage in WWII. It is the first international agreement that prohibits the export of cultural property from occupied territory. In her book The Rape of Europe, Lynn Nicholas writes: "Thousands upon thousands of precious paintings, sculptures and mediaeval manuscripts.....were torn from churches, homes, libraries and museums and shipped to Germany."
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation and a host of experts from the British Museum and elsewhere have been dispatched to Baghdad to seek, recover and restore the missing artefacts -- priceless treasures of ancient Assyria, Babylon and Sumeria. It is hoped that they shall find their way back to their comfortable resting place in a reconstructed, refurbished Baghdad Museum.
Filmmakers have been intrigued by the excitement and danger, the risky and dramatic struggles to steal and/or recover such valuable objects. One of the most memorable was The Train, based on a book by Rose Balland Le Front de L'Art directed by John Frankenheimer in 1965. It depicts the French Resistance's efforts to derail a Nazi train filled with French art works from reaching Germany. Other films of museum heists, such as Topkapi, The Thomas Crown Affair, How to Steal a Million and very recently Entrapment, have been successful at the box office.
What is more trustworthy and revealing, than the science and knowledge in the very artefacts of our ancestors who created, built, handled and used them! Perhaps the darkest watch of the night is the one before dawn and relief is often nearest us when we least expect it. Sadder than sad thoughts prevail at the unconscionable pilferers and pillagers who carry away such objects from their place of birth. What would these ancients have to tell us were they to return today and view their creations ungloriously smothered by the best and the worst in our societies? Would they too lament their fate away from home and join us in echoing the words of Lord Byron as he grieves over his beloved Greece and all its sufferings at the hands of his native Britain!
Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British hands, which it had best behoved
To guard those relics ne'er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatch'd thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred!
From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"
C a p t i o n :
Queen Nefertiti in Berlin
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 24 - 30 April 2003 (Issue No. 635)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/635/pe2.htm