The webpage archaeologyinbulgaria.com gives a very good overview on recent cases of illegal excavations, trafficking of cultural objects, and different strategies against it. If you want to be updated, just subscribe to their blog via email. Reading that roughly 500,000 people in Bulgaria are dealing with treasure hunting and thus destroying the country’s archaeological, historical,…
The illegal diggers come at night with shovels and sacks, hunting through the places where they know the professionals have been. They’re looking for the tonnes of ancient artefacts that lie hidden in Bulgaria’s soil. In the past two decades, Bulgarian law enforcement agencies say this plunder has turned into a €30m-a-year industry for local…
When the French historian, archaeologist, and researcher Morgan Belzic, of the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris embarked on a PhD thesis on the somewhat esoteric subject of Cyrenaican Funerary Sculptures, little did he know he would end up becoming a detective. However Belzic’s studies have led him to follow a murky trail of transnational artefact…
“Stolen Memory” is the investigation that led to the creation of the first journalistic platform that collects massive data on illicit trafficking of cultural artifacts from Latin American countries. It is a project of Peruvian digital investigative journalism site Ojo Público, which invited four important media in the region to participate in a transnational and…
An exchange of arms and art is shown by a new reportage of Domenico Quirico, and was published today in La Stampa (so far available only in Italian). D. Quirico describes the allegedly close connections between ISIS and the ‘ndrangheta in Calabria/Italy, and how the port of Gioia Taura acts as a hub for archaeological…
Robin Symes and Christos Michaelides formed a duo of dealers who dominated the international antiquities market in the 1980s and 1990s. During that period they became the best suppliers of illicit antiquities to the most ‘reputable’ museums, private collections and auction houses. Many of their antiquities came from lower-level dealers such as Giacomo Medici and…
From the confiscated archive of Robin Symes, a Roman marble figurine of a draped goddess at Christie’s forthcoming antiquities auction in New York, October 25th 2016 (lot 92) was identified by Christos Tsirogiannis, who is also member of our committee. Greek police seized the photographs during a 2006 raid on Robin Symes’ villa on the…
This catalogue is designed to aid in the identification of those Latvian archaeological artefacts, which are more frequently acquired illegally, illegally traded and exported outside the territory of Latvia. The catalogue is meant for Latvian and foreign traders, buyers and collectors of cultural objects, law enforcement agencies, museums and other organizations working in the cultural…
Investigators recovered more than 2,000 objects, mostly coins, that they say were offered for sale through auction houses. Greek police have busted what they say is a criminal organisation that has been looting antiquities from ancient sites in the country for the past 10 years and smuggling them out to auction houses and private buyers…
Following the recent return of antiquities from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek to Italy, the spotlight will be on other European collections that contain archaeological material that appears to have been derived from Italy. Among the museums are: Amsterdam, Allard Pierson Museum. Some 15 disputed objects linked to Ellie Borowski, Palladion Antike Kunst, and Robin Symes.…
EAA-Community on the Illicit Trade in Cultural Material 