There’s a mounting furor in Italy over antiquities in a number of American museums. In recent months Italian authorities have charged Marion True, formerly a curator with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, with trafficking in illegal ancient art (see news story, p. 12). According to Italian police, the Getty collection includes 42 pieces that were smuggled out of Italy. (True has resigned from the Getty, though for reasons not having to do with the trial.)
Italian police have now expanded their investigation to include antiquities in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. They claim that six pieces in the Met collection were smuggled out of Italy. One of these pieces is the famous Euphronios krater, a large sixth-century B.C. Etruscan urn signed by a painter named Euphronios. Italian officials say that three of the seven men who illegally excavated the vase from an Etruscan tomb at Cerveteri, north of Rome, are cooperating with the investigation.
The Italian Minister of Culture, Rocco Buttiglione, has said publicly he wants to make an example of Marion True. An example of what?
The ruckus in Rome raises two questions. First, setting aside the legal issues, is it better to have the Euphronios vase on display in Italy than in New York? Should it be housed at a Cerveteri site museum, because that’s where it was found, or in Florence, the main city of Tuscany, or in Rome, the Italian capital? If Italy were to become a state in a confederated Europe, should it then go somewhere else?
Some years ago I asked one of Greece’s most prominent archaeologists to make the argument in Archaeology Odyssey that the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum should be returned to Greece. The archaeologist told me that the marbles should not be repatriated but that he/she could not take that position publicly (because it was too controversial). The archaeologist had several reasons for thinking the marbles should stay in Britain—Greece wasn’t ready to care for them; they had become part of British culture as well—but the real reason was that the marbles, and other Greek artifacts spread around the world, helped make Hellenic archaeology possible by inspiring young archaeologists and attracting funding. Ancient Hellenic art is modern Greece’s most effective ambassador.
The second question is easier to answer. What will these investigations do to address the main problem, the looting of archaeological sites? Nothing at all. The police are only interested in high-end items because they want to get the biggest bang for their buck. Demanding the return of the Euphronios vase and prosecuting a curator of a major American museum attract worldwide attention, and the police and prosecutors can look like they are making a heroic stand against forces of evil.
Why is Marion True being prosecuted but not the thieves who robbed the graves? Why can Italian police devote so many resources to six pieces in the Met, but fail to protect Cerveteri?
The fact is, the Italian police don’t want to put resources into stopping looting, they don’t want to punish the looters they catch, and they don’t want the messy problem of storing looted items.
If Marion True is an example of anything—rather than simply being guilty of a crime—it’s that the Italian police want a scapegoat to deflect attention from a problem they refuse to solve. I don’t think people who care about protecting ancient sites should be gloating right now. They should be furious.
There’s a mounting furor in Italy over antiquities in a number of American museums. In recent months Italian authorities have charged Marion True, formerly a curator with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, with trafficking in illegal ancient art (see news story, p. 12). According to Italian police, the Getty collection includes 42 pieces that were smuggled out of Italy. (True has resigned from the Getty, though for reasons not having to do with the trial.) Italian police have now expanded their investigation to include antiquities in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. They claim that six pieces […]
