The Painted Queen brings Amelia Peabody, Egyptologist and amateur detective, and her loving husband, world famous archaeologist, Dr. Radcliff Emerson, back for one last adventure: the discovery of the bust of Queen Nefertiti.

The author, Egyptologist Dr. Barbara Mertz, under the penname Elizabeth Peters, consistently wove fascinating, detailed, and often historically accurate stories about the golden age of archaeology in Egypt, and The Painted Queen is the perfect capstone to her work. Her characters are entrancing, her depictions of the era come alive, the repertoire is engaging and witty, and while a fun read, one can’t help but walk away without having learned a history lesson. Sadly, Dr. Mertz passed away before completing the book, but her good friend and fellow author, Joan Hess was able to seamlessly pick up the pen.

In this thrilling novel, Peabody and Emerson are pursued by assassins, while still successfully excavating the ancient site of Armana. As fans of the Peabody series will recall, Armana is where Peabody and Emerson first met, making this a suitable setting for the end of this captivating series.

A touching tribute accompanies the story from accomplished Egyptologist and friend of the author, Dr. Selima Ikram. “One of the great delights of the Amelia Peabody books is that in each one, Amelia combines murder, mayhem, and mystery with solid doses of Egyptology and history,” she says. Dr. Ikram supported Hess in her research, ensuring that historic details and descriptions of excavation practices were accurately depicted.

Terrorism and other threats to national security financed by the illicit trade in antiquities have spurred governments and international organizations to take action to protect cultural heritage in war-torn countries.

Violent extremist groups like Da’esh and Al-qaeda, have for years been looting ancient sites to fund their activities and also as part of their ideological commitment to cultural genocide.

The United Nations Security Council recently passed a resolution condemning the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage as a war crime due to its ability to erode societies and “exacerbate conflict and hamper post conflict national reconciliation.”

In passing Resolution 2347 on March 24th 2017, the Security Council further recognized that terrorist groups, by engaging in the illicit antiquities trade, were not only generating income, but were actively, “undermining the security, stability, governance, social, economic and cultural development of affected States.”

Systematic destruction and trafficking of cultural property is being carried out across areas of armed conflict at an alarming rate, Irina Bokova, Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, told the Council.

“Defending cultural heritage is more than a cultural issue, it is a security imperative, inseparable from that of defending human lives,” Bokova said. “Weapons are not enough to defeat violent extremism. Building peace requires culture also; it requires education, prevention, and the transmission of heritage. This is the message of this historic resolution.”

The resolution in March is just one in a series of measures taken over recent years to try and stop cultural looting.

Having witnessed the deliberate and widespread destruction of cultural heritage and religious sites by Da’esh and other extremist organizations in 2014, the Security Council passed a 2015 resolution condemning the destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria, and determining that all member States “shall take appropriate steps to prevent the trade in Iraqi and Syrian cultural property.” The body also called on UNESCO and the International Police (INTERPOL) and to assist in the implementation of the resolution.

The then-Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Iyad Ameen Madani stated that the cultural cleansing in Iraq and Syria at the hands of Da’esh “was at variance with all religious and humanitarian values and international norms, which encourage the protection of monuments and places of worship and all cultural, religious and civilisational symbols.”

He added that “criminal acts such as this are aimed at destroying harmony among peoples of different cultures and peaceful coexistence.”

So far this year, in addition to efforts by the UN, other international bodies have taken a more decided position against cultural destruction and looting.

In March, the G7 Ministers of Culture signed the Florence Declaration, affirming their belief that cultural heritage “contributes to the preservation of identity and memory of mankind and encourages dialogue and cultural exchanges among nations, thereby fostering tolerance, mutual understanding, recognition and respect for diversity.”

The Ministers expressed their concern over not only the continued destruction of cultural property, due to terrorism, armed conflict and natural disaster, but also the marked increase in looting on a global scale.

The Florence Declaration also stated the G7’s belief that a more effective implementation of “existing international legal instruments” was necessary and, called upon States to assist in the protection of cultural heritage endangered by armed conflict and illicit activity.

The group urged the Chairman of the G7 to organize subsequent meetings of Ministers of Culture, as well as other cultural authorities, so as to more efficiently monitor the crises, and progress of efforts.

The G20 made similar statements at their annual meeting held in July 2017. As in 2016, the Group announced its commitment to tackling all “sources, techniques and channels” of terrorist income, including the looting of cultural property.

It has been encouraging to see other intergovernmental organizations, such as INTERPOL and the World Customs Organization, step forward as well, asking custom officials and antiquity dealers to take a more active role in preventing antiquity theft.

Most recently, the European Commission submitted a proposal to ‘clamp down,’ on the illegal importation and trafficking of cultural goods from outside the European Union as part of a larger effort “to strengthen the fight against terrorism financing.”

The Commission’s First Vice President, Frans Timmermans stated: “Money is oxygen to terrorist organizations such as Daesh. We are taking action to cut off each of their sources of financing. This includes the trade of cultural goods, as terrorists derive funding from the looting of archeological sites and illegal sale of cultural objects.”

The increased interest taken by heads of state and international organizations in the preservation of cultural heritage is a promising development. The Antiquities Coalition encourages all parties to follow through on their words by working to implement effective policy and legal procedure that will ensure the survival of cultural heritage.

This is a guest post by our intern Ayla Mangold. Ayla is currently a Masters Candidate at the George Washington University, earning a degree in Museum Studies. She is particularly interested in the intersection of national security and cultural heritage preservation. If you’re interested in interning with the Antiquities Coalition, please email cultureunderthreat@theantiquitiescoalition.org

Lawrence Rothfield is associate professor of English and   Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago, where he is currently directing a major three year research initiative on illicit antiquities markets, “The Past for Sale: New Approaches to the Study of Archaeological Looting.”

If you could recommend one thing to better protect heritage, what would it be?

A Pigovian (corrective) tax on antiquities. This would raise funds to support anti-looting efforts, would reduce demand, and would give the antiquities trade an incentive to clean up their act.

If you could have lived in any era in any civilization, when and where would it have been?

Renaissance Florence, the crucible of modern politics, cultural policy, and recognizably modern efforts to unearth and make sense of the ancient past.

What attracted you to your profession? 

My dissertation advisor was the Palestinian intellectual Edward Said, who showed me it was possible to use one’s interpretive skills to criticize policies. Protecting heritage and culture is a policy challenge less intractable than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it is one that is both intellectually complex (what exactly is heritage? culture? How do cultural markets work? How do we measure the social costs of losing heritage or culture? What is the relation between knowledge and aesthetic value? Who should pay to protect the past?) and yet has real-world consequences.

What is one piece of advice can you give the next generation who seek to follow in your footsteps?

Heritage policy is not recognized as a subdiscipline in public policy, nor in anthropology or sociology or any other field. That means that even if you are the world’s leading expert on illicit antiquities markets, you may not find it easy to land a tenure-track job, especially in today’s horrible academic job market. Get tenure first by working on a topic that your discipline cares about; post-tenure you are free to shift to studying heritage.

What is something that few people know about you?

In my spare time, I’ve written a fictional thriller screenplay that made it into the semifinals of the Austin Film Festival (the major screenwriters’ festival) drawing on what I learned in writing my book about the looting of the Iraq Museum.

What are you most proud of accomplishing?

In the aftermath of the 2003 invasion, I organized a multi-day retreat that for the first time brought together all the stakeholders who collectively failed to secure Iraq’s natinal museum and sites – the Pentagon, State Department, uniformed military, UNESCO, heritage NGOs, archaeologists, etc. – to figure out what went wrong and make recommendations to ensure something like this could never happen again. Many of the attendees had never met each other before, and so in addition to getting a crucial sentence added to the military’s war-planning bible stipulating that cultural sites must be secured during invasions, the retreat helped foster a new network that in the years since has done much to drive heritage protection efforts in the US.

The United States remains the world’s largest single market for arts and antiquities—making up 29.5% of the global total. However, it also remains highly unregulated, and thus dangerously susceptible to crimes such as trafficking, money laundering, and even terrorist financing.

In its latest infographic, the Antiquities Coalition explores this terrorist financing risk, taking a closer look at the millions of dollars in cultural property that continue to flow into the American art market. In 2016 alone, $146,960,100 worth came into the United States, just in declared imports of arts, collectors pieces, and antiques (H.S. Code Chapter 97) from the world’s ten nations with the most terrorist activity.* All of these countries have a rich cultural heritage, which is under threat from looting and trafficking, and all also have ties to violent extremist organizations, many of which are already known to fund themselves through cultural racketeering.

No one knows just how much money terrorists are making on antiquities looting and trafficking, but as this infographic shows, even the most conservative estimates have grave implications for security around the globe. Most major governments, including the United States, have committed to take aggressive action to halt the illicit trade and ensure that the U.S. market is not a source of financing for terrorism.  However, thus far, the United States has only imposed import restrictions on antiquities from three of these countries—Iraq, Syria, and Egypt. For the other seven, criminals, armed insurgents, and terrorists trafficking antiquities still have easy access to the multi-million dollar U.S. market.

Closing our art market to conflict antiquities will help to cut off an important source of criminal and terrorist financing—while also protecting our world heritage and the legitimate art market. To learn more, explore our website, and follow us on social media.

*Subheading 9706: Antiques Exceeding an Age of 100 Years made up a shocking 90% of Chapter 97 imports from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and nearly half from the top ten countries overall. Please stay tuned to the Antiquities Coalition blog for a more detailed breakdown of these figures.