The Antiquities Coalition welcomes statements from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) committing to new policies and practices on ancient art and artifacts, including a recognition from Director Max Hollein that “Whatever unlawfully entered our collection, should not be in our collection.”

The pledges mark a reversal from the Met’s earlier stance, which largely resisted calls to probe looted and stolen pieces within the institution’s walls. The Antiquities Coalition has been at the forefront of these requests, urging the museum to take “strong, concrete, and immediate action” in response to recent scandals, joining such varied voices as law enforcement, investigative journalists, activists, and even comedians like John Oliver.

The Met’s plan, announced on 09 May in The New York Times, includes hiring a provenance research team of four experts to audit its holdings, as well as forming a committee of 18 curators, conservators, and others to review all legal and ethical guidelines.

The museum would also work to “convene thought leaders, advocates and opinion makers” in the field.

These efforts align with specific recommendations outlined by the Antiquities Coalition, such as launching a task force, building capacity in provenance research, strengthening best practices, and using the institution’s platform both to raise awareness of the problem and to find solutions. Once implemented, these steps could set a new global standard, given the Met’s position as the largest and most visited art museum in the Western hemisphere.

To read the full article, follow the link here.

Context Matters: Collecting the Past

Context Matters is based on the twenty essays contributed to the Journal of Art Crime over its first ten years of publication. The contributions are supplemented by articles and review articles that were published alongside them. The chapters were written as museums in Europe and North America were facing a series of claims on recently acquired objects in their collections in the light of the photographic dossiers that had been seized from dealers in Switzerland and Greece. The volume contributes to the wider discussion about the appropriate due diligence process that should be conducted prior to the acquisition of archaeological material.To look at the table of contents, please see the link here.

The essays draw on research undertaken for more than 30 years. One of the major themes relates to the impact of looting on how archaeological material has been interpreted. Lost contexts cannot be replaced, and information can be corrupted as it enters the corpus of knowledge. This is particularly true when the market supplies demonstrably incorrect information to objects that are being offered for sale. Some of the processes by which material enters museum collections is indeed shocking: complete or semi-complete figure-decorated pottery is broken into small fragments. Equally disturbing is the way that archaeological material from Syria and northern Iraq appears to have been surfacing on the London market.

The book also discusses how some modern commentators like James Cuno confuse historic claims over cultural property, such as the Parthenon or the Rosetta stone, with contemporary claims over material that has been looted from archaeological sites in recent years. Alongside this are the intellectual issues relating to cultural property. Whereas we know, in the case of the Parthenon architectural marbles, from which building these sculptures were taken, so many objects that surface on the market will have lost their archaeological contexts and settings for good, and this information will never be reclaimed.

David Gill also reviews Tiffany Jenkins book:Keeping Their Marbles: How the Treasures of the Past Ended up in Museums … And Why They Should Stay There.To read the extract from that review, please follow the link here.

David Gill is Honorary Professor in the Centre for Heritage in the Kent Law School, University of Kent, and Academic Associate in the Centre for Archaeology and Heritage in the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures at the University of East Anglia (UEA). He is a former Rome Scholar at the British School at Rome, and was a Sir James Knott Fellow at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He was previously a member of the Department of Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, and Reader in Mediterranean Archaeology at Swansea University. He was awarded his chair in Archaeological Heritage through UEA, and was Director of the Heritage Futures Research Unit at the University of Suffolk. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and is a regional lead for the RSA Heritage Network. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA).

David has a regular column in the Journal of Art Crime. He is the holder of the 2012 Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) Outstanding Public Service Award in recognition of his research on cultural property.

To read Professor David Gill's blog and how to order his book 'Context Matters:Collecting the Past', please follow the link here or to order the book visit the link here.

How does an institution in the business of preserving the past prepare itself for the interests and sensibilities of the future? Where do museums fit in the national psyche?

In this episode of Worldview, host Adam Boulton is joined by director of the V&A Tristram Hunt, Professor Armand D'Angour (BCRPM member), and author Dr. Tiffany Jenkins to discuss what the future might hold for museums.

Tristram Hunt explains there is so much to be gained by understanding museum objects, the importance of open conversation, and the need to do more for art and design education. He also stresses the importance of provenance and that there are further conversations to be had with museums.

Armand D'Angour, now also a BCRPM member spoke passionately about the Parthenon Marbles and the opportunities for the British Museum to have a relevant display in Room 18, one that would appeal to today's museum visitors as they continue to be educated by the storytelling.

Tiffany Jenjkins spoke about 'repatriation' but was keen to stress the need for museums to kindle curiosity of past cultures, that the British Museum's ability to do this with many different cultures made it extra special as our curiosities deserve to be ignited and enlightened.

It was uplifting to hear Tiffany Jenkins say that one of her favourite museums was the Acropolis Museum.

The re-imagining of museum spaces when some artefacts are returned to their country of origin, is a great opportunity to open up the dialogue between communities, turning the storytelling holistic, engaging, and educational. Time to achieve that for the Parthenon Marbles.