Acquiring antiquities without full provenance is considered ethically unacceptable as dictated by the International Council of Museum’s “Code of Ethics for Museums.” ICOM urges museums to do their “due diligence” and “establish the full history since discovery or production” before purchase (ICOM Ethics Committee, 3). This ethical guideline is in place because overwhelmingly antiquities without provenance were stolen from archaeological sites, if not illegally removed from their country of origin. By purchasing these antiquities, museums fuel these illegal activities, which are a determent to the culture and people the object came from. Not to forget, all peoples’ knowledge of past civilizations also suffers. Still, many museums and museum professionals acquire and display these antiquities without adequate provenance. Many rely on the murky pasts of these objects to justify their actions. Ultimately, the acquisitions’ philosophies of some museums demonstrate how diffusing responsibility and relying on plausible deniability can be used to help justify the purchase of antiquities without adequate provenance, doing an injustice to the public good and the institution itself.
As a general rule, museums do not purchase antiquities that are known to be stolen, but many do purchase antiquities without full provenance; these museum officials assume an object is legal until proven otherwise. This practice places the burden of proof on those who were looted from. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ response to accusations of possessing illegal antiquities from Turkey demonstrates this: “The Museum does not acknowledge Turkish ownership. There has never been any evidence that the statue was stolen and allegations to that effect were entirely unsupported” (Renfrew, 33). This quote is an example of how some museums like The Boston Museum of Fine Arts do not defend themselves against allegations by demonstrating the veracity of their objects with provenance. Instead, they place responsibility on the government of the respective country, which then has to find evidence that has been deliberately destroyed and buried. Moreover, this case suggests that some museums rely on external pressures, like lawsuits, to force repatriation of illegal antiquities and ensure the legality of their collections, rather than internal policies. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ conflict with the Turkish government demonstrates how museums can place the burden onto the petitioner like a foreign state to prove an antiquity was acquired legally. This is a policy of diffusing responsibility, extending even after acquisition to how museums such as this one deal with returning objects to their rightful owners.
Museums who acquire illegal antiquities can also displace responsibility unto art dealers, collectors, middlemen, and the looters themselves. After all, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts acquired the Turkish statue in a legal sale. The technically legal nature of the transaction can be used to justify it ethically. Any illegal or unethical behavior before the museum bought it is the responsibility of the collector. The collection can then place responsibility on the art dealer who sold it. The art dealer often employs “client confidentiality” to seal away any unethical history and protect themselves and whoever they purchased the antiquity from (Renfrew, 37). As a result, museums with loose acquisition policies can be well insulated from illegal activity, allowing them to justify themselves ethically through intentional ignorance.
Furthermore, some museum professionals can intentionally shield themselves from the truth, yet give the pretence of due diligence by inquiring at the appropriate government agency about the antiquity. This is another case of museums employing intentional ignorance and placing responsibility on other people or institutions to find out whether an antiquity is legal. Since most illegal activity is done clandestinely, the aforementioned government agency will not have a record of whether or not the antiquity was stolen or illegally removed. The antiquity thus cannot be proven to be stolen, which is enough to satisfy some museum professionals (Renfrew, 25). In other words, some museum officials ask only the people who wouldn’t know an antiquity’s origins to protect themselves and give the pretence of ethics. Museum officials who purchase antiquities without provanence rarely do more. Often they use the “grandmother’s attic” excuse to explain the object’s sudden appearance, even if it is highly unlikely that a British or American grandmother owned a Ming vase in the 30s. The parties, who would actually know, like art dealers and collectors, are protected by “client confidentiality.” A As such, museum officials who acquire antiquities without provenance regularly rely on the long and dubious chains of custody for these objects to maintain plausible deniability. They insulate themselves against the truth of their illegal antiquities and their ethical responsibilities.
These museum officials’ rationalizations are inherently flawed, to the cost of the museum and the public. Firstly, they injure the public by promoting illegal activity. The demand for museums motivates dealers to find a supply, even if it technically belongs to someone else. Possession of stolen property is a crime partly for this reason. Museums who buy antiquities without provenance are most likely buying illegal antiquities, stolen property, no matter what pretences they hide behind. This is especially unethical because most museums have a special responsibility to follow the law as public institutions. It is not just the local government that these museums are undermining. When museums buy antiquities without provenance, they undermine the governments that the antiquity came from. They subvert those governments’ authority not only over the people and objects in their domain but over their people’s cultural heritage. These museums thereby do a disservice to their global “public”, weakening their own legitimacy as institutions for the public good. Unethical museum officials inspire looters, middlemen, art dealers and collectors to destroy information about antiquities because museum officials do not buy objects known to be stolen but will buy objects with sketchy histories. Buying antiquities without provenances funds theft from archaeological sites. Knowledge is lost from the site due to the missing object. Information of the object itself is lost as well because it is taken out of context.
Moreover, in order for buyers to acquire an illegal antiquity with the presumption of legality, its past has to be obscured and kept secret. As a result, important parts of its past, even the country of origin can be lost. For example, no one knows where the Sevso Treasure, an extremely valuable set of Roman silver is from. It was deliberately hidden so that a fake export license from Lebanon could justify the sale. After the truth came out, there hasn’t been enough conclusive evidence to repatriate the object to any country (Renfrew, 49). As a result, it is hard to place this object within its context, even geographically let alone historically or culturally. The loss of this information causes museums to lose a great deal of their capacity to teach and research these objects, costing the public valuable information. Consequentially, the rationalizations that some museums use in order to purchase illegal antiquities, not to mention the purchases themselves, cost the museum and the public knowledge in the long term. The destruction of information in order to sell illegal antiquities also helps people, including museum professionals, to forget the troubling histories of these objects and the cultures they come from. These histories often include war, imperialism, colonialism and their legacies. There are famous examples of objects with troubling history like the Rosetta Stone. It was taken as a spoil of war from Egyptians by the French, and then taken from the French by the British. A recent example is the looting of Iraqi antiquities. They appear on the market without provenance and are sold to wealthy Western art collectors, washed of the war. Some people, including museum directors for museums that collect illegal antiquities, say that history and education of this kind are unimportant; the objects are the priority because no matter where they come from, they can be used to appreciate beauty and “civilization”. However, allowing these values to supersede knowledge, ethics, law, and museums’ responsibilities to their communities and the world is short-sighted. It focuses on objects over people, prizing a viewpoint of power. At best, museums can be places of cultural memory and learning. However, when museums acquire objects without provenance and avoid researching them, institutions of remembrance become tools for forgetting the history of not only the objects but also the history of people.
Allowing for objects’ histories within the museum to be erased is harmful to the public and the museum in a more concrete way; it leaves the museum vulnerable to forgeries. For example, the J. Paul Getty Museum acquired the Getty Kouros, an object that is most likely a fake. It was presented as an antiquity with sketchy provenance: A preeminent scholar of Greek history supposedly saw it, but there was no substantial record of this encounter and the documentation was suspect. Yet, it was enough for the museum (Renfrew, 42). Most likely, they attributed these inconsistencies to the illegal antiquities trade. A similar object turned out to be a forgery, making the Getty Kouros most likely a forgery. Consequentially, a public institution wasted seven million dollars on a fake and countless more dollars on testing its veracity. The museum was fooled and the public, undermining the museum’s credibility and public trust. The Getty Kouros is a famous example; mostly likely, there are less famous and undiscovered examples of this phenomenon out there. As a result, by acquiring antiquities without provenance, museums make themselves vulnerable to forgeries, waste funds, damage their own reputations and spread false information by presenting a fake as real.
When museums acquire antiquities without provenance, they run the risk of lawsuits over repatriation. If a legal battle occurs, it is another drain on museums’ funds and public good will, not to mention the bad press it causes. Still, some museums still buy and fight for antiquities without provenance. Where money is spent shows an institution’s priorities. These museums chose to make risky investments that they may lose in a lengthy court battle. Moreover, they may have to pay heavy legal costs in order to fight for these objects rather than spending money on outreach, research and education. These costs are expended even if the object is returned. Buying antiquities without provenance, as such, reflects a preference for objects over people. Some might say it is a museum’s responsibility to keep acquiring the best and most diverse collection possible for the public. Museums do have a responsibility to their collections, but most museums are defined as not-for-profits, serving society and reaping the tax benefits and government grants. Their status means that museums are more than a building with display cases. They have a responsibility to preserve cultural knowledge rather than encouraging the destruction of it. Moreover, as institutions for public good, supposedly they should support international and state laws. Finally, interacting with the public through outreach and education, rather than bad press promotes the public good more than buying an illegal antiquity or fake. It also does not risk of a lawsuit or waste money on fakes. Therefore, in addition to the ethical and mission-related costs to museums and the public created by the acquisition of illegal antiquities, the financial costs of these practices undermine museums and the public good.
In regards to looted antiquities, another rationalization is that if a museum does not buy them, someone else will and the object will be lost to the public, possibly in danger of mistreatment. However, despite appearances, this interpretation places the museum’s responsibility to the welfare of the object over the welfare of the public. After all, any justification for buying illegal antiquities prompts the continuation of funding for illegal activities, the subversion of governments and the destruction of archaeological sites. It pours money into objects rather than people by making the museums vulnerable to lawsuits and forgeries. It intentionally denies the public the object’s history and its place in culture memory. As institutions for the public good, museums should be held up to a higher standard of behavior, including more transparency. Under public scrutiny, rationalizations that employ misplacement of responsibility and exploitation of plausible deniability through intentional ignorance would be much harder to maintain. Thus, responsibility would be concentrated in the museums’ hands, allowing them to act more ethically in regards to antiquities without provenance and better serve the public, not their own acquisitiveness. When museums like The Boston Museum of Fine Arts acquire antiquities without provenance using thought mechanisms such as diffusion of responsibility and intentional ignorance, they undermine museums’ role as places for the public good.