Antiquities Loot and Humanity

Here is my solution to the current antagonism in the art/antiquities world:

Unless a country can show an outright theft of an item after it has been un-earthed and was clearly in someone's posession, stop demanding its "return." You can't have it both ways. You can't demand its return because of the loss of your nation's history that is intrinsically represented by this or that artifact that is no longer within your nation's current boundaries AND simultaneously ignore it's intellectual property value to humanity and treat it like it was an improperly mined mineral resource. Let me simplify that: you can't simultaneously argue that its intrinsic value in revealing humanity's history, or even just in revealing your geographic location's humanity's history has no value to humanity, and, thereby, belongs back in, say, Turkey, Egypt, or even Italy.

We don't even have to split the baby here. We just have to split the bundle of property rights associated with this item into an intellectual property right "stick" and a possessory stick. Here's what that may look like:

1. Nation-you provide clear and convincing evidence that the antiquity was un-earthed in an area that is today situated within your nation's boundaries and that it was surreptitiously unearthed (or dug up outside the established protocols in place at the time that it was unearthed);

2. The last entity to have made any profit from a transaction involving the antiquity will share a percentage of that profit.

3. In perpetuity, any current and future possessor will share with you a percentage of any profits that it makes from the antiquity, and that percentage may reflect your willingness to participate in the maintenance of the antiquity (a cost that may be calculated by neutral third parties).

4. The antiquity's provenance will state that the item is "on permanent loan from [your nation] and was unearthed on [date] in [location of item's "reintroduction" to humanity] by [name of excavator and his/her "boss"." The description should also clearly state how the current possessor came into possession of the object.

This is clearly a contractual arrangement, which I think all parties would prefer (as opposed to litigation). Contractual negotiations provide all parties with much greater control over the process and the subject matter. It also provides for other terms, such as reacquisition by the country of origin.

Again, I would like to re-emphasize that the more value that you claim that an antiquity intrinsically possess', the more you are admitting its value to ALL of humanity.

Let me demonstrate this in an even more esoteric way: Egypt claims the Nefertiti bust should be returned to Egypt because it represents a massively poignant part of their--Egypt's, cultural history. Well, what is this thing that we call Egypt? How do we define ancient Egypt? Did Egypt exist in a vaccuum? Is it possible to define Egypt, and its history without using any comparative terminology? By simply using the word "Egypt", aren't we necessarily relying on what the word does AND DOES NOT conjure up, represent, describe? When we say "Egypt", aren't we also saying "not Greece, not Turkey, not Africa"?

The fact is that Egypt did not/does not exist except in a context, a real and a conceptual and a cultural context. What the bust of Nefertiti may say affirmatively about Egypt it also says dispositively about all things NOT Egypt, thereby revealing much more than just what Egypt's "position" on humanity was at the time the bust was created. Nefertiti's value is elementally based on the knowledge that this type of culture and artistry and expression DID NOT EXIST ELSEWHERE, whether in time or in location. In other words, its value is based on its context--its context within all of humanity, not just Egypt's.

And, I haven't even broached the issue of legal title: who commissioned the piece, who was the original owner, how was that title transferred through to today's claimants....It strikes me as compounding the problem today if antiquities are treated simply as a national resource, like fossil fuel, forests, or minerals. The first logical problem is that this conceptual approach leads us right back to the situation described above: if it is a resource, then what is its "resource" value derived from? Well, if its from its representative historical value, then the position really brings up the idea that more than just one group of people derive value from the item. All of humanity derives value from the item, and it owes its value to the history of all of humanity.

Is this conflict just another pitting of tribal mentality against humanitarian mentality? And, if so, how is that working out for these countries, for their women, for their progeny, for their environment? Better yet, how is it working out for antiquities that are currently located within their national boundaries?




Post script: The position that Nefertiti and her husband played in humanity's development of monotheism is profound and interesting. And, early monotheistic cult members were responsble for much destruction of early artifacts by, for example, ripping the noses off of any other belief system's statues of gods/goddesses. Thus, the violence, self-righteousness, and narcissism of early monotheists seemed to be foundational characteristics of the monotheistic cult.