With a $50 million desire for artifacts relating to the Old and New Testaments, the Green family bought up approximately 50,000 artifacts from the Middle East and North Africa. While building such a formidable collection, the collectors failed to heed “red flags”—the phrase federal prosecutors used when in 2017 the Greens had thousands of artifacts delivered to the family’s Hobby Lobby company headquarters “misleadingly described as ceramic tile samples.” At that time, they gave up the artifacts, paid a $3 million dollar fine, and admitted “mistakes.”

Museum of the Bible. Credit: Wiki Commons

But now the Museum of the Bible, founded by Hobby Lobby President Steve Green, is admitting even more mistakes. Sixteen vaunted “Dead Sea scrolls” are actually modern fakes. Soon after this announcement, Mr. Green also made another, that he will return to Iraq and Egypt a trove of 5,000 papyri fragments and 6,500 clay objects sullied by “insufficient provenance.”

Taken together, these actions are a commendable first step—if the parties continue their work to come clean and rectify wrongs. “Mr. Green is doing the right thing by repatriating these thousands of artifacts, but this gesture must be the start of the story, not the end,” Tess Davis, Executive Director of the Antiquities Coalition, told the New York Times.

If the Museum continues in the right direction, the Antiquities Coalition is optimistic that its transparency could cause others to adopt #BuyerBeware practices. Executive Director Davis continued, “The global black market for Middle Eastern antiquities is increasingly driven by biblical scholars, seminaries and the faithful seeking to own a piece of the Holy Land. Given Mr. Green’s platform and other resources, he is in an unparalleled position to stop this demand.”

Read the full story here.

Daesh (ISIS), the Nazis, Al Qaeda, the Taliban — all engaged in cultural racketeering. More recently, insurgent groups in Yemen are seizing on crisis to loot and traffic antiquities. Stolen goods from these groups and more infuse the global art market, and looted treasures can turn up in premier collections. A key question for buyers who must beware looted artifacts: How do they get there?

One way to articulate the answer is with maps. To cast light on shadowy stories from the black market, the Antiquities Coalition launched a series of interactive online Story Maps that use powerful Esri software to trace the paths of individual artifacts from their theft to the present.

In a new blog post, the mapping and spatial analysis experts at Esri examine the problem of illicit trade and talk with the Antiquities Coalition’s Executive Director Tess Davis about the benefits of spatially representing illicit trade networks. “Maps are crucial,” Davis said, “because they communicate to scholars, government officials, and the public what is at stake and how critical the threat is.”

Read the full blog post here, and explore our Story Maps here.

Antiquities Coalition Chair and Founder Deborah Lehr sat down with David Westin on Bloomberg Markets last week to discuss reports that the U.S. government would consider targeting Iran’s cultural sites if Iran retaliated against the United States for the death of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force.

What You Need to Know

Following Soleimani’s death, President Trump warned “if Iran strikes any Americans or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites… some at a very high level and important to Iran AND the Iranian culture.”  The intentional targeting of cultural sites is a war crime under The Hague Convention and is also contrary to existing U. S. policy.

“The administration has been a leader on this issue,” said Lehr. “They have been very active in negotiating with countries in the Middle East and North Africa, who have been suffering from violent extremism, suffering from the destruction of heritage, and negotiating cultural [memoranda of understanding] as well as using cultural diplomacy.”

Iran is home to 22 cultural World Heritage Sites, including the famed Persepolis, which was built by Darius I in 518 BC and then later sacked by Alexander the Great in 320 AD.

The President and the U.S. Department of Defense have since reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to safeguarding cultural heritage, even during times of conflict.

The Antiquities Coalition is encouraged by the swift reaction to the President’s threats, both by others in the administration, as well as people around the world. The State Department has been a leader in using cultural diplomacy to build ties, especially in the Middle East. This type of action would undermine both the spirit and the letter of the law.  Lehr commended the Defense Department for their work in this area and the President for clarifying his position on the matter. “If we can take a positive out of this negative, it definitely is that it raised awareness,” she said.

To watch the full interview, starting at the 29:24 mark,  click here.

To read the Antiquities Coalition’s statement that “culture should not be a military target,” click here.

Persepolis in Iran – Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

Since last week’s strike on Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, many have speculated on the long-term implications and the future of the relationship between the United States and Iran. One area of heated discussion is Washington’s stance on the country’s cultural sites, in response to reports that they were included on the U.S. military target list.

Antiquities Coalition Chairman and Co-Founder Deborah Lehr commented on the situation to the New York Times, stating: “The U.S. has taken a leadership role in the protection of antiquities from destruction and illicit trade, particularly in the Middle East. It would be a shame to see that global goodwill disappear by the intentional targeting and the destruction of cultural sites.”