United States Cultural Property Legislation: Observation of a Combatant

International Journal of Cultural Property

Volumn 7, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 52-68

  Coggins, Clemency Chase ^a  

^a USA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 5644246221     PISSN: 09407391     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0940739198770067     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. Clemency Coggins, Illicit Traffic of Pre-Columbian Antiquities, 29 Art Journal 94 (1969).
2. University Museum, University of Pennsylvania (1971)
3. Harvard University Museums (1971)
4. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago (1972).
5. A more detailed list was published the next year in the Mexican journal Estudios de Cul-tura Maya 8, 15–24 (1970). Cautiously entitled “Displaced Maya Sculpture,” this listing included more bibliographic information and named the museums involved. The title annoyed the eminent Mayanist Alberto Ruz L., the editor of Estudios de Cul-tura Maya, and reasonably so, because the list consisted primarily of looted materials; the word displaced in the title had been dictated by the inclusion of some monuments removed legally by archaeologists to museums in Mexico and Guatemala, as well as other international museums.
6. UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, signed Paris on November 14, 1970.The convention is reproduced in Conventions and Recommendations of UNESCO Concerning Protection of the Cultural Heritage 57 (Paris 1983).
7. Paul Bator, The International Trade in Art vii, 94–108 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1982).
8. Importation of Pre-Columbian Monumental or Architectural Sculpture or Murals Statute 1972. Public Law No. 92–587, 86 Statute 1297.
9. Bator, Statute at 41–43.
10. John Merryman, A Licit International Trade in Cultural Objects, 4 International Journal Cultural Property 13, 13–60 (1995).
11. Except for the very small percentage of objects in old collections, the acquisition of antiquities in the international market is virtually impossible without breaking some law, and that was even true of most objects in old collections. According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1976), a black market is “an illicit market in which goods are sold in violation of price controls, rationing or other restrictions.”
12. C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England 1964).
13. Bator, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, describes these conflicting interests in terms of underlying “values,” but a significant problem is that these values (preservation, integrity, accessibility) are cherished by all of the interests.
14. Known in Greece as the Parthenon Marbles, these sculptures were taken from the Parthenon, Athens, and sent to England by Lord Elgin in 1803.See Jeanette Greenfield, The Return of Cultural Treasures 56 (2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England 1995).
15. Gordon R. Willey and Philip Phillips, Method and Theory in American Archaeology 2 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1958).
16. George Kubler, History-or Anthropology-of Art, Studies in Ancient American and European Art: The Collected Essays of George Kubler 409 (T F. Reese ed., Yale University Press, New Haven 1985).
17. Willey and Phillips, Studies in Ancient American and European Art: The Collected Essays of George Kubler at 2.
18. Id. at 3.
19. 1 International Journal of Cultural Property 307, 307–20 (1992). I would argue that “cultural heritage” should replace “cultural patrimony,” but that “cultural property” will continue to be a useful term as long as anyone can own parts of the cultural heritage.
20. The history of the U.S. involvement in the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Property is thoroughly described and discussed by Paul Bator, Studies in Ancient American and European Art: The Collected Essays of George Kubler at appendix.
21. Public Law. No. 92–587, Studies in Ancient American and European Art: The Collected Essays of George Kubler.
22. Fundación Nacional de Arqueología (Karen Bruhns, personal communication, 1997).
23. Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 (16 U.S.C. 47oaa-mm)
24. Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (25 U.S.C. 3001–3013)
25. Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987 (43 U.S.C. 2101 et seq).
26. Report of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee to the President Regarding the Request of the Government of Guatemala for Emergency Import Restrictions under the Cultural Property Implementation Act 10 (Cultural Property Advisory Committee, United States Information Service, February 1990).
27. Richard D. Hansen, Plundering the Petén, 50:5 Archaeology 48, 48–49 (1997). This article describes current levels of destruction in Peten, Guatemala, and mentions the Guatemalan conference.
28. Walter Alva, Discovering the New World's Richest Unlooted Tomb, 174:4 National Geographic 510–49 (1988)
29. Christopher Donnan, Unraveling the Mystery of the Warrior Priest, 174:4 National Geographic 550–55 (1988).
30. John Merryman, The Retention of Cultural Property, 21:3 U.C Davis Law Review 477, 477–513 (1988).
31. 33. J. Greenfield, The Return of Cultural Treasures 159 (2nd. ed., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England 1995).
32. The archaeological objects seized in the McClain case were an uninspiring lot of about two hundred miscellaneous pieces, of which 75 percent was probably authentic (my opinion). A jade Olmec mask, the only very valuable object, was for some reason given to another dealer who said it was his. Some might laugh at the relatively low quality of the materials that set such an important legal precedent, but the significant point is the destruction involved in digging for 150 artifacts, not their market value. Most were returned to Mexico in 1986, after more than a decade in a warehouse. Richard E. W. Adams and Thomas R. Hester, “Summary of Notes of an Archaeological Collection: U.S.A. vs. Simpson et al. September 1984” (in possession of authors).
33. P. J. O'Keefe and L.V. Prott, Law and the Cultural Heritage, vol. 3: Movement, §1473 (Butterworths, London 1989).
34. U.S. and U.K. Share 75% of Turnover, 8:77 Art Newspaper 27 (January, 1998).